Onward Bulletin 28.09.21
The latest research, events and news straight to your inbox every Tuesday.
Hello and welcome to Onward’s weekly summary of research, events and opinion. We hope you enjoy it. If you do, tell your friends or donate to support our work.
Onward activity
With just under a week to go until Conservative Party Conference begins, we are very excited to share with you our full line-up of public fringe events. All our events will take place from Sunday 3rd October to Tuesday 5th October outside the secure zone at the Radisson Blu Edwardian.
In the news:
Onward director Will Tanner wrote for the i Newspaper last week about the new Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and how extending local and regional governance will be the key to unlocking growth. Link.
Will Tanner was quoted in the Financial Times at the weekend, reflecting on the need for Gove to create local institutions that can manage and implement the changes set out in the levelling up agenda.
Onward co-founder Neil O’Brien’s appointment as a minister in the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities was referenced in a piece for Civil Society News. The appointment was also mentioned in Jules Birch’s article for Inside Housing, where he described it as “the most intriguing new appointment” of the reshuffle.
Senior researcher Ted-Christie Miller was quoted in The Telegraph last week, explaining that voters are largely supportive of the Government’s progressive climate policies, as long as low-income households do not bear the brunt of these costs.
Building on our recent report Fair Funding, Nick Rushton wrote for ConservativeHome, calling for local funding to be reformed and a funding floor to be introduced for local government authorities, until the Fair Funding Review comes into effect. Read the full article here.
The challenge for Keir Starmer, as he prepared for his first in-person conference with the Labour faithful in Brighton this week, was always twofold. First, he had to silence the never-ending and factional conversation that the Labour Party has been having with itself since the last election. Second, he needed to articulate a message, backed up with policy, that can start to win back its real audience: the voting public. It is not hyperbole to say that his tenure as Leader of the Opposition probably depends on succeeding at both.
As we found in our study of the 2019 General Election, No Turning Back, the Labour Party is heavily split between moderate centre-left voters and a group of voters who are radically left-wing on the economy and liberal on social issues. Just 40% of Labour voters are closely aligned with each other on social or economic issues, and 1 in 4 hold radically different values from the average Labour voter. Divided parties tend not to unite electorates at the ballot box.
Hence why Angela Rayner's unparliamentary crowd-pleaser, in which she labelled the Cabinet "a bunch of scum, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, absolute vile" matters. As a speech clearly designed to appeal to the 27% of Labour voters who are hard left on social and economic issues, it only serves to perpetuate the party's internal war, while giving the impression to moderate voters that Labour is still afflicted by - how to put this - a militant tendency.
It also distracts from the Labour Party's policy announcements, which were intended to give the impression of a party shorn of its radical past, focused on hardworking families and ready for office. They included fiscal rules that broadly mirror the Government’s, £28 billion a year in green infrastructure spending, and a new Office for Value for Money to drive better efficiency in government. These are a safe policies designed to give Labour an air of respectability lost in the Corbyn years. But how many people will have heard them above the deafening din of Labour infighting?
These policies also seem rather dissonant when the country is gripped by a rapidly escalating fuel crisis that on the weekend forced over 9 in 10 petrol stations to close. Given the Conservatives' historic reliance on drivers for votes, this should be ripe territory for a Labour opposition that wants to make competence a dividing line. In opposition, you have to take opportunities that fall into your lap, something Starmer has repeatedly failed to do during the pandemic.
Instead, the average voter will be left with the impression that the Conservatives are focusing on fixing the country's problems while Labour tries in vain to fix its own. Until that changes, neither will the polls.
Policy Bites:
The Government has suspended competition laws for the fuel industry to allow for companies to share information and target those areas most in need. Link.
The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy has announced that it will invest £220 million to help the most polluting companies reduce their carbon emissions, as part of the government’s plan to support British industry as we transition to net-zero. Link.
Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi MP broke ground at the first school to be rebuilt under the Prime Minister’s ten-year School Rebuilding Programme. Link.
A new fund, the Housing Growth Fund (HGP), has committed £300 million funding to SME and regional housebuilders to support the development of 10,000 new homes by 2025. Link.
Quick Links:
Endangered craft skills: Laura Freeman discusses the decline of traditional art and craft skills, and why we should encourage young people to take them up. Link.
Energy prices: Director of the Conservative Environment Network Sam Hall explores factors behind the recent hike in energy prices, and why the Government should continue to drive through its net-zero agenda. Link.
People not places? Former head of the Number 10 Policy Unit, Camilla Cavendish, urges Michael Gove and his newly assembled ‘formidable team’ to seize the levelling up agenda, and makes the argument that real levelling up is about people, not places. Link.
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