You also have to have credibility, so that those who supported you when you needed them will believe you represent their interests. If you have spent the last few years making it clear that you won't, and that you are more interested in pandering to the so-called 'hero' voters, you have none. It might be that a change of leader will offer at least a chance of turning this round, but it is a big ask of people you have derided, smeared, mocked and expelled. Labour told these people they could "f*ck off", so they have. Burnham would have to make it very clear that things have changed by getting rid of a lot of the party apparatchiks, and clearing out the cabinet of all those that toadied up to the Starmer - Macsweeney project. Highly unlikely.
"All of which poses the question: why has Labour not done this?"
1) Because the Thatcher coalition, which you offer so straightforwardly as a template, did not last in the end. And the explanation for this is a mirror image of your account of Labour's mistakes. It reminded me immediately of a 1994 piece by Angela McRobbie in the New Left Review, where she attributed the loss of popularity of the Tories in the early 1990s importantly to their having finally insulted too many of their customers: https://newleftreview.org/issues/i203/articles/angela-mcrobbie-folk-devils-fight-back.pdf
2) Perhaps the key problem with the 35% strategy is that most of the time it has traditionally been something other than Labour which is in power, due to the nature of first-past-the-post. Over the past century, the all-or-nothing nature of politics under FPTP has resulted in "all" for Labour only 1/3 of the time and "nothing" for 2/3.(*) And your apparent idea that the success rate of Labour can be significantly increased from the historical norm may well be an instance of the same irrational self-confidence which you have diagnosed politicians as suffering from in the past, and which you have suggested is what causes people with a particular kind of personality profile to self-select as politicians. (Remember your own favourite Adam Smith quote: there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.)
(*) The longest Labour has ever been in power continuously is 13 years. By contrast, under proportional representation the Swedish Social Democratic Party was in power continuously for 40 years (44 years if we allow one brief interregnum of 3 months).
Electoral coalitions don’t have to persist in the long run-they’ve just got to win the next election.
And the 35% strategy comment- the whole point is to work out how to get a majority in the system we have now. 35-40% nails it.
The old system (which had two main parties and not 5 or 6 viable options) required something much more like 50% to prevail, maybe even more. Those days are no longer with us- unless the electorate settle into, say, a Reform- Green two party system (or Restore- Labour for that matter).
I don't understand this objection. Even in order to merely win the next election, the coalition has to persist until the next election. Thus the Thatcherite coalition persisted until the 1992 election, which it won, but not the 1997 one, which it lost.
In Britain, no party has received 50% of the vote in a general election since 1931.
As long as there isn't another 35% bloc with a more profitable vote distribution! Outcome of next GE looks like being arbitrary (ie: not even proportionately distributed) chaos!
You also have to have credibility, so that those who supported you when you needed them will believe you represent their interests. If you have spent the last few years making it clear that you won't, and that you are more interested in pandering to the so-called 'hero' voters, you have none. It might be that a change of leader will offer at least a chance of turning this round, but it is a big ask of people you have derided, smeared, mocked and expelled. Labour told these people they could "f*ck off", so they have. Burnham would have to make it very clear that things have changed by getting rid of a lot of the party apparatchiks, and clearing out the cabinet of all those that toadied up to the Starmer - Macsweeney project. Highly unlikely.
Labour has lost more voters to the left (LibDem) , Green, SNP and Plaid than to Reform
https://jamesbreckwoldt.substack.com/p/what-happened-to-labours-2024-voters
Reform is gaining voters from did not vote, the Conservatives
https://jamesbreckwoldt.substack.com/p/who-is-voting-reform-and-why
Pandering to reform is a losing strategy for Labour
Putting reform as an enemy within (they are very unpopular outside their supporters) and encouraging tactical voting to stop them may work better
But Labour has lost lots of its former base voters to Reform because they dislike the level of immigration. Why shouldn't it try to win them back?
Labour is losing a lot of _places_ to Reform, but not necessarily as a result of _voters_ switching directly from Labour to Reform.
"All of which poses the question: why has Labour not done this?"
1) Because the Thatcher coalition, which you offer so straightforwardly as a template, did not last in the end. And the explanation for this is a mirror image of your account of Labour's mistakes. It reminded me immediately of a 1994 piece by Angela McRobbie in the New Left Review, where she attributed the loss of popularity of the Tories in the early 1990s importantly to their having finally insulted too many of their customers: https://newleftreview.org/issues/i203/articles/angela-mcrobbie-folk-devils-fight-back.pdf
2) Perhaps the key problem with the 35% strategy is that most of the time it has traditionally been something other than Labour which is in power, due to the nature of first-past-the-post. Over the past century, the all-or-nothing nature of politics under FPTP has resulted in "all" for Labour only 1/3 of the time and "nothing" for 2/3.(*) And your apparent idea that the success rate of Labour can be significantly increased from the historical norm may well be an instance of the same irrational self-confidence which you have diagnosed politicians as suffering from in the past, and which you have suggested is what causes people with a particular kind of personality profile to self-select as politicians. (Remember your own favourite Adam Smith quote: there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.)
(*) The longest Labour has ever been in power continuously is 13 years. By contrast, under proportional representation the Swedish Social Democratic Party was in power continuously for 40 years (44 years if we allow one brief interregnum of 3 months).
Electoral coalitions don’t have to persist in the long run-they’ve just got to win the next election.
And the 35% strategy comment- the whole point is to work out how to get a majority in the system we have now. 35-40% nails it.
The old system (which had two main parties and not 5 or 6 viable options) required something much more like 50% to prevail, maybe even more. Those days are no longer with us- unless the electorate settle into, say, a Reform- Green two party system (or Restore- Labour for that matter).
I don't understand this objection. Even in order to merely win the next election, the coalition has to persist until the next election. Thus the Thatcherite coalition persisted until the 1992 election, which it won, but not the 1997 one, which it lost.
In Britain, no party has received 50% of the vote in a general election since 1931.
As long as there isn't another 35% bloc with a more profitable vote distribution! Outcome of next GE looks like being arbitrary (ie: not even proportionately distributed) chaos!