It seems that we are no longer New Labour. The word “new" has been dropped from HQ website, stationary, email addresses and so forth. Is this a good thing?
Looking back Labour had to do something about the realities of Thatcher’s drive to create co-conspirators to her dream by selling off council houses and make an army of mini capitalists with the help of Hissing Sid (look it up). Once Kinnock had lost the 1992 election, even after expelling the Militant Tendency, the foundation of the SDP, and the electorate's fear of losing Thatcher’s and by continuation Major’s gifts, something had to be done to win the approval of an aspirational electorate. Bluntly summed up by the Sun’s headline 'If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights.' Something had to be done.
However in 2011 New Labour as a calling card has all the resemblance of a 15-year-old suit. The lapels are the wrong width, the waistline reminds of past times, not to mention the suiting, cool and modern at the time, but now difficult to keep in shape and resistant to further dry cleaning.
New Labour at birth was a bit like the Big Society. You couldn’t put your figure on what it was about except to guess that New Labour wasn’t like the old version. But the only way to find out was to taste, to vote it in, something the electorate wouldn’t do with Kinnock. And like the Big Society it was meant to appeal directly to the middle classes. In the case of New Labour to those who aspired to be middle class and in the case of the Big Society, to those who felt themselves securely middle class.
Both brands, that is what they are, contain the words that are favourites of advertising executives, prefixes that are always guaranteed to have an immediate impact. “New” is always a good addition to a name to liven up a jaded product of which the consumer has grown a little tired. It tempts the punter to try a new experience. Likewise ”big” but here the difference isn’t to do with enhancement but quantity, more of the same. So a New Mars Bar should promise at least a newish chewy experience, while a Big Mars, offers more of the same. However it could lead one to ask am I paying more for less? Is there a con somewhere, and anyway do I want more of that sickly stuff?
Steve Richards in yesterday's Independent seems to think that PRDave is onto a no-loser in pushing the Big Society, and glory glory it makes him seem a bit idealistic. Rubbish. Notice that PRDave has dragged up the Broken Society from his vault of catch phrases to somehow give some gravitas to his pet project. "Sorry old chum the washing machine we sold you is a dud but here’s a bigger one to make your neighbours jealous."
PRDave will be stuck with the Big Society forever , like Major with Victorian values and warm beer and, it could be his epitaph. If his peripatetic street gang can’t explain it to the punters on their own doorsteps. what a gift to the opposition to define it in any way they like and that’s the PR mistake that could see the end of PRDave.
Yes, yes and more yes. Big doesn't always equal better. But it has to be said neither does New. I for one would never have considered joining a Labour Party under Tony Blair.
ReplyDeleteSound byte politics is with us forever now though alas and whether we like it or not, the British public prefer small and easily digested headlines (ala Twitter for example) to detailed and eminently chewable theses (ala The Times for example).
Even the once mighty Independent (well, mighty for a minority distro broadsheet/Berliner) has gone the way of the tabloid with its "i" paper. Pity the intellectuals Mr Lebedev!!