2015: Labour hires Crosby

[Meadow]

Via whatever means (let's say a stonking donation from Lord Sainsbury), Labour finds itself in possession of a huge amount of cash and in a moment of clarity and cynicism, decides to poach the Conservatives' chief strategist.

Lynton Crosby, he of the dead cat theory, surrenders whatever principles he himself may have and joins the Labour campaign team. Let's say the wake-up call for Labour is UKIP's success in the 2014 European elections, so Crosby comes on board over the summer of 2014, joining a team that should be on a war footing for Scotland and the following year's general election.

Put simply, what does Crosby do? What kind of techniques and messaging does he propose for an Ed Miliband-led Labour Party? And, of course, do they work?

We'd doubtless see a streamlined Labour message in 2015, the 'cost of living crisis' would probably get given a catchier name and banged on about constantly. Cameron would be personally attacked much more viciously, undermined as posh and weird (if he makes the West Ham gaffe, CrosbyLab would try much harder to hammer that home). Of course, both those things are associated with Ed himself in many people's minds, so it may have different levels of success.

For funsies, assume Labour have the same kind of spending power the Tories do - this is an intellectual exercise to try to run a meaner and more Crosbyesque 2015 campaign for the party.

 

[Gorrister]

Funnily enough, this is an entry in Prime Minister Corbyn. Crosby has a big fight with Cammers and jumps ship to Labour. He tells them to forget about Scotland and the South-West, and instead campaign in 120 'key seats'. He also gives Ed a 'better' answer on the overspending question and targets Facebook.

 

[Uhura's Mazda]

Ed is given a nose job within the first week of the long campaign and ordered to support Doncaster Rovers.

 

[Lord Roem]

Really interesting idea Meadow.

I suspect that a great deal of the debate here is if a Labour Party "victory" is salvageable at this point. I think that there's a lot to be said for the argument that the electorate had already decided that Ed Miliband could not be trusted with the economy by mid-2013 and that getting such voters to change their minds was almost impossible following that. However, 'almost impossible' is not the same as 'impossible', so let's have a go.

A Crosby-esc campaign in 2015 would be a long one, and very much focused on making more of the two big campaigning advantages that the Conservative Party had over Labour in OTL. Those were online social media advertising and lead on economic and leadership competence.

The former is fairly easy to do. The Tories were able to pay a shed-load of money on algorithms to develop targeted Facebook adverts for key swing voters, especially young parents. Postcode-focused details allowed for hyper-local information to be shared widely at the cost of very little manpower, which more than made up for Labour's huge advantage in terms of canvasses on the ground. I can see Crosby taking the (worthy, but ultimately ineffective) "three million conversations" ambition of Ed Miliband and having that transported almost entirely online. You'd have "Young mother talking about what Labour would do for Child Tax Credits" on one side and "nice old boy saying how the Tories were going to get rid of his pension" on another. If this started as soon as possible after summer 2014, it would go a long way into eating into the Tory advantage in these areas.

Ed Miliband would also have to give a major, major speech on economic affairs. I think it would be difficult for him to distance himself entirely from the Brown Years - but I can see Crosby taking two paths with this. One would be an "Financial Pledge Card" to all households that would form a major national picture for the Labour campaign. Unlike Labour's dreadful effort in OTL, whcih was all weasel words and half-formed promises, a five point card that focused on the (totally spit-balling) following:

1. Labour will reduce the budget deficit to zero by 2020 by committing to year-on-year growth of 3% of GDP
2. Labour will rebalance the economy by returning full control of council tax and business rates to local authorities to secure an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few
3. Labour will not raise income tax, National Insurance or VAT for the whole of the next Parliament
4. Labour shall increase the tax free personal allowance to £12,500 by 2018
5. Labour will scrap the Conservatives' business-damaging apprenticeship levy and instead use £2bn savings in the welfare bill to fund 200,000 new apprentices

You may note that most of those ideas are taken from OTL's Conservative manifesto.

It would also come alongside hammering away at the Conservative Party's failures for not meeting their spending pledges - Crosby would not focus nearly as much on the "Tory-led slow rate of growth" as Labour did OTL as it just drew more attention to the state of the economy when Labour left office in 2010.

