Labour's Loves lost?

Is the UK Labour Party on it's knees - is it on the precipice?

Some independent polling suggests it could be.

On the 31st May 2009 Ipsos Mori recorded Labour support at it's lowest ever level - 18%. We know that some of the ministers within the old cabinet clearly regarded Gordon Brown as the problem. However, despite the fact tha Gordon Brown is an eminently poor leader there are several other reasons for the woeful level of support. The polling was being taken at a time of a severe economic recession, mounting unemployment, political corruption and a divided governing Party.

Have we witnessed such low levels of political support before?

Yes - in January 1995, Gallup (albeit using different polling calculus) showed Tory support at 18.5%.

Two years later John Major led the Party to a terrible defeat and yet the Tory vote share turned out to be 30%.

It did become clear that the UK's politics had changed; at the Conservative Party's nadir I recall the publication of Geoffrey Wheatcroft's "The Strange death of Tory England". The same year the Tories suffered their third election defeat in a row.

Many thought that the Tories had lost the battle of ideas - or indeed had no ideology at all.

Another factor was the deep splits in the Party - principally over Europe, and built around two major personalities - Thatcher and Hesletine.

However if Wheatcroft had held his breath a few more months - he would have seen a Tory revival, not based on his cure at all, but mainly down to David Cameron. Some of the foundations had been led by the former party leaders. Principally, Hague (rightly or wrongly) made the party more Euro-sceptic - his UK becoming a 'foreign land' speech and his campaign to save the Pound being hallmarks of the Party's 2001 election campaign. The splits over Europe became
hairline cracks; the only, ever present danger being Kenneth Clarke. It was the Tories very lack of an ideology which made it so easy to mould in the image of David Cameron; policies which represented a mix of social responsibility, green politics and fiscal conservatism. The 'Cameron factor' put around 5% on the Tory vote (in actual fact that meant increasing the party's vote share by a staggering 15%).

That is, even if I am very sceptical of the direction he is taking the Tories in - Cameron has made the Conservative Party electable again. The Tory party has a lot to thank Cameron for.

Therefore, it is entirely possible for Labour to re-mould itself, it just needs some time in the desert. It needs it's forty days and forty nights in the Wilderness to come back as something great. The so-called Brownites and Blairite factions need not be like the old Liberal Party factions behind Asquith and Lloyd George - they can be like Thatcher and Hesletine - the divisions forgotten after three elections. What is more difficult for the Labour Party is the
re-moulding of ideas. This is not for me to suggest - but Milliband does point the way to a new type of Left wing politics - in which the social aims of the party are not just done through the State but genuinely done through both the private and independent sectors. It may even mean no more centralised targets - the State no longer even being a guarantor of standards of social provision; a 'fourth way' to replace Blair's third way.

For all the talk of Cameron's social responsibility and the encouragement of social entrepreneurs - I remain deeply sceptical over whether he can pull it off. If he doesn't then Milliband
(or someone in Milliband's mould) will. Labour will need a caretaker before Milliband arrives; Alan Johnson. It will fall to that leader to heal the divisions. A lot of deep thinking is required but they can save the Labour Party. Then, when they are at their weakest, and the political gyroscope spins again, a charismatic leader will come and take the reins; the scent of power working backwards from a possible future - only sensed by the most astute politician, and thus, by definition, the man of the people.

To have a real re-ordering in British Politics you do not just require a party on the way out; you need a party on it's way in. This is why Labour will probably not emulate the death of the old Liberal Party - it does not have an effective challenger from the Left.

At the moment the Liberal Democrats remain surprisingly weak, despite the orange bookists having won and imposed the likeable and vacuous Nick Clegg. Their lack of a breakthrough remains alarming; how long exactly are their supporters prepared to wait?

Without any challenge, the opposition vote may well coallesce, under political gravity, to the Labour Party once again.

Despite my deep hatred for the Labour Party, and the particularly nasty authoritarian brand of late, I have to acknowledge that Britain needs a strong political opposition. We need it because, sooner or later, the establishment party gets its hand caught in the till. It has happened, and it will happen again. The sad monotony of power needs it's corrective.