BLAIR’S BRITAIN, 1997–2007
Page 9
17 Butler and Kavanagh, The British General Election of 1997.
Table 3.2. Perceptions of what Labour stood for 1992–2001
1987
1992
1994
1997
2001
Tax and spend
3.0
2.8
3.5
3.6
4.1
Nationalisation
2.9
3.6
3.5
4.7
5.5
Reduce unemployment vs.
inflation
2.3
3.0
2.9
3.2
3.8
Equalise incomes
2.9
3.0
n/a
3.5
4.7
Notes:
(1) Scores show the average position on which the Labour was placed on an
eleven-point scale as described in the main text. The lower the score the more to
the ‘left’ Labour was thought to be.
(2) n/a ϭnot asked
Source: British Election Study 1987; British Election Panel Study 1992–97;
British Election Panel Study 1997–2001.
more taxes and spending. Meanwhile, four years of low inflation also
seem to have helped change perceptions of Labour’s economic priorities
somewhat.
So the repositioning of Labour under Blair’s leadership was noticed by
the public – although, as in the case of the party’s rebranding, much of
the impact only registered itself after Labour had secured office rather
than before. Evidently it was as much a consequence of the strategy that
Labour deployed after it had secured electoral success as it was a precursor of that success. Nevertheless we should still examine whether the
rebranding and repositioning of New Labour helped to strengthen the
party’s support amongst its key intended targets – the middle class and
the south of England.
Table 3.3 shows the propensity of those in each social grade as measured by market researchers to vote Labour at each election between 1992
and 2005. Those in social grade AB consist primarily of those in professional and managerial occupations, those in C1 those in more junior
white-collar occupations, while the C2s comprise foremen and skilled
manual workers and the DEs unskilled manual workers, together with
those wholly reliant on a state pension. The table shows that even after a
decade of New Labour the party was still far more popular amongst those
in working-class occupations than it was amongst those in middle-class
ones. Nevertheless, relatively speaking at least, the party was more
popular amongst middle-class voters in 2005 than it had been in 1992
Table 3.3. Labour support by social grade, 1992–2005
Social grade
AB
C1
C2
DE
% voted Labour
1992
19
25
40
49
1997
31
37
50
59
2001
30
38
49
55
2005
28
32
40
48
Change 92–05
ϩ11
ϩ7
0
Ϫ1
Table based only on those voting.
Source: MORI.
before Blair became leader. Indeed, according to MORI’s data the key
difference between 1992 and 2005 was that amongst middle-class voters
the party was still more popular than it had been in 1992, whereas
amongst those in the working class it was no more popular in 2005 than it
had been thirteen years earlier.
Again, however, we should note that some of the change only occurred
after Labour came to power.8 In particular we might note that much of
the narrowing of the class gap in Labour support apparently occurred
between 2001 and 2005 and did so because the party suffered particularly
heavy losses amongst working-class voters during this period. One of the
risks of Tony Blair’s New Labour strategy was that in attempting to secure
the support of middle-class voters he might undermine the party’s
support amongst more traditional working-class ones. By 2005 at least
that risk may have become a reality.9
But what of the geography of Labour support? Did the party achieve its
objective of easing its ‘southern discomfort’? Table 3.4 shows the change
in Labour’s support in three broad regions of England together with
18 Though for further evidence that Labour did gain relatively strongly amongst middleclass voters between 1992 and 1997 see G. Evans, A. Heath and C. Payne, ‘Labour as a
Catch-All Party?’, in G. Evans and P. Norris (eds.), Critical Election: British Parties and
Voters in Long-Term Perspective (London: Sage, 1999), pp. 87–101; A. Heath, R. Jowell and
J. Curtice, The Rise of New Labour: Party Policies and Voter Choices (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2001).
19 We should, however, note that the relative decline in Labour support between 2001 and
2005 amongst the working class is not so immediately apparent in the British Election
Study data.
