Should Labour help the LibDems win more seats?

During the early years of the Labour Party, Labour and the Liberals cooperated to win parliamentary seats. The small group of Labour MPs cooperated with the liberals in Parliament against the Tories. Did they co-operate too much?

Ben Tillett thought so. he said the party has no teeth no claws and has lost its growl.

He argued that labour should stop supporting the liberals (so much) and start fighting unemployment.

Ramsay MacDonald at this time was a kind of secretary chairman and I think an unofficial leader. his strategy was to help the liberals so that the liberals would help labour get more MPs in the future. In this way, the Labour Party would have a much bigger representation in Parliament.

Perhaps McDonald's strategy worked?

I wonder...

Did Ramsay MacDonald have a bigger input to the development of the Labour Party that he's given credit for?

Would Ben Tillett's observations be quite pertinent now?

Should labour help the liberals again, in reverse this time? That is should Labour help the liberals get more MPs where they have a better chance of ousting a Conservative?

Why we feel anxious after making an important decision

 Buyers always think before doing anything.

Sometimes they only think for a split second and sometimes they think about a purchase for months, even years.

 

When buyers think about a purchase they access memory and emotions.

 

Thinking is an emotional as well as a cognitive process. Every thought we have brings with it a congruent emotion. Unless we are anxious when the emotions can disrupt our thinking.

 

Decisions about whether to buy something or not involve thoughts, memories and emotions. The emotional aspect of decision making is the most influential.

 

Thinking about a purchase provokes feelings of anxiety to a greater or lesser degree.

 

Every time we make a decision we experience anxiety to a greater or lesser degree. The more meaningful the decision is to us the greater will be the anxiety.

 

When anxiety reaches a certain level we begin to think irrationally.

 

When we experience anxiety our brains act in a set way that is difficult to override.

 

When we experience anxiety about making a decision three things happen in a progressive sequence.

 

1.    We avoid thinking about the subject

2.    Our brains block access to thoughts about the subject

3.    We will 'escape' if the anxiety gets too high.

 

As we approach the point of making a decision the anxiety will increase.

The bigger or more emotionally important the higher the anxiety.

All this brings a sense of mixed feelings, psychologists call it cognitive dissonance.

The bigger the purchase or the higher the emotional charge the bigger the feelings of pleasure and anxiety and the more we research the purchase.

Eventually we make a decision and buy the big item or make an important decision.

We experience a moment of pleasure but very soon after the purchase we begin to question if we've done the right thing. Another wave of cognitive dissonance hits us and this is called 'buyers regret'.

It passes in due course.

Why Keir Starmer was wrong to oppose Scottish independence now

 personal opinion:

I think Keir Starmer was wrong to voice opposition to Scottish Independence. There's no reason for Labour to mention it at this stage. I think it's coming from Claire Ainsley and I don't think she's the right person for the job.

The result will be to move what little support Labour has in Scotland to the SNP. Scots voted strongly to remain so there's bound to be a backlash of support for the SNP after Brexit. If I were a Scot living in Scotland I'd be an active member of the SNP at this time. And what will Scots think when they learn about the deal Gibraltar, who voted strongly to remain is getting compared to Scotland, who voted strongly to remain, being glued to Johnson's England. The EU might buy into the idea of a genuine freeport in Aberdeen or Clydeport, the British Ports Association (BPA) are calling for something similar*. A freeport has special tax, import and export arrangements with other countries as do Hong Kong or Singapore. Aberdeen could have freeport status within the EU and strong links to Scandinavia and Clydeport to Northern Ireland?

I think Keir Starmer could have said that Labour will open negotiations with the EU about a close long term relationship, perhaps similar to that of Ukraine when elected to government in 2024. He might also have said Scotland, that has historically had closer links to Europe than England should be given special status along with Northern Ireland. This might put the brakes on, or take the edge off the rush to deregulate that's coming our way.

The time for Labour to take a position on Scottish independence is when it becomes a live issue. I voted Starmer/Rayner and hate to say that I am disappointed in both of them.

Sorry...

*sunak pinched the freeport idea from BPA although sunak's version is plain daft.

