tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/ed-miliband-6369/articlesEd Miliband – The Conversation2021-06-01T13:05:52Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1614802021-06-01T13:05:52Z2021-06-01T13:05:52ZWhat Keir Starmer can learn from the history of Labour leader documentaries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403376/original/file-20210528-23-1uvqdbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=40%2C0%2C4552%2C3032&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Current labour leader Keir Stamer is in talks for a fly-on-the-wall documentary.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cardiff-wales-uk-may-20th-2019-1574272270">ComposedPix/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The news that Keir Starmer is <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a445fbaa-b7ac-11eb-9a91-c8c89595f50e?shareToken=be2152d35204485147d3a7a32b775889">considering starring</a> in a fly-on-the-wall documentary, brings back memories of similar endeavours. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFgjCP6qpfU">Kinnock: The Movie</a> (1987), <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRilf3i8MrQ">Blair: The Biopic</a> (1997), <a href="https://youtu.be/6ac_pbq-zHc">Ed Miliband: A Portrait</a> (2015) and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94ptAcbfKP0">Jeremy Corbyn: The Outsider</a> (2016) were each part of attempts to return Labour to government.</p>
<p>Kinnock, Miliband and Corbyn looked to revive their flagging personal opinion poll ratings through these documentaries, while Blair looked to maintain his popularity. The films gave behind-the-scenes insights into the leaders and tried to convince the public that Labour had changed. </p>
<p>In 2021, if he is thinking of having his documentary, Starmer is likely hoping it will help to turn around his own <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/keir-starmer-approval-rating">low approval ratings</a>. A Labour party source revealed to The Times they believed the documentary would be “<a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-plots-television-makeover-wwmllwk2c">a highly effective way to broadcast Starmer’s personality</a>”.</p>
<p>Looking at the history of Labour leader documentaries, Starmer, if he does go ahead with his own, can learn what works and what doesn’t.</p>
<h2>Kinnock: The Movie</h2>
<p>The Kinnock documentary, directed by Oscar-nominated director Hugh Hudson, formed part of Labour’s 1987 election campaign. <a href="https://tidesofhistory.com/2017/05/21/kinnock-the-movie-30-years-on/">The film marked a decisive shift in Labour’s message</a> but did not focus on specific policies. </p>
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<p>The Movie presented Kinnock as the family man who could be a tough leader. In particular, it highlighted his 1985 expulsion of members of the Militant Tendency (a Trotskyist group) from the Labour Party. The documentary was successful because it distanced Kinnock from Labour’s 1983 election campaign, where the party, on a left-wing platform, achieved its lowest number of MPs (209) since 1935. To achieve this separation, The Movie foregrounded the leader, ending simply with the word “Kinnock” displayed alongside a Red Rose in contrast to the usual “Labour” branding.</p>
<p>It had a significant impact on Kinnock’s popularity with his approval ratings <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1977-1987">increasing by 17%</a> after the broadcast. However, overall, Kinnock still recorded a negative satisfaction rating of -13%. Moreover, the film seemed to have little impact on <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/voting-intentions-great-britain-1976-1987">voting intention</a> and at the 1987 election, the Conservatives secured a landslide majority of 102 seats. </p>
<p>Following the 1987 defeat, Kinnock embarked on more ambitious changes through a <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cy_vDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1836&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false">policy review</a> and attempted to redefine the party’s <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13619462.2019.1636650">aims and values</a>. Despite reducing the Conservative’s majority to 21 at the 1992 election, his modernisation project fell short. Yet, the policy changes implemented under his leadership would form part of a new narrative under a different party leader, Tony Blair.</p>
<h2>Blair: The Biopic</h2>
<p>Blair’s use of a film in 1997, directed by the acclaimed Molly Dineen, played a very junior role in his overarching narrative of “New Labour”. In the broadcast, Blair <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/election-97-labour-film-asks-just-why-aren-t-you-a-tory-mr-blair-1268925.html">established himself as a leader who would change Britain</a>, but many of these changes had taken place before 1997.</p>
<p>From 1994 to 1997, Blair significantly transformed Labour’s branding to New Labour and shifted the party towards the centre ground. This agenda built on the Kinnock-era changes, where the party had distanced from the left-wing policies of the 1983 manifesto, such as nationalisation and unilateral nuclear disarmament. </p>
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<p>With Labour already <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/voting-intentions-great-britain-1987-1997">substantially ahead in the polls</a> and his personal approval rating <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1988-1997">overwhelmingly positive</a>, Blair’s 1997 biopic showed a different side to his character. Interspersed with clips from his kitchen and action shots of Blair playing football and tennis, the Labour leader looked back on his childhood, his father’s stroke and his mother’s death. </p>
<p>Yet, the broadcast also made subtle, but effective, references to policy changes, highlighting Blair’s “<a href="https://youtu.be/-oDB667TB18?t=30">education, education, education</a>” speech, his commitment to get “<a href="http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1997/1997-labour-manifesto.shtml">250,000 young people off benefits and into work</a>” and the battle for resources in the National Health Service. Blair put forward a convincing case that “things can change” in the country because things had changed in his party. This message resonated amongst the electorate with Labour securing a landslide victory at the 1997 election.</p>
<h2>Ed Miliband: A Portrait</h2>
<p>Miliband took inspiration from both Blair and Kinnock during his leadership. Echoing Kinnock, Miliband embarked on a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/nov/27/ed-miliband-renew-labour-party-squeezed-middle">policy review</a> and commissioned his short documentary, directed by the BAFTA-winning Paul Greengrass, in the run-up to the 2015 election. </p>
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<p>The film sought to rehabilitate Miliband’s approval ratings and offer an insight into his family and beliefs. Yet, it was <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/573595/Tories-make-fun-Labour-party-election-broadcast-Ed-Miliband-Portrait">roundly criticised</a> by the Conservatives for failing to include any reference to the economy while being light on policy detail. </p>
<p>Instead of such information, Miliband’s “portrait” merely indicated that he had “thought deeply about how the country needs to change”. Unlike Blair’s biopic, it offered little in the way of concrete policy and it was unclear how the party had changed since its 2010 defeat. </p>
<p>Through family stories, Miliband’s documentary attempted to alter the public’s opinion of his leadership. However, the film made no impact on his approval rating, which <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1997-present">remained static at -19%</a> before and after the broadcast.</p>
<p>At the 2015 election Labour suffered its second successive defeat. <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2015/07/28/labour-voters-blame-ed-miliband-not-policy-election">Polling from this election</a> indicates that the two central reasons for Labour’s loss were Miliband’s leadership and the party’s economic policy (which wasn’t mentioned in the documentary).</p>
<h2>Jeremy Corbyn: The Outsider</h2>
<p>Suffering from <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/01/19/corbyn-rating-fall">poor personal opinion poll ratings in 2016</a>, Corbyn allowed youth media outlet Vice to film his movements over eight weeks. The result was a true fly-on-the-wall documentary that exposed the leader’s <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/2016/06/01/that-vice-corbyn-film-beware-your-friends-in-the-media-especially-if-you-are-paranoid-and-incompetent/">strengths and weaknesses</a>. </p>
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<p>“The Outsider” showcased heated arguments within the leader’s inner circle, suspicions of a leak within the head office and a senior aide suggesting that Corbyn’s opponents should “let Jeremy fail in his own time”. Consequently, the documentary had little positive impact. Corbyn’s approval rating <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1997-present">fell by 6%</a> after the piece aired.</p>
<p>Although Corbyn established a distinct left-wing narrative during his leadership, which was highlighted in “The Outsider”, it did not lead to a huge turnaround in either his or his party’s polling. It was not until one year after the documentary that Corbyn saw a rise in his favourability ratings during Labour’s 2017 election campaign. However, despite this increase in Corbyn’s popularity, <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1997-present">never more than 44%</a> of the public ever had a favourable view of his leadership. </p>
<p>At the 2017 election, Labour’s performance surpassed expectations, but Labour couldn’t overcome Corbyn’s <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/12/23/their-own-words-why-voters-abandoned-labour">unpopularity amongst the electorate</a> during the party’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/boris-johnsons-big-election-victory-academics-on-what-it-means-for-the-uk-and-brexit-128850">historic 2019 defeat</a>.</p>
<h2>Keir Starmer</h2>
<p>Starmer suffers from similar problems to his predecessors, aside from Blair. He’s struggled to identify a core narrative or <a href="https://theconversation.com/keir-starmers-political-brand-captain-hindsight-or-admiral-foresight-156017">brand</a> with accusations that his leadership is both “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-923X.12997">Corbynism with the breaks on</a>” and “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57233736">Blairite</a>”. </p>
<p>Starmer’s opinion poll ratings are also poor. In April 2021, Starmer had a <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1997-present">-10% satisfaction rating</a>. While in May <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/05/11/keir-starmers-ratings-plummet-after-poor-local-ele">YouGov</a> reported that 60% of the population had a negative opinion of him.</p>
<p>Starmer <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/blog/2020/07/06/the-modernisation-of-the-labour-party-1979-97-and-some-early-parallels-with-keir-starmers-leadership/">inherited</a> a party that his predecessors had pulled into a multitude of different directions, with no central, continuous narrative – across four consecutive general election defeats. Following his party’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/english-local-elections-2021-how-to-really-read-the-results-160127">disastrous showing in May 2021</a>, Starmer needs to begin his modernisation project to definitively show that his party has changed to recapture the support of its former voters. Based on the experiences of Kinnock, Miliband and Corbyn, any fly-on-the-wall piece must be combined with a clear and definitive narrative change paired with solid policy to regain the trust of the British electorate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161480/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Massey is a Senior Lecturer in History and Politics at Teesside University and a Labour Party Councillor at Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.</span></em></p>From Kinnnock to Corbyn, the documentaries haven’t always been the most successfulChristopher Massey, Senior Lecturer in History and Politics, Teesside UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/661202016-09-28T00:37:37Z2016-09-28T00:37:37ZProgressives should accept Corbyn’s triumph – it’s the price of democracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139349/original/image-20160927-20132-1ok4una.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Labour elite doesn't think Jeremy Corbyn has what it takes to make it in Westminster. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/uk_parliament/25743557291/">UK Parliament/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> series, a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> with the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p>
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<p>The political theorist Jacques Rancière once <a href="http://catalog.sevenstories.com/products/moments-politiques">wrote</a> that we know truly political moments by their inherent instability. “The political”, he wrote, is, in its purest form, a cry for equality in the face of injustice, a crudely formed and often poorly communicated carnal explosion, which could go anywhere, nowhere, or somewhere profoundly different. </p>
<p>This image captures at least part of Jeremy Corbyn’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/jeremy-corbyn-wins-labour-leadership-election-so-what-next-47449">ascent</a>, and now <a href="https://theconversation.com/jeremy-corbyn-wins-again-heres-what-happens-now-65432">re-election</a>, to leadership of the British Labour Party.</p>
<p>Ordinary people and hardened activists support Corbyn in an <a href="https://theconversation.com/has-britains-pissed-off-constituency-found-a-leader-in-jeremy-corbyn-45576">expression of dissent</a> against the economic, social and institutional status quo (Rancière called it “the police”). As if purely from feeling, Corbyn’s base has leapt almost out of nowhere to become a formidable force in the party, and in social democratic debate more generally.</p>
<p>This doesn’t conform to simple portrayals of naive millennials (Corbyn’s challenger, Owen Smith, got more of their vote, according to an <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/owen-smith-exit-poll-jeremy-corbyn-yougov-electiondata_uk_57e652e2e4b0e81629a9d393">exit poll</a>). </p>
<p>Rather, the pent-up anger against <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blairism">Blairism</a> and its perceived betrayals of the labour movement have now taken shape in a well-oiled movement intent on remaking the party as a “true” representation of working people and working-class politics.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139351/original/image-20160927-20122-dwtnz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139351/original/image-20160927-20122-dwtnz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139351/original/image-20160927-20122-dwtnz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139351/original/image-20160927-20122-dwtnz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139351/original/image-20160927-20122-dwtnz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139351/original/image-20160927-20122-dwtnz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139351/original/image-20160927-20122-dwtnz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">It’s not just ‘naive’ millennials who are angry.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ron F./flickr</span></span>
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<h2>Political outrage pure and simple</h2>
<p>How, moderate social democrats ask themselves, has this happened? How has the party lapsed into such an “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dan-holliday/the-persistent-myth-of-je_b_9415606.html">unelectable</a>” wreck? Have the 1980s taught us nothing? </p>
<p>In answer to them, I believe it is necessary to take heed of Rancière and his insights into democratic politics as it occurs.</p>
<p>First, the key change that caused the explosion of Corbynism was Ed Miliband’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/well-labour-this-is-what-happens-when-you-crowdsource-a-leadership-election-45177">change to the party rules</a>. </p>
<p>Miliband, supported by much of the party hierarchy at the time, claimed that a one-member-one-vote system would benefit the party, freeing it from accusations of bias towards the trade unions. What they hadn’t counted on were the implications of this move. It was a huge democratic move, a substantial alteration of the very DNA of the party.</p>
<p>It followed that the shock 2015 election defeat proved fertile ground for this pent-up anger, this political moment, to overwhelm the party establishment. This was no <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/08/what-does-entryism-mean">“entryism”</a>; it was political outrage pure and simple, at a party that had become too technocratic, cliquish, stuffed with Oxbridge graduate SPADs (special political advisors) poring over focus group data.</p>
<p>The navel gazing in the party elite after their defeat has been quite unbecoming. Having just lost an election they should have won with Miliband, they lament “unelectability” when they failed to see Corbyn’s challenge coming. Obstinately, they hope he will run out of steam when the inevitable Tory landslide comes about.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Corbyn supporters claim that Labour is ‘trying very, very hard to stop him from winning’.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Regardless of how true these strategic points may be, they get in the way of recognising that “Corbynism” marks an important turning point in the development of the party into a mass democratic institution again. </p>
<p>A recent New Stateman <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/09/fall-labour-s-golden-generation">article</a> about Labour’s “golden generation” – Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper, Miliband et al – noted that all of these politicians were nurtured in an era when the left had, supposedly, been defeated. </p>
<p>With the collapse of Soviet Communism in the 1990s, the far left was bruised and belittled, liberal democracy had won out and social democratic parties were easy pickings for centrist candidates like Gerhard Schroeder and Tony Blair. Their arguments about the need to appeal across the aisle rang true.</p>
<h2>The return of the left</h2>
<p>Following the totemic financial crises in Western Europe, this no longer seems the case. The left has returned, bolder and holding greater belief in the power of public ownership and protest politics than it ever has. Look at <a href="https://theconversation.com/populism-and-democracy-friend-or-foe-rising-stars-deepen-dilemma-39695">Podemos</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/tsipras-can-win-elections-but-now-syriza-needs-a-growth-plan-for-greece-48057">Syriza</a> and so on.</p>
<p>The take-home point is that left-wing ideas have gained currency again. These should be engaged in the same way the party engaged in the 1980s, with a debate on ideas rather than machinations about the party being <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/10/tom-watson-sends-corbyn-proof-of-trotskyist-labour-infiltration">“infiltrated”</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, these institutional changes may well be doing exactly what Miliband wanted them to – re-engaging ordinary people.</p>
<p>The party is changing shape dramatically. Five years from now it may be almost unrecognisable, with <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/09/why-clive-lewis-was-furious-when-trident-pledge-went-missing-his-speech">evidence</a> showing increased membership from those who have never engaged with politics before. 58% of new members have never been involved in a political party <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tim-bale/jeremy-corbyn-labour-membership_b_10713634.html">before</a>. </p>
<p>This period will be one of flux, uncertainty, instability and paradox. It feels deeply uncomfortable. Inevitably, it has emboldened a Conservative Party wedded to the parliamentary system and the winning of power via a small, centralised elite party with a disciplined message.</p>
<p>But the institutional revolution Miliband started may, in time, bear fruit. And, in time, Corbyn will run out of steam (most likely through electoral defeat) and a more mainstream social democratic Labour candidate should emerge. The ranks of Labour voters have ballooned massively to over half a million. </p>
<p>This may not be the kind of party that wins Westminster parliamentary elections as they currently are, but future parliamentary politics is unlikely to remain the way it is. We are already heading for the House of Lords becoming at least partially elected, given its reluctance to implement Prime Minister Theresa May’s agenda.</p>
<p>The same argument could be applied to how progressive politicians respond to Brexit. </p>
<p>When David Cameron called the vote, he knew that a deep-seated dislike of the European Union was just waiting to bubble into a similar one of Rancière’s political moments, where all <a href="https://theconversation.com/britains-bregret-offers-timely-lessons-for-australian-voters-this-weekend-61806">“expert” judgment</a> and scientific argument gets caught in the wind of public outrage. Cameron thought he could beat it, but his case, built on technocratic arguments about economic security, meant nothing to millions of voters outraged by the EU’s profound democratic deficit.</p>
<p>Since the vote, many social democrats have discussed subverting Brexit through the courts or the House of Lords. This is deeply uncomfortable. Even if we live in a “post-factual” society, in which “expertise” is often rejected as a source of authority, insulating it from public opinion is hardly a noble resort. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139355/original/image-20160927-20105-1jivca9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139355/original/image-20160927-20105-1jivca9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139355/original/image-20160927-20105-1jivca9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139355/original/image-20160927-20105-1jivca9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139355/original/image-20160927-20105-1jivca9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139355/original/image-20160927-20105-1jivca9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139355/original/image-20160927-20105-1jivca9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Evidently, the disillusioned public have had enough of the elites.</span>
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<h2>Time to prepare a democratic future</h2>
<p>Progressive politicians should see how truly political moments are unstable and uncertain; they do not run by the rules that we became used to during New Labour’s 2000s hegemony. Instead of retreating into protecting the elite “experts” the public are so disillusioned with, they should see Brexit as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk-and-eu-both-need-major-democratic-reform-to-survive-brexit-fallout-55870">moment</a> for democratisation.</p>
<p>Progressive politics is living through a dramatic period of “properly political” instability. This has, at least for now, put the left at centre stage in UK Labour (and indeed the far right in the US if we look at the Republicans). In many ways, periods of dramatic democratisation are ripe for this kind of ideological politics.</p>
<p>The Labour reformers should have known what they were doing. Instead, they toyed with the image of democratic participation without realising what it would actually lead to – a democratic debate. But the next step is not to backpedal against democracy.</p>
<p>It is deeply troubling that a supposedly democratic institution like Labour should be wasting energy blocking members from joining and attempting to oust a leader chosen democratically by the membership from standing in its election through the courts. </p>
<p>Instead, the Labour reformers who supported Miliband’s institutional changes should have the courage of their convictions to follow through and make their case in a democratic argument about the most desirable form of progressive politics and policy for a new era.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66120/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Wood receives funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council. He is also publicity officer for the Political Studies Association's Anti-politics Specialist Group</span></em></p>Labour reformers toyed with the image of democratic participation without realising what it would actually lead to – a democratic debate. But the next step is not to backpedal against democracy.Matthew Wood, Lecturer in Politics, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/606952016-06-16T00:40:29Z2016-06-16T00:40:29ZFattened pigs, dog whistles and dead cats: the menagerie of a Lynton Crosby campaign<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126457/original/image-20160614-18068-fglgd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Campaign strategist Lynton Crosby has become something of a folk-devil for sections of the British and Australian media.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Stefan Wermuth</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Is <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-24/lynton-crosby-named-uk-australian-of-the-year/7110070">Lynton Crosby</a>, election guru and favoured strategist for right-wing political candidates from Wentworth to Witney, up to his old tricks again? </p>
<p>As the Australian election race enters its final stages, and with many polls predicting a <a href="https://theconversation.com/polls-effectively-tied-with-others-up-60378">very tight finish</a>, some parallels with the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/election-2015-32633099">Conservative victory</a> in the 2015 UK general election that <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/12/27/lynton-crosby-knighthood_n_8880666.html">Crosby masterminded</a> can be seen – particularly in relation to the “risk” of a power-sharing government.</p>
<p>Crosby has become something of a folk-devil for sections of the British and Australian media. He is the manipulator with the Midas touch, who has a reputation for tapping into those ideas and prejudices that coarsen public life but are seemingly widely held and a ballot-box boon. </p>
<p>In an age of economic insecurity, linking immigration to threats to personal welfare is a key means by which Crosby reaches those parts of the electorate who can be attracted to populist conservative platforms.</p>
<p>In many ways Crosby’s oeuvre is one that melds well-understood elements of political campaigning (messaging – and for Crosby message matters most – triangulation and targeting) with a relentless focus on those who will decide the outcome, and finding the hot issues and emotive appeals that will mobilise those target voters to come out and vote. </p>
<p>But how does this work in practice?</p>
<h2>Fattened pigs</h2>
<p>The era of the constant campaign means that the groundwork to secure core voters and attract potential swing voters starts well before the official election campaign. </p>
<p>This is about long-term political strategy and positioning. The portfolio of politicos Crosby has worked for reflects his personal affinity with right-wing candidates and causes. This is the essence of what Crosby believes in, and it animates his campaigning strategy.</p>
<p>Establishing in the public mind that conservative parties are most trustworthy <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-idea-that-conservatives-are-better-economic-managers-simply-does-not-stand-up-56678">in terms of managing the economy</a> is a favoured theme, but one that needs to be cultivated over the long term.</p>
<p>The conventional <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-11-16/38942">political wisdom that you can’t fatten a pig on market day</a> captures the necessity of laying the political foundations for an election campaign over the medium-to-long term. It simply cannot be done reactively or retrospectively during the campaign.</p>
<h2>Dog whistles</h2>
<p>An election campaign hinges on the choices offered to the electorate. Crosby <a href="https://youtu.be/H_YareK6WKk?t=27m14s">is clear</a> that the job of campaign strategists and spin doctors is to frame the choice for the public, to “help” the public think and understand that their vote “buys” something in an election. </p>
<p>This includes developing a compelling narrative about one’s own campaign – but, equally, it is about opponents and their policy platforms. Reinforcing peoples’ perceptions seems to be Crosby’s particular speciality. Emotional and resonant messaging is a most effective tactic which recurs in Crosby-designed campaigns.</p>
<p>One means of achieving this is by using dog whistles – language that is likely heard by particular target groups in specific ways and producing largely predictable results. Most concern has been expressed in relation to Crosby’s willingness to <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2012/11/lynton-crosby-david-cameron-and-old-dog-whistle-test">use immigration</a> as a political weapon.</p>
<p>Crosby’s strategy is to differentiate between broadcast and narrowcast messages. The former is the overarching narrative and broad campaign theme. The latter resembles dog-whistle appeals, messages cast and framed to be audible – or speak to – target voters in particular segments, sectors or demographics.</p>
<p>Because of Crosby’s focus on swing voters, it is unsurprising that commentators have picked up on the dog-whistle features of his campaigns.</p>
<h2>Dead cats</h2>
<p>Crosby <a href="https://youtu.be/H_YareK6WKk?t=30m30s">professes a preference</a> for positive electioneering, but recognises there is a place for negative campaigning – by which he means holding your opponent to account. </p>
<p>It is important that presidential or prime ministerial candidates don’t carry key negative messages – that is the job of others in the campaign team or selected surrogates. </p>
<p>So, think of Peter Dutton’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/duttons-refugee-claims-are-out-of-step-with-evidence-and-thinking-at-home-and-abroad-59626">comments on refugees</a> in the Australian campaign, or previously Michael Fallon (then-UK defence secretary) suggesting Ed Miliband would <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/general-election-2015-are-the-tories-getting-desperate-ed-miliband-stabbed-his-brother-in-the-back-10164087.html">stab Britain in the back</a> on nuclear deterrence in the same way he stabbed his brother in the back during the Labour leadership contest.</p>
<p>While the content of Fallon’s attack was in essence nonsensical, it served a useful purpose in deflecting the media agenda away from the emerging focus on <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/04/tories-say-one-thing-and-do-another-tax-avoidance">tax avoidance</a> and the social consequences of <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/04/george-osborne-s-cunning-plan-how-chancellors-austerity-narrative-has-harmed">austerity</a>, from which Labour had managed to make notable political gains.</p>
<p>The dead-cat ploy, according to Conservative MP Boris Johnson’s <a href="http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2013/11/24/the-dead-cat-strategy-how-the-tories-hope-to-win-the-next-el">insight into Crosby’s modus operandi</a>, is to get everybody talking about something that is shocking, disgusting or deplorable – something that is defined by its quality of being talk-worthy and attention-grabbing (the dead cat that has just been thrown onto the dinner-party table – guests may be repulsed and outraged, but they are compelled to talk about it).</p>
<p>Tone is apparently very important when a campaign goes negative – it must be neither personal nor hysterical. </p>
<p>Despite basking in the afterglow of successful election campaigns, it would be remiss to ignore that hysteria and personalisation were qualities that could easily be attributed to the Crosby-inspired attacks on Ed Miliband during the 2015 UK election, and the manufactured threat of a left-leaning Scottish National Party (SNP) <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilyashton/inside-the-tory-battle-to-stop-nigel-farage-becoming-an-mp?utm_term=.uvkrNyvqY#.uxE6vqDn7">holding the balance of power</a> in a hung House of Commons.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126473/original/image-20160614-18068-8mnyp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126473/original/image-20160614-18068-8mnyp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=686&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126473/original/image-20160614-18068-8mnyp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=686&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126473/original/image-20160614-18068-8mnyp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=686&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126473/original/image-20160614-18068-8mnyp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126473/original/image-20160614-18068-8mnyp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126473/original/image-20160614-18068-8mnyp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The UK Conservatives ran a scare campaign on the possibility of coalition government.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Buzzfeed/UK Conservatives</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What for Australia’s 2016 campaign?</h2>
<p>Perhaps the key parallel is to look at how the Liberals are framing the possibility of a power-sharing government. </p>
<p>The Tories successfully planted doubt in the minds of English voters that a left-leaning SNP might hold sway over a Labour government. It used pretty crude billboards, campaign broadcasts and supporting media appearances by party spokespersons to suggest the potential risks of coalition government might be something the electorate should consider before casting their vote.</p>
<p>It would also be healthy to adopt Crosby’s scepticism about media-driven opinion polls. For Crosby, these polls are <a href="https://youtu.be/H_YareK6WKk?t=18m30s">too simplistic</a> to be useful for campaign strategy. Polls are at best navigational tools, and campaigns should not be too swayed by the vicissitudes of media reporting of public opinion. </p>
<p>Campaigns boil down to finding out who will decide the outcome (swing and uncommitted voters, not the media commentariat), where they are located, what matters to them and how they can be reached using emotive messaging to help them make the right choices in the ballot box.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60695/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Will Dinan is a founder and editorial board member of Spinwatch (<a href="http://www.spinwatch.org">http://www.spinwatch.org</a>), a non-profit organisation investigating and reporting on spin and lobbying</span></em></p>Lynton Crosby is the manipulator with the Midas touch, who has a reputation for tapping into those ideas and prejudices that coarsen public life but are seemingly widely held and a ballot-box boon.Will Dinan, Lecturer, Communications, Media and Culture, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/573912016-04-26T09:59:40Z2016-04-26T09:59:40ZWho are the main contenders for London mayor and what do they stand for?<p>London’s mayoral election has struggled to get itself noticed as the EU referendum campaign has dominated the airwaves. Yet the post offers the largest single mandate to any politician in Britain – Boris Johnson won <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17946742">more than one million votes</a> in 2012. The mayor may lack powers, but he can use his position as a platform to become an important national political player, as Johnson has done. Being mayor of London matters.</p>
<p>A host of hopefuls are vying for the job but only two – Labour’s Sadiq Khan and the Conservatives’ Zac Goldsmith – have a realistic chance of winning. Neither has yet captured the imagination of Londoners in the way that Johnson, or his predecessor, Ken Livingstone, did. The <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/04/21/sadiq-khan-leads-20-london-mayoral-race/">polls currently put Khan ahead 31% to 20%</a> on first preferences, rising to 48% to 32% when “don’t knows” are excluded, and 60% to 40% when second preferences are allocated. But with a quarter of voters still undecided, there’s all to play for.</p>
<h2>Meet Sadiq</h2>
<p>The son of Pakistani immigrants, Khan trained in the law and made his name as a human-rights lawyer before becoming chairman of Liberty. He got involved in politics, being elected as Labour MP for Tooting in 2005. He quickly made his mark, joining Gordon Brown’s government as minister of state for transport in 2008. In opposition, Khan ran Ed Miliband’s successful leadership campaign in 2010 and joined the shadow cabinet, where Miliband gave him the justice brief.</p>
<p>After Labour’s election defeat in 2015, Khan announced he would run for the party’s nomination for the London mayoralty. Tessa Jowell was the early favourite, but Khan benefited from the large influx of new Labour members and supporters enthused by Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership bid. By <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2015/09/how-sadiq-khan-won-labour-london-mayoral-nomination">tilting to the left</a> – Khan also nominated Corbyn for the leadership – he was able to secure the votes of a decidedly left-wing London Labour Party, <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/news/mayor/sadiq-khan-beats-favourite-tessa-jowell-to-become-labour-s-candidate-for-mayor-a2945356.html">defeating Jowell</a> in a membership ballot.</p>
<p>The manner of this victory, alongside his human rights background, ensured that Khan was seen by some as a radical left-winger. In reality, he belongs firmly in Labour’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/davehillblog/2016/feb/01/a-sadiq-khan-win-in-london-would-expose-the-failings-of-jeremy-corbyn">“moderate” soft-left</a> camp – and his nomination success is a classic case of a candidate moving to the flanks to secure the endorsement before <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/feb/02/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-jeremy-corbyn-labour">distancing himself from Corbyn</a> and returning to the centre. That has seemingly left some Labour MPs hoping that, with Khan as London mayor, they would have a figurehead for internal opposition to Corbyn. </p>
<p>But while, as mayor, Khan would enjoy an independent powerbase, he would need to tread cautiously. In an atmosphere where talk of deselection is rife, any open challenge to Corbyn could lead to an attempt by London activists to replace Khan as Labour’s candidate in 2020. He might decide he has more than enough on his plate dealing with London’s housing crisis and transport problems, without getting involved in national politics.</p>
<h2>Get to know Goldsmith</h2>
<p>Zac Goldsmith’s background is very different. He is the son of the billionaire financier, Sir James Goldsmith, who formed the Referendum Party in the 1990s. Prior to becoming the Conservative MP for Richmond Park in 2010, Goldsmith worked in journalism, editing <a href="http://www.theecologist.org/magazine/">The Ecologist</a> magazine, reflecting his longstanding interest in the environment. After Johnson decided not to contest the mayoralty in 2016, Goldsmith easily secured the Tory nomination.</p>
<p>Goldsmith has relatively fewer difficulties than Khan in relation to his party leader – although he has backed Brexit and would likely oppose any decision to build a third runway at Heathrow. If Goldsmith wins the contest, these tensions are likely to escalate. But for the duration of the campaign, the contrast with Johnson is a greater problem. Quite simply, Goldsmith’s personality pales in comparison with his ebullient predecessor. Personal appeal is important in London’s mayoral election, where a high-profile post has tended to attract big personalities. Goldsmith is not one (although neither is Khan). </p>
<p>But the problem is more acute for Goldsmith because politically, London is a left-leaning city, with liberal values and a large ethnic minority population. As in previous elections, the Tories will try their “doughnut” strategy – winning the outer ring of affluent boroughs while Labour focuses on the inner boroughs.</p>
<p>However, Johnson’s success was partly down to support from what the pollster, Peter Kellner, called “<a href="https://yougov.co.uk/news/2012/05/03/boris-course-victory/">Boris Labour</a>”. In 2012, Kellner reckoned that one-in-ten Labour voters backed Johnson for mayor, partly because they liked the Tory candidate and partly because they disliked Livingstone. Goldsmith needs some cross-over support if he is to win.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119988/original/image-20160425-22387-12bzis6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119988/original/image-20160425-22387-12bzis6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119988/original/image-20160425-22387-12bzis6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119988/original/image-20160425-22387-12bzis6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119988/original/image-20160425-22387-12bzis6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119988/original/image-20160425-22387-12bzis6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119988/original/image-20160425-22387-12bzis6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Campaigning in Johnson’s shadow.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/53797600@N04/7079752387/sizes/l">BackBoris2012/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But Goldsmith lacks Johnson’s charisma. Neither does he have the advantage of facing Livingstone, who was unpopular and discredited by 2012. Goldsmith’s only hope is to go after Khan. His Labour opponent’s legal past and history of sharing platforms with unsavoury characters has created a small opening in what has otherwise been a lacklustre campaign. </p>
<p>The Conservatives have been accused of <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/devolution/2016/04/racial-politics-zac-goldsmith-s-london-mayoral-campaign">politicising Khan’s Muslim background</a> by “dog-whistling” with references to him being “radical” and “divisive”, and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/24/sadiq-khan-unfit-to-be-london-mayor-says-zac-goldsmith/">linking him to extremists</a>. Much like his <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-political-campaigns-that-target-ethnic-minority-groups-can-go-horribly-wrong-56946">targeted campaign leaflets</a>, this tactic could be aimed at winning the votes of working-class white voters and largely middle-class Hindus. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/19/sadiq-khan-regrets-giving-impression-he-shared-extremists-views">Realising the danger</a>, Khan has sought to reassure voters that he is an implacable opponent of Islamism.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the contest may be decided by turnout, which tends to be low in London mayoral elections – between 35% and 45%. The question then is which candidate can coax more of his supporters to the polls. At the moment, it looks as though Khan will do it. But if Goldsmith convinces enough voters that his Labour opponent represents a threat, he might pip him to the post.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57391/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Quinn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above. This article does not reflect the views of the research councils.</span></em></p>An expert introduces Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan, and considers their chances of securing one of the most coveted positions in politics.Tom Quinn, Senior Lecturer, Department of Government, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/451202015-07-23T14:22:53Z2015-07-23T14:22:53ZWhy is Jeremy Corbyn stealing the show? Because he’s the only Labour candidate saying anything at all<p>Tom Lehrer, the American satirical lyricist, sang of the Spanish republican struggle against Franco: “He may have won all the battles, but we had all the good songs”.</p>
<p>Jeremy Corbyn seems to have all the good songs and is winning too. I say “seems” as the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-set-to-win-labour-leadership-contest-poll-finds-10406172.html">polls</a> are always wrong, and yet, with the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/22/yvette-cooper-rejects-leadership-poll-predicting-victory-jeremy-corbyn">exception</a> of Yvette Cooper, we go on believing every single one of them. And that belief has dramatic political effects. Whatever the truth, Corbyn is turning the contest to become the next leader of the Labour party upside down.</p>
<p>The election was already in terrible disarray, even before the polling caused such a stir. There was uproar in the party and confusion between the candidates over George Osborne’s benefit cuts, refracted equally confusedly through Harriet Harman, the acting leader.</p>
<p>None of the <a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/leadership">three mainstream candidates</a> for the job – Cooper, Andy Burnham and Liz Kendall – is really proposing anything, only reacting. And as regards their own leadership status, all took a falsely modest position when asked who they might have in their shadow cabinet in the event of a win, each refusing to answer the question. Then Cooper and Kendall said they would not serve under Corbyn if they lost, and Burnham said he might.</p>
<p>Corbyn’s rivals have made it clear that they can already picture him at the dispatch box. All they are doing is enhancing his leadership status and diminishing their own even further. And he is already naming his cabinet – Ed Miliband will have the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-says-hed-bring-ed-miliband-back-into-the-shadow-cabinet-as-energy-secretary-10409202.html">energy portfolio</a>!</p>
<p>So what began as a spectacularly ill-judged scramble for Ed’s fallen crown (and reliable rumour has it they were manoeuvring even before it slid from his head) has now become a mission to stop the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/are-you-ready-for-a-new-kind-of-left-wing-politics-33511">Syriza-Podemos</a> candidate”. No Pasaran.</p>
<p>The standoff is playing out across a series of television debates (that everyone is now watching). These started off with the three front runners patronising the radical warhorse from the 1960s but now he is riding a rhetorical coach and horses through their platitudes.</p>
<p>How did this happen? Let us get one thing clear; it has absolutely nothing to do with being left wing or right wing. Corbyn is making such a strong media showing because of his style and language. And the others are coming across as mediocre because of theirs.</p>
<p>They have the rhetorically disadvantaged position (which they themselves chose) of talking about nothing in particular. Did we overspend in the last Labour government? Yes we did (Burnham). No we didn’t (Cooper). This was when much of Labour’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/13/labour-party-record-surge-membership">post-May 2015 recruits</a> were seven or eight years old.</p>
<p>What is Corbyn talking about? Everything. More importantly, he embodies a wide and deep tradition in the UK left that we can all recognise and engage with. And, more importantly still, he does it with elegance, conviction, modesty and intellectual coherence.</p>
<p>The mainstream candidates are all extremely clever, but what do they embody? What image of them do we retain after a performance? What have they told us about themselves as a political persona and potential leader?</p>
<p>We know that Kendall <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/15/liz-kendall-labour-leadership-interview">urges realism</a>, but we don’t really know what that means apart from not what Ed was doing. You can’t “see” realism.</p>
<p>As regards Cooper, the media snapped up <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33428043">remarks from one of her supporters</a> about being a working mother and (almost) turned it into a spat between the two woman candidates. This sexist trivia gets media mileage because none of the mainstream candidates embodies a vision of a Labour Britain.</p>
<p>Burnham is apparently true Labour because he has a Northern accent – his flat As are getting flatter by the week. At weekends he goes back to where he was brought up and still meets up with the people he used to play football with.</p>
<p>This is dire stuff. Corbyn wants to talk about all the things that make people want to vote Labour or not, or join Labour or not, or consider joining Labour, and so on.</p>
<p>He is giving us all a lesson in politics: you have to represent something, you have to embody a political view or tradition, and you have to perform it to rhetorical effect. And you have to be – or at least seem to be – authentic and sincere while you do it.</p>
<p>All four of the candidates are all of these things. Corbyn is just doing it much better than the others. The poll may indeed be wrong, but he is doing everything right. I suspect Corbyn’s bedtime reading is not Marx’s <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/">Grundrisse</a> but Aristotle’s <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/rhetoric.html">Rhetoric</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45120/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Gaffney received funding from the Leverhulme Trust for his research on the Labour Party</span></em></p>All four leadership hopefuls have a political position — but only one is actually saying what it is.John Gaffney, Professor of Politics & Co-Director, Aston Centre for Europe and Visiting Professor, Sciences Po Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/430792015-06-10T13:57:54Z2015-06-10T13:57:54ZLabour should forget ‘Saint’ David Miliband – he fluffed his chance<p>One of the many problems faced by Harold Wilson after he became Labour leader in 1963 was heading a team dominated by supporters of his immediate predecessor. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/18/newsid_3376000/3376971.stm">Hugh Gaitskell</a> had died suddenly, leaving his political friends understandably bereft.</p>
<p>Wilson was one of Gaitskell’s most prominent opponents and, as things went from bad to worse during his 1964-70 government, arch-Gaitskellites spent their evenings wishing Saint Hugh, the Man of Principle, was alive to save Labour from disaster. It was hard for Wilson to compete with a man whose qualities became ever more superhuman after his passing.</p>
<p>In the same way, Ed Miliband’s leadership of the Labour party was dogged by the reputation of his brother David from the start. David was the candidate supported by most of the shadow cabinet when the two took each other on in the 2010 leadership race.</p>
<p>Some accused Ed of political fratricide and many more declared that Labour had chosen the wrong brother. Many predicted disaster, one apparently confirmed by the result of the 2015 election. Journalism’s most erudite Blairite John Rentoul declared that 2015 was <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/election-2015-david-miliband-could-have-won-it-for-labour-10234473.html">“an election that Labour could have won, and David Miliband could have won it”</a>. Reinforcing that view, David has recently suggested that under Ed the party took the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/10/david-miliband-labour-has-turned-the-page-backwards">wrong course</a>. </p>
<p>Such calculations are based on two assumptions. The first is that if the party had fully embraced austerity and recanted for overspending in office, Labour’s poor economic reputation would have improved. The other is that David would have been a more credible leader than Ed. </p>
<p>As I argue in <a href="http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780198748953.do">Britain Votes 2015</a>, a forthcoming book on the campaign, the two basic reasons for Labour’s defeat were its grim reputation for economic management and Ed Miliband’s terrible ratings as a potential prime minister. </p>
<p>So entrenched is public prejudice on the subject of the economy, it is unlikely anything said by any Labour leader would have helped the party dent the myth that it was responsible for the deficit.</p>
<h2>Chances missed, chances passed</h2>
<p>But would David have been a more credible potential prime minister? The first thing we should consider is David’s inability to take tough decisions. When Tony Blair resigned as leader, David, despite much encouragement, bottled his chance to stand against Gordon Brown. He probably would have lost but at least Labour might have had the chance to debate the issues while Miliband would have shown his mettle.</p>
