Sir Keir will make a plea to disillusioned people urging them to use their vote and warning apathy caused by ineffective politics could keep the Tories in power
I agree, but under our stupid system it needs to be something that inspires a plurality of constituencies.
And that, unfortunately, means tory swing voters are more important for electoral success.
I live in an incredibly safe labour seat, so if they push a policy that gets 1k more votes here it’s pointless. If that same policy gets 1k here, and loses 1k in a target swing constituency, it’s actually bad.
We saw under Corbyn - who I voted for as leader twice - that in 2017 with an inspirational manifesto it will inspire people, but unfortunately those people literally lived in the wrong places. His support was too concentrated. In 2019, in a glorified brexit proxy vote, we saw that the public believed that Johnson could promise the earth, and that Corbyn couldn’t. Labour still had that, false, association with economic mismanagement.
Another way of framing this is that yes, some voter cohorts need to be inspired. But tory swing voters don’t need inspiration, they need to be reassured. They need to not be scared to vote Labour for possibly the first time in 20+ years. They need to know that their mortgage isn’t going to yet even higher, that Labour won’t “max out the country’s credit card”, and every other lie they’ve been fed by the Tories.
I agree, but under our stupid system it needs to be something that inspires a plurality of constituencies.
And that, unfortunately, means tory swing voters are more important for electoral success.
I live in an incredibly safe labour seat, so if they push a policy that gets 1k more votes here it’s pointless. If that same policy gets 1k here, and loses 1k in a target swing constituency, it’s actually bad.
We saw under Corbyn - who I voted for as leader twice - that in 2017 with an inspirational manifesto it will inspire people, but unfortunately those people literally lived in the wrong places. His support was too concentrated. In 2019, in a glorified brexit proxy vote, we saw that the public believed that Johnson could promise the earth, and that Corbyn couldn’t. Labour still had that, false, association with economic mismanagement.
Another way of framing this is that yes, some voter cohorts need to be inspired. But tory swing voters don’t need inspiration, they need to be reassured. They need to not be scared to vote Labour for possibly the first time in 20+ years. They need to know that their mortgage isn’t going to yet even higher, that Labour won’t “max out the country’s credit card”, and every other lie they’ve been fed by the Tories.