How attitude changed cross pressured working class voters

 Steve Rayson in his book The Fall of the Red Wall describes research that shows working class voters to be cross pressured. The Conservatives took note of this and other research and boiled it down to an emotional heuristic - “get Brexit done.” Whereas Labour without any attempt to understand voter attitudes had the strapline, “time for real change.”

Time for real change get Brexit done.

There’s a lot of work ahead for the Labour party and we need to understand how to work with and where necessary change attitudes.

Attitudes are simply a measure of how much a person or group likes or dislikes something. They can be measured using focus groups. Shortly after I joined Bournemouth University from Southampton we did focus group work to understand attitudes with the Labour party c 1994. The Conservatives did it in 2019. Our main work on attitudes at Bournemouth was with the pharma sector on the take up and prescription of drugs and similar.

Attitudes can be changed or strengthened. Most attempts to change attitudes have the opposite effect.

Put together a diagram to show this. When I worked in the university sector you could knock up diagrams like this on an OHP or whiteboard as you went along and they worked. Couldn’t do it now though.

Using the political measure of left and right we can put the majority of British attitudes to the right of centre. If we put forward left wing - socialist - arguments we will entranch the current attitudes or push them further to the right.

In order to bring these attitudes closer to our position we need to start with arguments they will accept and straddle the current attitude position with messages. This is a long process and we should start now. Gradually we can bring the attitudes closer to our position. As Labour is generally a centre left party it shouldn’t be too difficult.

There’s a slight difficulty.

Steve uncovered research that showed working class voters are cross pressured. That is they are to the left of labour on economic issues and to the right of the Conservatives on cultural issues.

The diagram is something like this

At the 2019 election the Conservative strategists, Cummings and team understood this and boiled down messages to hit both pressure points with simple emotional (post truth heuristic) messages. Get Brexit done, levelling up and take back our borders. 

Where labour missed the target entirely.

The way forward.

The research is already done, much of it on behalf of the Conservative party who stupidly didn’t embargo it, so enough of it is in the public domain. Labour needs to understand the cross pressures and boil down simple emotional messages that resonate with the voters.

John McDonnell has some great ideas but they need boiling down almost dry. I favour the old Keynesian adage of a ‘mixed economy’. Although the public sector can’t be as it was in the 1950s - 1970s.We can still have a mixed economy and we can attack the Cumming Tory deregulation as dog eat dog.

In fact dog eat dog is exactly what Boris Johnson means by levelling up. He’s pushing social Darwinism.

Why the BBC should move leftwards

The Tory toting BBC News may shortly have two new rival news channels coming out of America.

The cable billionaire boss of Liberty Media, the word 'liberty' says it all, and biggest shareholder in the Discovery Channel, Mr Cable Cowboy himself John Malone is backing GB News. Part of a company called All Perspectives.

Malone is a big Trump supporter and Liberty Media give big donations to the Trump Circus.

Murdoch is to open a new news channel it's less clear what this will be like at this stage.

The opening marketing messages will focus on the BBC having a left wing bias and supports militant socialist and environmental activists.

level up not down

 

"For the many not the few". A Labour strapline. It's a levelling down slogan. Research by Hanbury Strategy into the once Labour voting industrial heartlands showed that levelling down is not an issue that resonates with the new working class. What they want is levelling up.

Labour's 2019 meaningless election strapline was 'it's time for real change.' Tory strapline researched and tested in focus groups was 'get Brexit done'. It's time for real change - get Brexit done?

Hanbury https://www.hanburystrategy.com/ qualitative research for the Conservatives, tested in focus groups, has thrown up a two word heuristic strapline they know will work - level up or levelling up. It's being floated just now but when Brexit is done this will be the heuristic that will take the Tories to the next election and it has to be countered.

Labour is gaining support among wealthy voters and is appealing to metropolitan regions. No party can win a majority now without the votes of the new working class who switched from Labour to Conservative.

