Polly Toynbee Friday 8 May 2015
Inside Labour the inquest will be bitter, a battle ahead that risks turning into a grim repeat of old arguments between Blairites and Miliband radicals
Labour party officials monitor the count at the counting centre at Doncaster racecourse. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images
Oh how painfully familiar this is. Any Labour supporter of my generation has been here too often before, hopes raised and dashed on the night. A wash of blue sweeping the board is excruciatingly familiar. But all the same, for every poll to be so dreadfully wrong delivered a profound shock to a stunned Labour party.
A dismal night for Labour – extraordinary to lose more seats than Gordon Brown lost last time. Nuneaton just before 2am felt like the coffin nail that confirmed the exit poll’s accuracy. Forget neck and neck, this was a terrible trouncing.
Why? Under their skin, a lot of old hands felt in their bones that it was remarkable that Labour was level pegging when the Tories had everything in their favour. Never has there been such a mighty blast of nearly all the press denouncing Labour in the crudest ways. Add to that six months of nothing but good economic news, on jobs and on growth, with orchestrated paeans of praise from business. Even if people didn’t feel it in their pockets, they were fed a story of sunlit uplands ahead.
Inside Labour the inquest will be bitter, a battle ahead that risks turning into a grim repeat of old arguments between Blairites and Miliband radicals. Was it the man, or was it his ideas that were defeated?
But it’s far from clear that Cameron will relish his victory. He has won it at a dreadfully high cost. He was forced to concede an EU referendum that risks taking Britain out of the EU. The volcanic eruption of nationalism in Scotland will be turbo-charged by another Conservative government they didn’t elect. Cameron’s wretched place in the history books looks set to be the man who broke the union, and left a diminished little England as his legacy. This may be the last election of a United Kingdom ever, both Labour and Tories sharing some blame.
As I write, it’s not clear Cameron has won a majority. If not, the Fixed Term Parliament Act – passed in haste to be deeply regretted by all – means he can’t threaten an election to bully minor parties into supporting him. But if he has pulled it off, the country can expect an even more radically right-wing government. Austerity of double the ferocity lies ahead, benefits cut to the marrow, public services shredded. The NHS can expect accelerated privatisation while the BBC should prepare itself for savage treatment in next year’s charter renewal. Labour’s failure to stave off this future will lead to great soul-searching and self-blame.
