Paul Richards is a columnist for Progress and LabourList, and author of Labour's Revival. He was a shadow cabinet adviser during the 1992 election. He is currently seeking the Labour nomination in the election for Sussex police commissioner. Here he discusses the legacy of the 1992 election on the Labour Party.
It is nearly 20 years since Labour suffered one of its worst defeats in a general election. It is a defeat which hangs heavy in the hearts of Labour supporters, and has some important lessons for Ed Miliband.
The defeat on 9th April 1992 was not the worst in terms of loss of seats or share of the vote. That honour belongs to Michael Foot and Gordon Brown. Indeed Labour gained 42 seats, and its share of the vote was 34.4% (in 2010 it was 29.6%). Neil Kinnock’s defeat at the hands of John Major was the worst in terms of its psychological impact. To lose a fourth election in a row, in a recession, at the hands of a government whose poll tax had provoked civil disobedience and riots, left Labour activists reeling. In 1970, defeat was a surprise, but part of a pattern of periods of Labour government followed by defeat. In 1983 and 1987, the loss was expected from the moment the manifestos were published. In both elections, coming second, not third, was seen as something of an achievement.
But in 1992, the Labour Party had undergone a thorough modernisation of its presentation under Peter Mandelson (although Mandelson himself was off pursuing election in Hartlepool). Labour had engaged in a grinding, painful policy review designed to eradicate line by line the election-losing policies of the 1980s. The tale is best told in Colin Hughes’ and Patrick Wintour’s book Labour Rebuilt, which maps out the policy review in forensic detail. It was clear early on that the end point of the Kinnock policy review was a modern Swedish or German style social democratic party, comfortable with markets and globalisation, committed to NATO and nuclear deterrence, and in the mainstream of European politics.
So by 1992, with some dramatic by-election, European election and council election victories under his belt, a party united, a lead in the opinion polls, and a carefully costed and modest manifesto, Neil Kinnock could expect to win, or at least be leading a coalition government. I was with him on the steps of Labour’s HQ on the Walworth Road (now being converted into flats), with a throng of Labour staff and supporters, when he threw in the towel. Some were in tears. Others directed their anger at the press pack and snappers covering the concession speech. Amongst the staffers and volunteers were some of the ‘Luvvies for Labour’ who had been at the election night party in Millbank hours earlier. I recall Ben Elton miming throwing himself out of a window, and standing with Michelle from Eastenders whilst waiting for Neil Kinnock to return to London from South Wales. One of the few frontbenchers with a southern seat, Bryan Gould MP, was there in the thick of it. Up and down the Walworth Road, carloads of Young Conservatives sang ‘4-nil, 4-nil, 4-nil, 4-nil’.
A modern manifesto, slick communications and a healthy position in the opinion polls: what could possibly go wrong? The fact that it did go wrong raised some painful questions for Labour. One was the suitability of Neil Kinnock. Despite the esteem for Neil Kinnock in the Labour party, it was apparent that the affection did not extend into the southern English constituencies which Labour needed to win. The so-called Sheffield Rally had nothing to do with it. Blaming Sheffield is the supreme example of post-event rationalisation. Swathes of middle England had made their mind up about Kinnock well before 1992, just as they did about Gordon Brown before 2010. Don’t get me wrong, as a 25-year old party apparatchik, if Kinnock said jump, I’d have asked how high. I loved his oratory and admired his fortitude. The uncomfortable truth is that Kinnock, like Foot before him, and Brown after him appealed to Labour voters with the old time religion and the reassuring statements. But they couldn’t make the Labour Party more than a party of labour.
A conclusion made by many in the party post-1992 was that a telegenic, personable Leader was an important component in victory. The party chose John Smith, now lionised, but at the time subject to grumbling that ‘one more heave’ wasn’t going to win the election. In 1994, though, the party chose the good-looking ‘English’ candidate over the crumpled-looking Scot.
A second conclusion was that the policy review hadn’t gone far enough. The herculean task of dumping unilateral nuclear disarmament, the closed shop, withdrawal from the EEC, nationalisation of the utilities and other remnants of the 1983 suicide note had merely drawn the poison. It was not enough to be palatable. Labour needed to be positively attractive. The first Blairite reform was replacing the Edwardian language of clause IV, part IV with a modern statement of values. But it was the pledge card policy nuggets which allowed Labour candidates and campaigners to reassure and rebuild Labour’s support amongst people who had voted Tory in 1992.
Of Ed Miliband’s shadow cabinet, only Harriet Harman, Tessa Jowell and Peter Hain were members of parliament prior to the 1992 election. A few of the others were active in politics, working as policy advisers or in think tanks. For example, Yvette Cooper was Harriet Harman’s researcher in the Commons, and spent the back end of 1992 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Others were not even adults in 1992. Stella Creasy was 15; Rachel Reeves was 13, Chuka Umunna was 14, and Jonathan Reynolds was 12. Pamela Nash, the MP for Airdrie & Shotts was eight years old. For them, the 1992 election may only be the stuff of teenage memories. As the twentieth anniversary whizzes past, they should think hard about what it meant. 1992 was proof that Labour election victories do not happen by accident. There is no pendulum that swings back and forth. Nor do they happen because the Tories are unpopular, if Labour is even more loathed.
Then, as now, Labour’s victory rests on a few thousand voters in the southern marginals: places such as Thurrock, Hastings, Southampton, Crawley, Brighton and Norwich. Labour is not campaigning in a vacuum. The Tories aim to not only keep the seats they’ve got, but also take seats from Labour and the Lib Dems. Any Labour MP with a notional majority under 500 following the boundary changes will feel the heat.
If Labour can’t win over the hard-working, car-owning, owner-occupiers in southern and eastern towns and suburbs, piling up majorities in northern cities will count for nothing. This sub-stratum of our society decides who governs. This is the real ‘political class’ – the people who decide who forms the Cabinet. They don’t like high taxes, an out-of-control benefits bill, or an interfering government. They’ve never been to Scotland, Wales or Newcastle, but they have been to Ibiza and Mallorca. In 1992, they’d rather have a grey man and party which had bashed the miners, brought in the poll tax and couldn’t give a hoot about mass unemployment.
Ed Miliband has to look them (or their grown-up children) in the eye, and win them over to a party they rejected in record numbers just a matter of months ago. No one said it was going to be a walk in the park.