Seismic changes are needed
Former Labour MP Sally Keeble for Northampton North reflects on yesterday’s results
In the second of our special election features we hear from Sally Keeble about the changes Labour needs to make
By Sally Keeble
These will go down in history as the elections that proved Boris Johnson to be more than just the Brexit prime minister.
His Hartlepool by-election victory wrong-footed Labour and the council election results punched holes in what was left of the ‘red wall’.
In Northampton, Labour held its own but didn’t increase its representation, despite the outrages of the Conservative mismanagement of both the former county council and its county town.
There were some heart-warming personal stories. In West Northamptonshire Keith Delamere-Holland saw his longstanding commitment to his community rewarded with a council seat in Billing and Rectory Farm. North Northamptonshire saw Father and daughter John and Zoe McGhee elected and also mother and daughter team Leanne and Lyn Buckingham.
There was a breakthrough for the Greens on North Northamptonshire with three councillors Dez Dell, Emily Fedorowycz and Sarah Tubb elected on the back of the popular and effective campaign they led to save Weekley Hall Wood.
Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats, who normally benefit from localism suffered the loss of their former county council leader Chris Stanbra and failed to win as many seats as they had hoped.
Overall the result was that the Conservatives won firm control of both councils. It was largely predictable given the boundaries of the new unitary authorities carved out of the failed Northamptonshire County Council. In West Northamptonshire the urban Northampton vote was swamped in the rural hinterland of Daventry and South Northamptonshire.
Unless the rural Conservative majority becomes adept at responding to Northampton’s priorities, trouble looms for them. Early warnings have already come from the former borough council’s Labour leader Danielle Stone.
A big part of the Conservatives’ success in this week’s elections was in the personal dominance of Boris Johnson.
At a time when normal politics was suspended, he managed to fill every available airwave with his big personality. It’s easy to see why. He’s the prime minister who doesn’t brush his hair, gets stuck on zip wires and sends gunboats to Jersey. He spits in the face of adversity, be it Europe or Covid. He also spits in the face of integrity, honesty and probity, making even some of his party grandees despair. But not, apparently, damaging his electoral appeal in places where it matters.
An old Etonian, he’s attracted the traditional Labour vote. As the enforcer of Covid rules, he’s given the impression that he personally disagrees with them. He left Labour leader Keir Starmer to be the bogeyman for the lockdown deniers. And former Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster has carried the can for his broken promise over no border down the Irish Sea.
What Johnson brings to politics doesn’t amount to a coherent philosophy like Thatcherism or Blairism, or even Corbynism. But under his shambolic exterior, he has a shrewd feel for political positioning. It’s what enabled him to win the Mayoralty of London against the political tide. And which now enables him to buck the normal fortunes of a party of government and win both a parliamentary by-election and mid-term council elections.
It’s not without its risks, for the future of the country if not the prime minister. At time of writing, votes were still being counted in Scotland, but the dominance of the Scottish National Party was already evident and poses a threat to the union. There are similar problematic trends in public opinion in Wales and Northern Ireland. Johnson is a very English prime minister.
However the scale of the Conservatives success this week means that Labour isn’t going to be able to work its way to victory in Northamptonshire, or elsewhere. Of course it’s always possible to speak to more voters, spend more on Facebook advertising, and do more litter-picks. Hopefully such political foot-slogging will lead to stronger local representation in four years’ time.
But one more heave won’t be good enough. Seismic changes are needed if Labour is to win the hearts and minds that will deliver control of local or central government. Whether Labour can win over the key swing voters in Northampton depends on Keir Starmer’s ability to ditch the toxic legacy of his party’s most recent past and construct a politics for a country radically changed during Labour’s lost decade. And he has, at the most, a few months in which to do it.
The worst thing about this week’s election results is that, with all the attention on Labour, the Conservative government is left to go on its free-wheeling way. And in Northamptonshire - North and West - some of the worst failings in the history of local government get swept under the carpet.