Thoughts about the next mayoral election

On Monday evening I was able to attend Progress’s Campaign for a Labour Majority event ‘How can we win a mandate from London in 2015?’, held in the cavernous Grand Committee Room of the Commons. Given the speakers (Andrew Adonis, Diane Abbott, David Lammy, Tessa Jowell) the event was always bound to be viewed with a skew towards 2016 rather than the more immediate tasks at hand in the 2014 local/Euro and 2015 general elections. Add Sadiq Khan (who was listed but couldn’t attend in the end), Stella Creasy, announced candidate Christian Wolmar (who was in the audience) and perhaps Jon Cruddas and Oona King, and you’d have had the whole potential Labour mayoral primary field. Lambeth Council leader Sarah Hayward chaired the event, aggressively policing questions towards the end to ensure all had a say.

As could be expected, many themes and sentiments overlapped – language used when addressing the question of immigration was broadly similar, for example. Several candidates/speakers also appeared to compete with each other to use the phrase “tale of two cities” as many times as physically possible, so the much-discussed effect of Bill de Blasio’s win in New York on Labour’s thinking is already clear. Still, four distinct people from different backgrounds and wings of the party did bring different styles and a few unique ideas to the proceedings.

Tessa Jowell

Having recently announced she won’t be standing again for parliament in 2015, but boasting the best odds of becoming Labour’s nominee and the city’s mayor in 2016, Jowell politely took issue with Sarah Hayward’s choice of words that she was “retiring” from parliament, making clear that she was “stepping down” from parliament but not leaving politics. Jowell was first in with the “tale of two cities” references. More so than any other speaker, she also focused heavily on the specifics of 2014/2015 electoral strategy (nominally the focus of the event), outlining key seats and boroughs – this included a welcome reference to the need to unify Tower Hamlets under a Labour mayor after the chaotic and worrying 2010 result there. 

Jowell stressed that “what is good for Londoners is good for business”, noting the CBI’s recent observations about the importance of affordable housing if the city’s economy is to be sustained, and promoted the Living Wage. She also identified the fact that London’s transport costs are the highest of any major European city as a problem, though she was vaguer on solutions. Pushing back against UKIP’s recent influence in British political discourse, she made clear that both 1 in 10 London jobs relies on the EU and that immigration restrictions on skilled workers would hurt London, calling for a more assertive and positive stance on immigration from the party (“close your eyes and imagine a London without immigration”, she plead the audience). 

In the Q&A, she expressed wariness about the impact of a mansion tax on cash-poor older residents in her constituency living in now-high value homes, instead proposing a more sophisticated and banded council tax system, a sign of nuance and her understanding of southern issues. In response to a question on housing, she talked of the need to understand the appeal of right to buy, and in one of several Blue Labour-ish remarks she made, warned about the insensitive “monolith” the state could become when it was people’s landlord – this sort of language is consistent with Rowenna Davis’ noting of Jowell as a “New and Blue” Labourite thinker.

Jowell’s delivery was a bit stiffer than some other candidates, as she was reading from written notes, but she spoke passionately and fluently in the closing stages of her pitch. On Wednesday, she followed up with an article for Progress, ‘How does Labour win in London in 2015?’. She is the early favourite for mayor and received some positive attention in the Standard this week, a good sign, though she perhaps isn’t my personal first-choice candidate. 

The fact that she has stepped down early to consider a bid should earn her some respect, however. I’ve heard the party is considering delaying the mayoral selection until after 2015 so that the decisions of MPs Lammy, Abbott, Khan, Creasy etc won’t be read as a judgement on the party’s general election chances, but to me this is completely the wrong approach. Its bad form and an obscene waste of public (and party) money if potential mayoral candidates hedge their bets, re-stand for their safe parliamentary seats in 2015 and then quit a year or less into the job, triggering an avoidable by-election. Deciding to run for mayor of London is not a decision to be taken lightly and campaigning for it will be a full-time job - candidates should be encouraged to be bold and make their intentions clear before the general election, not after.