<p>Having fluffed that chance, Miliband dithered in 2008 and 2009 while Brown’s premiership crumbled. In the end he refused to oust Brown – and Labour went down to a greater defeat in 2010 than might otherwise have been the case.</p>
<p>One reason Gaitskell aroused such hero worship was his willingness to make hard choices: he called for the revision of Clause Four in 1959 and faced-down the 1960 Labour conference’s support for unilateralism. By contrast, David Miliband tended to avoid the difficult decisions. </p>
<p>When Brown stood down as leader, David Miliband regarded the top job as his by right – and his leadership campaign assumed the character of a victory lap. But once Ed started to mount a credible challenge, David’s team descended into threats and vituperation. At some hustings David seemed one slight away from a hissy fit. Yet, had he not been so arrogant and gone out of his way to talk to more MPs, he might actually have won.</p>
<p>David’s narrow defeat to Ed understandably hurt. But what followed has only confirmed the impression of a precious and entitled politician. Realising bridges needed to be rebuilt in a divided party, Ed immediately offered David the job of shadow chancellor – but he spurned the chance.</p>
<p>When Alan Johnson resigned as shadow chancellor a few months later, David was again offered the post but declined it once more. Yet, had he accepted, David could have significantly influenced the party’s direction – a direction he now claims was wrong. Instead he resigned as an MP in 2013 to lead the <a href="http://www.rescue.org/david-miliband">International Rescue Committee</a> in New York. There he remains, a Blairite “Prince over the Water”, issuing damning judgments about a party for which he abdicated responsibility.</p>
<h2>Closing the book</h2>
<p>It is of course possible that David – a highly intelligent and talented man – could have overcome his shortcomings and become an effective leader. But would he have survived one of the most sustained campaigns of character assassination in modern British politics – the one that turned his brother Ed into a comic character?</p>
<p>As the <a href="http://ericjoyce.co.uk/2015/05/labour-must-behead-its-failed-aristocracy/">former MP Eric Joyce has written</a>, David “just isn’t very good at talking to people or expressing himself plausibly one-to-one without using silly black-box, wonk-type language”. Ed’s 2010 campaign team exploited this flaw by claiming it was their man who “speaks human”. </p>
<p>Just imagine: a less “human” Ed Miliband. For make no mistake the right-wing press would have done to David what they did to Ed, and with equally devastating results for his public image. Long before Ed had his <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/may/06/sun-ed-miliband-labour-mail-telegraph-election">bacon sandwich</a>, David had his banana: and they both share the same father, the one <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2435751/Red-Eds-pledge-bring-socialism-homage-Marxist-father-Ralph-Miliband-says-GEOFFREY-LEVY.html">the Daily Mail claimed “hated Britain”</a>. </p>
<p>I don’t know if David would have made a worse leader than his brother but nor do those who perpetuate the David Myth have any idea if he would have made a better one. And as Labour decides on its future direction – and leadership candidates continue to put the boot into Ed – it’s worth questioning whether it should take the unsolicited advice of Saint David or make its own decisions about the next five years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43079/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Fielding is a member of the Labour party.</span></em></p>Why do people continue to think the former Foreign Secretary would have made a better leader than his brother, Ed?Steven Fielding, Professor of Political History, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/427922015-06-03T19:20:32Z2015-06-03T19:20:32ZIf it is sensible, Labour won’t erase Ed Miliband from its collective memory<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83848/original/image-20150603-2963-16sg6lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Call me, guys. Any time.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">PA/Yui Mok</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is normal that for politicians to engage in angry finger-pointing after a humiliating electoral defeat. Playing the blame game has a therapeutic effect and helps a party make sense of its defeat.</p>
<p>It is going to take the forensic eye of a Sherlock Holmes to understand what happened to the Labour Party on May 7 and the story-telling talents of a Scheherazade to come up with an agenda to woo a highly fragmented British electorate.</p>
<p>But in the rush to find a quick fix for its electoral problems, Labour is in danger of learning the wrong lessons from the electoral defeat. The temptation to condemn the whole of Miliband’s agenda to the dustbin of history is big. But that would be a mistake. Parts of Milibandism were right and will endure in the coming years.</p>
<p>It is true that Labour’s devastating defeat was mostly the result of political mistakes made by Ed Miliband. He failed to develop an enticing and credible programme of government and wrongly believed that image and personality do not matter much in British politics. Above all, he failed to challenge the public perception that the global financial crisis had been caused by overspending by the previous Labour government.</p>
<p>But this latter failure is mostly a demonstration of the strength of the austerity narrative that centre-right parties across Europe (that are mostly in government) have weaved so successfully. Since 2008, all European social democratic leaders (including Miliband) have tried and failed to counter the argument that rising public deficits were caused by profligate governments. To believe that a more centrist leader would be able to succeed in this task is a dangerous fantasy that Labour should avoid pursuing.</p>
<h2>What Miliband got right</h2>
<p>Despite his flaws as a leader, Miliband got a few things right. As Tony Blair <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/09/tony-blair-what-labour-must-do-next-election-ed-miliband">recognised</a>, he was “absolutely right to raise the issue of inequality”. The problem was that Miliband’s approach was simultaneously too minimalist (raising the minimum wage to £8 an hour over the period of five years was hardly going to redress inequalities) and was presented in an angry and divisive language that was bound to be badly received by the right-wing press.</p>
<p>But the fact remains that the UK <a href="http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/sites/default/files/ef_publication/field_ef_document/ef1510en.pd">tops the list</a> of the most unequal countries in the EU and this has an impact on <a href="http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/Focus-Inequality-and-Growth-2014.pdf">economic performance</a>.</p>
<p>Moreover, it’s an agenda that actually resonates with voters. So much so that the Conservatives are quickly moving to occupy this territory and even use some of Miliband’s language. David Cameron’s focus on <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/prime-minister-david-camerons-speech-at-tetley-stockton-on-tees">blue-collar Tories</a> with commitments on free childcare, apprenticeships, tax cuts for minimum wage earners suggests that the Tories will try to neutralise Labour in this particular area.</p>
<p>Miliband was equally right about the economy. Contrary to what is quickly becoming the official version of Milibandism (and promoted by some of the contenders to Labour’s leadership) he developed a strategy for economic growth that timidly started to address Britain’s long-term problems of low productivity.</p>
<p>Together with Andrew Adonis, Ed Balls, and Chuka Umunna, Miliband developed <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/labour-is-proposing-a-sensible-restructure-of-british-capitalism-10034855.html">plans</a> to rebalance the economy and increase productivity. This included an active industrial policy, investing in apprenticeships, devolving economic powers to English cities and towns, and public investment in infrastructure.</p>
<p>But all this was obfuscated by Labour’s convoluted stances on the deficit. It is also true that a deficit-obsessed media was not the least bit interested in hearing Labour’s plans to rebalance the economy, especially because stressing Miliband’s supposed anti-business rhetoric resulted in much better headlines.</p>
<p>Miliband’s response to these key issues was timid. But his timidity was not only a product of his legendary indecision. The Labour Party, including many members of the shadow cabinet, were divided on these (and more) issues and the result was an electoral manifesto that lacked bite.</p>
<p>Judging by the programme of the Conservative government, these issues will dominate the political agenda in the next five years and Labour should have something to say about them. Rather than starting from scratch, it should pick up and develop where Miliband left off.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42792/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
It is normal that for politicians to engage in angry finger-pointing after a humiliating electoral defeat. Playing the blame game has a therapeutic effect and helps a party make sense of its defeat. It…Eunice Goes, Associate Professor of Politics, Richmond American International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/419912015-05-19T05:11:17Z2015-05-19T05:11:17ZUnite’s break with Labour: bluff, bluster and empty threats<p>Many on the Labour left are keen to point out that the party owes its existence to the trade union movement. Likewise, the unions do their best to make sure Labour doesn’t forget its heritage. Traditionally, the unions have had a great deal of say in the election of the party leader. But the current contest has ignited debate about the unions’ role in Labour’s future, after Unite union leader <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32777771">Len McCluskey said</a> that his organisation would “rethink” its relationship with the party, unless it could represent “the voice of organised labour”. </p>
<p>The curious thing about Ed Miliband’s leadership was his redefinition of Labour’s relationship with the unions. The left-leaning Miliband was propelled into office with their help, after Unite orchestrated his election over his Blairite brother, David. Miliband went on to shift Labour further to the left than it had been for years, almost as a sop to the unions. Unfortunately, the May 7 election proved that “Project Miliband” – which rejected Blairism and the centre ground – has put Labour back years. </p>
<p>Now that <a href="https://theconversation.com/milibandism-crushed-at-the-polls-but-ed-doomed-from-the-start-41525">Miliband has resigned</a>, the main imperative for the Labour party is to elect a new leader. McCluskey told the BBC’s John Pienaar that “it is essential that the correct leader emerges”. The unions would prefer a short, sharp leadership contest as that would favour Andy Burnham, their preferred candidate. But acting Labour leader Harriet Harman has scuppered that dream with a longer contest, culminating with the party conference in September. </p>
<p>It’s true that there would be little point in electing a new leader until the party has done some soul-searching and re-established itself. The leader needs something tangible to lead. But when McCluskey called for a debate about the direction in which labour needs to go, there was no doubt that he meant a shift to the left. Even so, much of McCluskey’s tirade can be seen as bluff, bluster, and empty threats. Indeed, he has already made <a href="http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/len-mccluskey-backtracks-on-unite-labour-comments-1-3776085">an attempt to backtrack</a> on his comments, saying that the union has “no plans to disaffiliate from Labour”.</p>
<p>Whether they like it or not, the unions – while having an important role – have become detached from reality. David Miliband was right <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/11/david-miliband-criticises-brother-ed-labour-blairite">when he said</a> that Labour lost the election because they failed to be the party of aspiration and inclusiveness. Yet the unions still cling to yesterday’s working class rhetoric, despite having less power in the workplace, because of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/313768/bis-14-p77-trade-union-membership-statistical-bulletin-2013.pdf">stagnant membership</a>. Likewise, they have less influence over government, because they speak yesterday’s language.</p>
<h2>One member, one vote</h2>
<p>Last year, Miliband also attempted to mitigate the unions’ influence, by changing the leadership election rules. He introduced the one member, one vote (OMOV) system, under which every member – whether an affiliate or full member – gets an equal vote. The argument was that, in the wake of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-25279685">Falkirk by-election scandal</a>, OMOV would remove the block vote, giving the unions back to their members.</p>
<p>As a result of these changes, the unions have seen their collective power swept away. But if they are able to mobilise their members, they could be back in business. The problem for the unions is that they were caught napping. So confident were they that Labour would oust the Tories from government that, with the exception of Unison, they failed to encourage individual union members to join the party. </p>
<p>If they are successful in getting union members to sign up, it could give them more influence over who leads the party than they have ever had. There are around 4m members of Labour-affiliated unions and <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article4438615.ece">roughly 221,000 other party members</a>. If the unions can get just 20% to affiliate and vote for their preferred leader, they will be calling the shots. </p>
<p>The unions may be optimistic but there will be a number of worried people in the Labour ranks. They know that a significant shift to the left could go against Labour at the polls in 2020. This is something the unions seem to be ignoring. There is no point in foisting a leader on the party who cannot win the next election. The main concern for Labour must be the prospect of losing the £11m donated by the unions last year. Without that they would find it difficult to operate, unless they can attract funding from business – and that wouldn’t go down well with the unions. </p>
<p>It could be that Miliband was right all along. The new rules could well ensure that the Labour leader is the choice of the membership, rather than that of the union leadership.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41991/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alf Crossman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Len McCluskey needs to snap back to reality, if he wants to see Labour in government.Alf Crossman, Senior Lecturer in Industrial Relations and HRM, University of SurreyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/419462015-05-16T19:33:45Z2015-05-16T19:33:45ZJim Murphy’s belief he could survive the Jockalypse was always a delusion<p>He fought to the last, taking it all the way to a vote of confidence from Scottish Labour’s National Executive. And even though he won that, it was too close to be anything less than a pyrrhic victory. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1f0c8050-fbea-11e4-ad3f-00144feabdc0.html">Jim Murphy will depart his post</a> in June. It seemed almost inevitable to many. A leader without a seat in any legislature? A leader whose own constituency voters had decided to cast him aside? Staying became harder by the day and certainly more divisive, and any party that remains divided after an election result, certainly one <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/scotland">of this magnitude</a>, runs the real risk of repeating history, very quickly.</p>
<p>Murphy resigned in true Blairite fashion, stating that he will submit a plan at the exact time of his official resignation in June to reform Scottish Labour – which in his resignation speech, he called one of the least reformed sections of the Labour movement. He also had a good hard swipe at the unions, and especially Unite leader Len McCluskey. </p>
<p>Never really his friends, union leaders in Scotland and especially Unite had been calling for Murphy’s head since the election defeat, blaming the whole debacle on Scottish Labour’s campaign. These were not the only voices calling for Murphy’s head; several MSPs who resigned from his Scottish shadow cabinet <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11600987/Pressure-grows-on-Jim-Murphy-to-resign-as-two-MSPs-call-for-his-head.html">had stated</a> that he must resign. And several recent ex-Scottish Labour MPs joined the fray early, <a href="http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/election-2015-jim-murphy-faces-5658098">especially Ian Davidson</a>, who called for Murphy’s resignation a few hours after the polls closed on election night.</p>
<h2>Downfall</h2>
<p>Two weeks ago I <a href="https://theconversation.com/four-things-labour-can-do-to-win-back-scotland-after-may-7-41043">wrote about</a> what Scottish Labour would have to do in the future, after the election polls began to say that the SNP could pick up all the Scottish seats. Whatever happened to polling across the rest of the UK, the ones looking at Scotland were proven right after the SNP gained 56 out of the 59 Scottish seats. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3072723/Ed-Miliband-resign-leading-Labour-disastrous-election-defeat.html">Ed Miliband quit</a> the day after the vote, of course, taking what many saw as the honourable route. In Scotland though, it has been another story entirely. While Miliband presided over a UK-wide party that actually <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results">gained votes</a>, Murphy presided over the almost total wipe-out of Scottish Labour at Westminster. He saw his support decline to 24.3%, while the SNP gained one out of every two votes cast in Scotland. </p>
<p>Furthermore, he was not the sole surviving Labour MP in Scotland. He did not manage to hold to his seat in Renfrewshire, but he tried, almost desperately it seems, to hold on to his position when to many it seemed untenable. I was asked on election night, as the “<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/general-election-conservatives-mocked-online-over-boris-johnsons-claim-of-snp-jockalypse-10228433.html">Jockalypse</a>” unfolded, whether Murphy would throw himself on his sword. I said if he didn’t then there were plenty of people who would probably throw him in the general direction of it. </p>
<p>So it proved to be. Yet at the same time, he is doing it in a slightly different fashion. Unlike Labour at the UK level, which has a few years to sort things out, Scotland has a parliamentary election in less than 12 months, and Murphy is very aware of this. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81939/original/image-20150516-25400-1d1b5qt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81939/original/image-20150516-25400-1d1b5qt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81939/original/image-20150516-25400-1d1b5qt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81939/original/image-20150516-25400-1d1b5qt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81939/original/image-20150516-25400-1d1b5qt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81939/original/image-20150516-25400-1d1b5qt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81939/original/image-20150516-25400-1d1b5qt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81939/original/image-20150516-25400-1d1b5qt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Which came first, the Murphy or the egg?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/trixta/14930295197/in/photolist-oKkEAH-7xpPur-oAPZeB-qHNQzH-q6Ly1Q-7KdrUj-7KdrUm-aFPwCv-aqwpqj-q7V1wX-8DUf3K-8DUemv-8DXmE5-8DUevg-8DUeUR-aEAdDR-6untL7-dxfQH5-dxao24-dxanKK-dxanra-dxfQgE-dxanUD-dxanmp-dxanFP-dxfQAf-dxangF-dxfQoW-dxanzT-dxance-7G9xEp-bZiM2Y-baiwN6-9Pkoau-89Zotb-656dsF-aEA7bp-7RhRdX-sdriKK-pd9YtS-ojBCxz-oAQAjr-oVGFtU-2ZBac3-7FTJVw-7FTJVu-7FTJVs-efJ3Ge-pdbZui-oVGPXg">Richard</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He is not just quitting and letting the party take an introspective look at itself while conducting a leadership battle. He is calling for change, calling for one member one vote, and leaving Scottish Labour with a “legacy” document, a plan to change the party. </p>
<p>It must face up to the new reality, where the SNP strides before all, capturing the anti-austerity, progressive mantle – a mantle that Scottish Labour so desperately wants to regain as its own. Perhaps with a new leader it can try. And good luck to whoever that individual is, because as anyone who has witnessed the rise and rise of the SNP over the past few years can tell you, they are going to need it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41946/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Murray Leith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Scottish Labour leader’s resignation was inevitable. You can’t lose your seat and your entire Scottish beach head and seriously argue to the contrary.Murray Leith, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of the West of ScotlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/417982015-05-14T05:08:26Z2015-05-14T05:08:26ZWe need to talk about Tony – why Labour shouldn’t rush back to the right<p>Ed Miliband’s failure to win the 2015 election, or even to increase Labour’s share of seats, has been seized upon by the Blairite wing of the party to push its own centrist agenda. Peter Mandelson, one of the architects of New Labour, accused Miliband of making a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/10/miliband-made-terrible-mistake-in-ditching-new-labour-says-mandelson">“terrible mistake”</a> in abandoning Blair’s focus on aspirational John Lewis voters. </p>
<p>Chuka Umunna <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/09/labours-first-step-to-regaining-power-is-to-recognise-the-mistakes-we-made">claimed</a> that Labour was punished by voters for running a budget deficit before the financial crisis. Tony Blair <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/09/tony-blair-what-labour-must-do-next-election-ed-miliband">weighed in too</a>, claiming that a more “left-wing” or “Scottish” approach would not help win back the voters lost north of the border.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that Labour’s failure to win over enough voters in Middle England marginal constituencies cost it the election, and it is equally true that Tony Blair’s New Labour project was successful in this regard in the 1990s and 2000s. But a similar centrist strategy would not work again for Labour. Another look at the reasons for Labour’s defeat shows why.</p>
<h2>Financial crisis fallout</h2>
<p>There is strong evidence that Labour is still carrying the burden of being in office when the financial crisis struck, fatally damaging its hard won reputation for economic competence. <a href="https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/22/Best-Party-On-Key-Issues-Managing-the-Economy.aspx?view=wide">IPSOS Mori data</a> shows that Labour held a substantial advantage over the Conservatives on economic policy throughout its period of government until 2008. </p>
<p>This advantage was lost when the financial crisis began, and has not yet been recovered: coming into the election, the Conservatives led by 41% to 23% when voters were asked which party had the best policies for the economy. Labour took the blame for the crisis, just in the same way the Conservatives <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/sep/13/black-wednesday-bad-day-conservatives">lost their reputation for economic competence on Black Wednesday in 1992</a>, when the pound was ejected from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. In key constituencies, the perceived risks of a Labour government to economic stability undoubtedly shored up the Conservative vote.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81593/original/image-20150513-2491-7wybfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81593/original/image-20150513-2491-7wybfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=259&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81593/original/image-20150513-2491-7wybfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=259&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81593/original/image-20150513-2491-7wybfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=259&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81593/original/image-20150513-2491-7wybfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81593/original/image-20150513-2491-7wybfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81593/original/image-20150513-2491-7wybfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New Labour cosied up to business.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lest it be forgotten, Tony Blair was prime minister in the pre-crisis period, when Labour purportedly overspent and allowed deficits to rise too high. The danger for Labour is in failing to recognise that the crisis was not caused by its supposed excessive spending when in government, but instead by the <a href="http://www.voxeu.org/article/excessive-risk-taking-banks-new-ereport">risky behaviour of the financial industry</a> – and that the New Labour strategy of cosying up to business was directly <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/sep/26/ed-balls-sorry-labour-failures">responsible for the failures of regulation</a> that allowed this to happen. Blair and Brown’s admiration for the wealth creators of the City of London and belief in <a href="http://johnquiggin.com/2009/01/02/refuted-economic-doctrines-1-the-efficient-markets-hypothesis/">flawed theories of efficient markets</a> were, it is now clear, the wrong policies. </p>
<p>Ed Miliband’s <a href="http://www2.labour.org.uk/leader-of-the-labour-party-ed-milibands-speech-to-the-cbi">critique</a> of Britain’s over-financialised and rentier-centric form of capitalism was intellectually far more consistent with the views of <a href="http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2014/10/adair-turner-the-consequences-of-money-manager-capitalism.html">economic policy elites</a> than anything the Blairite camp has come up with.</p>
<p>Although <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/labour-manifesto">Labour’s manifesto</a> only hinted at reforming British capitalism – with timid measures on property taxation and house-building, a rise in the minimum wage and attempts to tax super-wealthy London-based oligarchs – it did address some of the fundamental imbalances of the British economy.</p>
