I sat down yesterday with the shadow Welsh secretary to talk about the current dynamics in the Labour Party. A longer version of the interview will appear in the next issue of Total Politics, but he had the following to say about how his party must change in order to win again:
"The conventional political party model is bust. No party is, at the present time, is operating in a manner and with a strategy that actually chimes with the politics of today. All political parties are modelled on a past era. Fifty years ago, over 4% of the electorate were members of political parties. Today it’s under 1%.
"Now actually Labour is the only growing party at the present time. But people are not joiners anymore. They are supporters. Therefore the first crucial thing for me was actually to create a wider periphery around the party of thousands of supporters.
"If that is prioritised, as me and Ed [Miliband] want it to be, the whole of the party has to take ownership of it. It cannot be delivered from a London headquarter."
Hain pointed to seats like Barking, Birmingham Edgbaston and Oxford East as Labour constituency exceptions.
"I highlight Birmingham Edgbaston, which today should be a Conservative-held seat on the psephology. Barking which should be a BNP seat again on the psephology. The third seat is Oxford East which we should have lost on conventional political trends.
"... They all have different experiences but they attracted around them hundreds of volunteers who were supporters, who would deliver leaflets, who would get engaged, but didn’t want to join, didn’t want to turn up to meetings and be part of regular life of political parties.
"If we can replicate that, which is my ambition, across our 100 target seats, then we will surprise people at the next general election."
Comments
Siôn Jones / February 02 2012 8:40pm
""Now actually Labour is the only growing party at the present time. . . " This from the Shadow SoS for Wales? Plaid Cymru has added 25% to its member ship in a few weeks, and the SNP add hundreds to its membership every time a unionist from London opens his mouth. It may not be important from a London, but in Wales, where his constituency is, and whose people he is supposed to represent, it is highly significant. The constitutional question is the ONLY one that is important at the moment, in the long term, and Hain who likes to pontificate on such matters shows that he is totally ignorant of the shape of things to come. How out of touch can a professional politician get? Well, in Hain's case the answer is VERY. Time to retire to spend more time with his expenses.
Clr Ralph Baldwin / February 02 2012 10:17pm
So it had nothing to do with making politics as unpolitical as possible, creation of a bunch of weidos who call themselves "elite" without actually acheiving anything in the real world, and most of all having absolutely lost touch with reality.
Speak to anyone on the doorstep about issues and they are incredibly passionate and intelligent, mention the Parties and they are turned off. Hain is as usual talking garbage and making excuses as he fails to cope with reality as a true individual who is part of the problem.
Rob the cripple / February 03 2012 11:30am
Labour is bust in more ways then one, and I think we will end up with Labour asking again for state funding, this is the way politics has changed.
People still want well paid employment, they want a say in how this country is run, they want a good solid NHS and they want chidlren educated in schools.
What did we get New labour and the Tories