Anyone who objectively analyses which party would give the best individual, family and work based benefits would answer Labour. No-one could objectively choose the Conservative Party to make life better. No matter who you are, where you live, what job you do and how rich or poor you are you will be better off under Labour. Stick a bit of ideology in the mix and you might choose the Greens. But overall everybody - everybody - is better off under Labour. 

Oh sorry, forgot the SNP, they are probably the first choice in Scotland and I'd put Nicola Sturgeon as the best political leader in the UK just now.

Voters don't objectively analyse who to vote for. They vote according to perceived tradition or on emotionally heuristic straplines. Get Brexit done for example. Using 'content marketing methods' bypassing biased media and going straight to voters Labour can educate voters in making objective democratic decisions.

The economy will be in a real mess after covid and the shock of Brexit. There will be elements of 'we're all in it together', 'we need to pull together' etc.

Bearing in mind everyone benefits from Labour and the messages need to be levelling up not levelling down, I'd like to suggest a strapline of:

                                        for the many as as well as the few

Public Investment Corporations (an idea in development comments welcome)

 

Financial structure of Public Investment Corporations PICs

Government takes back control of industries that are national assets and natural monopolies.

Government does not buy back an industry as such but invests in the industry concerned. 

The investment is converted into government shares giving the government a majority shareholding. Only the government holds these 'PIC G' bonds and they cannot be sold. However the government may raise more shares or reduce shares as investment increases or decreases in a Keynesian cyclical model 

The current owner operators remain in place. The privatised owners can sell their shares with government permission to an approved buyer. But these PIC A shares can only be bought and sold to an approved buyer. These approved buyers could be operators. The government can buy these shares.The government can take full control of the PIC if needed or desired, The owner operators receive dividends based on performance. There might be times when the government is owner and operator and there may be times when the government wants to appoint a contracted operator. In these circumstances the operator is never the owner. The government maintains ownership and ultimate control.

Banks, pension funds and other financial sectors can and are encouraged to invest in the PIC. These shares - 'PIC B' shares can be bought and sold in financial markets as normal but can never equal the government shareholding and are separate from the owner/operator shares. Private and institutional capital can invest but never own, operate or control the PIC. But it would be a sound investment almost like a government bond.

Members of the public can buy shares in the PIC as a form of saving through banks and building societies. This public shareholding 'PIC P' can only be bought and sold by members of the public. Institutional organisations cannot buy these shares. However banks and building societies might be allowed to bundle them into some form of ISA or similar savings or pensions instrument.

Employees can buy shares - 'PIC E' shares. These shares can be sold back to the PIC on leaving, become part of a pension arrangement on retirement and can be bought and sold but only to other employees. The PIC may also bundle employee shares into savings schemes.

The primary role of PICs is to run natural monopolies as efficiently as possible.

But I would like to introduce a new Keynesian idea of ‘notional efficiency’’.

The price charged to users may vary from strict market based pricing to adjusted pricing based on need and ability to pay.

Would like to mention that this flexible ‘market based pricing’ is a valid aspect of a marketing strategy and isn’t that radical.

Staffing levels will vary depending on the economic cycle.

This is where ‘notional efficiency comes into play.

A secondary aim of PICs is to create as many well paid jobs as possible.

In a recession or down turn of the economic cycle the government has to pay unemployment benefits. Regardless of what it is called it has to be enough for a family to survive. 

It would be possible to calculate how many extra employees a PIC could take on with the minimum of cost to general taxation. Let's keep in mind the British worker pays between 70% to 80% of his/her pay in one form of tax or another so the whole wage isn’t accounted for when calculating notional efficiency of employee numbers. At a guess I would say 15% overstaffing in an economic downturn or recession would not increase the tax burden when applied against unemployment benefits. Governments can make decisions about how much overstaffing can be borne by the PIC and the taxation system.

The Aerospace industry of the late 1960s and 1970s ran on a model very similar to what I’m proposing and from experience I know how 100 000s of good jobs can be created.

A problem arises when the economy is in an upward cycle. Keynesian principles say employees should be let go at this time. But no-one will want to leave. Reduced recruitment is a partial answer. I can’t as yet provide a full answer to this problem. 

Perhaps an equilibrium staffing level.