Will being petty and spiteful save Labour?
Dear Alistair Campbell,
I know that officially you are not involved with the Labour Party, but seeing as just about every single broadsheet is discussing your return I have little doubt that you are part of the government’s spin machine yet again. As far as spin goes, the class warfare initiated at Prime Minister’s Questions last week seemed effective at the time, but the question is will it work for a general election?
David Cameron told BBC One’s ‘The Politics Show’ over the weekend that Gordon Brown was “petty” and “spiteful” to evoke the Eton background of senior Tories and that he was “not in the slightest bit embarrassed” about his schooling. The PM suggested last week that Conservative policies, specifically their inheritance tax pledge, had been dreamed up on the playing fields of Eton, signalling an overt plan to use the class background of Cameron as part of your election strategy. Cameron added: “I never hide my background or where I’m from or anything about my life like that. My view is very simple… that what people are interested in is not where you come from but where you’re going to, what you’ve got to offer, what you’ve got to offer the country. Now if Gordon Brown and Mandelson and the rest, if they want to fight a class war, fine, go for it. It doesn’t work. It’s a petty, spiteful, stupid thing to do but if that’s what they want to do, you know, go ahead.” Let us not forget that in Crewe and Nantwich, class war backfired in spectacular fashion.
While your intentions are clear enough, the most important question is whether the voters buy it. Firstly, Brown’s remarks play on stereotypes rather than accuracy. Plenty of Labour frontbenchers studied PPE at Oxford, for example, and the likes of Harriet Harman went to some of the poshest schools in the country, so the private education issue is merely a matter of scale rather than a clean dividing line between Labour and the Conservatives. Cameron was also keen to point out that Hague, Pickles, Fox and no doubt several other Shadow Cabinet members did not attend private school. Secondly, Alistair Darling was clearly not reading off the same hymn sheet as Brown (no surprises there) when he said that he did not care about Cameron’s education. Finally, the polls suggest that class warfare has had a negligible effect on voters, if any. A YouGov survey for The Sunday Times had the Conservatives on 40% (-1), Labour on 27% (nc) and the Lib Dems stuck on 18% (nc). A further poll by ICM for The Sunday Telegraph put the Conservatives on 40% (-2), Labour on 29% (nc) and the Lib Dems on 19% (nc). In both cases, the Conservatives would have enough seats for an overall majority, albeit not a huge one, but their lead was still slightly down on last month – which hardly counts as a roaring success.
The point is that this has been a bad month for the Conservatives (Lisbon, Zac Goldsmith, Liz Truss etc etc) yet they still have enough seats for a majority. Far from spurring on your divisive tactics, I would have thought that this alone was sufficient justification to focus on substance rather than style, given the government’s painful lack of credibility and the dire economic circumstances. When asked by YouGov, 90% of Labour supporters thought the Conservatives were the party of the rich, while only 14% of Conservative supporters agreed. This shows that your class war might galvanise a couple of wavering Labour supporters to go to the polling booths, but it won’t convince the middle classes to come running back – and without the middle class voters, the end of New Labour and Alistair Campbell is surely just around the corner.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
Witanagemot Blogs
“…it won’t convince the middle classes to come running back – and without the middle class voters, the end of New Labour and Alistair Campbell is surely just around the corner.”
*desperately tries to avoid counting chickens before they hatch*
THE CONSERVATIVES ARE ALL WELL EDUCATED!! WE’RE NOT!!
Well, it’s an interesting approach to campaigning.
I trust Darling, Balls, Harman, Hain, Jowell, Benn and Woodward will all be kept away from the General Election campaign. All went to private feepaying schools. As did Blair – he went to Fettes which is known as the Eton of the North.
Otherwise Labour might just as well campaign with the slogan “Vote for us. We’re top-knotch hypocrites.”
This is not about winning an election, it’s about preventing a wipeout. Labour’s core vote can only be motivated by a return to the politics of envy and class. Labour has a huge inbuilt majority due to boundaries, to survive as more than a bare rump in parliament they need to carry the North, Wales & Scotland – Class warfare is the best tactic they have as hatred is blind to facts or reasoned argument.
It’s always funny when posh people fight. Totally irrelevant but funny to watch – especially as this time it’s basically about people being jealous over who went to a better private school!
The loss of their core vote is certainly a problem for Labour, but even if they return, the way that the middle classes have been hammered by Labour tax rises and flawed economic policy will not be easily forgotten when it comes to polling day.
Maybe they will, maybe they won’t, but if the Tories get in, that will largely be as a result of being petty and spiteful as well, so it doesn’t make much difference.
If Gormless Clown thinks it’s a ‘bad thing’ then it must be a good thing! I’m all for it! More well heeled Tory MP’s for me please.
On a serious note, I analogise Conservative rule of this country with Labour rule to a hard nosed financial advisor vs a human rights social worker. To use another analogy, Britain is my life savings, who would you trust with your life savings? The person that will invest and skim some off the top, or the person who will give half your money to Johnny the junkie to ‘improve his quality of life’ and the other half to improving lbgt ‘community’ relations in Ulan Bator while kids around the corner spell especially ‘espeshully’ (A job application I was dealing with from a 17yr old with Higher English).
The sooner *anyone* replaces Labour the better in my book and I don’t care if they we’re carried around Eton in a jewel encrusted golden sedan.
Has anyone asked where our EU leaders were educated
Has anyone asked if our EU leaders were educated?
Frankfurt School? Too obvious, I know
Don’t know why they think the IHT issue will play well, the really rich avoid it anyway and it is people like me who would get stung. I grew up in a council house in Glasgow, when we gor married we moved slowly up the housing ladder from small terrace to detached. IHT was never intended for people like us who through no fault of our own found our house prices rocketing. We worked and paid taxes all out lives and I want my son to have this house and why not, after all that’s what we work for surely so our children have a better life. I couldn’t care less where anyone went to school and I would vote for literally anyone to get rid of this disgusting ‘Government’ certsinly the worst in my lifetime. The middle income people have been robbed blind by this lot and we won’t forget it. They only love their very rich donors, bankers they gave knighthoods to and their client state we all pay for.
“The playing fields of Eton”. Has such a wonderful ring to it. Reminds me of Brideshead Revisited, Old England, civilisation, a better bygone era, even old maids cycling to church through morning mist (or whatever it was). Rather attractive actually.
But then it wasn’t aimed at me, was it? It was Brown retreating to appealing to his core vote. Just like William Hague did after 1997. Very encouraging.