Demos on why Labour lost the election

Interesting blog post from Janet Daley on the Daily Telegraph about a YouGov poll for the Labour think tank Demos which suggests that Labour lost the last election "because too many of its own supporters had become disillusioned with the Big State. All that extra funding poured into the public services was seen for what it was: profligacy and an invitation waste taxpayers’ money."

Janet Daley comments that

The responses (from Labour voters, remember) to the pollsters’ questions read, gratifyingly, like a Telegraph leading article. Government spending under Labour is described as having “reached or even breached acceptable limits” and – miraculously – a good many of those who deserted the party actually said that they no longer saw the state as a force for good. In short, they got it. That theory that many of us had been putting forward – to the effect that the public were not credulous fools and that they could see clearly that throwing more money at a problem was not going to cure it without some serious re-thinking of the way that money was spent – has been vindicated.

Demos has certainly got it. They are now advising all the Labour leadership candidates to support the Coalition’s planned spending cuts as well as the basic principle of the Big Society programme in which the power of the state is diminished.

You can read the full post here.

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