What just happened
Labour's vote is not just strong - it's well distributed
The local elections were absolutely great for Labour. Ignore the nay-sayers and gloomsters. The people who don’t understand how projected national share works and the Tories clinging to the line that Starmer isn’t as popular as Blair (when I recently rewatched the 1997 election coverage it was astonishing how similar the lines being trotted out by the Tories of yesteryear were. How this wasn’t a vote with enthusiasm for Labour etc.)
The truth is, Starmer isn’t as popular as Blair - but no mainstream politician could be in this very different era. When Blair won in 1997 we didn’t even have 24 hour news never mind social media. The politicians who have been populist in the last decade (think Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and to an extent Jeremy Corbyn) had a marmite effect. Lots of people hated them as much as many people loved them. Trump lost the popular vote. Boris lost his mission. Jeremy never really got started desptie surprising himself and everyone else in 2017.
Keir Starmer is not one of those politicians. He probably is a bit ‘boring’ for a media trained on drama and intrigue. I think this is probably, ultimately, in his favour. When I close my eyes and think of him, the image that I always come back to is of a dad behind a barbecue somewhere in the suburbs, drinking a beer, wearing a slightly comical apron and wielding the tongs as he makes sure your chicken is cooked all the way through.
That’s not the sexiest of images, but it is a reassuring and reassuringly familiar one. We know that guy and we trust that guy. He doesn’t scare the horses. Or, more importantly, voters. So it matters considerably less that more voters aren’t putting their cross in the box with a near-religious fervour than that more people - much more people - are willing to go to the polling station and go ‘yeah, go on then‘. Because those votes count just the same and there are a lot more of them to get.
And a Labour Party that doesn’t scare voters was what we saw deliver huge dividends over the weekend. Of course some who want a more radical Labour Party think not scaring voters is a bad thing. I am more radical than the party I support and campaigned for. But I also believe that incremental change is better than no change at all. Clause One of Labour’s rule book is about getting Labour into Parliament and government. To do that, we have to be willing to meet voters where they are and then expand our areas of common ground. Not hit them over the head with our radicalism then blame them for it giving them a headache.
What we saw with the results of the local, mayoral and Police and Crime Commissioner elections was a Labour party that wasn’t just winning back what were once traditional Labour areas that moved to the Tories from 2015 onwards - vastly accelerated by Brexit. We also saw Labour doing well in non-traditional areas such as North Yorkshire. And while we didn’t win the Tees Valley mayoralty, the swing there was 16.7 to Labour - much greater than the swings needed in Darlington (5.4), Redcar (5.5) and Middlesborough South and Cleveland East (11.4). Hartlepool - scene of Labour’s infamous byelection defeat has a bigger swing needed as Jill Mortimer won with a majority of 6,940 Labour took the council back this week winning nine out of twelve seats making seven gains from the Tories. All seats in the region are well in play for Labour.
So Houchen’s victory might have offered number 10 some comfort but I doubt it has brought much to local Tory MPs who watched Houchen accept his victory as he had fought his campaign - with not a whiff of a Tory rosette, sticker or badge anywhere near him. They know that they can’t do the same at the General whenever it comes.
But it wasn’t just in former Labour heartlands that Labour made progress. Yes, we missed out on gaining Harlow (on Twitter I called this Labour’s Florida. Our strategists get obsessed with it and it always disappoints) but we did gain Thurrock in Essex, Cannock Chase, Tamworth, Nuneaton and Bedworth and Redditch in the West Midlands, Rushmoor in Hampshire. We won the East Midlands Mayoralty and the biggest prize of the night - defeating Andy Street in the West Midlands.
Yes, there were some dark spots in the results. Nothing is ever perfect. Clearly, Labour’s relationships with Muslim communities has put them under pressure in some places such as Oldham and Kirklees.
But this is not enough to dent Labour’s confidence going forward. It wasn’t enough to save Street in Birmingham where the Tories were hoping the independent candidate would take enough Labour votes to protect Street’s majority.
And in London, where this was quite a concern, Sadiq won his most convincing victory yet - despite the weird rumours of defeat that were flying around on Friday night.
Where those rumours came from, I don’t know. Why so many respected journalists chose to repeat them, I really don’t know. I fell for it - to an extent. I looked at the turnout in the more traditionally Tory voting outer areas of London being higher than the more traditionally Labour voting areas of inner London and forgot everything I have written about the changing political geography of the suburbs.
I shouldn’t have. Labour’s vote is distributing to the edges of cities as the cost of living pushes the kind of families I grew up in - who used to live in Stoke Newington when anyone real could still afford to - into places like Highams Park in Chingford Iain Duncan Smith’s seat of Chingford and Woodford Green is number 10 on Labour’s target list).
I was going to write a piece about the Greens and the issues I see bubbling under the surface in that party, but I will leave this for next week. Partly because they had a decent night and it would seem churlish to go straight there, but mostly because I wanted to celebrate a great night for Labour.
It’s been a long time since Labour felt this close to government. It’s going to be great having Labour mayors in place across England speaking up for their patches and fighting the good fight on buses and council housing.
This newsletter is usually about analysis and I have tried to do a bit of that here. The wide distribution and sensible way the Labour efforts have been targeted have both paid off and I think that’s reflected here. But mostly, for once and with no complacency, I just want to say: HUZZAH!
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