Putting Down the Vase (Part 1 - Intro and Communications)
This is the first in a series of articles, entitled ‘Putting Down the Vase’, about how Labour can respond to populism across four distinct areas. The full paper can be downloaded by clicking here:
This installment introduces ‘the vase’ and looks at the first area, communications. The subsequent installments, in the next few days, will explore electoral strategy, policy in general and migration policy, respectively.
Introduction
The Ming Vase
It was Roy Jenkins who coined what’s become one of the most quoted analogies in politics. Jenkins compared Tony Blair before the 1997 election to a curator carrying a ming vase across a polished floor. Move slowly, make no sharp movements.
Blair certainly exercised caution. But it was during the Keir Starmer ascendancy 27 years later that the ming vase metaphor went mainstream. The prospect of a Labour victory was again being treated with excessive caution, commentators said. The vase was back.
After moderating hundreds of focus groups for Labour in the years running up to the 2024 General Election, I came to see why. I can’t claim to have been privy to decisions at the top table. But the cynicism of public opinion – combined with the speed at which Labour was trying to turn perceptions around – made me agree that unnecessary risks weren’t worth it.
This remained my view until 10pm on 4th July 2024, when polls closed. At which point the precious cargo could of course be set down.
Strangely, however, this didn’t happen. The vase remained. The media opprobrium that followed relatively modest early policies; the ‘loveless’ nature of the landslide; the absence of a 1997-style honeymoon; the victory of Trump. All these things seemed to make Labour freeze. A year on, the party was still clutching its porcelain freight – by this time diminished to about the size of a domestic teapot, according to opinion polls.
Meanwhile, the country faces a prospect so dreadful it’s taken a while to look it properly in the eye: Prime Minister Nigel Farage. At Labour’s annual conference, Keir Starmer demonstrated the passion necessary to step up to this. But the fear is that the ming vase re-establishes itself – leading Labour to pigeon-step towards catastrophe.
Populism, trust and risk
One man who does not look like he’s carrying a piece of pottery is Farage himself. Like many populists, he’s thrived in an era when mainstream politicians are held in contempt.
I am in the shrinking minority who believe this contempt is undeserved. Modern politicians work harder, spend more time in their constituencies, are more demographically representative, and are less prone to sleaze than in the past. Yet they face the hyper-scrutiny of modern media and the internet, have less room for manoeuvre in terms of policy, and must cater to an electorate which has fragmented, polarised and become much less patient.
The distrust of politicians comes mainly because of the ways leaders have responded – or failed to respond – to the new context. They’ve tended to keep their cards closer and closer to their chests, as scrutiny has intensified. We seem to be living through an extraordinary moment, as a result, in which the impossible demands of the information age have come to a head.
The collapse in Keir Starmer’s approval ratings, for instance, is unprecedented and totally disproportionate after just a year in office. It bears little relation to Starmer himself, whatever you think of him.
The chart below shows this. It’s deduced by averaging Ipsos’s net approval ratings, for all major party leaders in each year, going back to 1977. It shows a slow-motion collapse, which Starmer is at the tail-end of. This has coincided with big changes in the media environment, and began in earnest after the expenses scandal. The direction it points towards is unsustainable for a democracy.
The difference with the past is not just that the lows are lower, but that the ‘none of the above’ state-of-mind is more common. Drilling into the data you can see this. Previously, when one leader was in a rut there was usually someone else who voters liked. Major’s unpopularity in 1996 was offset by the popularity of Blair and Ashdown, Brown’s in 2009 was mitigated by the high ratings of Clegg and Cameron, etc. This is no longer the case. By way of example, in just 32 of the 476 Ipsos party leader survey questions since the start of 2011 has any leader scored a net approval rating above zero.
(Interestingly, the pattern is not the same if you look at satisfaction with the government – which Ipsos has collected over the same period. This has waxed and waned and been well into the minus numbers much of the time. But it hasn’t fallen off a cliff in the same way. It seems to be politicians themselves who the public have really turned on).
Populists are the great beneficiaries of this. They too are unpopular overall. But unlike many mainstream leaders, they have pockets of strong public support (offset, of course, by deeper loathing in other quarters). And, more importantly, they have much less to lose in the battle for attention. They can preach to the converted, offend people, court negative publicity and make hostages to fortune, without fearing any consequences. The age of social media in fact rewards these ‘authentic’ behaviours.
