This feels like a top-down decision from a broken national party unit that, as shown by the Diane Abbott selection issues, is having a shockingly bad general election campaign – one almost as bad as Team Rishi’s catastrophic operation
Cambridge Independent commentator Phil Rodgers posted about this earlier following this afternoon’s post from former Guardian Energy Correspondent Terry Macalister – who hosted the Environment Hustings in 2019 that Daniel Zeichner took part in.
Daniel Zeichner’s predecessor Julian Huppert – who also debated him at the 2015 environment hustings, said that this doesn’t sound like the sort of decision Daniel would have taken – not alone anyway.
Whoever took the decision has just created a lightning-conductor on an issue that has Streisand-effect similarities. Because rather than dealing with the issues in a public debate that, in the grand scheme of things won’t create much more than a ripple outside of Cambridge, the Tory-backing print press and every oxbridge-obsessed partisan media commentator will be zooming into this and making hay with it.
Not that the Conservatives will necessarily benefit – for they are coming in for criticism for selecting another candidate from outside of the county as happened in 2019 and 2015.
Given Cambridge’s electoral history over the past half-century, the city’s voters have a habit of turning *against* whoever happens to be in government – both at local and national elections. Following the election of Margaret Thatcher’s Government in 1979, only split votes in the anti-Thatcher opposition in both 1983 and 1987 enable incumbent MP Robert Rhodes James to hold onto his seat. When he stood down, Anne Campbell MP was able to snatch the seat from the Tories to become Cambridge’s first woman MP in 1992 – and only the third ever Labour MP for Cambridge.
Although Mrs Campbell (who is still around today) held her seat in 2001, a combination of the Iraq War and Tuition Fees saw her lose her seat in 2005 to Cambridge academic Prof David Howarth of the Liberal Democrats. Then he stood down after one term of office with another Cambridge academic, Dr Julian Huppert stepping in and getting elected in the 2010 general election. Because Nick Clegg led the party into coalition with the Conservatives and did a high-profile U-turn on tuition fees, Dr Huppert lost his seat to Mr Zeichner in 2015.
The big question that only time itself will tell, is how ‘deep’ is the current level of Labour support across Cambridge?
Above – is the Cambridge Labour hold ‘broad but shallow’?
When you look at Cambridge City Council, Labour has pushed the once all-conquering Liberal Democrats back into three stubborn strongholds – Queen Edith’s, Trumpington, and Market wards.
Have a look at the Cambridge Elections’ charts here
Compare that to 2009/10 when the Liberal Democrats forced Labour back into three strongholds of Coleridge, Cherry Hinton, and Petersfield. In the meantime, the Greens emerged, declined, and re-emerged in Abbey Ward, and have started expanding across Newnham Ward where they how hold two of the three councillors.
“If Mr Zeichner does not appear at any of the hustings, what is the backlash likely to be like, and who might benefit?”
Given the recent announcement about Diane Abbott in Hackney with the party’s leadership being forced to concede on her candidacy, and also given the negative coverage of parachuting in candidates to safe seats (that former Labour minister and MP Chris Mullin spoke out about here), I wouldn’t be surprised if (in fact, I’d hope that) Cambridge Labour made an announcement that Mr Zeichner would be attending hustings – even if it were only a handful of them.
“What if he doesn’t?”
Then voters will consider that decision accordingly when it comes to the ballot box. For some it won’t be an issue. After all, what percentage of voters either go to hustings/public debates, or watch the videos? I’d say about five percent of the voters that turn out. So for up to 95% of the voting public in Cambridge constituency, it may not even be an issue. It’s very difficult to pinpoint the hinge points that persuade individual voters to switch voting choices. How much of it is based on:
- manifesto promises?
- single issues?
- quality of party leader?
- record of the incumbent party in government?
i.e. non-local issues or non-candidate issues?
The opposition candidates best placed to benefit are those with the most activists and resources to get their comments out to the most residents the fastest. Nominally this looks like The Liberal Democrats and The Green Party – the second and third parties on Cambridge City Council with ten and five councillors respectively. But even then, delivering leaflets to every ward in the city takes some doing. And doing it repeatedly even more so.
For a handful of people, such a move not to participate in hustings may anger either existing party members to work even harder, or persuade some not otherwise active that this is such a big breach of conventions and traditions of election campaigning that they may volunteer their services for opposing candidates. (Note what happened in St Neots and Mid Cambs following Labour’s announcement of Lambeth councillor, Cllr Marianna Masters as their candidate)
The other issue I expect Labour could come under pressure on – and one that I think Mr Zeichner should address up front, is how he will manage the possibility of ministerial office with his duties as an MP. I’ve made my views known repeatedly in that I think executive and legislature should be separate because both roles are more than full time jobs (as I saw in Whitehall) and there is an inherent conflict of interest being both an MP scrutinising the Government while being a member of the said Government at the same time. Labour has a significant organisational machine functioning behind Mr Zeichner, and I think participating at those hustings would give him the chance to explain how this would bear the burden of managing the duties he’d have as a re-elected MP rather than risking an empty chair for his opponents to take free shots at.
I’m awaiting confirmation either way from the local Labour Party on what the situation actually is. It’s up to the mainstream media to make enquiries to local and national party press offices to see what their corporate responses are. (Members of the public can’t normally contact press offices).
The sooner it gets cleared up, the better. That way we can get back to debating the issues that affect people day-to-day, rather than the inner workings of election campaigning.
Food for thought?
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