The Slog offers Labour some branding advice

Prefixes are out, acronyms are in

It could be that this ‘Progressive’ prefix suggestion for Labour is just a bit of Dark Arts dreamed up by a half-baked Eton cake somewhere, but I’m led to understand that, yes, in fact some bright young Shadow Cabinet member did put the idea to Big Ed at some point over the last few weeks.

As a thought, it lacks the hidden depths of Forward Not Back – and that really is saying something unique. But had its author simply gone into Google and looked back at some recent history, he might have thrown the back of this particular envelope into the waste-bin. Hunt about a bit in the archaeology of politics, and you will quickly see just how bad an idea ‘Progressive’ could be for the brand formerly known as New Labour.

A Politicshome study showed in late 2009 that 22% saw the Tories and LibDems as the most progressive Parties, followed by the Greens on 17%. A piddling 12% saw Labour as progressive – and given Brown’s antics during the 2010 Election campaign, I’d imagine the figure plummeted still further towards those single figures referred to these days as LibDem Support.

The runaway winner on 35%, by the way, was our old friend None of the Above. So to an old adman like me, this would say ‘Right, people think no politicians are progressive, and especially not Labour’. Thus my advice to them is to give up on the idea, and do something else. Like telling the truth maybe, or demonstrating the odd principle. Show leadership here and there, walk the walk, elect somebody electable, that sort of thing.

But that’s not going to happen. So I feel it de rigueur to reveal more of the History of Progressive. For as a political prefix, it has form: and not only is it unoriginal, the folks who have used it are the kind of neighbours you’d prefer to be in someone else’s neighbourhood.

The American Communist Party, for example, is so keen on the P word, it’s in the title of their dwindling collective – The Revolutionary Communist Progressive Labor Party of America. You do get the feeling that the whole politburo chipped in with ideas for the name, and the fraternal solution was to lob in everything, just to be on the safe side. (The Party’s syntax is hilarious by the way, and easily emulates anything Private Eye’s Dave Spart could’ve written).

Back in 1912, Theodore Roosevelt tried to break the mould of US politics with his Progressive Party. The move was so popular that somebody immediately shot him, although not fatally. Guns are more accurate these days, so Ed Miliband would do well to learn some kind of lesson from this.

In 1932, the Left in Alberta founded the Progressive Labour Party. Given that the original Labour Party seems to have fallen apart for reasons that remain vague, the obvious parallel with New Labour post-Blair might produce some appropriate but not altogether pleasant reminders of the past for the new progressives. (The Alberta schism contested two by-elections and then disappeared forever. This too is worth noting.)

But the provenance gets worse when you realise that, for 61 years, there was the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. What had been the Conservative  Party adopted the “Progressive Conservative” name in 1942, when Progressive Party leader John Bracken said he’d only become leader of the Conservatives on condition that the Party added Progressive to its name.

Nothing like wanting your name over the door I suppose, although it does make you wonder why the Canuck Tories were that desperate. But on this basis, a really amazing stroke in the UK would be for Labour to become BNP Labour, with Ed making way for Nick Griffin. Oswald Mosley moved from Labour to form the Blackshirts, so there’s a precedent. And trust me, it would kick out all Labour’s baggage with one swift blow of the jackboot. I just can’t see the Party’s main media supporter changing its masthead to Der Volkische Spiegel.

Further, I hate to point this out to Ed’s anonymous courtier, but there is actually a faction among his own troops called, um, Progress. It does claim to represent the Progressive wing of the Party, and includes predictable names like Jon Cruddas, John McTernan, and Pat McFadden. So one suspects there might be something of a catfight were the leadership to nick the Progress positioning. The real Left might have to rename itself Rapid Progress, in order to distinguish itself from the Highgate set, which is merely Work in Progress.

In the end, however, one can’t help suspecting that maybe the Milibands are skirting round the edges of the main problem here: the word Labour.

Apart from a few overpaid leather-kickers, very little physical labour takes place in Britain any more – and certainly nowhere near enough to elect a Party to government, even if they could be bothered. Labour as a word has ghastly connotations – twenty hours spent forcing a human head through female pudenda, for example – and is, well, hopelessly out of date. It’s also prone to broadcast spoonerisms – as in the summer of 2010, when Ed v Ed at one point on BBCNews became the Lieber Ladyship contest. Oh how we laughed. Well, I did anyway.

To present a striking marketing parallel here, imagine calling Butlins ‘New Butlins’ or ‘Progressive Butlins’. It’s just not on, is it? Which is why in the 198os, they changed the name to Westworld-style sub brands, and quietly faded Billy’s surname out. If you don’t want to be something any more, then be something else. And as it’s been obvious since about 1956 that the Labour Party is dead keen to be something else, it’s time they got on with it.

Here’s my starter: drop ‘Party’ as well. Everyone else uses Party, and the term is completely inappropriate for the Left  in having two meanings: somewhere you have fun, and a united group of people. So drop Party, and just have an inspiring name. Like The Grifters. Or The Kinks. The Luftwaffe maybe.

However, with all the tendencies involved, it might have to be a very long name. I mean, there’s feminism, Unionism, socialism, and multiculturalism for starters. There’s Progress, Tribune, Balls, Unite, Health, Blairites, Safety, Brownites, Fabians, egalitarians and republicans. So much to get in, and so little room on an A4 letterbox-stuffer.

Offered the role of brand counsellor, another suggestion I’d make to Labour would be a complete break with the past. But that would be such a complete break with the past for them, I could never see it working. The whole problem for any Labour Party bigwig in going forward not back is that you still have to drag the back bit along with you while moving forward. The process knackered Neil Kinnock so much, he fell into the sea. After that, electorally, he never stood a chance.

What admen sometimes do at this point is try and sell difficult clients the SWOT analysis. That stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Using SWOT to flog a radical strategy change is a bit like trying to make Spot the Ball look scientific, but the trouble is that in Labour’s case it would have to be a WT analysis, and I’m not sure this has ever been tried. Apart from at RBS perhaps, where – if you think about it – WT thinking is probably what underpinned Fred Goodwin’s decision-making process from Day One.

Frequently, however, a committee has to be appeased. In these circumstances, I often find that an acronym is the best way to dilute the acrimony. And whereas usually the trouble is that most acronyms don’t mean anything relevant, for the contemporary Labour Party this would be perfect. Listen, moving from meaning nothing to nothing relevant is a progress of sorts.

We are all, of course, reminded of awful acronyms like Nixon’s CREEP. But over time, NATO has become a Thing rather than an alliance: it’s sort of there as something important we have to have, and this is just the thing Labour needs – however unlikely such a belief might be. There was also ERNIE, an acronym that made a numbers-spouting machine sound human – something which would’ve helped the Party enormously during the last General Election.

There are a number of front-runners at least halfway up the flagpole that appeal to me. The Progressive Union of Fabian Feminist Socialists would be right up Lord Mandelson’s guacamole aisle, but he’s less of an influence these days, having taken the City’s shilling. And I think that The Progressive Socialist Egalitarian Unite-Dominated Syndicate would be searingly accurate on every level. What we must not lose sight of, however, is the organic continuity of this Great Movement of Theirs – whatever you try to do as a brand doctor to Labour, the new acronym’s meaning would have to marry Forward firmly to Back.

So we’re left with this: The Progressive Integrated Left-Luggage of Crypto-Kremlin Stateism.

Which, although I say it myself, sums up the Miliband of Hope to a tee.