In the face of this, mainstream politicians freeze. They hate the new environment as much as populists love it. As members of aspiring parties of government, much of the populist playbook is unavailable to them. They cannot afford to thumb their nose at business or alienate swathes of the electorate, as populists can. Hence, when these mainstream parties have experimented with their own versions of populism in recent years – as the Conservatives did under Johnson and Truss and Labour did under Corbyn – it’s ended badly.
The approach many settle upon is to instead lean into their role as ‘the grown-ups’, believing this is their selling point. Focus on delivery. Offend no one. Emphasise professionalism. Promise growth. Offer tough rhetoric and technical tweaks on immigration. Squeeze smaller parties. Remind the public of how much worse things could be. And hope, when push comes to shove, that voters opt for the devil they know.
Labour’s vase
In this context, leading an ‘establishment’ party like Labour has become quite a miserable business. It seems to be a case of permanently carrying a ming vase, unloved, whilst populists gleefully try to push you over from different angles. If and when they succeed in this you smile, ever the grown-up, before sweeping up the pieces. With Reform on track to win the next election from a standing start, according to some polls, this sorry dynamic may be reaching its end-game.
Labour was able to hide from the above reality whilst in opposition – and even to play upon it a little. But the party must now think very hard about whether there is an alternative to the ming vase scenario. Is there a route for parties of government, which engages seriously and honestly with the spirit of anti-politics, but which does not involve becoming a populist yourself?
I believe there is. Many aspects of ming vase politics arise from a cautiousness at the political centre which is unnecessary and counter-productive. It holds voters at arm’s length and inadvertently inflates populism.
This series makes 30 here-and-now proposals for how Labour should ‘put down the vase’ in relation to its fight against Reform. (This email includes the first nine). Some are things which, since the Labour conference, have already begun to happen and must continue. Others are more radical or new.
The suggestions are divided into four areas: communications, electoral strategy, general policy and migration policy. They are primarily driven by my analysis of public opinion, but I’ve tried to take seriously at every juncture the policy parameters the government is working within.
COMMUNICATIONS
The past four or five decades have increased exponentially the scrutiny which politicians are subject to. 24-hour news, the internet and the smart-phone have all changed the media context. Everything is known and seen, every failure magnified. And a population which is now fiercely non-deferential is intolerant of each slip-up.
In this sphere, the ming vase approach is characterised by spin and a fear of reputational damage – seeking to remove lines of attack, avoid ‘gaffes’, promise the very best possible outcome, and stick to media ‘lines’ with which few could disagree. The fear of what happens if you fail to do this is particularly acute for Labour – a party which is scarred by perceptions of amateurism in the 1980s, and which made significant steps to professionalise in the decades after.
This professionalisation was clearly necessary, but has brought diminishing returns over time, as an age dominated by mass media has given way to an era of social media. (Peter Hyman’s article on why the grid no longer functions illustrates this change).
Voters are increasingly annoyed by ‘everyone wins’ messaging, hate the inability of leaders to say what they think, take a ‘believe it when I see it’ approach to shiny policy announcements, and demand to know what you will actually do differently. They’re drawn to politicians who are distinctive enough to command attention, and would now perhaps quite like a leader who flipped a defiant V-sign at journalists on Brighton beach.
Below are nine initial suggestions for Labour in this area. Several of these focus on the excessive partisanship of modern politics – which I see as one of the most under-priced reasons for low trust. Others are about creating a more authentic voice and a more adult relationship with voters.
The suggestions are as follows.
1. Admit what we don’t know or can’t do. The reflex of the political centre, faced with populism, is often to pose as omnipotent – admitting no fault or weakness. The Winter Fuel U-turn was spun as something planned all along, for instance. And Labour went into the last election talking about the ‘highest growth in the G7’ – which could never be guaranteed. Labour should instead level with voters: these are choppy waters but we’re the best party to navigate. We should hold our hands up when things don’t go as planned, and make a virtue of admitting what we don’t know or can’t yet be sure of.
2. Show your workings. Ronald Reagan famously said ‘If you’re explaining you’re losing’. This truism has mistakenly been absorbed by parts of the centre left who, for fear of bombarding people with facts, instead believe they must always focus on pithy messages. In a world where information is everywhere, this must be re-evaluated. Labour frontbenchers should see explanation as a key part of their toolkit. This should involve honest discussion of the trade-offs at stake. Rather than just reiterating how ‘iron-clad’ her fiscal rules are, for instance, Rachel Reeves could do a video explainer, setting out what each rule actually is and what happens if she breaks it.