It would also work hard to counteract the most successful advert of 2015, which was the "Miliband in Salmond's pocket" poster. Instead - Ed would come out in 2014 post-referendum and immediately say that he would not form an administration with the SNP, and contrast that with Cameron's constant kow-towing to UKIP (a 'Cameron in Farage's pocket' poster perhaps?" - and make references to the fact that, in a hung Parliament, the only option was between a Labour majority government and a weak, far-right Tory administration in cahoots with a load of far-right uber-Thatcherites who wanted to privatise the NHS.

I'd also seek to avoid the debates - they ended up just being a detraction, but if Cameron prevaricated on them as in OTL, then that would be used as an excuse to constantly make up stories about "what's he so scared of" (an obvious poster/advert would be "Ed Miliband standing at a podium looking statesmanlike, pointing at an empty chair"). However - as much as possible, the main thrust of campaigning would be "Labour vs The Tories" rather than "Ed Miliband vs David Cameron", for obvious reasons.

In the final run of the short-campaign, dead-cat up the wazoo just as Fallon did with his "stabbed his brother in the back/he wouldn't even use nuclear weapons stuff" that ended up being so successful in OTL. Instead, get someone like Tom Watson or Michael Dugher to highlight the 'seedy stuff at Oxford' rumours, possibly involving a couple of conversations with a certain Lord Ashcroft of Belize. Mainly for the unpopular Tories though: Gove, IDS, Hunt. They should be the main targets.

Not sure if it would work - but that's what would probably have happened ITTL.

 

[Earling]

I think going after Cameron would be a mistake. At the time polls suggested he was more popular than his party. As a scalp he is a big gain - but a difficult one.
Unfortunately I feel "guy who clearly doesn't give a toss about football pretends to like football and cocks it up" isn't much of a story - which is probably why it wasn't.

I mean if Cameron had come out and said "look - I don't care about football, I like Rugby Union and Cricket" people would have gone "yeah, that sounds more like it" and that would have been the end of it. Its a hangup from Blair that he never did so.

Osborne, IDS, Hunt. These are names to be targeted. Gove too - I suspect his removal from the front line was to avoid this (was that Crosby inspired?). Hammer them and hope Cameron leaves himself unguarded but don't go after him on an all or nothing play.

On the economy you need a clear message which doesn't descend into policy wonkery or leave the average person going "yeah - but you can't afford it". For instance his energy price freeze. Maybe it polled well - but I think it also generated an undercurrent of suspicion. I reckon he would have been in far stronger waters to just suggest he would implement and windfall tax on the big six's profits. Like bashing the banks its easy, populist and impossible to say he couldn't do it.

The mansion tax kept journalists in business but I am not convinced swayed many votes. Go with something else.

Really take the fight to the SNP. Not entirely sure how - but there was must be no compromise. Its the only way to ensure Ed isn't pegged as weak and ready to roll over for Salmond.

For what its worth I think Labour ran into 2015 looking like an anti-English party. At almost every step Labour would say "We are the British Party" and yet what came out was "We are the Party for London". We can debate the long term future of the UK but opposition to EVEL left them looking like they backed one settlement for Scotland and another for the rest of the country. You had Thornberry's resignation which was as insane as it was indicative. There were other things that occurred but they escape my memory at this time (there were a few in the short campaign too).

No words carved in stone. No clandestine midnight meetings with a comedian who was last relevant pushing a decade ago.

 

[DrakonFin]

While Labour could certainly use a strong first line center with a great backhand shot and an ability to lead by example, I find it hard to see why Pittsburgh would agree to the trade.

 

[Politibrit]

Funnily enough, this is an entry in Prime Minister Corbyn. Crosby has a big fight with Cammers and jumps ship to Labour. He tells them to forget about Scotland and the South-West, and instead campaign in 120 'key seats'. He also gives Ed a 'better' answer on the overspending question and targets Facebook.

Isn't it implied at the end that this was some elaborate plot to put Michael Gove into power?

 

[LegionoftheUnitedStates]

Am I the only person who read the OP and thought of this fellow?

 

[von Mises]

Something would need to be done about Scotland - preferably in conjunction with making Miliband looking like a stronger leader. There was something of a perception that in the case of the SNP acting as kingmakers, they'd have been able to bounce him around and have him run the country purely for the benefit of Scotland/the SNP. Standing up to the SNP would have allayed that perception somewhat.

 

[Ramontxo]

Am I the only person who read the OP and thought of this fellow?

No...