How can Labour win the south? For some the question has become not how we win but ‘Can we win?’ I say emphatically: yes we can. It can only be done by building active relationships with voters: the single most important thing that all MPs, and councillors and candidates need to do.
We need a thorough-going change of attitude to constituency campaigning and organisation. It’s the most important and fundamental political activity of all and everyone needs to engage in it. It’s not just a mechanical or operational function or an activity for those ‘good with their hands’ while the great thinkers do policy. Face-to-face campaigning is essential if Labour wants to understand what the public really thinks. If you want to be sure you know what people’s number one priority is and what they think about you, then go and ask them – and do so often.
This means face-to-face contact on the doorstep, at community meetings and coffee mornings, integrated and reinforced with a good interactive direct mail strategy. We have to reach out proactively to the people we represent, not just be available at advice surgeries. If we learn from people what matters to them, and then demonstrate that it also matters to us, then we start to build trust and support – and it is only then that political leadership is possible.
For our organisation to be able to support constituency campaigning, it badly needs some attention, some rebuilding and leadership. We have prided ourselves in past years on our Rolls Royce of an election machine. We now have at best a Ford Cortina, and although our party staff do their very best for us they cannot succeed unless organisation itself is a party priority.
On policy, I’m not convinced that we need a different agenda for the south than the north. I’ve talked in some depth with a lot of marginal seat MPs and it seems to me the issues our voters are concerned about are the same across the country.
Affluent or not, people worry about crime and disorder. Labour has a record to be proud of in reducing crime, increasing police numbers and introducing Safer Neighbourhood Teams. But the voters don’t believe they are safer, and we have to understand and address their fears of crime.
After the results in London and across the country on 1 May we have to say to voters not just that we will listen but that we have heard their verdict, and that we will change to meet their concerns.
Too often we don’t hear what people are saying, and I worry that we think we can tell voters what the most important issues are. We can tell them as much as we like, but it doesn’t mean they’ll agree.
For all Labour people eradicating poverty is part of our fundamental purpose. But it’s rarely, if ever, raised on the doorstep. Crucially, what people talk about are their own personal aspirations and anxieties. Their children’s future, whether their children will be able to afford to live near them, whether they will be able to see their grandchildren, do they feel secure, is their street clean – these things matter. Crime and fear of crime – this matters. Controlling immigration – this matters. And tax matters – just mention council tax on any doorstep and you will be knocked backwards by the anger it is creating. The 10p tax issue against the background of economic uncertainty has opened up tax as an issue on the doorstep, and at the very least we have to convince people their taxes are well spent, and spent on them.
These are the things voters talk about. There are, of course, other important policy areas. But unless we start where the voter starts, and unless their first issue is our first issue – they won’t be listening to us at all.