Now Labour: the political refuge for the moderate majority

When we mentioned we were hosting a general election party on July 4, a relative asked whether there would be any Labour supporters there.

This took me aback. We have long used election nights – general, US, Scottish when we lived in Edinburgh – and two referendums as an excuse for a knees-up and we welcome political diversity.

Until the battle became embittered north of the border during the 2014 independence vote, we would even entertain the odd (very odd in some cases) Scottish nationalist in our home.

This will be our first hooley in London since moving back here recently and while there is no danger of SNP infiltration, all other affiliations (within reason) will be tolerated.

Judging by the prevailing mood, Labour people will not just be present but omnipresent, for among my middle-class, middle-aged demographic, everyone is now Labour, whatever their politics.

Labour’s current ascendancy may lack the pizazz of 1997, but the party has become the default refuge of many whose incomes and lifestyles would make them more natural Conservative voters.

This cohort may have private health insurance but they love the NHS, they don’t worry about interest rates because their mortgages are mostly paid off, and the spectre of higher taxes holds no fear for those who have done well and retired early.

Private schools are out, of course, except in the special circumstances of their own children, a compromise that worked for Diane Abbott who, by the way, wins the backing of the well-to-do Labour lot, for whom she represents historical trailblazing heroics, not Corbynite embarrassment.

Ah, Corbyn. It’s okay among these bona fide Labour devotees not to like him and to blame him for Labour’s defeat in 2019. But not okay, obviously, to admit to voting for Boris Johnson in that year, although I suspect Boris’s earlier mayoral successes were buoyed by swathes of today’s London Labour luvvies.

If Tony Blair brought eclectic political tendencies into the New Labour tent with his dynamic centrist agenda, Keir Starmer has stealthily harnessed the moderate majority with his passive appeal.

Who cares what he is or what he stands for because, crucially, he is not hard-left, he is not scary, and above all he is not a Tory. 

While Blair had John Major’s “back to basics” farce and Euroscepticism, Starmer has the gift of four Tory prime ministers in five years, Truss economics, and Brexit.

The Conservatives’ record rather than anything eye-catching from Starmer has put Labour more than 20 points ahead and on course to win the election. For those on the centre-left, or centre-something, it’s good at last to be on the winning side.

And as evidence that it’s timing not transformative ideas that have given Starmer the edge, support for Rishi Sunak’s campaign announcements has reflected well – on Labour. 

A YouGov poll found that some 75 per cent of voters backed the prime minister’s plan to increase the amount of money pensioners receive before paying tax, while 47 per cent backed scrapping “Mickey Mouse” university degrees.

Even Sunak’s controversial national service plan has gone down well, with older voters at least, with 57 per cent of the over-65s backing the initiative (although, unsurprisingly, just 18 per cent of those it targets – 18-24-year-olds – supported it).

Yet it is Labour, with no significant policy announcements, which continues to charm the electorate. YouGov found that 12 per cent of voters said they had a better view of Labour than they had at the start of the campaign, compared to just six per cent who had a better view of the Conservatives (18 per cent had a worse view).

With Starmer’s lead apparently unassailable – even in the face of a leftist revolt – it is his indecisiveness, peculiarly, that is an asset, making him more things to more folk than even Blair.

Blair redefined socialism in his own image but Starmer, a man of contradictions, embraces it: “I would describe myself as a socialist,” he said at the beginning of the campaign.

Would the home-owning, two-home-owning, Ocado-shopping, jet-setting Labour faithful in my milieu describe themselves as socialist? 

It hardly matters because Starmer’s broad church offers them a political home that is socially acceptable and ideologically palatable.

Never mind the absence of ideology, Labour, post-Ed Miliband, post-Corbyn, is once again trusted. As YouGov found, 40 per cent of those questioned believed the party was ready for government, including 20 per cent of Tory voters from 2019.

These are not voters without a viable Liberal Democrat option in their constituency, holding their noses at the ballot box, but true believers.

Everyone is Now Labour even if they’re not quite sure what that means.

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