Granted, Dave is no Muhammad Ali* and the idea of comparing Ed Miliband to George Foreman is one of the more preposterous notions ever conceived by man. Nevertheless, I wonder if Cameron, backed by his cornermen George and Nick, are playing rope-a-dope with Labour.
This may not have been what they envisaged when they took office last year and it may be a strategy developed in extremis and one forced upon them by a suddenly developed appraisal of their own weakness. Nevertheless, if it is a plan it is one that might work.
This thought was sparked by Fraser’s excellent post on the signs that the government has taken the first steps towards reframing the argument about cuts. This is the latest move in a long game. The government’s approval ratings aren’t terribly important right now except in as much as they can assist the coalition when it launches its counter-attack. Indeed, there’s a sense in which the more pressure the coalition feels right now, the better since – provided both partners keep their nerve, which might be the tricky bit – that pressure forces them together since the consequences of breaking-up must be dreadful. This is, given the nature of politics and the way it’s covered, a high-risk strategy. Nevertheless, it’s consistent with some of the boldness Cameron, Clegg and Osborne have shown in the past.
By setting themselves up as the Bad Guys, prepared to slash and burn every aspect of state spending the coalition has asked for a kicking and, unsurprisingly, has received one. A -26% approval rating would be a real problem if there were a general election this year. It’s not if the parties stick it out, take their lumps, and wait for 2014 or 2015. If they can do that they can build their story.
Because that’s what’s happening. Or should be happening. Think on it: the coalition has promised huge quantities of pain. At almost every stage they have issued dark and gloomy warnings. We’re all in this together and it’s going to be pretty tough going. At the same time, it’s trying to push through radical reforms to education, welfare and, more questionably, the NHS. These will necessarily take time to work (if they do indeed work) and, equally, it will take time for the economy to gain real confidence. Unlike the spending cuts, the political pain in this parliament has been front-loaded.They hope.
As part of that process the coalition is inviting Labour to punch itself out. All the drama of marching and protesting and shrieking and striking is for the first half of this parliament. The early rounds, if you will. Do your worst, the coalition suggests, trusting that it will be just nimble and flexible enough to avoid the heaviest pounding. If, after all that, Labour swings too hard and fails to land enough blows then the Tories (and even the Liberal Democrats) will be in position to take advantage in the latter stages of the parliament.
The message will be that when times were tight and tough this government had the courage to make the hard decisions, at great risk to itself and its popularity but now the value of those decisions is plain for all to see. The cuts weren’t as savage as they seemed or you once feared (a fear stoked by the coalition itself of course). The patient is recovering and the side-effects from the treatment were not as severe as we warned. Labour and all their doom-mongering look just a little stupid now, don’t they?
That depends on economic recovery, of course. But it will surely come eventually even if not as quickly or enthusiastically as we’d wish it. Patience, laddie, patience. Fraser’s right to point out that economic recovery won’t sell itself but, in terms of politics, the “narrative” for the next election is being prepared now.
Part of that requires the coalition to define its enemy. Labour have made theirs quite clear: Ed Balls and Miliband know what they want to say and they’ll keep saying it all the way to 2015. The poll figures which give Labour a lead must be very encouraging for them. But beneath the headlines lurk more troubling numbers, ones that greatly assist Cameron and Clegg and point to the fightback to come.
You can see this in a YouGov tracker released a couple of weeks ago. YouGov asked which party’s leaders “are prepared to take tough and unpopular decisions”? Only 11% of voters say this most applies to Labour (and only 29% of Labour’s own supporters think Labour are willing to make awkward choices) while 55% think it applies most to the Tories. (Rather unfairly, given the grief he’s copped, just 5% of those polled think the Lib Dems can make tough decisions.) Meanwhile, only 17% of voters say Labour is the party “led by people of real ability.” Another YouGov tracker finds that 94% of Tory voters think Cameron is doing well (this falls to 81% among those who backed the Tories in 2010) but just 64% of Labour supporters think Miliband is faring well (a figure that falls to 58% amongst those who voted Labour last year).
In other words, Labour’s lead in the polls is even softer than you must think it is. More importantly, these kinds of perception have a habit of sticking. The nagging suspicion that Ed’s not got the chops and his party hasn’t any ideas or vision may matter more than the coalition’s current disapproval rating. Events can change the latter; the former can only be changed by Miliband changing himself. So here’s your counter-attack:
Labour shirked the big decisions that needed to be made when times were difficult, preferring to indulge time-served, shop-soiled shibboleths, retreating to the comfort zone of their pre-Blair incarnation when they were, as the people judged time and time again, unfit for government. They deny reality and predict disaster in equal measure. They have no answers to the tough questions because they don’t believe the questions even exist. They are living in the past and they are weak, weak, weak. Even their own supporters know, deep in their hearts, that the Labour leadership just isn’t up to the job.
All this, naturally, depends upon the economy returning to robust growth sooner rather than later. But if it does the coalition will have a good story to tell even if, as is often the case in politics, it will take credit for matters that are not strctly within its control (sterling’s weakness) or that owe less to the reality of their actual policies than the perception of those policies (savage spending cuts, for instance).
As I say, perhaps this is not what they had hoped for or planned, but needs must and this, I suggest, is one way forward for the coalition. But it will take nerve and patience to let Labour whirl away and exhaust itself before the coalition retaliates. And they may not, of course, be good enough to do it.
*You can watch the whole of the Rumble in the Jungle here.
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