Table 3.4. The changing geography of Labour support 1992–2005
Average change in Labour
% share of vote in
constituencies in
1992–97
1997–2001
2001–05
England
South
ϩ10.9
Ϫ0.6
Ϫ6.2
Midlands
ϩ10.1
Ϫ2.2
Ϫ6.3
North
ϩ9.5
Ϫ3.0
Ϫ5.7
Wales
ϩ5.6
Ϫ5.8
Ϫ5.7
Scotland
ϩ6.9
Ϫ1.5
Ϫ4.2
South ϭconstituencies in Greater London and the former South-East and SouthWest standard regions.
Midlands ϭEast Anglia, East and West Midlands standard regions.
North ϭYorkshire and Humberside, the North-West and Northern standard
regions.
Source: Author’s calculations.
Scotland and Wales. Labour’s progress between 1992 and 1997 was clearly
stronger in the south of England than elsewhere, and particularly
stronger than in Scotland or Wales. Moreover, in part at least this seems
to have happened because voters in the southern half of the country were
particularly likely to think that Labour had moved ideologically between
1992 and 1997 towards the centre ground.10 But again we discover that
only part of Labour’s success in achieving its objective occurred before it
secured office. Further progress was made after it took office, for between
1997 and 2001 it lost less ground in the south of England than elsewhere.
By 2001 the party’s support was more than ten points higher in the
average constituency in the south of England than it had been in 1992,
whereas the equivalent figure in the North was only
somewhat over
six points. Meanwhile in Wales Labour was actually no stronger at all.
However, the party was unable to repeat its relatively strong performance
in the southern half of the country in 2005; during Blair’s second term the
party’s support actually fell slightly more in the south of England and in
the Midlands than it did elsewhere.
So Tony Blair’s rebranding and repositioning of his party does appear
to have changed somewhat the kind of person who voted Labour. He left
10 J. Curtice and A. Park, ‘Region: New Labour, New Geography?’, in Evans and Norris,
Critical Election, pp. 124–47.
the party relatively better able to appeal to middle-class voters and those
living in the south of England. However this change did not simply occur
before 1997; much of it happened after Labour had secured power. As a
result, the degree to which its rebranding and repositioning enabled the
party to secure power should not be exaggerated. Moreover, as we have
already seen, it certainly did not ensure the party could maintain its
overall level of support once it had secured office.
In truth Blairites have always been inclined to exaggerate the importance of a party’s ideological position in determining its level of electoral
success.11 So long as a party is not beyond the pale ideologically (as indeed
Labour may well have been in the 1980s but not necessarily by 1994),
what matters most in determining whether its fortunes wax or wane are
not perceptions of its ideology but its competence. It was perceived
incompetence in the wake of Black Wednesday that undid the
Conservatives in 1992 and ensured that Blair inherited such a strong
position in 1994. And it was perceived incompetence that damaged
Labour’s electoral credibility during Blair’s tenure as leader, thereby creating an ebb tide that no amount of ideological positioning or rebranding
could stop.
This can be seen quite clearly in the pattern of losses that Labour
suffered in 2005.12 According to data from the British Election Study,
those who voted for Labour in 2001 and put themselves on the right of the
ideological spectrum were just as likely to defect from Labour as those on
the left. Equally, those 2001 Labour voters who wanted higher taxes and
higher spending were just as likely to defect as those who wanted lower
taxes and lower spending. What did distinguish those who remained loyal
to Labour and those who did not were perceptions of the government’s
record in office. As many as 83% of those 2001 Labour voters who
thought that the NHS had got better in recent years voted for the party
again in 2005 – but only 58% of those who thought it had got worse.
Meanwhile, although most of those 2001 Labour voters who approved of
Britain’s involvement in Iraq were willing to vote for the party again in
2005, only just over half of those who strongly disapproved – a group
comprising no less than one in four of all former Labour voters – were
willing to back the party again. Over one in four of this latter group opted
for the Liberal Democrats instead.
11 See also Heath et al., Rise of New Labour, ch. 9.
12 J. Curtice, ‘New Labour, New Protest? How the Liberal Democrats Profited from Blair’s
Mistakes’, Political Quarterly, 78, 2007: 117–27.
Moving the centre?