<h2>Failings of style not substance</h2>
<p>Miliband’s failure lay in his <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-did-labour-lose-and-where-next-for-the-party-41629">inability to communicate these ideas</a> and to combat Conservative arguments about economic management. Although his performance during the election campaign improved voter perceptions somewhat, he still lagged way behind David Cameron, who, unlike the Labour leader, is more popular than his party. The courageous decision to stand up to the right-wing press over the phone-tapping scandal did not pay off, but it is unlikely in any case that Labour would have won the endorsement of many newspapers. </p>
<p>There is no reason why a progressive political programme should be unpopular. The aims of shoring up the spending power of large sections of the labour force, making housing available to younger generations and getting the wealthiest to pay a higher share of the costs of government are widely shared. A more charismatic leadership would certainly have helped. But so would a coherent account of where New Labour had failed, and why the current leadership of the party would not make the same costly mistakes again.</p>
<p>For Labour to win again, it will certainly have to win some votes in Middle England. But it is equally important to win support from SNP voters in Scotland and UKIP supporters in working class parts of England. Perhaps most important of all, will be mobilising social groups with low electoral turnout but which are likely to favour centre-left policies, such as the poor and the young. Signing up to stringent and probably unnecessary spending cuts and a deferential attitude to business leaders will be of little help in achieving this. </p>
<p>The Conservatives’ economic policies have <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-of-the-nation-a-dismal-record-for-the-uk-economy-39675">failed even on their own terms</a> and have imposed unnecessary costs on large swathes of the electorate. For Labour to concede the economic argument in these circumstances makes no political sense. Instead, it needs to try harder to win the argument and persuade the voters of the value of its agenda for making capitalism both fairer and more efficient.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41798/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Hopkin is affiliated with the Labour party.</span></em></p>The centrist strategy that worked for New Labour won’t work for the party going forward.Jonathan Hopkin, Associate Professor of Comparative Politics, London School of Economics and Political ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/416002015-05-12T03:13:41Z2015-05-12T03:13:41ZDecoding the Crosby campaign: how to find voters and finish first<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81197/original/image-20150511-10260-1w08ryq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This Conservative Party leaflet kills three birds with one stone and is a classic example of Lynton Crosby's campaign strategy. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/emilyashton/inside-the-tory-battle-to-stop-nigel-farage-becoming-an-mp">UK Conservative Party/Buzzfeed</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If there is a single image that explains the success of Lynton Crosby’s campaign strategy for the British Conservative Party, it is <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/emilyashton/inside-the-tory-battle-to-stop-nigel-farage-becoming-an-mp">the leaflet</a> handed out in the last week of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/uk-general-election-2015">general election</a> campaign in the seaside townships of Kent – specifically, in the seat of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/election-2015-england-32614661">Thanet South</a>, which the Tories were trying to win back from UKIP leader Nigel Farage. The Conservative government’s re-election – through wins in Thanet South and across England – is the latest and perhaps most startling electoral triumph for Crosby, the Australian strategist who is arguably this country’s biggest political export since the secret ballot. </p>
<p>The leaflet did not mention the local Conservative candidate, the Conservative prime minister or the Conservative Party. It did not even appeal to Conservative voters. Instead, it made its pitch to UKIP voters, and it did so by demonising the Labour Party and – perhaps bizarrely in a town much closer to Paris than Edinburgh – the Scottish National Party (SNP). </p>
<p>Above a simply photoshopped image of Labour leader Ed Miliband plus the two SNP leaders Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond outside Number 10 Downing Street, the leaflet claims:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A vote for UKIP risks Miliband in Downing Street – propped up by the SNP. </p>
<p>Your vote can stop this. Nigel Farage says he would ‘do a deal’ with Labour.“</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Decoded, the message is: only the Conservatives can deliver stability in England; every other party delivers deal-making and chaos. </p>
<p>It’s unlikely Crosby personally signed off on this leaflet – though given his notorious centralisation of campaign authority, that is not to be ruled out. What is much clearer in the election post-mortems is that its message - truthful enough, relevant, low production values but penetrating, and efficiently killing three birds with one stone - perfectly exemplified Crosby’s overall strategic intent for the Conservatives.</p>
<p>In England’s complex <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk-election-prediction-this-weeks-result-wont-reflect-the-voters-will-40387">multi-party electoral landscape</a>, Crosby’s strategy was to reduce the voting choice to a simple binary "us” versus “them”, positioning the Conservatives alone as representing stability against Labour, the SNP, UKIP and even their own erstwhile coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats. </p>
<p>The Conservatives did not create SNP popularity or Lib Dem unpopularity, but they exploited both effectively, portraying Labour as hopelessly compromised by its need to “do a deal”. In a separate <a href="http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/alex-salmond-brands-tory-election-5302421">Tory poster</a> Miliband was shown as a tiny figure literally inside Alex Salmond’s pocket.</p>
<h2>The rise to back-room power player</h2>
<p>Adelaide-born in 1956, Crosby was an active Liberal Party member as a teenager and ran unsuccessfully for former Labor premier Don Dunstan’s seat of Norwood in 1982. Deciding to pursue a career in the Liberal back-rooms instead, he became a parliamentary staffer before specialising in election campaign management in Adelaide, then in Brisbane as Liberal state director, and finally in the national head office under then federal director Andrew Robb. </p>
<p>Crosby was deputy director of the campaign that delivered John Howard to The Lodge in 1996. He directed Howard’s re-election campaigns in 1998 and 2001 before resigning to set up a consultancy with market researcher Mark Textor.</p>
<p>The consultancy provides political advice to business and conservative parties in Canada and New Zealand, as well as the Australian Liberal Party and the British Conservatives. Boris Johnson, twice elected mayor of London after Crosby Textor campaigns, <a href="http://www.crosbytextor.com/news/mayor-of-london-names-lynton-crosby-the-best-campaign-manager-and-political-strategist/">has described Crosby</a> with typical extravagance as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>simply the best campaign manager and political strategist I have ever encountered or even heard of.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many in Westminster, on both sides of politics, now agree. Crosby has <a href="http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/11490">said repeatedly</a> that election campaigns are fundamentally about identifying the voters – who they are, where they are, what matters to them, and how you can reach them – who will deliver your party a winning majority of seats in parliament. Thus the hallmarks of a Crosby political strategy include ruthless centralisation of campaign authority, long-term development of research-based campaign strategies, and disciplined targeting of resources. </p>
<p>That much is of course true of virtually any winning campaign by a political party in contemporary democracies. Campaign professionalism is highly mobile across boundaries of nation and party. Crosby’s success, then, lies in his ability to apply those abstract professional hallmarks to the particular requirements of his campaign client in the here and now.</p>
<p>Campaigning in Australia is not the same as campaigning in the United Kingdom. Campaigning for a challenger (Howard in 1996, Johnson in 2008) is not the same as for an incumbent (Howard in 1998 and 2001, David Cameron in 2015). Campaigning in the media environment of Brisbane City Council in 1994 is a far cry from contemporary social media and <a href="https://theconversation.com/big-data-meets-doorknocking-the-political-contests-new-frontier-27822">Big Data campaigning</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81301/original/image-20150512-31513-3b3wh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81301/original/image-20150512-31513-3b3wh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81301/original/image-20150512-31513-3b3wh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81301/original/image-20150512-31513-3b3wh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81301/original/image-20150512-31513-3b3wh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81301/original/image-20150512-31513-3b3wh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81301/original/image-20150512-31513-3b3wh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81301/original/image-20150512-31513-3b3wh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lynton Crosby and his partner in the campaign, former Obama strategist Jim Messina, watch the victory unfold on election night.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/messina2012">@Messina2012</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Crosby’s four elements of success</h2>
<p>In this context it seems Crosby’s campaign had four elements that worked particularly effectively for the Conservatives.</p>
<p>First, as always, Crosby insisted on a centralised campaign structure. He held ultimate authority for strategy including message development.</p>
<p>Second, he had a long-term plan for re-election, based on Textor research. Crosby held his nerve while many around him fretted about the apparently immobile <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2015_United_Kingdom_general_election">published polls</a>.</p>
<p>Third, he targeted winnable seats – abandoning Scotland and much of London but crushing Labour in marginal seats and the Lib Dems in their heartland.</p>
<p>Fourth, as the Thanet South leaflet exemplifies, he targeted persuadable voters in those seats, with a precise cut-through. Crosby has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/26/labour-and-tory-campaigns-see-election-as-a-simple-two-way-choice">often said</a> that effective campaign messaging is about framing the choice: not just saying something you think voters might like to hear, but sharply defining yourself in contrast to your opponent, and doing so with evidence. This is what the Thanet South leaflet does so effectively. </p>
<p>A new element in the Conservative campaign, however, reflects an unexpected development. For the first time in his career, Crosby reached across the political divide <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-23551323">to import talent</a> from the US Democratic Party, in the person of heavyweight Obama strategist <a href="http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/05/there-was-one-pollster-who-predicted-a-conservative-victory-jim-messina/">Jim Messina</a>. This appears to be recognition that the Conservatives, like the US Republicans and the Australian Liberals, have been weaker than their opponents in the emerging battleground of data-driven campaigns. </p>
<p>The British Labour Party had <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21648897-labour-party-out-campaigning-conservatives-ground-march?fsrc=scn%2Ftw%2Fte%2Fbl%2Fed%2Fonthemarch">reportedly made a big investment</a>
in this kind of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/politics/constituencies/E14000955">ground war</a> – but in vain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41600/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Mills does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The British Conservative government’s re-election is the latest and perhaps most startling electoral triumph for Australian political strategist Lynton Crosby. So how did he do it?Stephen Mills, Lecturer, Graduate School of Government, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/416292015-05-11T11:47:56Z2015-05-11T11:47:56ZWhy did Labour lose, and where next for the party?<p>Labour’s devastating defeat in the general election was shocking in its scale, but in retrospect, the signs were there all along. The party was widely perceived to be lacking strong leadership and economic credibility, which it <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100211660/tony-blairs-critique-of-ed-miliband-is-harsh-but-accurate-labour-has-left-itself-on-the-wrong-side-of-every-debate/">assumed it could overcome</a> with a “35% strategy” of holding onto its core vote from 2010 and grafting on some Liberal Democrat defectors. In the event, it fell far short of even that low target. The party must now decide how to get back in the game.</p>
<p>After its defeat in 2010, Labour spent the entire summer debating the Iraq War and marketisation in the public services during its leadership contest, at a time when the country was fixated on the economic crisis and the coalition was busily pinning the blame for that crisis on the last Labour government. </p>
<p>This time round, Labour must think about voters’ concerns rather than its own preoccupations. There are three key areas where it needs to focus if it is to be in a position to win in 2020: leadership, competence and party image.</p>
<h2>Leading the way</h2>
<p>Leaders are an increasingly important consideration for voters when deciding how to vote. They need to be seen as credible, competent, trustworthy and in touch with ordinary people’s concerns. Weak leaders can severely damage a party’s prospects because voters have little faith they will be able to deliver on their promises or to deal with crises. </p>
<p>Ed Miliband consistently suffered poor approval ratings and lagged far behind David Cameron in polls of who would <a href="https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/7rj2tjjm1c/YG-Archives-Pol-Trackers-Leaders-Perceptions-050515.pdf">make the better prime minister</a>. He was seen as “odd” by voters – not least for the way he challenged his own brother for the Labour leadership in 2010. But he was also seen as weak, and that had a devastating effect on Labour’s electoral prospects.</p>
<p>To give one example from the election campaign, the Conservatives depicted Miliband as being <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/09/tory-election-poster-ed-miliband-pocket-snp-alex-salmond">in the pocket</a> of Alex Salmond and as a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11547853/Election-2015-Nicola-Sturgeon-is-Ed-Milibands-puppet-master-in-new-Conservative-campaign-poster.html">puppet on a string</a> held by Nicola Sturgeon, in posters warning of the dangers of a Labour minority government dependent on SNP support. The political was made personal, contrasting Miliband’s weakness with the strength of Salmond and Sturgeon. It played on existing concerns about Miliband and questioned whether he could stand up for England’s interests. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81210/original/image-20150511-10269-m2ku5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81210/original/image-20150511-10269-m2ku5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81210/original/image-20150511-10269-m2ku5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81210/original/image-20150511-10269-m2ku5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81210/original/image-20150511-10269-m2ku5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81210/original/image-20150511-10269-m2ku5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81210/original/image-20150511-10269-m2ku5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81210/original/image-20150511-10269-m2ku5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ed the easily-led?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Conservative Party</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These posters could never have worked with, say, Tony Blair in Salmond’s pocket because Blair was widely seen by voters as a strong leader, so the message would have lacked credibility. Labour can withstand these attacks in the future only if its next leader is a strong and credible figure.</p>
<h2>Need for credible policies</h2>
<p>Labour’s policies must also be seen as credible, and the party as a whole, competent. Under Miliband, Labour trailed far behind the Conservatives in <a href="https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/9drub35x7f/YG-Archives-Pol-Trackers-Issues(1)-Best-Party-on-Issue-270415.pdf">polls on economic management</a>. It never offered a convincing explanation of what it got wrong in government before 2010, and never had a credible policy to reduce the deficit.</p>
<p>The party put all its eggs in one basket by assuming that the coalition’s austerity policy would be unsuccessful and unpopular. It turned out to be neither, and so Miliband’s Labour was left without a proper economic policy. There are <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/14/david-cameron-general-election-fundamentals-favour">no examples on record</a> of a British party winning a general election despite being less trusted on the economy than its main rival and with a leader not seen as the strongest candidate to become prime minister. And the 2015 result is no exception. Labour must learn that lesson.</p>
<p>Competence goes beyond economic policy, however. On immigration, Labour <a href="https://theconversation.com/manifesto-check-labours-immigration-policies-are-led-by-public-opinion-not-evidence-40109">toughened its policy</a> under Miliband, but again, it lacked credibility. This is particularly dangerous for Labour because <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32672010">UKIP finished second</a> in a swathe of northern Labour seats, and may launch a serious challenge in 2020. </p>
<p>Working-class voters are most concerned with immigration, and they are <a href="https://theconversation.com/farage-squares-up-to-labour-in-bid-to-broaden-ukip-vote-32245">more likely than other groups</a> to vote for UKIP. To retain their support, Labour must show that it at least understands their concerns, even if it doesn’t argue for a “fortress UK”.</p>
<h2>Keeping up appearances</h2>
<p>Party image is the third area where Labour suffered. The 2015 election demonstrated once again that it is very difficult to win from the left, and that capturing the centre-ground remains crucial to electoral success. Under Miliband, Labour was seen to shift quite sharply to the left, compared with the Blair years. It came to be seen as anti-business, pro-state intervention, close to the unions, and pro-tax-and-spend. </p>
<p>Individual policies such as capping energy prices may have been popular in isolation, but they fed into the image of a left-wing party, which ultimately proved damaging. This is not to say that New Labour should be resurrected – that brand is too tarnished. But Labour must once again be a party that understands the aspirations of working-class and middle-class voters.</p>
<p>Some have suggested following the leftist strategy of the SNP as a road to electoral success. But the SNP succeeded primarily because it made the independence question the key dividing line in Scottish politics. If Scotland becomes independent after any second referendum, Labour will be forced to confront its weaknesses in England, which is more right-leaning. If Scotland remains in the UK, Labour would have to show that it would defend Scotland’s interests at Westminster. </p>
<p>Scotland may look a lost cause for Labour after the SNP’s success, but that could change. Quebec separatists routinely dominated Canadian federal elections (held under first-past-the-post) within their province after two defeated independence referendums, usually winning two-thirds of Quebec’s 75 seats. But they eventually declined, and at <a href="http://www.parl.gc.ca/parlinfo/Compilations/ElectionsAndRidings/ResultsParty.aspx">the last Canadian federal election</a>, won just four seats after the separatist tide had ebbed.</p>
<p>If Labour is to revitalise itself in opposition, it needs to look at why it lost. Blaming a hostile media or Tory dirty tricks will be comforting, but won’t help the party move forward. “One more heave” doesn’t usually work for parties that have suffered heavy defeats. The best thing that could happen would be for a full and frank party-wide discussion of all the options for the next parliament. That debate, at least, does appear to be starting.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41629/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Quinn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Labour needs to focus on leadership, policies and image, if it’s to bounce back.Tom Quinn, Senior Lecturer, Department of Government, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/415702015-05-10T08:35:07Z2015-05-10T08:35:07ZIs back to the future what is best for Labour after Ed Miliband?<p>If victors get to define the reasons for their victory, then losers just get told why they’ve lost. Within hours – minutes even – of the announcement of the shock BBC exit poll at 10pm on May 7, Ed Miliband was being informed in no uncertain terms why he had done so badly by an army of observers, critics and supposed party comrades.</p>
<p>It is ridiculous to imagine that in such a short space of time anyone can properly explain why Labour’s performance was so disappointing. We still don’t know <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-polls-got-it-so-wrong-in-the-british-election-41530">why all the opinion polls</a> were so out of alignment with the final result. Did they consistently over-estimate Labour support in the campaign or was there a late defection to the Conservatives? These things matter.</p>
<p>But political debate rarely stops for the lack of adequate data. As a consequence, in the wake of this and every other Labour disaster at the polls, prejudice often masquerades as analysis. Most infamously, Labour’s third defeat in a row in 1959 saw party leader <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AtYj5rI0MvUC&pg=PA67&dq=steven+fielding+gaitskell+clause+four+1959&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bMFNVdy7EMHq7Aa11IHwAw&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=steven%20fielding%20gaitskell%20clause%20four%201959&f=false">Hugh Gaitskell and his revisionist cohorts</a> in academia and the media blame its association with nationalisation. But they had long been critical of nationalisation and blatantly sought to use defeat to ditch Labour’s constitutional commitment to public ownership. It was arguable, however, that Gaitskell’s own campaign blunders had harmed his party more. But he still plunged Labour into years of bitter and harmful division.</p>
<h2>Blairites seize their chance</h2>
<p>In the same way, Miliband’s many Blairite critics have formed an orderly queue to tell us why he lost. The columnist John Rentoul <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/election-2015-david-miliband-could-have-won-it-for-labour-10234473.html">has already written</a> that 2015 “was an election that Labour could have won, and David Miliband could have won it”. </p>
<p>After beating his brother for the leadership in 2010, Rentoul and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11591320/Why-did-Labour-lose-this-election-It-never-tried-to-win-it.html">the Blairite blogger Dan Hodges</a>, insist Miliband should have admitted that Labour had spent too much money in office and signed up to much of the Cameron government’s austerity programme rather than opposing it.</p>
<p>Theirs is the prevailing view among many leading Labour parliamentarians, most of whom wanted David Miliband for leader. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/08/guardian-view-labour-defeat-failure-storytelling-strategy?CMP=share_btn_tw">According to</a> Pat McFadden, the shadow Europe minister, and a figure close to Blair, defeat flowed from Ed Miliband “turning the page on New Labour” and his failure to appeal to “the aspirational family that wants to do well”. “We need”, McFadden continued, “to speak about wealth creation and not just wealth distribution.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"596941398936522752"}"></div></p>
<p>Labour’s appalling performance in Scotland and its inability to win more than a few marginal constituencies in England certainly needs explanation. But is the answer, in effect, going back to 1997 and what <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/election-2015-david-miliband-could-have-won-it-for-labour-10234473.html">Rentoul semi-ironically calls</a> “the eternal verities of the Blairite truth”?</p>
<h2>Not yet over New Labour</h2>
<p>Ed Miliband won the Labour leadership because New Labour had failed. Uncritically accepting the economics of neo-liberalism, Blair said Labour could still make Britain a fairer society. Between 1997 and 2010 there were many, if modest, gains as a result. The minimum wage, tax credits, investment in public services among other measures certainly improved the lives of some: <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/6738">relative poverty fell</a>.</p>
<p>But New Labour’s faith in the market meant it contributed to the deregulation that led to the 2008 banking crisis, one which even the former governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/dec/29/labour-government-not-responsible-crash-bank-england-governor-mervyn-king">admits was the real reason for the huge deficit</a> inherited by the Conservative-led coalition. The party was also in trouble electorally, even before the fiscal crisis. It crawled to a majority in 2005 with 35.2% of the vote – and only then after Blair promised he wouldn’t seek another term as prime minister. The seeds of the SNP surge were laid before 2010, while the alienation of many former Labour voters had long been obvious. Even <a href="http://labourlist.org/2010/07/david-milibands-keir-hardie-lecture-full-speech/">David Miliband conceded</a> that more of the same was not an option, that the party needed to renew itself.</p>
