After Labour's appalling performance in this week's local and London elections, the party's top brass responded with an almost unanimous pledge: to listen.
Gordon Brown told the BBC the government had "lessons to learn", but insisted: "My job is to listen and to lead."
Why do politicians only promise to listen when they've suffered a crushing defeat? All too often it's a knee jerk reaction to events, rather than an honest willingness to reconsider unpopular and wrong-headed policies. Just think back to Labour's so-called Big Conversation, launched in the wake of the Iraq war. Labour's refusal to listen to what voters were telling them in 2003 played a big part in creating the party's current unpopularity. And the way it foisted Gordon Brown on the country without a party vote, let alone an election.
(Yes, I do know the British constitution does not require an election when a governing party changes leader. But the voters aren't bothered about the constitution: all that bothers them is that they've been landed with a prime minister they don't much like.)
If Labour is to have any chance of winning the next election, it has to start acting on what voters are telling them - and quickly. The disaster of the abolition of the 10p tax rate must be a dire warning. I wrote about the 10p tax saga here last month, and was surprised when Stuart Bruce argued in response that "people have been ferociously lobbying for ages. The only difference is that now it has come out into the open." I couldn't understand how Labour activists had allowed a year to pass before going public. This totally ineffective lobbying was a major factor in ensuring Labour's comprehensive defeat last week, especially in its heartlands. Anyone who questions this should ask themselves how the Rhondda now has a Tory councillor, and why Labour came third, behind the Lib Dems and Tories, in Cardiff.
The next two years will be fascinating.
Comments