In moving his party towards the centre, Blair assumed that he was taking
his party closer to where the electorate already were ideologically. But if a
party changes what it stands for, it may not simply change people’s perceptions of that party, it may also mean that people change their own
beliefs too. After all, if as a result of a party changing its stance there is
no longer a mainstream party advocating, say, greater equality or more
nationalisation, then it is not unreasonable to anticipate that increasingly
fewer people will be persuaded of the value of such policies. Moreover, it
is often argued that people take their cues about what they believe from
the party to which they feel a sense of emotional attachment.13 So if the
Labour Party moves to the centre, as it did under Tony Blair, there is good
reason to believe that many of its supporters will change their own views
in sympathy.
This potentially raises two problems for a party that moves towards the
centre. First, it means that in reaching for the centre ground it is in part
chasing a moving target. The more it moves towards the centre, the more
the centre itself moves. Second, it raises questions about the ability of the
party to generate and maintain long-term support for itself. At any one
point in time those on the ‘left’ on any issue are more likely to support
Labour than are those on the ‘right’.14 So if the proportion of the electorate on the left declines, then Labour’s ability to win votes – whatever its
perceived level of competence – is likely to suffer.
So we now look to see what has happened to public opinion while
Blair has been leader of the Labour Party. Did he not only change what
people believed about the Labour Party but also what they themselves
believed? In particular did the Blair era see a decline in support for
greater equality and for government intervention in the economy – that
is, in the values that have traditionally been associated with the ‘left’ in
Britain?
We can best answer these questions by looking at data from the British
Social Attitudes survey which over the last twenty years has regularly
asked a number of questions that tap support for ‘left-wing’ and ‘rightwing’ attitudes. The first of these questions is about unemployment
benefit. It asks:
13 D. Butler and D. Stokes, Political Change in Britain: The Electoral Choice, 2nd edn
(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1974).
14 A. Heath, R. Jowell and J. Curtice, How Britain Votes (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1985);
Heath et al., Rise of New Labour.
Opinions differ about the level of benefits for unemployed people. Which of
these two statements comes closest to your own view . . .
. . . benefits for unemployed people are too low and cause hardship,
or, benefits for unemployed people are too high and discourage them from
finding jobs?
Unemployment is of course an important source of income inequality
while unemployment benefit is one of the mechanisms that government
can use to counteract its effects. Meanwhile a second question asks more
directly about inequality and what the government should do to counteract its incidence. Respondents to the survey are asked whether they agree
or disagree (on a five-point scale from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’ that:
Government should redistribute income from the better off to those who are
less well off.
This question is in fact part of a suite of five questions that between
them are designed to tap how far people value equality and how much of
a role t
hey think government should have in trying to make society more
equal.15 The four additional questions, each of them again comprising a
proposition to which people are invited to indicate agreement or disagreement, are as follows:
Big business benefits owners at the expense of workers.
Ordinary people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth.
There is one law for the rich and one for the poor.
Management will always try to get the better of employees if it gets the chance.
By aggregating responses to all five questions (each of which can be
scored from one to five and each of which is worded in a ‘left-wing’ direction) we can identify how many people on average are inclined to give
‘left of centre’ rather than ‘right of centre’ responses.
Table 3.5 overleaf shows how the pattern of answers to our two individual questions plus the broader left–right scale changed between 1983 and
2005. It shows in each case the proportion giving a left-wing response.
15 G. Evans and A. Heath, ‘The Measurement of Left–Right and Libertarian–Authoritarian
Scales: Comparing Balanced and Unbalanced Scales’, Quality and Quantity, 29, 1995:
191–206; A. Park, J. Curtice, K. Thomson, M. Phillips and M. Johnson (eds.), British Social
Attitudes: The 23rd Report: Perspectives on a Changing Society (London: Sage, 2007).
Table 3.5. Incidence of ‘left-wing’ attitudes 1983–2005
Unemployment
Government should
Left of
benefits are
redistribute from better
centre (%)
too low (%)
off to less well off (%)
1983
46
n/a
n/a
1984
49
n/a
n/a
1985
44
n/a
n/a
1986
44
43
52
1987
51
45
55
1989
53
51
58
1990
52
51
59
1991
54
50
54
1993
58
48
59
1994
53
51
64
1995
51
47
61
1996
48
44
58
1997
46
n/a
n/a
1998
29
39
52
1999
33
36