<p>It is clear that the course taken by Ed Miliband did not work. But we do not yet know for sure why. Was his attempt to move on in a leftward direction from New Labour flawed from the outset? Or did the fault lie in the uncertain means by which his strategy was communicated? Was any Labour leader fated to fail in 2015, given the flawed record of New Labour in power, one that remains fresh in the minds of many voters?</p>
<p>By the time we know the answers to these questions, a new Labour leader will have been elected and will already be taking the party in a direction likely to have been influenced by those nostalgic for Blairism. But going back to the future is not necessarily the best way to move forward.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41570/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Fielding is a member of the Labour party</span></em></p>Ed Miliband’s many Blairite critics have formed an orderly queue to tell us why he lost.Steven Fielding, Professor of Political History, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/415662015-05-09T15:08:23Z2015-05-09T15:08:23ZAfter the deluge, contenders line up for party leadership contests<p>In the wake of the election result comes the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-political-parties-choose-their-leaders-41534">inevitable bloodletting</a> in the parties who fared badly at the hands of the electorate. By lunchtime on Friday the leaders of Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and UKIP had all fallen on their swords. </p>
<p>The annihilation of the Liberal Democrats came as no surprise. Their demise started with the broken pledge over tuition fees. They were seen as a fairly unprincipled, power-hungry bunch who didn’t care whose 30 pieces of silver they took to get a share of government. The Liberal Democrats <a href="http://www.crosenstiel.webspace.virginmedia.com/ldelections/">traditionally used to do well in by-elections</a>, yet their candidates lost their deposits in almost every seat they contested since 2010. The writing was well and truly on the wall. </p>
<p>The party now faces at least a decade in the political wilderness. The SNP could learn a lesson from this. With only 35% of the Scottish vote, they too could lose seats in five years time if they fail to deliver anything of substance for Scotland.</p>
<p>The problem for the Liberal Democrats now is who can lead them back from the brink. All the likely leadership contenders were ousted on Thursday night. Gone are David Laws, Vince Cable, Danny Alexander, and Ed Davey. There is a choice between two experienced politicians; Tim Farron, former party president, and Norman Lamb, Nick Clegg’s former parliamentary private secretary.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81086/original/image-20150509-22785-1wl8bi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81086/original/image-20150509-22785-1wl8bi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81086/original/image-20150509-22785-1wl8bi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81086/original/image-20150509-22785-1wl8bi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81086/original/image-20150509-22785-1wl8bi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81086/original/image-20150509-22785-1wl8bi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81086/original/image-20150509-22785-1wl8bi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Is Tim Farron the man to rebuild the Lib Dems?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/libdems/15473191821/in/photolist-pzyrRL-pi5bB6-pzymVy-pi6gQ1-pzj9Rk-pi6mzb-pi6kR7-pi74j4-pzyp8j-pi6y6q-pi6Sh4-pxxQFb-pi71xH-defRbu-defQST-8DqnJS-kQkemq-kQk7TK-aqdf8s-aqdi7w-aqaDj6-aqdh89-aqdgcS-piAwPD-aqaCdx-aK5xS2-8DnhDe-8Dnh5e-rgbVt4-749xbH-74dtJu-6jrVkD-bpTa5J-5nxxsg-6jhiJA-66EXHR-5nxyoZ-9WcEZX-qZrw29-defPdx-8DnjVK-7KpgKo-7KpfZ9-7Kkkha-aqdekL-8LN6eT-4Nkawc-nZJzu-7KPtE8-5ntMgu">Liberal Democrats</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>For UKIP the only credible contender is Douglas Carswell, the single candidate winning a seat at Westminster. All the support gained in by-elections and in the European elections fell away in terms of seats, despite taking almost 13% of the national vote. Fate dealt them a cruel hand and it’s not surprising Nigel Farage is <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nigel-farage/11593312/nigel-farage-attacks-electoral-system-after-election.html">calling for a change</a> to the voting system. </p>
<h2>Who’ll keep the red flag flying?</h2>
<p>The biggest leadership problem rests with Labour. For the last three years they have tried to court business and, at the same time, stay loyal to working people and the unions. Under Ed Miliband the “New Labour” values of Tony Blair were cast aside as the party shifted to the left of centre. Despite clear signs, Labour failed acknowledge they were not getting their message across to the electorate. The time has now come to decide what they stand for and whom they want to represent. Going forward Labour needs to find a clear sense of direction. Without that they cannot hope to rebuild a credible party</p>
<p>The writing was on the wall two years ago when Ed Miliband’s leadership was questioned. Instead of electing a more credible candidate to lead them into the election, the party insisted on continuing to back Ed. That was a disastrous decision and one they will regret for many years to come. At the end of the day no one would admit the party elected the wrong brother. There is something deep in the Labour psyche that puts loyalty above common sense. Ed Miliband’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/ed-stone-could-be-a-millstone-in-coalition-negotiations-41209">limestone manifesto</a> monument for Number 10, which later turned into a tombstone, was viewed by many as hubristic.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81085/original/image-20150509-22733-1dms0jo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81085/original/image-20150509-22733-1dms0jo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81085/original/image-20150509-22733-1dms0jo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81085/original/image-20150509-22733-1dms0jo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81085/original/image-20150509-22733-1dms0jo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81085/original/image-20150509-22733-1dms0jo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81085/original/image-20150509-22733-1dms0jo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Should we be watching big brother?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/35952250@N02/4382454550/in/photolist-7Fge4d-by2YBA-bjTf5E-cJva7j-HyckF-dTtzzo-dn23LS-pk3ztm-gHNPMR-boWhXi-brqNin-e97c5X-gHPRep-e9cSY9-cJvhd5-8CRbtm-7FceJi-7zSQEn-cSjPph-dnR7Bf-6z9atm-6z9avs-6z54cn-6z98V1-6z98WC-6z54hv-6z54oM-6z54gt-6z549r-6z54dp-6z548t-6z98QA-6z54fv-br6UDP-qEzdt6-4w4omz-6rbeFj-6r74W4-6rbexQ-pvzn4i-onyH3f-m7wxgK-njVBBW-dZFrJy-oE4DNv-rQabQd-rwuyXQ-6z54bp-6z54kt-7ESFSa">Policy Network</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>The party has a choice of potential candidates, but many are tainted by their unswerving pre-election allegiance to Ed Miliband. Chukka Umunna must be a prime candidate. He’s <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/11/blairite-group-progress-plotting-back-chuka-umunna-leadership-bid">seen as a bit of a Blairite</a> and it is questionable whether the party could make that U-turn. Yvette Cooper is ambitious – and must be a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/02/yvette-cooper-interview-labours-quiet-contender">serious contender</a>, if not the outright favourite. She is a seasoned politician who refused to be drawn on her aspirations on election night. </p>
<p>The shadow education secretary, Tristram Hunt – another Blairite – has a reputation for <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2630549/Public-schoolboys-immoral-people-Ive-met-says-Labours-Tristram-Hunt.html">waging a class war on public schools</a>. As the son of a peer, Baron Hunt of Chesterton, the trade unions would no doubt find him a difficult candidate to support. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/08/andy-burnham-favourite-to-become-labour-leader-if-ed-miliband-goes">Andy Burnham is the pundits’ – and the bookies’ – favourite</a> to succeed Miliband. He was a contender in the 2010 leadership election and held a number of cabinet posts in Gordon Brown’s government. </p>
<p>Former minister, David Lammy, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/09/alan-johnson-labour-aspirational-voters-tony-blair">has also expressed an interest in the leadership</a>, while Alan Johnson – who served in several ministerial posts in the Blair and Brown administrations, has ruled himself out.</p>
<p>There are two outsiders. Ex-special forces soldier <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11363724/Meet-the-man-who-should-lead-Labour-after-Ed-Miliband.html">Dan Jarvis</a>, a relative newcomer, to politics is known to harbour leadership ambitions. The question is whether his New Labour tendencies would be held against him. A long-odds contender would be Liz Kendall. Her support for <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2922627/Ed-Miliband-challenged-NHS-privatisation-Liz-Kendall-shadow-health-minister-says-matters-works-using-private-sector-services.html">private providers in the health sector</a> might go against her with the unions, but their control over who leads Labour is much diminished. Last, but not least, let’s not discount the possibility that David Miliband could return to save the party. That would require a lot of Labour soul-searching.</p>
<p>The next few weeks will be as entertaining as those in the lead-up to the election. We will see infighting and machinations in all the parties, none more so than Labour. For the past five years it has had both a leadership crisis and an identity crisis. The latter must be resolved before the former can be addressed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41566/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alf Crossman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Three parties must now choose new leaders. Labour has a number of candidates jockeying for position.Alf Crossman, Senior Lecturer in Industrial Relations and HRM, University of SurreyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/415652015-05-09T11:17:38Z2015-05-09T11:17:38ZAn old media election, but at least we got a few good gags<p>The secret ballot gives voters the chance to pulp punditry and polls on a scale which we see only very rarely. As the scale of the Conservative victory became clear, thousands of tons of paper, millions of words and many hours of talking heads onscreen were trashed and forgotten as those speculations collided with facts.</p>
<p>The media makes two rapid adjustments. The language of permanent coalition politics and all its complexities goes back into cold storage, to be replaced by a more usual discussion of cabinet-making on the weekend after voting. And perhaps for the next election or two, “neck-and-neck” polls will not dominate horse-race coverage as it has this time.</p>
<p>Politicians and journalists should recall their own biases as they make fun of the poor pollsters. Politicians like “neck-and-neck” because it gets out the vote; editors love a close race because it makes a better story. Both groups over-invested in a convenient description.</p>
<p>A miserably dull and rigidly-controlled campaign which never tested economic pretences and evasions nevertheless produced a surprising and decisive outcome. British politics will now be dominated – until the next general election in 2020 and most probably beyond – by the transformed politics of Scotland. The prediction that the SNP would wipe out the Scottish Labour Party at Westminster did turn out to be right.</p>
<p>During the campaign, many metropolitan reporters travelled north of the border and were surprised to discover what an interesting place Scotland is. Other reporters will now tread the same path, whether there is a second independence referendum or not. As this parliament unrolls, Scotland’s position inside the United Kingdom will become entangled with the now inevitable EU referendum in 2017.</p>
<p>One prediction about the media’s election can be made with complete confidence: the argument about malign media influence working against Labour will revive. A large majority of national newspapers came out in favour of either the Tories or the coalition. Some of the slants and omissions were inexcusable.</p>
<p>The Sun will be slated for both cynical hypocrisy (<a href="https://theconversation.com/two-faced-sun-shows-rupert-can-swing-both-ways-if-theres-something-in-it-for-him-41111">coming out for Cameron in the south and for the SNP north of the border</a>) and bias. On the bias charge, it should be noted that the Mirror was no better in its anti-Tory stories which, <a href="http://electionunspun.net/?select-categories%5B%5D=partisanship-unspun">the Media Standards Trust noted</a>, were slightly more numerous than The Sun’s in the other direction. In truth, each one was as bad as the other.</p>
<p>When the old and familiar arguments about the press barons ricochet, bear the following facts in mind. By any measure – total viewers, reach, time spent – the largest single source of news on elections or anything else is the BBC, whose political neutrality is one of the most strictly regulated in the world. Labour governments have managed in the past to be elected despite the “Tory press”. And while online and printed newspapers may provide broadcasters with agenda and tone, the circulation and clout of national newspapers is in steep decline.</p>
<p>But despite the fading influence of “the press”, the election campaign was not marked out as the “digital”, “online” or “social media” election. Online media enlivened coverage and produced graphics which explained the intricacies of minority governments, but they did so alongside television. Party leaders debates began with a huge chorus of leaders which produced a stiff and incoherent discussion and finished with party leaders being roasted by voters.</p>
<h2>All passion spent</h2>
<p>That last television debate actually produced the “passion” which party leaders talked about and failed to generate. The passion felt by those voters in the studio was mistrust and dislike of the political class. At a late point in the campaign, YouGov <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/04/24/ranking-coalitions/">was reporting</a> net negative ratings for all plausible government coalitions.</p>
<p>In one important respect, online media have added to the gaiety of the nation at election time. Fast visual jokes are now shared in huge volumes at great speed. Ed Miliband both enjoyed and suffered from this new pastime. Anyone <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3072859/Ed-Miliband-wrote-epitaph-8-foot-tombstone-writes-JAMES-SLACK.html">producing a large tablet</a> on the campaign trail should expect to be mocked up as Moses.</p>
<p>The fact that Labour did not extend its appeal beyond its heartlands and core vote was a strategic mistake for which Miliband is responsible; but his own campaigning improved his image. The <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3032823/Red-Ed-s-tangled-love-life-Miliband-s-wife-tells-fury-meeting-unattached-Ed-learn-seeing-hostess-just-one-number-relationships-women-clique.html">Daily Mail “revealed”</a> that Miliband had gone out with a number of glamorous, high-profile women before he married. This boost from an unexpected quarter for “Red Ed’s” rather earnest style started a social media “Milifandom” meme. My personal favourite was the Labour leader as James Dean.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81081/original/image-20150509-22782-1jepgut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81081/original/image-20150509-22782-1jepgut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81081/original/image-20150509-22782-1jepgut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81081/original/image-20150509-22782-1jepgut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81081/original/image-20150509-22782-1jepgut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81081/original/image-20150509-22782-1jepgut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81081/original/image-20150509-22782-1jepgut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Rebel without a party.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">via cooledmiliband.tumblr.com</span></span>
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<p>Twitter and other instant social media perhaps featured less than expected because there was no big gaffe to go viral. They say that army generals are always fighting the last war; politicians are the same. Campaign bosses were terrified by a re-run of a catastrophic moment of unintended authenticity. In 2010 the worst of those was Gordon Brown’s “bigot” moment; whatever divided the big parties, they all wanted to eliminate that risk. Live encounters with unscreened voters were left to minor parties with neither the wish nor the resources to handpick audiences.</p>
<h2>And the winners are…</h2>
<p>The laurels for the best media coverage go to the sites and publications which steered round the national horse-race preoccupations which are the default options for lazy newsrooms. Bored by motionless poll numbers, small teams could zoom in on local struggles as pavement level. On many occasions, news media newcomers thought more imaginatively and reported in more detail than the older newsrooms more inclined to think in familiar templates and formulas.</p>
<p>Politico, which only began publishing in Europe as the campaign began, ran a <a href="http://www.politico.eu/article/galloway-bradford-elections-uk-ge2015/">terrifying piece by Ben Judah</a> on being roughed up by heavies at a meeting run by George Galloway’s campaign in Bradford West. The New Statesman ran excellent blogs and began detailed profiles of individual constituencies impressively early. No one who had read any of this material from a site and magazine which came out for Labour could have been surprised by the inroads which Ukip made into the Labour vote.</p>
<p>A campaign which generated so little news, drama or facts was a severe test for writers with the thankless task of summarising it. The Financial Times made a very smart move by giving that task to their <a href="http://www.ft.com/comment/columnists/janan-ganesh">commentator Janan Ganesh</a>, who managed day after day, to say something worth reading in a very few words.</p>
<p>The best raw material for reporters who wanted to do something original was in Scotland. There was tragedy: the long narrative arc of the Labour Party neglecting and taking for granted the loyalty of its voters over many years and the vengeance of those same voters in 2015.</p>
<p>Scotland produced some fine analytic reporting: the actual spending figures from the SNP’s period in power in Scotland showed a prudent, perhaps even austere, party in government. Pointing this out made not a dent in the SNP’s entirely successful claim to be the only hope of defence against the villainous architects of austerity in London. Fact-checking does not always puncture rhetoric or fantasy.</p>
<p>And Scotland generated a majority of the best gags. A Scottish Labour MP on the mood: “It’s like the last days of Rome. Without sex. Or wine. In fact, with none of the fun bits.”</p>
<p>We may soon regret the passing such indiscretions. In a world of driverless cars and share trading conducted by algorithms, will politicians get a technological upgrade? “One day soon,” wrote Simon Kuper of the FT, “robots will write politicians’ lines for them. It won’t be hard.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41565/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George Brock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This was supposed to be the “social media election” but in the end it was those who moved beyond horse-race journalism, on whatever platform, who excelled.George Brock, Professor of Journalism, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/415412015-05-08T15:39:28Z2015-05-08T15:39:28ZLabour has some deep soul searching to do before it picks a new leader<p>Following <a href="https://theconversation.com/britains-election-is-over-so-what-does-it-all-mean-41261">crushing defeat</a>, Ed Miliband is standing down as leader of the Labour Party. But before Labour can even think about who should replace him, there is a more fundamental question to be considered: what sort of party does Labour want to be? The party needs to have a debate about its orientation and policies before it considers who it wants as leader.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81041/original/image-20150508-22740-1maudjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81041/original/image-20150508-22740-1maudjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81041/original/image-20150508-22740-1maudjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81041/original/image-20150508-22740-1maudjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81041/original/image-20150508-22740-1maudjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81041/original/image-20150508-22740-1maudjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81041/original/image-20150508-22740-1maudjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harman: no, ta.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/salforduniversity/15231946717/in/photolist-ec2GXD-pQfZis-pQejhk-abtQ4m-abqYWn-q7qH9t-paRAwc-pQekfT-pQaZbx-pQd3Vm-pQeiDg-7snzJz-abqYLr-9aY1AC-7Z7icT-pcZ26o-pcZH5Z-q7Akwz-73Y6CH-XHySq-73Y72P-74349h-dosdwt-9Lw23u-drxPVM-9ssHs4">University of Salford Press Office</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>In his <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/ed-miliband-resigns-the-labour-leaders-resignation-speech--full-text-10236019.html">resignation speech</a>, Miliband called for such an open and honest debate. Deputy leader Harriet Harman will serve as caretaker leader in the interim but has confirmed that she will not stay on in her post. </p>
<p>It will be important not to rush the selection process. Sufficient time needs to be allowed for a thorough and searching debate.</p>
<p>The New Labour brand has become toxic, largely because of Tony Blair and the Iraq war, but it did deliver three successive election victories for the party. New Labour was a winning formula because it sought to appeal to those who had aspirations for their families. It paid as much attention to wealth creation as it did to its redistribution.</p>
<p>The global financial crisis suggested that New Labour had been too relaxed about how people made their money and in particular the regulation of the banks. Ed Miliband thought voters had moved to the left as a result. But there was never much evidence of that, and the election results suggest that many remained on the right. Miliband was convinced that there were few votes in the centre to play for and in effect went for a core vote strategy, appealing to traditional Labour supporters.</p>
<p>It is generally agreed that Miliband gave an effective election campaign. He came across as credible, passionate and competent. But the relatively short period of a campaign is not long enough to overcome deeply-rooted perceptions of an individual. His ratings improved, but they still remained highly negative.</p>
<h2>The waiting list</h2>
<p>Potential candidates for the Labour leadership were being discussed even before Miliband resigned on the morning after the election. Ed Balls has lost his seat, but probably would not have been a significant contender anyway.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81039/original/image-20150508-22740-v07p41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81039/original/image-20150508-22740-v07p41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81039/original/image-20150508-22740-v07p41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81039/original/image-20150508-22740-v07p41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81039/original/image-20150508-22740-v07p41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81039/original/image-20150508-22740-v07p41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81039/original/image-20150508-22740-v07p41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Burnham for the top job?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/salforduniversity/4343373046/in/photolist-qAE3yE-7BNVub-nSHzHA-5R2Ef5-8i8YCr-nSHzJ7-8i93QB-8iciS5-8ibYCQ-8i8hRn-8ibYm1-8ic5Z5-8ibUZS-8ibxd7-8ickL7-8i8ghp-8ibB9L-8i8Q9K-5QXoKg-5ojv1P-5R2F6o-egL7UU-dRi8UC-6z4iZ1-9gFBHo-8i8x5g-8i99yF-8ibSN7-8i9yWM-8icezj-8i8U9H-8i8WjV-8icPyU-8i8kBt-8ibzTw-8icRxU-p6uSeM-7eJpuQ-9uwxVV">University of Salford Press Office</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>The bookies currently have <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/who-will-be-the-next-labour-leader-if-ed-miliband-resigns-after-disastrous-election-10234692.html">Andy Burnham</a> as favourite. It has been clear for some time that he has seen himself as a potential leader and he does have the indefinable but nevertheless important quality of charisma. The shadow health secretary would also appeal to different sections of the party and might be a uniting figure – radical yet responsible.</p>
<p>Shadow business secretary <a href="http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/chuka-umunna-tipped-labour-leadership-battle">Chuka Umunna</a> is ranked by the bookies as second favourite. He has attracted significant attention in recent months with his interesting back story. He is perceived to be on the right of the party and might pull support from those who still identify with New Labour, but he would need to construct a broader appeal.</p>
<p>Some way behind is shadow Home Secretary <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11591578/Leader-contenders.html">Yvette Cooper</a>. She would appeal to those members of the party associated with Gordon Brown. However, she lacks a high profile and is not seen as being particularly charismatic.</p>
<p>If one was looking for a wild card, <a href="http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/local/video-dan-jarvis-swerves-leadership-question-after-barnsley-win-1-7250514">Dan Jarvis</a>, who is a former paratrooper, might be a possibility.</p>
