Reasons to be cheerful......

An unashamedly partisan assessment of the 2010 election result

They're all at it. In various phrasings, members of the shadow cabinet are telling us:
"we lost the election and it was a bad result..........this is the second worst result for us since universal suffrage".
It's a kind of PC reaction, a form of sackcloth and ashes and tearing your hair.
And I'm not, I hope, complacent or blindly optimistic. Of course there are sins to repent, mistakes to learn from, a whole strategic revaluation to be done.


But let's get some context.

When was the last time a government was elected for a fourth consecutive term?
How many examples do you have at your finger-tips ?
Can you give me a single example of a consecutive fourth term that was both deserved and successful ?

Reflect on 1992 for a moment in silence........Was the victory good for the Conservatives, or for the country ? (And on the other hand, do you wish Labour had won, as we prematurely convinced ourselves we had ? ) There are elections like that.

So, OK, this year the contingent case for Labour's re-election was actually quite strong, in terms of how the deficit should be handled, and the most vulnerable protected. But really we had long destroyed any wider claim to re-election. And in that process, I would identify the three key factors as Iraq (still); the loss of nerve in 2007; and the sheer political incompetence of the Cabinet and Parliamentary party re the leadership. These were not simply actual decisions with practical consequences. They were also markers of a mind-set, they were graphics of a moral deficit.

The in and out of office is conventionally imaged by the swing of the pendulum. I would suggest there is about it also something of the seasons and the annual cycle. I am aware in myself, post-election, of a new spring in my step, a renewed commitment. And it seems I am not the only one. 13,000 people are reported to have joined or rejoined Labour since May 6th. I have joined the Fabians (something I probably should have done long ago!) and they also report a surge. I think these are straws in the wind which speak to the fact that this was not a catastrophic defeat which leaves us licking our wounds and wondering whether to quit the field and hang up our weapons. For so long, many of us have been clinging on by sheer loyalty, with gritted teeth. Now we can move forward again with hope. It is our opponents who will be accumulating enemies in this new phase.

I think there are (you guessed it) a good many reasons to be cheerful, to go energetically and hopefully into the post-mortems and leadership election and systemic re-building.

To come out of office after three terms with 258 MPs seems to me a very solid base from which to go forward.
We are now the only party with a significant presence in all the three principal parts of the Union. (It does annoy me when the media, in their 'treat politics as sport' way, describe it as 'a good night for the Tories in Wales', when they have, gosh, 8 seats out of 40).
We have seen off Respect, retaken Blaenau Gwent and given the BNP a bloody nose.
We hold Rochdale!
And we still have a young but seasoned front bench. If David Cameron were hit by a bus, who else might lead the Tories? Whereas we have a really quite appetising election in prospect.
And not least, the English council results suggest that we are already past the bottom in that arena. I'm inclined to take that as a metaphor for the whole result - we stared a meltdown in the face, and fought back with some success.
There may even be a potential long-term dividend in that when we get back into office, we shall probably take over a higher tax regime than we left.


The new Government is overwhelmingly several things that may ultimately turn out to be to its disadvantage - rich, white, male, privileged. And English - even southern English. The Midlothian Question is suddenly upside down. There have already been some interesting comments online on the implications of this. Is it possible that this actually opens up an opportunity for Labour ? If we could develop, in a very measured way (i.e. as just one policy in our portfolio, and probably one that would require two Parliaments to see it to fruition) a model for English devolution, it would provide a way of giving England Tory government in devolved matters, if that's what they want, without shackling the rest of us. This is a sort of Disraeli-ish possibility, in that in one sense it ought to be a Tory option, but we could steal their clothes and help our heartlands, and possibly win English votes into the bargain.