Jeremy Corbyn’s well-staffed media team are embarrassing our party, argues former home secretary Jacqui Smith
Message discipline and effective media work is like good underwear. You do not want to wave it around but you notice if it’s not there. What have we learned about the importance of this in the last few days?
This time last year, Labour’s day of action on rail fare rises was completely thrown off course by Jeremy Corbyn’s reshuffle briefing – an event which enraged then shadow transport secretary Lilian Greenwood who had worked hard to set up the campaign. Last week while Labour activists were shivering outside rail stations across the country, Corbyn was at least keeping distractions to a minimum, apparently visiting left wing Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and discussing ‘the beautiful dream of realising a world government based on justice and fraternity’. He was also planning the relaunch which was being extensively briefed by his team which would cast him as a left wing Donald Trump-like populist.
In my view, the first rule of relaunch should be do not talk about the relaunch. Announcing a relaunch immediately reminds people that you think you need one and focuses people’s attention on the processology rather than the substance of the announcements. If you need to do it, just get on with it.
Second, good media management allows for flexibility to respond to events that provide an opportunity. Last week, our ambassador to the European Union resigned using the devastating words ‘muddled thinking’ to describe the government’s Brexit planning. On Saturday morning, the Red Cross hit the headlines with the rather hyperbolic statement that our accident and emergency departments were facing a humanitarian crisis. Both of these events should have provided an open goal for a nimble party and a good media operation. There was no statement from our leader on the EU issue and a lengthy wait for anything on the winter crisis in our National Health Service. The impression was left that the Red Cross was doing a better job opposing the government than the official opposition.
Credit where it is due though, there is evidence that some planning is going into messages and media this week. Corbyn’s relaunch was due to start with a widely briefed speech and extensive media round. The briefing suggested that the speech would focus on shifting the official Labour position on free movement. I am personally in favour of recognising that the Brexit vote was about immigration concerns and finding a way to respond to them, but I know that many others do not share my view. This was, therefore, an eye catching and potentially ‘populist’ move.
But the delivery of this message brings us to the third lesson. If you brief out a big controversial policy statement, you need to be able to follow it up with conviction. It became very clear during the media interviews on Tuesday that Corbyn’s heart really is not in any restriction on free movement. By the time the speech was eventually delivered the line was ‘we are not wedded to freedom of movement for EU citizens … nor do we rule it out’. Despite Keir Starmer’s efforts, the confusion on Labour’s Brexit position continues to let the government and their ‘muddled thinking’ off the hook.
In addition to having a clear message and delivering it with conviction, it helps if you are only delivering one key message at a time. By the time Corbyn had finished his media interviews this morning he had also announced that he thought there should be a maximum income cap and that he would join the Southern Rail picket line. Leaving aside the undesirability of these policies, Labour hearts sank further during the day as clarifications and message trimming blunted any impact that could have come from the speech.
We are apparently in the era of ‘straight-talking, honest politics’ as opposed to all that New Labour spin and media management. So, in the spirit of straight talking, let me say to the leader’s well-rewarded and well-staffed media team – get your arses in gear and stop embarrassing our party.
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Jacqui Smith is a former home secretary. She tweets at @Jacqui_Smith1
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Yesterday, Jeremy Corbyn gave a groundbreaking speech in Peterborough on the subject of Brexit and what it means for this country – and how Labour will approach it.
As well as groundbreaking, it was a grown-up intervening in a game played by spoiled children: mature, considered, statesmanlike and, just as importantly, it treated those who hear it like adults, rather than as infants craving unrealistic certainties.
It also made Corbyn the first political leader to genuinely grasp both of the opposing nettles of migration and the need to address the entrenched inequality created by those who are eager for us to blame migrants instead.
And now what the Labour right are calling betrayal and the media a ‘u-turn’. Neither are true. Corbyn’s honest appraisal, during the referendum campaign, of the EU as flawed but worth keeping is based on his long and accurate conviction that the EU can be abused by the rich and powerful to exploit and impoverish the more vulnerable.
And again, he’s treating us as adults – even though some fail to deserve it – by being honest and balanced: freedom of movement is up for discussion, with no promises in either direction. But the overriding aim for the good of everyone remains the economic benefit of access to trade.
Grown-up talk. We need our leaders to be capable of it even when some of us (esp. the Tory-lite Blair cultists) clearly are not.
This was a great speech. A leader’s speech. A statesman’s speech. Which is why those who don’t want you to see that are working so hard to tell you otherwise
In a parallel universe perhaps, in the real world not even in your dreams. How long are you going to continue with this denialism and groupthink? Until there are no Labour MPs left at all?
People on low/medium incomes are not impressed by platitudinous political views from a bygone age. Perhaps, I don’t know, they would like to see some serious, credible, realistic proposals and answers from the Leader of the Labour Party on issues such as Brexit, Jobs, Housing etc.. I fail to see how when for years on the doorstep, immigration was a topic of concern for may Labour voters, the Leadership of the party can ignore this matter. Also, fun-diddly proposals like a ‘maximum minimum wage’ actual discourage those at the end of the queue because the incentive is eroded. Work harder, get taxed more? Admittedly, the EU isn’t perfect, but where the the Leader of the Labour Party reminding voters of the employment legislation brought in by the EU because of a Labour Government (Major’s Government would not sign the social chapter). Jeremy and his ‘friends’ are treating this as a university Labour club, not a political party, and are reducing what was a force for change, improvements and serious political engagement in peoples lives to a protest group. Only those, who rely on a Labour Government will be disadvantaged because of this.
No, Alf, I don’t think so
And from that great speech, his stance on immigration is ?
Article about straight talking politics contains the word “processology ”
Facepalm.
“The impression was left that the Red Cross was doing a better job opposing the government than the official opposition”
This is exactly why trust in NGO’s is declining. It is not Red Cross’s job to oppose the government. It harms the entire charity sector when Red Cross, (or other charities) make such clearly political statements.