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Last week, The Observer, reported on a leaked-memo that shows that the Labour Party's allegedly finest political minds have decided the way to hammer David Cameron is to portray him as right-wing. Well, talk about stating the obvious. Most people know this government is pretty right-wing and they make their decisions accordingly. Secondly, another flaw in this supposedly brilliant plan is that its not that strikingly new or original. Labour tried it during the election and we do remember how that turned out dont we? In fact, this useless line of attack was brought to a screeching-halt following a major own-goal which saw Labour portraying Cameron as Gene Hunt, a character many people found cool and actually ended up enhancing his image.
Strategic vision, communications strategy, these are all things that Labour currently lacks any coherency in at all. This, sadly, directly flows from the leaderships lack of an overarching vision of where it, and the Party are actually going. As well as not being able to see where we are going, we can't seem to understand where we are. So, this report is framed in the context of Cameron polling negatively during the riots. This is not because of his response, regrettably, but because he was seen, rightly, as being derelict by staying in Tuscany while Britain was burning.
Cameron's absence reinforced the feeling amoung many that he simply isn't one of 'us' or 'in it with us' together. He was seen as distant and what he said about the riots no longer mattered as much because people had already formed a opinion of him based on his dereliction. The way therefore to land a blow on Cameron in this context was therefore to have Ed Miliband behave in a workmanlike fashion to contrast the styles and therefore character of the two leaders. While Cameron finished his holiday, Ed should have been hard-at-work in his constituency and making much hay of the fact that he was.
This sense of drift, the air of perpetual confusion and fog that hangs over the leadership is starting to find its echo in the polls. Slowly but surely, Labour is losing ground to the point where parity between the two major parties is not a question of 'if' but 'when'. It is not just these factors which encourage the impression that the Party is in utter chaos and rudderless at the top either, its the very fact that some enterprising Labour official obviously saw fit to leak this document in a ultimate bid to persuade his colleagues of the error of their ways. Dark whispers abound that the top-team is riddled with division and it must be because its currently as leaky as a sieve with extra holes.
Ed Miliband's 'Hackgate' honeymoon is well and truly over, he needs to get a grip and fast, if he doesn't it will not just him but the entire Party that suffers.
Follow Darrell Goodliffe on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DarrellGoodliff
Up here, the Labour party in Scotland has reached similar levels of toxicity, for proof of that have a wee look at the map after the Holyrood election in May this year. Wipeout! In Scotland, their self centred posturing has been seen through. Time for a radical rethink at every level of the once worthy now toxic Labour Party. Keir Hardie is spinning madly.
I wanted to like him and I wanted to be interested-- but Mr. Milliband's persona and rhetorical style made it impossible for me to do so. Perhaps the Labor Party needs to cast about not only for a more effective message, but a more effective messenger.
The time is surely right for them to talk to the people in charge of some of our largest groups and organisations, experts and thinkers who can offer them their expertise from welfare to the enviroment, policing to banking. Use this time to gather opinions that will carry them forward, creating new fresh and clear ideas for the next decade and its problems.
Wipe the slate clean, the last election highlighted Labours failures to connect and failures to deliver. Labour must forget what the opposition are doing (Dont worry, the people will decide if they are doing it right) and Labour must present, clear, supported and informed smart thinking for our Nations future.
To remind all: Iain Gray (Known locallly in the Blogosphere as "Elmer") announced 100 days ago that he would stand down as Leader of the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament. This after leading the Northern British Parish Branch to a categoric and humiliating defeat in the Scottish General Election.
We have now the unedifying (sic) spectacle of a Lame, sorry Dead Duck leader of "the natural party" of Scotland, with no mechanism in place to select a replacement, with behind-the-scenes nudging forward of the many worthies from Westminister and even that Valley of the Dinosaurs, the House of Lords, as a viable "Leader" of the party in Scotland.
Ed, as we have discussed previously, has failed to chime with the People of Scotland. Seen (from this viewer's biased perspective) as simply another one in the self-perpetuating kakistocratic hegemony that resides at the heart of this rotten Union, does it matter if it is Millibrand A or Millibrand B at the helm ?
Does Labour, consigned to Opposition in Westminister for at least another Parliament, need to search its ranks for a "New Kinnock", a man or woman who will never lead the party to power, but who could fan the remaining flames of a once-mighty socialist movement ?
The biggest problem that Labour has (in Scotland if not in the whole U.K.) is the failure to understand the separation between working for the benefit of the people and working for the benefit of the party.
The westminster party is following the Scottish branch down the sorry road of opposing for the sake of opposing. The eternal whine of Labout in Holyrood amounts to "The SNP want it... so we don't." Now in westminster, it seems to be "The Condems want it, so we don't" If the Labour party want to be taken seriously, they need to start offering credible alternatives. Neither Ed Milliband nor Iain Gray have managed to show the voters any such thing.
Power should not be the goal. Public service is a quaint and seemingly outmoded idea, but, oddly enough, it's what the public (i.e. the voters) want from the politicians who are increasingly viewed as a gang of self serving con artists. Make that quaint idea the centre of the party's focus and votes will follow behind as sure as day follows night.
WLQ Hits it right on the head. Labour lost in Scotland because it couldn’t put forward a positive agenda. Labour in England faces the same problem – a lack of a positive agenda. The Electorate are far more sophisticated these days. Tribal loyalties have been blown out of the water – The Scottish Election showed that. God forbid, people now vote for Policy because 13 years of Labour Deceit and Spin has poisoned the view of Politics and Politicians.
As to Millibrands. Four Words. The Union Block Vote. Until Labour embraces full democratic practice in the selection of its leader and abandons “electoral colleges”, you get what you deserve. Call-Me-Ed is a lacklustre performer who has piddled away a golden opportunity over Hackgate; who by the rules of the party in Opposition has been forced to surround himself with similarly limited talents, tainted forever by their machinations and manipulations in both Junior and Senior Office in the 13 years of internecine NuLab Civil War.
Opposition, as Elmer so ably demonstrated in reverse, is not just about Opposing.
Whether Ed really cares about people is not the question. It's whether he cares enough about trying to make a real difference we should be asking.