Diane Abbott

Housing, living standards and diversity were key themes for Abbott. She argued that the GLA should wield its contracting power to promote the Living Wage and committed to a one-year fares freeze, though this raises concerns about how she will cost her pledges (in the Q&A afterwards, she made clear she wouldn’t commit to a four-year freeze, however). Asserting that free markets in housing had failed Londoners, she pledged (as Ken did) to bring in rent control, noting that New York has rent control and isn’t “some socialist republic”. Leaning on her background, she stressed the need to fight back against “toxic” anti-immigration rhetoric emanating from the coalition, imploring all of us to remember that each immigrant wave always dislikes the next, noting that this has almost become “a right of passage”. In the Q&A, she called for a levy on overseas house buyers, argued that predatory employers who undercut minimum wage should be blamed for migration-related job losses (rather than  immigrants themselves) and called for a return to the era of politics when even Conservatives like Harold McMillan competed to build more council housing,

Abbott was by far the most impassioned and fluent, as you might expect, though perhaps also a little polemical and at times unclear. She was also the vaguest in terms of specific plans and thus seemed to lack policy heft, relying instead on rhetoric, which remains a concern of mine. As Stephen Bush put it in his insightful summary of the event on Tuesday, she might be a good candidate, but it’s not as clear she’d be a good mayor. Her sometimes-unguarded public remarks are also a concern of mine – this was already a problem with Ken, and her style of politics is very much similar. But she is nevertheless always interesting to listen to, would certainly add personality to the race and could never be derided by the Russell Brand hordes as another same-y, centre-hugging identikit politician.

David Lammy

Lammy started by praising Tessa Jowell to high heaven for the Olympics and for bringing about free museum entry as culture minister. Like her, he also expressed reservations about the implications of a mansion tax, and the need for better council tax bands instead as one possible alternative. He praised London Labour councils, including those in my home borough of Southwark and former home of Islington, for managing to build more houses in the face of 10-15% cuts. He struck a contrast with Abbott by saying that we need to be clear where funding would come from for fares freezes or other policies, though he was more similar on rent policy, noting that Angela Merkel had ran on fair rents and that this proved that this was not something the Tories could deride as a “1970s socialist” market intervention. He talked about the loss of police and the need for neighbourhood teams to combat gang crime. 

Above all, he stated the economy was “the big issue”, talking about the capital’s overreliance on retail, public services and financial services and noting how New York has pursued an active industrial policy and created jobs at its Brooklyn Naval dockyard – with this, Lammy was deftly tapping into the growing support for economic rebalancing in the party that thinkers such as Patrick Diamond are leading as part of the One Nation project. In response to a question on hospital closures, Lammy recalled the NHS improvements he helped implement as a junior minister under Alan Milburn and criticised current rises in A&E waits under the coalition.

I’ve long liked Lammy – I first remember seeing him passionately denouncing Galloway’s appalling conduct in Bethnal Green to Paxman on election night 2005, and his 2012 post-London riots book ‘Out of the Ashes’ is a good read. He thought seriously about running in 2012, before instead choosing to chair Ken’s campaign, perhaps putting him in a good position organisationally this time around, though I feel it would have been of huge benefit to both London and the party had he pulled the trigger on a run back then, rather than letting Ken go almost unchallenged. He was also an early advocate of an open primary way back in 2009 – this idea has now gained substantial traction. He spoke very well, has a very inspiring personal story and brings a good balance of campaigning strength, attractiveness as a candidate and policy heft to the role – Stephen Bush noted that he “sounded like a tough and prepared politician who should be considered the frontrunner – for now”.

Andrew Adonis

Adonis started off by talking about income inequality in London, and later suggested building toll-funded bridges in London to tackle the stark East/West social divide in the capital – choosing this focus was again de Blasio-esque, and particularly interesting coming from perhaps the most Blairite panel member. Pointing out the high costs of both house buying and rental in the capital, he called for new house-building (funded by allowing cities to keep revenue gained from property tax increases, and perhaps involving some use of public-private partnerships) and scored big laughs by calling Boris’s use of “affordable housing” to mean 80% of market rate “as big an offence against the Trade Descriptions Act as [his] last name”. 

London’s 22% youth unemployment rate was another theme. Along with Abbott, he refused to apologise for Labour’s record on housing, stressing a need to look to the future. He attacked Boris’ new routemasters, pointing out their reduced capacity and comparative good that Ken’s bus expansion had done, and called for a more “imaginative” approach to options we provide TFL users. And of course - shock horror - he promoted his trademark issue, HS2 (again to laughs from the audience).

