“The point all this misses is that the Conservatives won…”

Ah, one more wee gem (literally) in the wake of the Corbyn effect as Simon Wren Lewis was finishing Can Labour Win?:

Perhaps part of the problem is that a great deal of this analysis comes from Labour party people who are, quite rightly, really interested in policy. So all the analysis is about which policies were wrong and which way policy should move as a result. We get into territory that these people are comfortable with: what policy should be.

The point all this misses is that the Conservatives won. It used to be said that governments, not oppositions, win or lose elections. Yet all of the comment is about Labour’s policies. A much better place to start is why voters voted for a Conservative government. That quickly leads you to the fact that voters saw the Conservatives as competent in economic terms. And that is where you should stop.

You should stop because, as I have argued many times, the raw data on the economy was terrible. If you had asked any pollster or political scientist whether a government could win on economic competence having presided over a huge fall in real wages they would have said no. True things began to look less gloomy as the election approached, but the position of the Conservatives in the polls well before that time was not nearly as bad as the economic position suggested it should be.

The Conservatives won because they reframed the economic debate. Competence became reducing the deficit, not increasing prosperity. Labour’s failure was a failure to challenge that reframing. Forget the details of Labour policy – it is of little importance compared to this crucial mistake. And that crucial mistake was a symptom of a more general problem.

Corbyn will have some advantages. He will not let Osborne’s deficit fetishism go unchallenged. But that challenge will only work if the alternative policy is solid and simple: I agree with the authors that this must involve balance on the current deficit (although within the context of a flexible rule). What he must not do is provide material for his opponents, which I’m afraid is exactly what Corbyn’s QE did.

Focusing on the current balance will allow for a large increase in public investment, which again can be spun very simply: Labour, unlike the Conservatives, invests in our future. (It is not afraid to borrow to do so, just like every successful firm.) Corbyn, and the team he selects, may not want to call it spin, but if they do not match their opponent’s ability in this area they will lose.

Mick Fealty

Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty