The Centrist Dads who don’t understand why young Labour supporters are excited don’t understand that the (old) New Labour message doesn’t work anymore.

Since the general election result back in June, the Labour Party has been awash with triumphalism. The polls look good, local elections keep going Labour’s way and, above all, Labour supporters feel great, better than they’ve felt in a long time.

A year ago, Corbyn had just won his second leadership battle after 172 Labour MPs voted on a motion of no confidence. Members and MPs where at odds with each other and Corbyn wasn’t showing much indication that his appeal could extend beyond the party. This was the time of ‘opposition in CHAOS’ headlines being held up against the ‘strong and steady’ Conservative Party.

How times have changed.

We spoke with friend of the pod Abi Wilkinson about her experiences at the Labour Conference. It’s clear that the feeling of triumph and excitement was palpable. The rooms were filled with excited, mostly young people who felt everything was going in the right direction. Finally, after almost a decade in the wilderness, it felt like Labour could win an election, as she wrote on Total Politics.

“Enthusiasm is one of the most important resources Labour has. A party pursuing an agenda of increased tax and redistribution, regulation and nationalisation is never going to have a cosy relationship with media barons and big business in general (though it’s worth noting that the corporate lobbyists who stayed away from last year’s conference came flooding back this time) but it can reach people in other ways. Keeping activists’ spirits up ensures they’ll keep doing the work that’s necessary to maximise the likelihood of a Labour win.”

Triumphalism has its detractors. Obviously, the right is threatened and troubled by it. They deride it as a personality cult, keen to dismiss the popularity of the youth movement underpinning Corbyn’s rise. They have good reason to do this: there is no comparable groundswell on the right.

Another group of naysayers swirled up into the discourse following the Labour Conference: Centrist Dads.

Centrist Dads aren’t necessarily an actual dad. They might not be middle aged or male (though they often are). They are left-leaning people who view the whole youth-backed rise of Corbynism as pure folly. They dismiss everybody who disagrees with them as children, unaware of the realities of politics.

They yearn for the early years of New Labour, third way politics that delivered neoliberal economics with progressive, evidence-based social policy. They think nothing Corbyn promises — more housing, higher wages, hope — is achievable. They wish young people would get serious and back a politician, any politician, who fights for the centre and looks down on radical policy.

Abi wrote an article explaining the phenomenon — tongue pretty firmly in cheek — for Esquire.

“Your dad hasn’t thought much about why young people are more excited by these sorts of promises, though he keeps up with current affairs and even describes himself as a “policy wonk”. He knows about the housing crisis, wage stagnation and increasing income insecurity that has hit younger generations hardest. Ultimately, though, he considers transforming the system rather than simply mitigating its worst effects a starry-eyed fantasy. Young people support Corbyn because they’re idiots, it’s as simple as that.”

We are the Financial Crisis generation. We do not believe in the essential truth of the neoliberal consensus.

We are a generation who has seen centre-left and centre-right governments take us into numerous disasters and never come close to solving them: wars in all over the Middle East, the housing bubble, historical levels of inequality, unregulated banks left unpunished, Brexit.

Those voices that cry out to young Corbyn supporters about the historical dangers of hard socialism (which, as Abi points out, is far from the mainstream ideology of Momentum) follow it up by praising the record of neoliberalism. It is a ridiculous argument.

We have seen the failures of the neoliberal consensus first hand. I am the first to say that people like Corbyn and Sanders are not the ideal models of the future of politics — old white men steeped in 1970s socialist thought. But they aren’t telling us to accept, again, what has consistently failed us in our own lifetimes.

I don’t want old school socialism. I don’t want old school neoliberalism either. Both are failed models. So let’s stop yearning for either.

Next week on the pod

After the excitement and energy of Labour in Brighton, we take a look at the Conservative Conference. There are plenty of open questions here:

Was the whole thing as sad as it seemed from reading the coverage?

Was May’s speech a disaster of optics or an example of her toughing it out?

Two failed coups in less than a week: pure incompetence or do the Tories lack the ruthlessness of old?

Boris Johnson, huh, what is he good for? Absolutely nothing. Sing it again…

How big is the Conservative membership? Some reports suggest they now have fewer members than Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP .

See you next week.

Be sure to subscribe to Connected & Disaffected on Soundcloud. You can also follow us on Twitter or on Facebook.

Please recommend us to your politics nerd friends and/or like and share our posts!