The Labour Leadership Apathy

ANALYSIS by Patrick English

So, the first blog of The Comment! Exciting times! The first blog will focus on the leadership election which is taking everyone by storm!… or not as the case is, inside the Labour Party.
Just why is there so much apathy towards the election? Should we be paying more attention to it and be more concerned with the result?

The Conservative Leadership Elections in 2005 stole headlines, full page spreads, and newspaper pull outs right up until David Cameron beat David Davis in the final round. So why has the Labour contest not had the same effect?

Firstly, an obvious finger pointing could be thrown the way of the mass desertion of voters from Labour in the recent elections, and the tumble down both approval and opinion polls that proceeded it. The public could be said to have fallen out with the party and subsequently lost interest in the leadership race, looking at the election results. However, recent polls have shown Labour rising back up to the mid 30 mark and pushing 40 in some, and the public’s personal spat with Gordon Brown no longer plagues the ranks of the party.
“Same old, same old” is often thrown about with politics, the background of the front runners in the race does nothing to resent that. But with a new leader comes new ideas, which is exactly what the public want according to this article and its sources:

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/03/ed-miliband-new-labour-leadership

So surely the public should be crawling all over news of the possibility of New Labour finally being swept away and a new ideology being born into the political mainstream circuit, away from the “Same old”?

But in reality, the contest simply isn’t attracting the attention is perhaps warrants. Perhaps we can point to the cloud of inevitability that surrounds the election. The sense from the start when names were being ‘thrown into the ring’, was that one of the Miliband brothers, most likely David, was going to win the election. Indeed, the latest polls show that the speculation from the outset may be coming good. From YouGov, the poll shows David in the lead with Ed close behind. Following the brothers is Diane Abbott, shrowd of taxi expenses and ‘my son will NOT attend a state school’ and all, with Andy Burnham, old Labour reborn, sitting in 4th. Ed Balls, fresh from the court of Gordon Brown, somewhat surprisingly brings up the rear:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Pol-Sun-LabSummaryUPDATED-290710.pd

Maybe indeed the lack of connection between the front runners, who let’s not forget were very much part of the government that was so heavily defeated in the recent General Election, and the general public has caused the high levels of disengagement from the race for the leadership and toward the final result, due September 25th.

On the other hand, Ed Miliband offered a different view when quizzed on the BBC:

Ed Miliband on the apathy toward the contest (skip to 2:40)

“We are in opposition”, certainly offers a good explanation as to why the issue isn’t as burning as I am sure it is to most Labour Party members to the general public. However, as fore mentioned, the Tory contest of 2005 did have a fair few of us tuned in intensely. So what is so different between the two elections?
Well, aside from perhaps the lack of real competition and the state of the party in opposition, perhaps another dampening factor is the context in which it is running. In 2005, there was nothing else but the re-election of Blair for the press to be running elongated, full page, full blooded opinion stories on. In contrast, the Labour Leadership election has more, and stiffer, competition for headlines than Michael Johnson has for a first team place at Man City. With the World Cup, the Coalition and its first Budget, and the first Liberal presence in government for about 100 years, there has been no shortage of stories for the press to run front page. As well all know, with a lack of press interest, comes a lack of public interest.

General apathy may meet the race amongst the electorate, but if I may opinionate, perhaps we do need to pay more attention to what is going on in the Labour Party. After all even polling 29% ensured that they were the second largest party in Westminster, and they will undoubtedly come in strong for a charge on power in 2015 with a new leader.
So, I advise you, head over to the BBC for some impartial… or not as it turns out, profiles and explanations on the candidates and the contest. It’s important!