3. Find ways to foster authenticity among MPs. Labour has foregrounded an ethos of ‘service’ as its answer to rebuilding trust. This is welcome. But even if the standards promised had been met it wouldn’t have been enough. Yes, the electorate are angry at MPs allegedly ‘on the take’. But they’re at least as frustrated with ‘career politicians’ who appear scripted or evasive. Hence many are willing to overlook the countless misdeeds of Farage, because he at least seems to speak his mind. If Labour is to be a party of ‘big beasts’ who can take on Reform, then back-benchers and front-benchers alike must feel able to shoot from the hip and be themselves. Some sort of internal party line is still needed. But this should be stripped of party-political attacks and verbatim soundbites. It should instead present a distilled rationale for government decisions, which MPs can engage with, articulate for themselves and have some licence to deviate from.
4. Stop blaming the ‘mess we inherited’. Yes, the last government was awful. But the effort to hammer home ‘Tory failure’ feeds directly the impression of politics as a game. This is especially true with things which weren’t really their fault. Before the last election, for instance, Labour often characterised the cost-of-living crisis not just as something the Tories exacerbated, but as their deliberate creation – as though getting rid of them was all it took. Voters are angry that this proved false. Continuing to blame the legacy only serves to undermine what should be the central, ‘country over party’ narrative: that this would be a tough period to try and govern for anyone, but that Labour is approaching it with the right priorities.
5. End the search for a killer attack on Reform. In general, ‘attack’ occupies a bigger place in mainstream parties’ minds than it should. This is especially true in relation to Reform – a new kid on the block, which is held to a lower standard by voters. Flagging the threat Farage poses to the NHS may help, as few are aware of this. But my suspicion is that most of the risks attached to Reform are already priced in for voters. This is not to say Labour shouldn’t argue forcefully against what Farage stands for, or show how we’re different. But Reform won’t be stopped by a clever, ‘Miliband in Salmond’s pocket’ style attack. The only way to beat them is by building up sufficient clarity and momentum that they can be brushed aside as armchair critics.
6. Minimise ‘growth’ in the messaging. Economic growth is an abstract idea for many voters. It’s a distraction from the main economic issue people care about, the cost-of-living. It’s not regarded as something a government can take credit for and is not something voters expect to personally benefit from. It’s clearly of seminal importance within government, but its public-facing role should be small. Unpopular policies should not be pursued if their sole purpose is to signal ‘toughness’ to the markets in the hope of getting growth. And positive things, like housebuilding or transport infrastructure, should be talked about in terms of how they help people buy homes or travel to work – not as vehicles for growth.
7. Acknowledge as often as possible that Brexit failed – and could never have worked. This is incontrovertibly true and widely accepted, and it’s very positive to see Labour now making the point as stridently as it is. It goes without saying that Leave voters should not be guilt-tripped, and that the distraction of rejoining should remain off-limits. But the bald fact is that the goal Farage spent decades agitating for turned out to be a dud. This should be said as often as possible. Not as an excuse or a way to win back liberals, but as a serious proof-point in the argument for why right populism does not work.
8. Make fairness the governing principle. As many have pointed out, Labour seems to lack a guiding vision or set of values. It’s unclear what the party is ‘renewing’, going ‘further and faster’ towards, or looking to ‘change’. Without this, popular policies seem smaller than the sum of their parts. This is where fairness comes in. The word should feature on every lectern and leaflet, and serve as the yardstick against which every policy is judged. No sane voter will think we are swivel-eyed communists for talking about fairness. It’s about re-connecting effort to reward, closing gaps in life chances, and putting resource where need is greatest.
9. Retire the term ‘working people’. The phrase ‘working people’ applies to the chief exec of a water company as much as to a street-cleaner. It distances Labour from its working-class roots, yet hopes a little of the egalitarian brand will still rub off. It implies the lack of a core purpose. The answer is not to go back to social class, as the class structure has fragmented and the traditional working-class is now small. But Labour should replace its talk of ‘working people’ with a willingness to speak the language of priorities – in relation to ‘low- and middle-income’ voters or ‘those without inherited wealth’ to fall back on.
Whilst the final two points above are about communications, they also link to deeper electoral questions, about core appeal, constituency and purpose. The next installment will examine this in more detail. It can be read here.