by Dave Osler

The year is 1982 and the soundtrack is Town called malice, Come on Eileen and Should I stay or should I go. The boys look good in rockabilly-inspired flat top haircuts, lumberjack shirts and 501s, while ra-ra skirts and leggings are all the rage for girls. Israel invades Lebanon, Britain and Argentina go to war over some islands somewhere in the South Atlantic, and Italy wins the world cup.

That was the last time Labour trailed the Lib Dems – or the Liberal-SDP Alliance, as they were back in the day – in the opinion polls. But the latest survey from Ipsos Mori gives Labour just 24%, one percentage point behind Clegg and co, with the Tories on 36%. And Cameron hasn’t had to kill a single Argie to get there.



It’s probably a rogue result; the Lib Dems appears to be enjoying an 8% post-conference bounce, and their ostensible advantage over Labour is well within the established margin of error for these things. But the symbolism is there, all the same.

I was a young Bennite activist in this period, and have for the last 27 years had to listen to the standard invective that early 1980s influx of lefties came close to destroying the Labour Party, and only the Long March to the neoliberal centre-right commenced under Kinnock enabled it to survive, let alone form the last three governments.

Unsurprisingly, I have never bought into the analysis. Michael Foot’s leadership was deliberately sabotaged by some of the very people now posing as the most consistent Labourites. Yes Polly Toynbee, I do mean you; protestations of the need for loyalty ring hollow from the mouths of erstwhile SDPers.

Then there was the Falklands Factor. Remember when making war on the third world was electorally popular? The contrast with the damage Afghanistan and Iraq have done to Labour’s standing could not be more complete.

New Labourites maintain that Labour in 1982 had been pushed back to its core constituency, and at the empirical level, that seems largely true. But the point is that we had a core constituency left; even that has now been dissipated by those who thought seven figures cheques from the super-rich were somehow adequate compensation for the loss of a mass electoral base.

The irony is that it the very people who will suffer the most under the Tories are the ones who will ensure their victory, largely by abstention but perhaps by voting fascist. Not a few will actively support the Conservatives.

The 1983 manifesto was famously dubbed the longest suicide note in history. But suicide notes are only notes, after all. There is all the difference in the world between writing one and actually committing suicide.