Remember this cringe making TMay effort from GE17?
Big mistake for LAB to assume that the Tories will be piss-poor again
If any CON MPs is still deciding whether or not to send Graham Brady a letter then they should check the above TMay “news conference” from the closing stages of the GE2017 campaign.
This is really awful and just about sums up her awkwardness, inability to think on her feet and the struggle she has answering questions from the media – qualities that are so important for a leader in modern campaigns
I highlight this because whenever new polls come out indicating that LAB is not doing as well as might be expected we get what looks like an automated response from many red team backers: The party was 20%+ behind at the last election and pulled back and ergo it can do it again.
- I would suggest that this is a totally complacent view and the very fact that the Tories campaign was so awful at the last election means that they are not going to make the same mistakes again.
They’re not going to announce an election without having done the detailed planning, Nick Timothy is not going to write the manifesto, they are not going to stop their leader appearing in TV debates and they are not going to go into the election headed by someone who was such a proven loser simply incapable of relating to ordinary people. GE2017 was a one-off and LAB needs to recognise that now.
Labour, meanwhile, is daily providing material that lends itself be exploited effectively by the Tories. Thus, for example, the ambivalence over antisemitism within the party hasn’t really hurt Team Corbyn yet it has the potential to really bite. The declared Holocaust deniers within the movement who have been given no more than a rap on the knuckles does not tell a not good story about the Corbyn/McDonnell/Milne team.
All this is before we get to the forensic examination of LAB policy proposals.
Labour can win the next election but the party has to get out of the GE17-generated complacency. It is going to be tough.