Keeping Labour on the rails: Party faces problems on all fronts, post Scottish referendum

During nearly a century’s use as a railway station, linking Lancashire city with Yorkshire and London, Manchester Central was the scene for many moments of anticipation and excitement.

Today, the arched building in the centre of the city is a conference centre, hosting this week the British Labour Party conference as it prepares for next May’s general election.

However, Manchester Central has so far witnessed little excitement from Labour. If anything, the gathering has been flat – filled with a sense of unease about the months to come, rather than anticipation.

Planning for Manchester by Labour had been difficult because of the Scottish independence referendum, which saw growing concerns as the polling approached that Scots would vote Yes.

In the end, it was, instead, thrown into disarray by Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to highlight the need for a greater voice for England given the tide of devolution heading elsewhere.

For now, Labour does not quite know what to do.

Scotland must get its promised devolution, though the party is angry with Gordon Brown, not grateful to him for “bouncing” it into a more substantial offer than it wanted just a few months ago.

Such an offer ensures that the role of Labour’s Scottish MPs has to be reduced: either by further cutting their numbers, or by reducing their rights to vote – or both.

Illustrating the problems Labour faces on all fronts, the strongest support for greater devolution in Scotland comes from those who previously voted for Labour there.

Meanwhile, the tune of “English votes for English laws” suits the Conservatives and the UK Independence Party – though it is far from clear what it is that English voters want exactly.

For now, Labour is seeking to deal with old battles: shadow chancellor Ed Balls performed a mea culpa, mea maxima culpa on stage for Labour’s sins in office about immigration, governing the banks, and the economy.

In a clear acknowledgment that George Osborne has won much of the economic debate, Balls insisted that spending would be ruthlessly controlled under a Labour government.

The striking point about Balls’s apology is not that he did it, but rather that over four years after leaving office Labour has not managed to restore its standing with the public on any of the issues.

Signalling his determination, Balls declared that fuel benefits would be removed from the richest pensionsers, while child benefit rises would be held to 1 per cent for the first two years of Labour rule.

High-profile targets

In his speech yesterday, Labour Party leader Ed Miliband sought some high-profile targets: a £1 billion plus windfall tax on tobacco firms, along with greater state influence over, if not ownership of railways.

Meanwhile, Miliband has been forced to return to Labour’s hallowed ground of the National Health Service in a bid to damage the Conservatives in England, along with higher taxes on multi-million pound properties.

One of Labour’s principal worries is Miliband’s image, even if he has tried to make little of a succession of cruelly-exploited PR gaffes – notably his fumbling attempts to eat a bacon sandwich.

More seriously, his personal ratings trail far behind Labour and his numbers are falling. Even voters who do not like David Cameron believe he looks more like a prime minister than Miliband does.

Just one-in-five of those polled think Miliband has what it takes: the rest completely disagree. In June, the Labour leader’s ratings fell to the lowest that have ever been recorded by the ICM-Guardian poll.

Despite the slightly hang-dog appearance of some, but not all in the Labour ranks, the party actually has grounds for better humour, if they were to believe a succession of opinion polls.

In the key marginal seats that decide British elections, Labour is leading comfortably in places where it most expects to beat the Conservatives.

The UK Independence Party remains the unpredictable threat. It will take substantial votes from the Conservatives. It may take seats from them.

However, it poses dangers for Labour, too, but it is harder to pinpoint them.

For now, the Conservatives and UKIP obsess about the democratic deficit for the English, who mostly know little of constitutional matters but are told that they should feel a burgeoning sense of unfairness.

Nevertheless, the dominating theme of Election 2015 is still more likely to be the cost of living and the ravages upon family and individual finances over the last seven years, rather than issues on the constitution.

Here, Labour has a story a tell. A third of voters worry each month about having enough to pay upcoming bills. In April, eight-out-of-10 agreed that the UK is suffering from a “cost of living crisis”.

An election today – if a poll-of-polls is to be believed – would deliver a Labour majority of 44, uncomfortably close to the number it currently wins in Scotland, but a majority nevertheless.

Serious jeopardy

However, its hold on Scotland is in serious jeopardy. Each of the Glasgow Commons constituencies – all held by Labour – voted for independence, while the party’s organisation there on the ground is abysmal.

The Scottish National Party, which has so far drawn victory from the jaws of defeat after the referendum, is now preparing to launch an onslaught on those Scottish seats.

Only three Labour seats are vulnerable to a 5 per cent swing to the SNP; but then comes a tipping point. An 8 per cent swing would cost Labour 19 seats – and probably Miliband’s hopes of becoming prime minister.

The SNP lost the referendum by a 10-point margin; Labour was on the winning side. In Manchester Central, however, this week it just does not look that way.

Mark Hennessy is London Editor