<p>One imponderable is whether any of these candidates would attract the support of the major unions in the way that Ed Miliband was able to. However, perhaps the ties between Labour and the unions are destined to loosen further – a topic that is sure to come up as the Labour Party re-positions itself for the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41541/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Names are already flying, but rushing an appointment would be a big mistake.Wyn Grant, Professor of politics, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/412612015-05-08T13:03:44Z2015-05-08T13:03:44ZBritain’s election is over – so what does it all mean?<p>After months of predictions from politicians of all parties, media pundits and academic experts that the UK was heading for its second consecutive hung parliament, the voters delivered a truly stunning verdict. </p>
<p>An exit poll released when the polls closed predicted a result no-one had seen coming: an increased number of Conservative MPs, a nationalist sweep in Scotland and a disappointing Labour return, ruling the left out of government. And, despite initial scepticism from almost all observers, it turned out to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-2015-live-tories-triumph-clegg-quits-snp-sweeps-scotland-41486">right on the money</a>. </p>
<p>There was to be no complex wrangling over coalitions and no minority government, as had been expected for months. Instead, David Cameron’s Conservative Party defied all predictions to win an outright parliamentary majority, securing <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32659720">331 out of 650 seats</a>. The main opposition, the Labour party, was left with just 232.</p>
<p>This is a shock on a par with the 1992 general election, when the Conservatives snatched victory from the jaws of defeat – or at least, a hung parliament – with a sudden late shift in support. </p>
<p>But above all, this is a triumph for David Cameron.</p>
<h2>Bouncing back</h2>
<p>Cameron entered government in 2010 having failed to secure a majority of seats in parliament. That meant he was forced to form a coalition with the centrist Liberal Democrats. His administration took power during a nightmarish financial crisis: the former governor of the Bank of England <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/apr/29/mervyn-king-warns-election-victor">warned</a> that whoever took office could be out of power for a generation because of the severity of the austerity measures it would need to implement. </p>
<p>The Tories were also soon confronted with a major electoral threat in the form of the right-wing United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which seemed primed to steal crucial Tory votes in marginal seats. It seemed to be an impossible situation. </p>
<p>Instead, Cameron’s Conservatives have become the first incumbent governing party since 1983 to increase their share of parliamentary seats.</p>
<h2>Bad bets</h2>
<p>The election was a disaster for Labour, which had hoped to form at least a minority government, and an outright catastrophe for the Conservatives’ partners in coalition, the Liberal Democrats.</p>
<p>The roots of Labour’s defeat can be traced back to 2010, when the party chose Ed Miliband as its leader. Forgoing his slicker, better-known brother David, it apparently bought into the younger Miliband’s soft-left strategy of opposing the coalition’s austerity policies, on the assumption it would fail and become wildly unpopular among voters. </p>
<p>Ultimately, Miliband’s Labour party failed to offer a convincing narrative of its economic mistakes in government before 2010. Instead, Labour activists and trade unionists wanted a return to core Labour values and left-leaning policies after the centrism of the 1990s and 2000s. It turned out that the electorate did not.</p>
<p>Labour’s disastrous results in Scotland, where it lost all but one of its seats, compounded its problems but did not cause them. Even if it had retained all its Scottish seats, Labour would still have lost the election.</p>
<p>As for the Liberal Democrats, their pitiful return is a damning indictment of now-ex-leader Nick Clegg’s decision to join a coalition with the Conservatives in 2010. That decision has turned out to be a strategic blunder of historic proportions. </p>
<p>The Lib Dems’ political stock began tanking as soon as they went into coalition. Having presented themselves as a centre-left party since at least the mid-1990s, it was wrenching in the extreme for the Lib Dems to suddenly join a centre-right coalition, and clearly, their base vote evaporated in response. </p>
<p>They have now lost all but eight of their 57 seats, rewinding them to a level of parliamentary representation not seen since the 1970s – and most of their heavyweight talents have been scalped. Having been in power for five years, the party will now struggle to survive as a relevant political force.</p>
<h2>Get in line</h2>
<p>The Conservatives will bask in the glow of victory, achieved against the odds. However, while the task of forming a government will now be much simpler than anyone predicted, the process of governing will not be easy. </p>
<p>Their majority is razor-thin and could easily be lost with just a few by-election defeats, as happened to John Major’s government in the 1990s. The opposition parties, soon to be under new leadership, will seize any opportunity they can to inflict defeats on the government. Today’s Conservatives may one day need to strike a deal with Northern Irish unionists to maintain their hold on power, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/the-major-minority-1314246.html">just as Major did</a>. </p>
<p>Let’s not forget that, unlike previous prime ministers, Cameron will not be able to call an early election at a convenient time, unless he changes the law and abandons the <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-the-uk-call-time-on-fixed-term-elections-35051">Fixed-term Parliaments Act</a> – which his government introduced.</p>
<p>In the sharply divided House of Commons created by this election, party management will be crucial. Cameron will face difficulties with his own backbenchers; they have been <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/nov/06/david-cameron-european-arrest-warrant-backbench-revolt">rebellious</a> in the past five years – and there’s no reason to suppose things will change now. They will expect Cameron to show them more consideration now he no longer has to make compromises with the Liberal Democrats. </p>
<p>In particular, the promised <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-a-referendum-were-held-today-our-poll-suggests-britain-would-stay-in-the-eu-41148">in/out referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU</a> could badly split the Conservative Party if Cameron campaigns for a vote to remain in the EU while many of his backbenchers – and some frontbenchers – campaign for a “Brexit”. It could yet destroy his premiership prematurely.</p>
<h2>North of the border</h2>
<p>The other major challenge facing the new government is the question of Scotland. All but three of Scotland’s 59 parliamentary seats have <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-scotland-32635871">fallen to the Scottish nationalists</a> in a landslide, giving a separatist party a mandate to speak for practically all of one of the UK’s four constituent countries. </p>
<p>If they win the elections for the Scottish parliament in 2016, the SNP may well seek a second independence referendum. Cameron will <a href="https://theconversation.com/next-uk-governments-legitimacy-crisis-in-scotland-will-be-a-weapon-for-the-snp-41402">find it hard</a> to resist that demand, and a second “indyref” could prove much harder for the unionists to win than the 2014 vote was. </p>
<p>If Scottish independence were the result, the Conservatives <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-political-party-is-threatening-the-union-and-its-not-the-snp-40507">would not be blameless</a>. Their success in this election clearly relied in part on scaring English voters about the prospect of a Labour government dependent on the SNP’s support, in exchange for damaging concessions. </p>
<p>So it is by no means certain that the UK will remain intact by the next scheduled election in 2020. The future constitution and makeup of the UK and its position in the EU are huge political unknowns; they are about to be addressed under a government with a dangerously slim majority in parliament – and only one seat in Scotland. </p>
<p>So the Conservatives are celebrating their victory now – but the prospect of trouble ahead is ominous in the extreme.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41261/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Quinn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A stunning surprise put the Conservatives back in power with no need for a coalition, while the Scottish nationalists stormed to victory north of the border. What now?Tom Quinn, Senior Lecturer, Department of Government, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/415342015-05-08T13:01:25Z2015-05-08T13:01:25ZExplainer: how political parties choose their leaders<p>The Conservatives’ convincing victory in the general election has simplified the post-election arithmetic in parliament. There will be no coalitions or minority administrations and so the Conservatives’ principal opponents are no longer relevant to the government-formation process. </p>
<p>Their defeats in the election call into question their strategies and as is usually the case these days, when that happens, the person at the top pays the price. The Labour leader Ed Miliband, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, and Nigel Farage, the UKIP leader, have all announced their resignations.</p>
<p>Leadership elections in these three parties raise the question of <a href="http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/%7Etquinn/index.html">how they choose their leaders</a>. All now use a form of all-member postal ballots, although there are differences between them.</p>
<h2>New rules for the Labour Party</h2>
<p>Labour previously used an electoral college of MPs/MEPs, party members and trade unionists to choose its leaders, including Ed Miliband in 2010. However, <a href="http://action.labour.org.uk/page/-/Collins_Report_Party_Reform.pdf?source=14_02_06_CollinsReport_Delegates&subsource=labour_email&utm_medium=email&utm_source=labourUK&utm_campaign=14_02_06_CollinsReport_Delegates">it switched</a> to a form of all-member ballots in 2014, although the system has not yet been used and questions remain about its operation. Individual party members will be entitled to vote, but so will two new categories of participant. </p>
<p>The first is affiliated supporters, which consist of individual trade unionists who have indicated that they wish their party affiliation fees (funded from the political levy, a small sum of money in addition to normal union dues and used for political campaigning) to be paid directly to the Labour Party rather than via their trade unions as they have historically been. This requirement for positive consent is a change: trade unionists were previously automatically entitled to vote in Labour leadership elections.</p>
<p>The second is registered supporters, who are not members of the party but support its principles. On the payment of a small registration fee (the level of which has not yet been decided), they too could vote in leadership elections. They would need to sign a statement affirming their support for Labour’s values. There would be no separate sections in the ballot: the votes of party members, affiliated supporters and registered supporters would all count for exactly the same in a single national ballot. MPs would not have weighted votes but would participate in their capacity as individual party members.</p>
<p>Labour candidates must be MPs and each would need to be nominated by 15% of Labour MPs (approximately 35 on current forecasts). The alternative vote (AV) electoral system would be used, where voters rank the candidates in order. To win, a candidate must secure 50% + 1 votes. If no-one achieves that after counting first preferences, the lowest-ranked candidate drops out and his/her votes are reallocated to their stated second preferences. The process continues until someone passes the winning threshold.</p>
<p>Great uncertainty surrounds Labour’s system because it has never been used. How many trade unionists have thus far signed up as affiliated supporters? <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/sep/26/labour-leadership-results-election">Less than 10% of trade unionists participated in the 2010 contest</a> – and that was despite not having to take any further action than completing the ballot papers they received in the post. </p>
<p>The unions might run campaigns to convert members into affiliated supporters but it is not clear how many would be interested. And how many registered supporters would sign up? This category creates the possibility of a primary election for the party leadership, but there is no indication of how appealing that would be to non-party members. It is possible, though not certain, that the selectorate could consist mainly of existing party members.</p>
<h2>Lib Dems – a sense of proportion</h2>
<p>The Liberal Democrats have used all-member ballots to choose their leaders since the party was formed from the merger of the Liberals and the Social Democratic Party in 1988. Candidates for the leadership must be MPs and they must be proposed by 10% of Liberal Democrat MPs – not including themselves. </p>
<p>Since the Lib Dems are predicted to win just eight seats, that means each candidate will require one other nomination. Candidates must also be nominated by at least 200 individual party members from at least 20 local constituency parties. If only one nominee emerges, he or she will become the leader without a ballot.</p>
<p>If more than one candidate comes forward, a ballot of party members will take place, lasting up to two months. MPs can vote in their capacity as individual members, but their votes are not worth any more than those of ordinary activists. Hustings take place across the country and a postal ballot is held. The AV electoral system is used, with the winning candidate needing to secure 50% + 1 votes on first- or lower preferences.</p>
<h2>UKIP – need not be an MP</h2>
<p>UKIP’s leader is chosen in a similar way but with a different electoral system. Candidates need not be MPs but must be proposed and assented to by 50 party members of good standing, drawn from at least 10 local associations. If only one candidate is nominated, he or she will become leader. If two or more candidates emerge, they will go through to an all-member postal ballot conducted under first-past-the-post. That means there is no need to win 50% + 1 votes, but only the largest single share of votes.</p>
<p>In each of the three parties, an interim leader is possible, to hold the fort until a leadership election has taken place.</p>
<p>The Labour leadership election will almost certainly be contested by two or more candidates. It is not clear whether the same will happen in the Liberal Democrat party, where a coronation, perhaps of Tim Farron, could be more likely. Meanwhile, Farage has already hinted he would consider standing as a candidate in the UKIP contest later in the summer. The general election may be over, but politics as usual continues.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41534/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Quinn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The shock election result means that three parties are now leaderless – how will they choose replacements?Tom Quinn, Senior Lecturer, Department of Government, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/415252015-05-08T08:17:35Z2015-05-08T08:17:35ZMilibandism crushed at the polls, but Ed doomed from the start<p>Five years ago, Ed Miliband decided to stand for the leadership of the Labour Party because he felt the global financial crisis had opened the way to a centre-left moment. He was ready to turn the page on New Labour with a new focus on inequality. It turns out that he was wrong. Very wrong. Five years on, British voters have rejected Milibandism at the polls in an overwhelming manner. <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-2015-live-conservatives-in-driving-seat-snp-makes-sweeping-gains-41486">Labour is on course</a> for its worse electoral result since 1987.</p>
<p>This outcome has come as a huge shock to the party, the commentators and the pollsters, as it contradicted all the opinion polls conducted in the past year which had showed the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-numbers-that-explain-the-british-election-polling-deadlock-40130">two parties stuck neck and neck</a>. It also contradicted the general perception that, despite the odds, Labour had fought a good campaign.</p>
<h2>What went wrong</h2>
<p>Many things went wrong for Miliband from the very beginning of his leadership. He started by winning the leadership of the party in the wrong way. Not only did he defeat his older brother, David, by a very small margin, he also won thanks to the votes of the trade unions. This simple fact had a devastating effect over Ed Miliband’s chances to become prime minister.</p>
<p>Winning in the wrong way meant that Miliband had little control over the Labour Party. He spent most of his leadership trying to get the party behind his agenda. Some backbenchers have not yet digested the fact that the wrong Miliband had won the leadership election. Most had misgivings about Ed Miliband’s agenda, which was seen as too left-wing and lacking economic credibility. </p>
<p>The powerful Blairite wing was particularly good at sharing its reservations about Miliband’s leadership skills with the media. And even those who supported his agenda were critical of his overly cautious style and legendary indecision. As a result, Miliband looked like a lone rider.</p>
<p>His isolation in the party was quickly picked up and exploited by the media. Throughout Miliband’s leadership, countless stories about party divisions, about his shortcomings as a leader, and several <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2824453/Bonfire-Night-plot-oust-Ed-Labour-crisis-MPs-hold-secret-meeting-demand-Axe-leader-ll-lose-election.html">plot attempts</a> to oust him, were published in the main news outlets, contributing to construct the image of a weak leader. Miliband’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/ed-milibands-last-chance-to-tackle-image-problem-and-cut-through-to-voters-31951">failure to counteract such serious image problems</a> meant he failed to come across as an authoritative leader.</p>
<p>But the right-wing media also liked to present him as a thoroughly dangerous politician. When his proposals for a Mansion Tax or a freeze on energy prices were not being <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2924325/Mansion-tax-sounds-like-Soviet-Russia-Lord-Winston-says-Labour-plan-force-people-homes-happened-Marxist-revolution.html">compared to Stalin’s Soviet Union</a>, he was portrayed as the “weird” politician who was clearly not fit to enter Downing Street.</p>
<p>This only intensified during the electoral campaign. For six weeks, the Miliband was portrayed in the right-wing press as either a dangerous politician who would ruin the country, or as a puppet of the SNP. Judging by the surprising victory of the Conservative Party, this strategy of fear worked.</p>
<p>As a result of these constraints he was forced to concede on a number of areas, namely on the deficit. As Miliband was unable to dispel the public perception that the financial and deficit crisis that hit Britain in 2008 <a href="https://theconversation.com/fact-check-did-labour-overspend-and-leave-a-deficit-that-was-out-of-control-41118">had been caused by Labour’s overspending</a>, he was forced to accept – albeit reluctantly – some form of austerity. This reluctant embrace of austerity proved to be fatal – it had the effect of alienating Labour voters in Scotland and it failed to convince English voters about Labour’s economic competence.</p>
<p>Judging by the increase in the vote share of UKIP, English voters were also unconvinced by Labour’s stances on immigration. Labour’s qualified support of immigration also had the effect of alienating both progressive voters and undecided voters, who preferred the clear certainty of UKIP’s message.</p>
<h2>What next for Ed?</h2>
<p>As the results were still being counted in the early hours after the polls closed, <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/263584b0-f4fd-11e4-abb5-00144feab7de.html#axzz3ZWXmq5Tv">the knives were already out for Miliband</a> and it is expected that he will resign soon. The powerful Blairite wing will argue that Labour lost because it shifted too much to the left and failed to develop a credible economic programme.</p>
<p>If it is true that Miliband failed to win the debate about the economy, this diagnosis of Labour’s crushing defeat leaves quite a lot of important questions unanswered. For example, it does not explain why UKIP has done so well in Labour’s heartlands in England. More importantly, the Blairite response would have not prevented the SNP surge. In fact, quite the opposite, as the SNP has won many Labour voters thanks to its anti-austerity message. It is also worth mentioning that Labour started to lose Scotland to the SNP <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/may/04/scotland.devolution">in the New Labour era</a> and not only in the aftermath of the independence referendum.</p>
<p>This means that whoever will become the next Labour leader – Andy Burnham, Rachel Reeves, Chuka Umunna might be some of the contenders – will struggle to develop a credible response to the party’s electoral challenges in England and in Scotland.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41525/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Five years ago, Ed Miliband decided to stand for the leadership of the Labour Party because he felt the global financial crisis had opened the way to a centre-left moment. He was ready to turn the page…Eunice Goes, Associate Professor of Politics, Richmond American International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/414022015-05-07T05:54:38Z2015-05-07T05:54:38ZNext UK government’s legitimacy crisis in Scotland will be a weapon for the SNP<p>In British politics there is a crucial distinction between political legitimacy and governmental authority. Essentially any UK government has the constitutional authority to govern as long as it can command the confidence of the House of Commons. </p>
<p>Political legitimacy, on the other hand, stems from a somewhat slippier judgement. This is based on a combination of parliamentary arithmetic, being perceived to be the “winner”, and your ability to form a government with adequate support throughout Britain (I’m deliberately ignoring Northern Ireland since the three main parties do not compete there). In Scotland between 1979 and 1997, for example, the Conservative governments always had governmental authority but they increasingly lacked political legitimacy. </p>
<p>One of the less discussed effects of coalition politics <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/region/7.stm">post-2010</a> was perceptions of UK government legitimacy. Whereas the Conservatives held just one of Scotland’s 59 seats during the life of the parliament (albeit 16.7% of the vote), combined with the Liberal Democrats the government had 12 seats and 35.6% of votes. The legitimacy that this gave the coalition in Scotland is perhaps the key under-stated Lib Dem effect on the politics of the past five years.</p>
<h2>The new Scottish establishment</h2>
<p>This time it may be quite different, of course. While the 55%-45% <a href="https://www.scotreferendum.com">referendum vote</a> preserved the territorial integrity of the UK, David Cameron’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/19/david-cameron-devolution-revolution-uk-scotland-vote">linkage of</a> English Votes for English Laws to plans for further devolution to Scotland, just minutes after the announcement of the result, undoubtedly played into Scottish nationalist hands. It was nakedly party political – over 97% of Conservative MPs were drawn from English seats. Since then unionism has been in retreat in Scotland, with the Scottish National Party (SNP) increasing its membership four-fold and looking set to emerge as Scotland’s dominant party at Westminster, and potentially holding the balance of power.</p>
<p>Consequently there are numerous minority, majority and formal or informal coalition post-election scenarios, many of which raise questions of legitimacy north of the border. If the polls are <a href="http://may2015.com/featured/election-2015-will-half-of-scotland-vote-for-the-snp-their-poll-lead-has-only-strengthened/">to be believed</a>, a Tory/Lib Dem group looks highly problematic. The Lib Dems look set to lose many of their Scottish seats and the Tories will not improve (indeed may lose) on the one seat they have. </p>
<p>Nor do the prospects look much better for Labour, which has <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32542765">ruled out</a> any deal with the SNP. Scottish Labour is presently only polling in the 27%-29% region, not unlike the Scottish Conservatives vote share back in 1979 and 1983. If polls are to be believed, Labour could end up with fewer seats (ten) than the Conservatives had after the “doomsday scenario” election of 1987.</p>
<h2>Project Demonise</h2>
<p>This coming legitimacy problem has been foreshadowed by the tone of the UK campaign towards the SNP. Cameron’s soothing post-2010 <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-19942638">unionist rhetoric</a> ahead of the <a href="http://www.gov.scot/About/Government/concordats/Referendum-on-independence">Edinburgh Agreement</a>, where he and Alex Salmond agreed the terms of the referendum, stands in marked contrast to the UK general election campaigning language of unionism in 2015. The tribalism of Scottish politics has meant that the Labour Party has willingly played along with what social psychologists have termed the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/general-election-conservatives-mocked-online-over-boris-johnsons-claim-of-snp-jockalypse-10228433.html?fb_action_ids=10152957281327987&fb_action_types=og.shares">“othering”</a> of the SNP. This <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ff5a5a3e-e834-11e4-9960-00144feab7de.html">demonisation</a> of the SNP, Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon is unlikely to feature in the historical highlights of British unionism.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80704/original/image-20150506-10916-14phqfh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80704/original/image-20150506-10916-14phqfh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80704/original/image-20150506-10916-14phqfh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80704/original/image-20150506-10916-14phqfh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80704/original/image-20150506-10916-14phqfh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80704/original/image-20150506-10916-14phqfh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80704/original/image-20150506-10916-14phqfh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80704/original/image-20150506-10916-14phqfh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Conservative Party</span></span>
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<p>The context is an acceptance across the political spectrum today that the UK is an ever-looser union. Flexibility and pragmatism in UK territorial management have now been firmly established as the post-devolution operating code of UK political elites. The strident unitary unionism of the Conservatives 1979-1997 is the constitutional politics of a bygone era. Yet to date, the unionist parties’ approach to devolution has been grudging, incremental adjustment. The <a href="https://www.smith-commission.scot">Smith Commission</a>, which was set up to transfer more powers to Scotland after the referendum, was just the latest chapter in this story. </p>
<h2>The dog-fight to come</h2>
<p>So what happens when legitimacy comes back to haunt us? The old questions of the democratic deficit and doomsday scenarios raised in Scottish politics in the 1980s and 1990s are likely to be seen as a pale preview of the post-2015 political and constitutional dog-fight. The campaign was merely the sparring phase. The SNP is likely to make a weapon of the issue. Post-election the gloves could be off and the very continuance of the union is likely to come under great strain. It will be very much the watch “what happens” of UK politics post-2015. </p>
<p>Constitutional reform will be firmly on the agenda. The roadblock has always been the two main parties. It can only happy if one of them chooses the exit road of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-bring-scotland-back-into-the-fold-of-the-union-theres-only-one-answer-41283">constitutional convention</a>, as Scottish Labour did in the 1980s. It is true that existing arrangements have proved more durable than has often been predicted. The issue of English Votes for English Laws has endured since it <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/west-lothian-question/">first cropped up</a> as the West Lothian Question in the 1970s. </p>
<p>So has the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/1580787/How-the-Barnett-formula-works.html">Barnett formula</a>, from which redistribution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are calculated. But this period now looks to be ending. The recent series of constitutional commissions – <a href="http://gov.wales/funding/financereform/reports/?lang=en">Holtham</a> in Wales, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/mckay-commission">McKay</a> for all the outlying nations, and most importantly Smith in Scotland – are likely to be seen in history as the precursors of significant constitutional change beyond Westminster.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80708/original/image-20150506-10940-w3gb7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80708/original/image-20150506-10940-w3gb7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80708/original/image-20150506-10940-w3gb7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80708/original/image-20150506-10940-w3gb7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80708/original/image-20150506-10940-w3gb7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80708/original/image-20150506-10940-w3gb7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80708/original/image-20150506-10940-w3gb7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80708/original/image-20150506-10940-w3gb7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A change is gonna come.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://images.pressassociation.com/meta/2.22876058.html">Steve Allen</a></span>
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<p>The problem is that legitimacy issues in Scotland will only be the tip of the iceberg. The prospect of further devolution in Scotland has had the very obvious “what about us?” effect in Northern Ireland and Wales. The UK government appears to be caught up in a logic of events over which it has little control. In short, the old elitist British conception of statecraft based on strong, centralised government looks set to come under increasing strain. The challenge for whoever next takes the reins is to try and find a new settlement. </p>
<p><em>This piece draws on Neil’s chapter The Coalition Effect 2010-2015, which was published in March.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41402/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neil McGarvey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>One of the consequences of the SNP’s rise is that the new UK government will have very few seats in Scotland. This looks set to become a hot potato after the election.Neil McGarvey, Politics Lecturer, University of Strathclyde Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/413882015-05-07T05:50:54Z2015-05-07T05:50:54ZElection 2015: the most heavily managed campaign of all time<p>Over the two years that this election campaign has effectively been running, it has arguably been the most heavily managed in UK history. The tendency has only intensified as we approach polling day and the opinion polls <a href="http://may2015.com">point to</a> an uncertain outcome. </p>
<p>Television coverage of the campaign trail, which has dominated the election once again, has been faithfully relaying the latest <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/922801/The-Image-A-Guide-to-Pseudo-Events-in-America">pseudo-events</a> constructed by the parties as news. The 24/7 news channels are particularly vulnerable, such is the need for slick packaged visuals to help fill airtime. </p>
<p>By now the viewing public must be somewhat inured to images of the party leaders surrounded by carefully selected enthusiastic supporters, many holding placards with key party slogans, strategically placed to appear in shot for media camera crews. We also now have the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11498227/Tory-MPs-ordered-to-pose-for-photos-with-voters-during-selfie-election.html">“spontaneous selfie”</a>, as party leaders have endless photos taken with excited supporters. </p>
<p>Not only are these ideal for being shared on new media, they are also filmed by old media for inclusion in news reports on evening news bulletins. What better way to appear normal and connected with real people than to participate in the selfie phenomenon? In reality, one senses they would struggle to hold a conversation with them.</p>
<p>Message and candidate control have been a key element of the main parties’ communication strategies. There has been a grim determination to ensure that party leaders do not actually meet any real people, for fear of unscripted moments like when Gordon Brown <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/apr/29/gordon-brown-gillian-duffy-bigot">referred to</a> a voter as a bigot in 2010 without realising he was being recorded. Such “moments of truth” are anathema to the carefully constructed images and narratives of the campaign managers. </p>
<h2>When is a debate not a debate?</h2>
<p>Another defining feature of this presidentialised campaign has been the stilted debate formats. They have provided very little debate – and indeed no one-on-one clashes between the two rivals for Number 10 – as <a href="http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/03/milibands-performance-last-night-vindicates-the-tories-strategy-of-no-head-to-head-debates/">intended by</a> Conservative Party strategy. Instead we have been treated to the regurgitation of pre-crafted sound-bites. A rare exception was the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/30/tonights-election-leaders-question-time-comes-from-dreamworld">palpable audience frustration</a> during BBC Question Time on April 30, where we glimpsed public desire for some straight answers from politicians. </p>
<p>These debates might have offered little new in terms of content and policy, but they attracted a huge amount of media commentary. This meta-coverage is exemplified by the introduction of the spin room into the election lexicon. The spin room represents the mainstream media’s open complicity with the campaign managers to manufacture the news. </p>
<p>Perhaps the most glaring example was when David Cameron did not participate in a BBC leaders’ debate, but his spin doctors <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/chicken-david-cameron-sends-spin-5526898">were allowed to</a> interpret the event for journalists in the spin room. In effect the spin room offers a platform for the instant recycling of the latest party briefing, however thin, in what now apparently passes for sophisticated and informed analysis. Just because many reporters and correspondents openly fess up to this contrivance does not make it any more illuminating or helpful to the voter.</p>
<p>It is clear that social media has been factored into election strategies as well, though somewhat uncreatively. The main parties <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2015/apr/27/social-media-general-election-political-parties">appear highly risk averse</a> on these digital platforms. And there is a sense that much of this is consumed by the politically converted and committed. Whether all the trolling and extolling that passes for political dialogue within partisan filter bubbles is reaching and influencing undecided voters <a href="http://may2015.com/featured/which-party-is-winning-the-war-on-social-media/">remains to be seen</a>. </p>
<h2>The torture chamber</h2>
<p>If the TV debates, spin rooms and social media “buzz” represent an electoral echo chamber then the partisan British press resemble a torture chamber, particularly for Ed Miliband. He has faced relentless negative coverage in Tory-supporting newspapers, and this <a href="http://blog.lboro.ac.uk/general-election/media-coverage-of-the-2015-campaign-report-4/">appears to be</a> intensifying in the final stretch of the campaign. </p>
<p>Little wonder that Labour was keen to fight this campaign on television and radio. This is just as evident as the Tory campaign calculus to avoid formats where Cameron may become unstuck, place leadership at the centre of its campaign, and continually repeat its key messages (Conservative = competence, Labour = chaos x SNP influence).</p>
<p>It is hard not to conclude that the spin doctors in the main parties appear to have based their communication strategies on a rather pessimistic view of the British public. On this logic, voters cannot be trusted to make informed judgements on complicated public policy matters, and politicians must stick to very basic messages that might “break through” and resonate. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20461630">Lynton Crosby</a>, the chief Tory party strategist, is a recognised master of this style of dog-whistle campaigning. It plays to popular prejudices and identifies wedge issues that divide parties from their core support. The repeated Tory emphasis on the role and legitimacy of the SNP is perhaps the most high-risk wedge issue in British public life just now. How this plays out may have implications well beyond the formation of the next government and well beyond the control of the party spinners.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41388/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Will is a steering committee member of the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation in Europe, and of co-founder & director of Spinwatch. The views expressed here are entirely his own, however. </span></em></p>From spontaneous selfies to the spin room, the communications gurus have excelled themselves this time aroundWill Dinan, Lecturer, Communications, Media and Culture, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/410982015-05-06T19:50:51Z2015-05-06T19:50:51ZThe Scottish questions linger, forcing a shift in British politics<p>Scotland’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/scotland-decides-14">independence referendum</a> last September captured the international imagination. Ultimately, Scotland’s electorate voted 55% to 45% to stay in the United Kingdom, but this is clearly not the end of the story.</p>
<p>Mainstream politics have been shaken up, especially in Scotland, and the political elite now has to confront a bigger issue: the ongoing evolution of its political landscape and the lingering confusion over the UK’s constitutional make-up.</p>
<h2>Referendum’s legacies live on</h2>
<p>One of the largest impacts and successes of the referendum was the mass mobilising of a political conversation at grassroots level. Certainly the guiding compass of the debate earned plaudits for being centred on a civic national question, not an ethnic one. </p>
<p>Arguably this debate, with the exception of its extremes, was not about nationalism at all. Rather, it was about a contemporary internationalism and a new settlement between nations (the UK is a collection of nations after all). </p>
<p>Certainly, there was to be no simple disappearing of “Britain” with independence. For example, the monarchy would have remained. Unless a separate referendum on a republic was held, the monarchy is British (that is, there is technically no Queen of England), made from a union of the Scottish and English crowns.</p>
<p>Importantly, much of the referendum debate centred on issues of social justice and social democracy outcomes, on protecting the National Health Service from privatisation and starting to unhitch from the neo-liberal economic agenda of mainstream Westminster. Oh, and Trident – there is a strong anti-nuclear weapons edge to the Scottish electorate’s concerns, as the UK nuclear arsenal is housed in deep water on the west coast of Scotland.</p>
<p>Social media massively aided this grassroots engagement with politics. The Yes camp was particularly active and successful in this regard, and did so across traditional party lines – to mobilise for a movement and not for a specific party (the SNP). In the end, 45% voting for independence probably surprised many people. It was a very close call.</p>
<p>The vote may well have been more like a 50-50 result had the Westminster leaders not all high-tailed it to Scotland in the final week of the referendum campaign. They campaigned hard to reinforce their relatively negative strategy of focusing on the economic risks of leaving the UK and some hasty promises on further devolution for Scotland.</p>
<h2>‘Business as usual’ approach fails</h2>
<p>Nevertheless, the referendum outcome has not led to a return to the status quo – at least, not as much as the mainstream Westminster UK parties had hoped for. In fact, the Westminster response and “business as usual” approach has been perceived as an obdurate dismissal of the Scottish electorate’s concerns.</p>
<p>For example, after promising in the wake of the referendum to deliver more on Scotland’s concerns for devolution, the Westminster and media debate quickly gravitated to discussion on a perceived democratic deficit and a stoking up of Scotland versus England rhetoric. This included debates over the democratic deficit for English voters, with the Conservatives and UK Independence Party (UKIP) playing on petty nationalist fears by proposing EVEL (<a href="https://theconversation.com/dilly-dallying-coalition-is-still-baffled-by-the-english-question-35606">English Votes for English Laws</a>) at Westminster. </p>
<p>Therein lies the conceit because there is a default assumption that Westminster is a de facto English parliament, which it is not: it is a British parliament and responsible to represent all of the UK’s constituent interests. So confusion reigns, with strategies of playing on the fears and misapprehension of voters as a mode of realpolitik due to the small matter of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/uk-general-election-2015">UK general election</a> on May 7 (and the need to shore up English confidence in Westminster). </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/29/the-sun-backs-the-tories-for-election-but-scottish-edition-backs-the-snp">front pages of the UK and Scottish editions</a> of The Sun (a Murdoch instrument) – one endorsing the Conservatives, the other the SNP – neatly sum up the aspirations of both the paper and the Conservatives in terms of keeping Labour out of office.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80402/original/image-20150505-8421-14df75b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80402/original/image-20150505-8421-14df75b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80402/original/image-20150505-8421-14df75b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80402/original/image-20150505-8421-14df75b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80402/original/image-20150505-8421-14df75b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80402/original/image-20150505-8421-14df75b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80402/original/image-20150505-8421-14df75b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Sun newspaper headlines for the UK and Scottish editions.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nevertheless, and to his credit, Labour leader <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/election-2015-32560887">Ed Miliband has pushed back</a> against the stirring of petty nationalism in England, recognising that the Conservative strategy is to divide and rule.</p>
<h2>SNP reshapes electoral calculus</h2>
<p>The problem for Labour is that the party is on the verge of a <a href="http://may2015.com/featured/election-2015-will-half-of-scotland-vote-for-the-snp-their-poll-lead-has-only-strengthened/">wipe-out in Scotland</a>, and Labour has always depended on a significant swathe of Scottish seats to form a government in Westminster. Indeed, Labour may well still <a href="http://may2015.com/featured/election-2015-do-polls-and-predictions-now-suggest-david-cameron-can-win/">depend on Scottish seats but with SNP MPs</a> sitting in them. </p>
<p>The SNP is widely predicted to win around 55 of Scotland’s 59 seats come the morning of May 8. The party currently has only six seats and in UK terms has been relatively insignificant. Not any more.</p>
<p>Yet mis-direction is freely available; not least due to the highly complex nature of UK constitutional arrangements and its election process. If you were to go by the BBC poll tracker below, then you’d really have no sense that the SNP is not only a credible political force but on the verge of being the <a href="http://may2015.com/category/seat-calculator/">third-largest political party</a> in the UK, where it may well remain for a generation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80399/original/image-20150505-8415-z80xjp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80399/original/image-20150505-8415-z80xjp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80399/original/image-20150505-8415-z80xjp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80399/original/image-20150505-8415-z80xjp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80399/original/image-20150505-8415-z80xjp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80399/original/image-20150505-8415-z80xjp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80399/original/image-20150505-8415-z80xjp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80399/original/image-20150505-8415-z80xjp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A screenshot from the BBC’s online Election 2015: Poll Tracker.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Going by this poll, UKIP appears in a strong position but can only really expect to win a few seats. The SNP is not even on the chart (but mixed in with “Others”) and yet can feasibly win between 54 and 59 seats. The SNP membership has surged and is the third-largest party membership in the UK – well over 100,000 and only just short of the Conservative’s membership numbers – so the party is also becoming wealthy. </p>
<h2>Establishment politics under challenge</h2>
<p>It is the current system that has both caused confusion and enabled this political shift, and the establishment is doing its best to shout it all down as if it’s some sort of undemocratic revolution. Of course, they don’t want the challenge to appear to be a legitimate threat to their own party-political rhetoric on democracy.</p>
<p>It is clear that a shift is happening. One of the most edifying outcomes of election is the prominence of woman politicians in the shape of the leaders of the Greens (Natalie Bennett), Plaid Cymru (Leanne Wood) and the SNP (Nicola Sturgeon). All have performed with and inspired confidence.</p>
<p>Sturgeon has performed <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/02/nicola-sturgeon-im-the-boss-now">particularly well to a UK audience</a>, with voters in England even wondering if they could vote for her or the SNP. In fact, she is not even standing for Westminster election and the SNP (as you might expect) is not contesting any seats outside Scotland.</p>
<p>What is certain is that after May 7 it is out of the electorate’s hands. Come May 27, a party or coalition must win the confidence of the House of Commons to deliver the Queen’s speech to form a government. </p>
<p>Confusion reigns? To quote Francis Urquhart from the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz8RjPAD2Jk">original House of Cards</a>: you might very well think that, but of course, I couldn’t possibly comment.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read more of The Conversation’s comprehensive UK election coverage <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/election-2015">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41098/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Oliver does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Last year’s independence referendum failed narrowly, but the Scottish electorate has emerged as a force that may well decide who forms the next British government.James Oliver, Senior Lecturer, Centre for Cultural Partnerships, Faculty of the VCA and MCM, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/413252015-05-06T08:02:17Z2015-05-06T08:02:17ZWant more political parties in the US? Take a look at Britain’s election first<p>Americans, frustrated with the partisan machinations of the Republicans and Democrats, <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/165392/perceived-need-third-party-reaches-new-high.aspx">frequently yearn for a third party</a> – or parties – to balance and moderate the two major ones. </p>
<p>On Thursday the United Kingdom will <a href="http://theconversation.com/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-the-british-election-but-were-afraid-to-ask-40729">go to the polls</a>, and all signs point to <a href="http://may2015.com/category/seat-calculator/">no single party winning a majority</a>. That is, the result will be the sort of multiparty system that many American desire. </p>
<p>Far from moderating politics, the result has potential to make for more extreme politics and political instability. </p>
<p>Britain once had a stable two-party system, similar to that of the Republican/Democrat parties of the United States. In the 1950s the Conservative and Labour parties together pulled about <a href="http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/uktable.htm">96 percent of the votes,</a> and almost all of the seats in the House of Commons. The winning party would thus form a government with their leader as prime minister.</p>
<h2>The erosion of a two-part system</h2>
<p>Over decades, that dominance has eroded such that by the <a href="http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/uktable.htm">2010 general election the two main parties only polled a total of 65 percent</a>, meaning the major parties did not have enough seats in the House of Commons to form a government. This led to a coalition government between Conservatives and the smaller center-left Liberal Democrats, united in a common interest to get the budget deficit under control. </p>
<p><a href="http://may2015.com/category/seat-calculator/">Current projections</a> predict that Conservatives and Labour look to gain about two-thirds of the votes this time. Neither is likely to come close to a majority.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80554/original/image-20150505-936-1adu8bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80554/original/image-20150505-936-1adu8bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80554/original/image-20150505-936-1adu8bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80554/original/image-20150505-936-1adu8bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80554/original/image-20150505-936-1adu8bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80554/original/image-20150505-936-1adu8bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80554/original/image-20150505-936-1adu8bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80554/original/image-20150505-936-1adu8bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A supporter of the Scottish National Party (SNP)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">REUTERS/Russel Cheyne</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Where have their voters gone? Labour is mainly bleeding seats to a resurgent <a href="http://www.snp.org">Scottish Nationalist Party</a> (SNP). As its name implies, the SNP advocates Scottish independence. Ironically, being on the losing side on a referendum on the issue last September has energized a party that previously only won a handful of seats to the Parliament in London, as the party had positioned itself to the left of the Labour Party. </p>
<p>The SNP will likely take the majority of Scotland’s 59 seats; some projections even have the taking them all. That’s a major shift; for decades, Scotland reliably produced dozens of Labour MPs with solid majorities, akin to the typical Democratic wipeout in Massachusetts.</p>
<h2>The machinations and maneuvering needed to create a coalition</h2>
<p>Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives face problems on two fronts. For one, their coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, have paid the political price for the austerity policies of the past five years. Their support has slipped into single digits and the party is <a href="http://may2015.com/category/seat-calculator/">expected to lose half its current 57 seats</a>.</p>
<p>The Conservatives are also being pressured from the right-wing </p>
<p>UK Independence Party (UKIP), whose core mission is to make Britain independent of the European Union. UKIP’s leader, <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/1442985/farage-profile-man-of-the-people-and-the-pint">Nigel Farage, with his “bloke with a pint”</a> image and populist, anti-immigrant message, <a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/rod-liddle/9335821/who-are-ukips-new-voters-the-kind-of-people-who-decide-elections/">appeals to many disgruntled Conservative voters</a> who think the current government is too moderate. </p>
<p>Although polling nearly 15 percent of likely voters, the vagaries of the electoral system means that the UKIP <a href="http://may2015.com/category/seat-calculator/">may only win a handful of seats.</a> But the party may pull off enough Conservative voters in other constituencies to hand those seats Labour. </p>
<p>What might all this mean on election day? Needing 325 seats in the House of Commons to have a majority and form a government, Labour and the Conservatives are predicted to gain only somewhere between <a href="http://may2015.com/category/seat-calculator">270 to 290 seats</a> each, depending on swings either way.</p>
<p>A Labour-SNP coalition seems the most likely outcome as their combined seats may create a majority.</p>
<h2>The role of the Scottish independence party in being a deal maker</h2>
<p>Labour leader Ed Miliband and potential prime minister, however, has categorically rejected this option during the campaign. The SNP, after all, is dedicated to breaking up the United Kingdom. Even if that issue is fudged in the short term (and expect many campaign promises to fall in the sake of coalition building), the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/SNP/11368214/Nicola-Sturgeon-Scrapping-Trident-my-red-line-for-propping-up-Labour.html">SNP is demanding the elimination of Britain’s Trident submarine-based nuclear deterrent</a>, currently stationed in Scotland, as part of any coalition deal. The SNP may be able to work out what is called a “confidence and supply” agreement with Labour, which would have the SNP supporting but not formally aligning with the government. </p>
<p>This arrangement would require negotiation on each individual piece of legislation. It would be difficult for a Labour government to govern effectively under such an arrangement, potentially leading to policy gridlock or governmental instability. </p>
<p>The Conservatives, in theory, could patch together a coalition with the LibDems, UKIP, and perhaps even the small Ulster Unionist Party. However, even with the support of these parties, Conservatives might not get a majority. Even if a coalition does emerge, relying on UKIP to govern may come at a high price, pushing the Conservatives toward an even harder line in regards to the European Union, perhaps even exiting this governing body.</p>
<p>In short, the rise of smaller parties, far from moderating the positions of the main parties, may push them to more extreme policies – such as abandoning Britain’s nuclear deterrent or leaving the EU.</p>
<p>Moreover, no matter what the specifics of the arrangement, there is potential that the next British government may be hamstrung from the start due to promises made in the scramble to build a coalition and a weak and unstable majority. </p>
<p>Before wishing multiparty governance on the United States, we should all take a good, hard look at how this could play out in Britain first. The results may not be so pretty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41325/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terrence Casey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Americans unhappy with our two-party system only need look at the British election this week for an alternative. But they might not like what they see.Terrence Casey, Professor of Political Science and Head of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences , Rose-Hulman Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/407292015-05-06T05:26:39Z2015-05-06T05:26:39ZEverything you wanted to know about the British election, but were afraid to ask<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80424/original/image-20150505-16621-1hpfwmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Keep calm and explain the election to me please.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lapatia/7912821308">ale/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong>What is Britain voting for on May 7?</strong></p>
<p>Britain is voting for a new parliament, and, by extension, a new government. The election will decide the composition of the House of Commons, and ultimately, who will be prime minister. At the same time, there will be elections for local tiers of government in certain parts of the country. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Who could be prime minister afterwards?</strong></p>
<p>Although there are a large number of parties competing in this election, only the leaders of the Conservative Party and the Labour Party have any real chance of becoming prime minister. Either Conservative incumbent David Cameron will win a second term and so continue as prime minister, or Labour leader Ed Miliband will walk into Downing Street once a new government has been formed. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>What does the Queen do?</strong></p>
<p>The Queen has very little to do on election day. It is constitutionally <a href="http://www.royal.gov.uk/MonarchUK/QueenandGovernment/Queenandvoting.aspx">frowned upon</a> for her to vote, and she does not do so. Her constitutional role is simply to appoint the prime minister when the votes have been counted. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80443/original/image-20150505-16657-1kgxotm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80443/original/image-20150505-16657-1kgxotm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80443/original/image-20150505-16657-1kgxotm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80443/original/image-20150505-16657-1kgxotm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80443/original/image-20150505-16657-1kgxotm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80443/original/image-20150505-16657-1kgxotm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80443/original/image-20150505-16657-1kgxotm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Soon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ell-r-brown/9402206489">Elliott Brown/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If David Cameron can form a governing coalition, his government will continue; if Ed Miliband wins, Cameron will need to resign and the Queen will then invite Miliband to form a government. If there is no clear winner, she will not be involved in coalition negotiations; her role is to take a back seat until it is clear which party leader has been able to put together a coalition which can maintain the confidence of the House of Commons. </p>
<p>It is traditional for the incoming prime minister to be driven to Buckingham Palace where he/she will have a short meeting with the monarch. They will usually then head back down the road to Downing Street, making a short speech to the waiting press outside Number Ten. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>So what actually happens on May 7?</strong></p>
<p>The UK is split into 650 parliamentary constituencies, each of which elects one representative to sit in the House of Commons, the lower chamber of the UK parliament. So there are essentially 650 mini-elections happening at once. Most of the candidates will be standing under the banner of one of the main political parties: Conservative, Labour, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-two-months-until-the-election-the-liberal-democrat-story-is-already-written-38312">Liberal Democrats</a>, the Scottish National Party (SNP – only in Scotland), <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-welsh-nationalist-party-plaid-cymru-turn-its-fortunes-around-36743">Plaid Cymru</a> (only in Wales), the <a href="https://theconversation.com/green-surge-will-be-tested-as-grassroots-are-exposed-to-media-spotlight-36442">Green</a> party, and the UK Independence Party (UKIP). </p>
<p>David Cameron is the leader of the Conservatives, but he still needs to stand as a parliamentary candidate in a constituency of his own, as do all party leaders. This means that while the competition to be prime minister is between David Cameron and Ed Miliband, they will only appear on the ballot paper in their own constituencies and nowhere else in the country. Cameron represents Witney in the west, Miliband is seeking election more than 100 miles away in the constituency of Doncaster North. </p>
<p>Votes are counted constituency by constituency, and the candidate in each constituency with the most votes becomes the Member of Parliament. If a party wins an overall majority of MPs (in this case 326), their leader will become the prime minister. This system is known as “first-past-the-post” – and it’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-message-is-clear-its-time-to-put-first-past-the-post-out-to-pasture-40984">not terribly popular</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>What happens if no party has a majority of seats?</strong></p>
<p>In British politics, it’s unusual for no party to get an overall majority of MPs. But this did happen in 2010, and it is likely to happen again this time around. </p>
<p>Where no party wins an overall majority of seats, there are several options available. Parties can try to form a coalition government with one or more other parties, as Cameron’s Conservatives did with the Liberal Democrats in 2010. </p>
<p>They could also try to form a <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-do-minority-governments-survive-39752">minority government</a>, whereby the largest party or group lacks a majority but still manages to get legislation through, an arrangement not uncommon in continental Europe and Scandinavia. Taking this approach is more complicated, and would put the prime minister in a more vulnerable position as it would be much more difficult to pass legislation through the House of Commons. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>What will they be negotiating over?</strong></p>
<p>To form a coalition government, two or more political parties and their leaders would need to get through an intense period of negotiation. In 2010, it took five days for the coalition negotiations to be completed. </p>
<p>The discussions will inevitably revolve around the key policies put forward in each party’s election <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/manifesto-check-2015">manifesto</a>. Each side will have assorted “red lines” - limits to their cooperation which may come in the form of specific policies such as the Conservative Party’s wish for an EU referendum or the SNP’s wish to stop the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent, targets for both increased spending and cuts, or perhaps even possible other coalition partners. </p>
<p>Some leaders have proved more willing than others to talk about these before the election. Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg, for instance, has said that he would not join any coalition that also included the controversial Eurosceptics of UKIP. </p>
<p>Ed Miliband has ruled out a formal coalition with the SNP, but could still have to work with them in another, less binding arrangement. He has gone so far as to have his main pledges <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32592235">carved into a stone obelisk</a> – although his election vice-chair then backpedalled, saying “I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the fact that he’s carved them into stone means that he is absolutely not going to break them or anything like that.”</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>What are some of the likely outcomes?</strong></p>
<p>Since neither party looks set for a majority, a coalition government is almost guaranteed. If David Cameron remains prime minister, he is likely to have to continue to work with the Liberal Democrats – or perhaps even UKIP. If Ed Miliband wants to be prime minister, he is likely to have to work with the SNP, the Liberal Democrats, and/or some of the very small parties (the Greens, Plaid Cymru, or parties from Northern Ireland). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80438/original/image-20150505-16621-1tw2e47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80438/original/image-20150505-16621-1tw2e47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80438/original/image-20150505-16621-1tw2e47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80438/original/image-20150505-16621-1tw2e47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80438/original/image-20150505-16621-1tw2e47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80438/original/image-20150505-16621-1tw2e47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80438/original/image-20150505-16621-1tw2e47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Open sesame.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A10_Downing_Street._MOD_45155532.jpg">MOD</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In recent weeks this has all become even more complicated, as the two main party leaders have all refused to say who they would work with and act as if they’re likely to get a majority. Ed Miliband has ruled out a coalition with the SNP, while the Liberal Democrats have said they will not take part in a government that includes the SNP or UKIP. </p>
<p>So whatever happens, the 2015 negotiations are likely to be much more difficult than they were after the last election.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>How does Scotland fit into this?</strong></p>
<p>The House of Commons represents the whole of the UK – <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-main-parties-will-regret-not-taking-english-politics-seriously-40677">England</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-northern-irish-politics-40443">Northern Ireland</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-things-to-learn-from-scotlands-journey-towards-greater-powers-39347">Scotland</a> and Wales. Scottish voters will elect MPs on the same basis as the rest of the UK, but they will have the chance to vote for different parties. The Scottish National Party (SNP) is the largest of these. </p>
<p>What is particularly interesting about Scotland in this election is that the SNP is expected to do much better than it ever has before. Thanks to a surge in membership and support since the 2014 independence referendum, it is forecast to win across many constituencies that have traditionally been won by Labour – potentially stopping Miliband from winning a clear majority of MPs. </p>
<p>He has ruled out a formal coalition with the SNP, but if his party is decimated north of the border, as some predict, he may have <a href="https://theconversation.com/ed-miliband-can-protest-all-he-likes-dealing-with-the-snp-could-be-his-only-way-into-office-40866">no other way of putting a government together</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40729/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Thompson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Who’s running? How can they win? Who’ll be in charge? And what will the Queen be doing? The election, explained.Louise Thompson, Lecturer in British Politics, University of SurreyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/412842015-05-06T05:26:19Z2015-05-06T05:26:19ZWant to form a coalition? Follow this simple step-by-step guide<p>Dear <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-cameron-wobbles-conservative-hq-needs-to-ditch-the-negative-campaign-40864">Dave</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/staking-out-the-radical-centre-wont-save-the-lib-dems-39651">Nick</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/slick-mili-from-liability-to-switched-on-leader-with-a-few-well-timed-selfies-40740">Ed</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukip-manifesto-a-bid-for-credibility-after-disappointing-campaign-kick-off-40279">Nigel</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-take-pleasure-in-the-grilling-of-natalie-bennett-38006">Natalie</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-nicola-sturgeon-want-in-return-for-supporting-a-labour-government-40426">Nicola</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-welsh-nationalist-party-plaid-cymru-turn-its-fortunes-around-36743">Leanne</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-labour-deal-might-be-a-better-bet-for-the-dup-after-the-election-40878">Peter</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-30063185">Alasdair</a>, <a href="http://allianceparty.org/contact/party-leader-david-ford">David</a>, and <a href="http://uup.org/our-people/mlas">Mike</a> (Gerry and Martin, you can <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-northern-ireland-32117985">ignore all of this</a>),</p>
<p>The outcome of the 2015 General Election may surprise us all. But what’s clear is that <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-electoral-arithmetic-keeping-britains-political-strategists-awake-at-night-40876">none of you will be able to govern alone</a>. The coalition seemed like a one-off in 2010, but now it looks like the new normal of UK politics.</p>
<p>This is frustrating for you, Dave and you, Ed, but it does provide new opportunities for the others. You may get the chance to be in government or at least exercise influence over it.</p>
<p>In order to make sure you understand what the stakes are in this game, and how you can best play the hand dealt you by the great British public on May 7, I’ve put together a bluffer’s guide for you.</p>
<h2>Rule 1: draw red lines in pencil</h2>
<p>Nick <a href="https://theconversation.com/could-nick-clegg-really-lose-his-seat-in-the-general-election-39515">knows what happens</a> when you campaign with a big flagship policy only to have to go back on your word after the election. But by the same token, you should never completely rule yourself out of making a political deal with your opponents. You never know when you will need to talk to that erstwhile implacable political foe, as Ed may find out if Nicola holds the balance of power. </p>
<h2>Rule 2: take your time</h2>
<p>There will be a lot pressure from the civil service, media, and financial markets to come to a quick deal after the election. But there’s no need to rush.</p>
<p>As far as Europe goes, the time it usually takes for a new government to form in the UK is uniquely short. The average time for European countries is about a month and, in some countries (see the <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/1735693">Netherlands</a> and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/8936857/Belgium-to-have-new-government-after-world-record-541-days.html">Belgium</a>) it can be many months before a government forms. And guess what – they are no less stable for it. </p>
<p>So take your time, and weigh up your options.</p>
<h2>Rule 3: really, really know your options</h2>
<p>So you think you know the numbers, but how well informed are you about them? Did you know that <a href="http://opus.bath.ac.uk/25979/1/Lees_How_unusual_is_the_UK_Coalition_and_what_are_the_chances_of_it_happening_again_.pdf">1,024 possible coalitions</a> could have been formed after the 2010 election? This of course ignores inconvenient details such as party membership, ideology, pre-election promises, and personal enmities, though. Taking all that into account, these are the likely options in 2015:</p>
<p><strong>Conservative minority government</strong> </p>
<p>Dave, I am sure you will find this an attractive option if the parliamentary arithmetic allows. As the incumbent prime minister and possibly the leader with the largest share of parliamentary seats, you will argue strongly that this is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/miliband-might-scrape-through-but-questions-could-remain-about-his-right-to-govern-41101">only legitimate option</a>. But the UK is a parliamentary democracy, and you’ll have to command the confidence of the House of Commons and be able to put forward a legislative agenda to make it work.</p>
<p>Strike a deal with Nick if you can, but you might also need to bring someone else in. Nick and Nigel <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/general-election-2015-nick-clegg-rules-out-lib-dem-coalition-with-any-party-also-doing-a-deal-with-snp-or-ukip-10203481.html">don’t get on</a>. Can you get them to play nicely if Nigel is elected? If not, ditch Nigel and consider looking to Northern Ireland to link up with Peter or David. </p>
<p><strong>Labour minority government</strong> </p>
<p>Ed, you’ve made this option more complicated by <a href="https://theconversation.com/ed-miliband-can-protest-all-he-likes-dealing-with-the-snp-could-be-his-only-way-into-office-40866">ruling out “deals” with Nicola</a> and by not going out of your way to woo Nick. On the plus side, you have more potential allies – and even if they’re not really allies, it would be hard for Nicola to vote with Dave to bring down Labour. What would she tell voters in Scotland? So Nicola, are you able to really lever Ed? And Ed, can you call Nicola’s bluff? Or can you find other potential partners? Have you talked to Nick? If you haven’t, you should.</p>
<p><strong>Conservative-led coalition</strong> </p>
<p>Dave, Con-Lib 2.0 would be the best available option for you. You get on with Nick and his party are a known quantity (and a bit of a pushover, you might think, but never say out loud). It becomes more problematic if you need a third party to command a majority in the Commons. Would this just be “<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-a-confidence-and-supply-government-40442">confidence and supply</a>” or would you need to offer a formal partnership? </p>
<p>Nigel might co-operate on confidence and supply, but would Nick be prepared to sit around the cabinet table with him or Douglas Carswell? In fact, Nigel has <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nigel-farage/11407038/Nigel-Farage-I-will-back-Tory-led-Coalition-if-we-have-a-EU-referendum-this-year.html">ruled out entering a formal coalition</a>, but he also said he’d <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nigel-farage/11467045/Nigel-Farage-If-I-lose-in-South-Thanet-its-curtains-for-me-I-will-have-to-quit-as-Ukip-leader.html">resign</a> if he fails to win South Thanet – and Douglas might take a different view on formal co-operation.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80546/original/image-20150505-933-cn64fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80546/original/image-20150505-933-cn64fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80546/original/image-20150505-933-cn64fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80546/original/image-20150505-933-cn64fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80546/original/image-20150505-933-cn64fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80546/original/image-20150505-933-cn64fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80546/original/image-20150505-933-cn64fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dave and Peter: a full house?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/niogovuk/10208785834/in/photolist-danvaW-danwEH-dantJ2-danuY1-danxH8-dans1g-danrFK-danyGh-gy7H5W-eRjs6T-eRvUeQ-gy61o9-gy5BWW-gJrwXf-gyu3co-gy7GmS-gJqJ68-gJqwi9-eRiVe8-hvJGGQ-danrM6-danuAZ-dant88-dany5Q-danymh-danuHE-dantAn-dant4w-dansgv-danwpM-dansPd-dantjL-danxuR-danwgM-dantcT-danuc6-danwRY-danv4G-danwyT-danwGf-danuHt-danwgw-danuQa-dansNM-danrCv-dantjX-danxFj-dansyx-dansWa-danuXr">Northern Ireland Office</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What about Peter or David? Their “plain speaking” on cultural issues like <a href="https://theconversation.com/bad-news-for-abortion-rights-if-this-northern-irish-party-holds-the-balance-of-power-in-britain-40589">abortion</a> and same-sex marriage might be a problem with your more metropolitan members and supporters. The Northern Irish parties are also keen on increasing public spending in Northern Ireland. Will die-hard provincial Tory backbenchers stand for more big-state largesse flowing to the Celtic fringes?</p>
<p><strong>Labour-led coalition</strong> </p>
<p>All options come with risks, Ed. The perils of working informally with Nicola would only be amplified in a formal coalition, and it’s hard to see how governing with the SNP would help Labour win back Scottish seats. At the same time, a Lab-SNP arrangement would play very badly south of the border, all too easily fitting a narrative of English taxpayers subsidising rebellious Scots. Ed, I can’t see Lab-SNP ending well, and would avoid it if I were you. </p>
<p>An alternative for you would be some sort of “rainbow coalition”, perhaps cobbled together with Nick and bringing in Leanne, and possibly Peter, David, or Alasdair along for the ride. Given the number of parties this might involve, coalition management would be a serious problem, and the press would have a field day over the inevitable gaffes and rifts. Finding a way forward over key issues such as economic policy would be tortuous. Ed, you would have to think long and hard about this option as well.</p>
<h2>Rule 4: Know when not to play your cards</h2>
<p>None of the most likely options for government are problem-free. Any government that emerges after May 7 will be clunky, fractious, and vulnerable to manipulation over timetabling, procedure, and favour-trading. It will not be an easy ride under any circumstances – and in the context of a fragile economic recovery, austerity, growing enmity between the UK’s constituent nations, and calls to leave the EU, the next five years are going to be unpleasant and potentially disastrous for any party whose leader makes the wrong choice in the days after May 7. </p>
<p>I know it’s almost impossible for politicians to give up the chance to govern, but all of you might want to consider it this time. All good card players know that there is a time to play your hand and a time to hold. </p>
<p>For one or two of you, there may never be a better opportunity to cash in your cards. For others, including Ed, this might be the right time to pass. Let’s wait until May 8, and see the hands you are actually dealt.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41284/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Lees is affiliated with the Labour Party.</span></em></p>In 2010, there were more than 1,000 potential coalition options. Here’s how to make friends in 2015.Charles Lees, Professor of Politics, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.