We have to win back our lost voters, we hear that from both Labour and the Liberal Democrats. ‘Our’ voters? They are not yours, they are not anybody’s, they lend you their vote, it belongs only to them.
The idea that a majority is some fixed item that exists for more than a moment after an election is also an illusion, a psephologist’s dream.
Vince Cable had a safe seat because he had a majority in the many thousands. No! He lost his seat, so where did the Lib Dem votes go…? No! There were not “Lib Dem votes” they were voters who had lent their vote to the Lib Dems, but now did not.
You can hold a thousand autopsies. You can have a hundred investigations. You can write a dozen reports. You look into it until the cows come home, or they refuse to. But you CANNOT analyse where “your” vote went, because you did not have that vote.
What you had was the trust and belief of people, and that is the only truth in this whole debate. Why was it lost? How can you get it back?
PARTY ANALYSIS
Labour – Scotland is an interesting microcosm, it shows not only how it was lost, but what the end game is if you lose it. Labour no longer seemed a viable left-wing party to many Labour supporters in Scotland. It stood alongside Tories in the Referendum, and in this it served to emphasise the right-wing policies that New Labour adopted – PFI, war in Iraq, everything that people’s anger and resentment simmers under the surface.
Lib Dems – the party I supported for 20 years, and ten before that supporting the SDP in the Alliance. But I did not vote for them in 2014 or 2015. Why? Not because they entered a coalition with the Tories, but because of the laws they supported the passage of in coalition – the laws which attacked the poor, the disabled, the young.
What I see in the debates after the twin disasters is that Labour is bouncing to a Blairite right-wing analysis! Never mind about abandoning their core voter, never mind about the slow build up of betrayal that came to a head, just worry about the rich and corporations who constantly moan whilst they make money!
The Lib Dems I see a better debate in. Their disaster was more dramatic, but the core belief seems to be stronger, the understanding that they have to reconnect and show belief, show vision is stronger.
BELIEF, VISION and TRUST
Don’t look to the segmented electorate in all your A1s and C2s (or whatever). Don’t look at what the rich and privelege moan about, they will always moan, they are selfish and conceited, they want more, believe they should have more, they don’t care for the poor, for the ordinary person. Ignore them!
Look simply to why you exist, what you stand for, what you are in politics for. Don’t play games trying to find a policy “to appeal”. Know what is right, and put all your energy into it. If people don’t accept it, use the word “yet” and redouble your efforts.
Political parties don’t exist to win election. Think about that! They do not exist to win elections. They exist to promote a vision and to implement that vision they must win an election. But if they have no vision, then winning an election is pointless, it swaps one lot of centre-right conservatives for another. Without the vision, the parties are pointless.
With the vision, the votes will follow. It is axiomatic that you have to have someone who can propound that vision, who can enthuse, who can lead. That is personality, that is charisma, but it is also a willingness to listen, to be humble, to not seek power for its own sake, but to seek it for service to the people.
Votes will follow Vision, but you must have vision!
Winds of Change
21st May 2015