Adonis was fairly fluent and was also the most combative in terms of the number of direct criticisms he made of Boris’s record. He would also bring by far the most policy heft to the role. However, he does have the least campaigning experience, has not held elected office since he was an SDP councillor in Oxford over twenty years ago and can use slightly academic constructions (“manifestly, we do in that regard face a problem, manifestly we do”). To quote Stephen Bush for the third time, Adonis “sounded like the best mayor but still has some way to go before he looks like the best candidate. He had a forensic grasp of what ails London and was the master of every question that was thrown his way, but he doesn’t yet look fully comfortable now he is on the bridge and not in the engine room. Yes, he had the best one-liner of the evening and his grasp of the detail was a pleasing contrast to Boris, but he still needs to sound sharper and less professorial. In fact, a measure of David Lammy could do Andrew Adonis a world of good, who could, in turn, learn a lot from Andrew Adonis”.

Personally, I found myself wishing for a Lammy/Adonis dream-ticket, though since the main deputy mayor has to be a GLA member, Adonis would have to settle for chief of staff at City Hall, I suppose.

Other possibilities

Overall, if I had to vote by AV on the four I heard so far, I’d tentatively rank them Lammy 1, Adonis 2 (after much agonising), Jowell 3, Abbott 4. It would have been interesting to hear Sadiq Khan speak, however. Some of the other potential candidates are also interesting. I’ve heard that Stella Creasy was canvassing potential activist support within days of the last mayoral election, so she may well have the ambition, and her shadow ministerial roles and anti-Wonga cruasade have earned her attention.  Jon Cruddas is a fantastic asset to the party, has both a policy brain and a common touch, has been a driving force behind the populist “primary colours” themes of One Nation Labour and reportedly once described the mayoralty as the “best job in British politics.” However, he declined to run for 2012, and he’s under less speculation this time. 

Oona King has earned speculation too, but while she was brave to stand against Ken in 2012 and would have been a better choice than him then, she lacked a clear vision in her selection campaign and the party has newer and better candidates now – she should stick to fighting for the party from her position in the Lords. Margaret Hodge, who is a good voice on the Public Accounts Committee and fought off Nick Griffin in 2010, might be an interesting name. Eddie Izzard has also talked of his ambitions, but has said he will not run until 2020. This instantly throws up problems, as hopefully a Labour mayor will be preparing for re-election then anyway, but I’m sceptical about Izzard in any case – he’s a fanastic voice for the party, but further celebritising the mayoralty is a concern of mine and I feel Izzard should at the very least run for something else (council, GLA, parliament, Brussels) first and show some serious governing stamina before he attempts to lead a complex city of eight million.

One thing I’d warn. It’s becoming conventional wisdom that given London’s Labour lean and the possible post-Boris vacuum on the Tory side in 2016, this race will be “Labour’s to lose”. In terms of third parties, Siobhan Benita or the Lib Dems are also unlikely to make any more of a splash and though George Galloway is not to be underestimated after Bradford, London’s SV system should protect Labour from vote-splitting on the left. But never say never in politics, and the Tories have some decent personalities who could make a run of it. Seb Coe probably has as much goodwill left over from the Olympics as Tessa Jowell does. Zac Goldsmith has a flashy, reformist liberal-Tory streak (green politics, anti-runway, his never-ending crusade for his idea for recall elections) that could play in the capital. And often overlooked is that Boris himself hasn’t actually ruled out a third term, despite his initial pledge, and so it’s not impossible that Labour could face him a third time in London – Boris as an incumbent might not be easy to dislodge, as the party found in 2012.

Finally, I think there are clear arguments for Labour holding an open primary. Yes, there are inevitable tribalist gripes from members who feel that selections are the only real influence we have as fee-paying members. But now more than ever, full-fledged party membership is a minority pursuit and the point of a political party should be to grow and strengthen its relationship with the electorate – innovations such as free registered supporter status are therefore valuable. The primary could be funded with small contributions (say, £1) in exchange for voting, as the Parti Socialiste did in France for their presidential primary. In theory, it could be an early test of the mass-appeal of our candidate and prevent a repeat of 2012, as it’s been noted that the Tories’ earlier experiments with primaries have produced some independent-minded, likeable moderates like Sarah Wollaston MP (quite possibly my favourite Tory MP, if I was going to pick one). However, it could also conceivably benefit a riskier Ken-style “maverick” candidate like Abbott, if the broad electorate decided it wanted to go for personality politics or bold contrasts. In this way, primaries can help settle the age-old internal debate within Labour about which the electorate really want.

In any case, the next mayoral is a ways off and we’ve got three key electoral tests before it. But London mayor is a big job, and it’s good to have an early indication of what our candidate field could look like, what their ideas and strengths/weaknesses might be and what lessons the party has learned from the debacle last year. I’m tentatively hopeful that when the time comes, we will be able to make London Labour again.