Labour\u2019s failure to shake off the erroneous claim it was responsible for the financial crisis contributed to its defeat in the 2015 general election, a report has claimed.<\/p>\n
Dame Margaret Beckett\u2019s report rejects the notion that Labour\u2019s policies were \u201ctoo left wing,\u201d claiming the party only lost a small number of voters to the Conservatives.<\/p>\n
Beckett identifies mistrust over the economy as a key reason why voters spurned Labour at the election.<\/p>\n
She claims the \u201cmyth<\/em>\u201d propagated by the Tories that Labour was responsible for the 2008 global financial crisis contributed to the party\u2019s defeat at the polls.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore the crash, the Tory opposition had committed to matching Labour\u2019s spending plans and to reducing financial regulation, especially in the mortgage market.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIn the aftermath, this was forgotten, not least by the Tories, who assiduously fostered the myth that US, German, French and Japanese financial institutions had been brought to their knees by the overspending of a profligate Labour government. This myth took hold.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Beckett\u2019s report into the cause of Labour\u2019s defeat identified four key reasons behind the party\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n These were given as: voter mistrust on the economy, unconvincing immigration policies, the perception of Ed Miliband as not being a strong leader, and the fear of the Scottish National Party \u201cpropping up<\/em>\u201d a minority Labour government.<\/p>\n The report concludes that Labour has reason to be positive, citing the \u201chuge increase<\/em>\u201d in members and the excitement generated by the leadership contest last year.<\/p>\n \u201cLabour\u2019s new leadership have already drawn on some of the lessons identified during our review. For example, Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s leadership campaign rightly focused on trust in politics, mobilised young people, and engaged more directly with the electorate<\/em>,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cIn addition we should remember that the Tories only secured a small majority, despite a favourable global economy and the benefit of incumbency.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via RT<\/a>.\u00a0This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Labour\u2019s failure to shake off the erroneous claim it was responsible for the financial crisis contributed to its defeat in the 2015 general election, a report has claimed. Dame Margaret Beckett\u2019s report rejects the notion that Labour\u2019s policies were \u201ctoo left wing,\u201d claiming the party only lost a small number of voters to the Conservatives. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":217405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-217404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}