Two weeks before the next elections, headlines spell big trouble for Labour.
Candidates contest more than 5,000 seats across 136 councils and devolved governments in England, Scotland, and Wales a week on Thursday (7 May).
Sensible money points to a drubbing for a Labour Party led by a deeply unpopular Prime Minister facing calls to resign over the Mandelson crisis.
According to this projection, Reform stands to gain the most from Labour and Conservative losses.
Look at those numbers again for a second. Labour could lose more than ONE THOUSAND council seats in England. Reform could rise from nowhere to gain more than 1,200, councillors with Greens and Lib Dems also squeezing the Labour vote.
And, unthinkably until quite recently, Labour could also lose the Senedd to either Reform or Plaid Cymru.
Fighting for survival
It’s head-spinning and explains Labour’s mounting attacks against Reform in recent weeks, shared by ministers.
Here’s the full video.
Set in a pub, the campaign video shows a young woman nursing a pint opining about immigration, the NHS and Grenfell. The pub bore comments are quotes from Reform MPs and candidates. I fully agree with the sentiment behind the campaign; the comments in the video are unpleasant and part of a pattern that make Reform thoroughly unfit to govern.
Keir Starmer makes similar points in his Sunday Times interview yesterday, when saying he can win the next election (if he services next month’s fallout).
“I think it’s going to be a very important general election. It’s likely to be Labour versus Reform. An election where the defining question is, what is it to be British?
“An election where what I would call patriotic values of tolerance, decency, live and let live, diversity, are under challenge like we’ve never seen before.”
There’s your choice, folks. Vote for us, or we’re in big trouble. It’s all too bleak to contemplate. While I get the tactic, I struggle to see how it helps in the long run without a more positive, upbeat vision that sets out why any of it matters.
That’s the challenge facing progressives who fear the rise of the right. Complaining about them is one thing. I do it often enough. Having a positive, better alternative is harder. And I think we’re falling short.
For all the soundbites, we are yet to see a clear account of the country Labour wants to create, with an explanation of how its decisions move us towards it.
This is despite brilliant progress happening in city regions led by Labour mayors, with local leaders and businesses supporting them.
Why clear vision matters
Endlessly tactical, managerial and obsessed with process. The debate last week over Peter Mandelson’s appointment highlights the disconnect between Westminster debate and the things that impact people’s lives.
Voters elected Labour in 2024 with a mandate to change things. I’d argue that we don’t yet understand what that ‘change’ looks and feels like. And we’re stuck in a doom loop as a result, unable to see past the next negative headline.
It’s not as if ministers aren’t busy. The gov.uk website lists more than 13,500 news updates from government since Labour took office. But between the ‘change’ slogan and the blizzard of press releases and policy announcements should sit a vision that explains what it all means.
This should underpin ‘difficult decisions’ to shore up public finances and reshape the services on which people depend. It should relentlessly point to a better, more prosperous place. It’s the why, which explains the what, how and how much. People should understand it and hold the government to it when progress stalls or drifts off course.
Instead, we see so many different missions and ‘number one priorities’ – which, by definition, you can’t have lots of. Nothing postive sticks as a result.
And, as we hear again about ‘tough choices’ and the ‘disaster’ that ministers inherited, the change people voted for gets lost in the noise.
Vision versus delivery: can we have both?
I’ve debated online recently about whether Labour would be in a different place if it had a clearer vision (note the reference to clearer).
Some say no, arguing it’s patronising fluff that makes no difference to people’s lives. It’s all about the delivery, right?
I don’t think it’s a binary choice. This government desperately needs a clear vision that it uses consistently. It should obsessively focus on the changes that move us it. And it should communicate progress relentlessly.
Without the vision binding everything together, you just end up with a list of stuff. And in its absence, others step into the void and define it for you.
Then all you’re left with is the odd policy success that some people may like and attack ads about how terrible Reform are. That may motivate people to vote on 7 May, and I hope it does.
But it’s no platform on which to relaunch a prospectus to run the country. For a party elected with such a huge majority, that’s a travesty.
Last week, Sir Keir Starmer thanked submariners in Scotland as they returned from spending more than 200 days at sea. The images of him aboard a submarine offer an unfortunate metaphor for his predicament: holed below the waterline, fighting for survival.
When the post-election reset happens, I hope one of the many ‘lessons learned’ is that that change needs proper groundwork and consistent, two-way communication to make it happen.
Before then, and whatever your views, please vote on 7 May if you can.
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