So what your basically saying is that labour have to wait 10 years for people to forget the last crisis just like the tories using the winter of discontent for 20 years.

 

I think they somehow need to find a leader who both seems competent just because of their "natural" qualities, and who has the communication skills to talk over the scaremongering nonsense from the Tories that is ALWAYS going to be there no matter how far to the right Labour move.

 

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a candidate who has both those things. Yvette Cooper is the only one who has "gravitas" and seems like someone who you'd instinctively trust to stay on top of things and keep her head in a crisis, but I'm not sure she has the charisma to get people to listen to her in the first place. Andy Burnham has the communication skills but not the gravitas. Liz Kendall and Mary Cregh have neither, just as Miliband didn't.

Edited May 28, 201510 yr by Danny

I would go with Andy Burnham myself he has just enough gravitas and is a decent communicator.

 

Derek Hatton has just rejoined the oarty.....maybe he would like a go lol

list of skills needed for the Job:

 

1. talk human

2. Know what you are talking about

3. Listening skills

4. Be good at going for the opposition jugular in a one-liner, well-thought-out soundbite

5. convince party members he or she is ready to follow policies because they are the right thing to do, and get the message over (see 1 and 2)

1. talk human

 

Indeed.

 

It's a shibboleth.

 

Christ her graphics team are dreadful.

It's a shibboleth.

 

Christ her graphics team are dreadful.

Ah yes, that's what Labour needs. People using words like shibboleth :lol:

I was more commenting on the reason for her team going with it.

 

It's not what I'd have gone with.

I don't usually watch This Week, largely because I can't stand Andrew Neil and don't think much of Michael Portillo. However, I saw a clip of Susie Dent, so I wound back and watched the whole of the discussion with her.

 

Part of the discussion was to do with the use of the word "austerity". There is a lot of evidence to suggest that a lot of people don't know what the word means. With that in mind, Portillo made a good point when he said that Labour (and the SNP) made a mistake in claiming to be anti-austerity. They should have said they were opposed to large spending cuts.

 

It all comes down to the fact that those of us who are obsessed with politics don't always appreciate how little interest many people show in the subject. We may sneer at people who say "it doesn't affect me", but there are an awful lot of people saying that.

 

One of the most interesting articles I have read in the last few years was written by David Willetts in the early months of the coalition. As a Tory intellectual, he was excited by the challenge of being forced to justify ideas he thought were self-evident. Similarly, Lib Dem ministers were being challenged on views which they thought were obvious. That, of course, goes back to the question raised in one of the articles linked to here (or in another thread). Most of us here think that the level of inequality in this country is a bad thing. However, we need to be able to answer a voter who asks "Why is inequality bad for me?".

all of which, in a way, is responding to the 5 points I made earlier - and points which the candidates have started referring to (sort of) in interviews today. Look I published them first, I claim copyright! :P

The candidate who can "make Labour win again" still in 3rd place with the public:

 

Andy Burnham 18%

Yvette Cooper 9%

Liz Kendall 7%

Again - awareness and attention amongst the general public at the moment is at such a low level that it really doesn't say anything other than name recognition. It says just as much about how futile it is polling in that regard that the other two have been high profile spokespeople for Labour for five, ten years and their support is so relatively low. There's a reason 'Don't Know' is the overwhelming favourite right now.

Again - awareness and attention amongst the general public at the moment is at such a low level that it really doesn't say anything other than name recognition. It says just as much about how futile it is polling in that regard that the other two have been high profile spokespeople for Labour for five, ten years and their support is so relatively low. There's a reason 'Don't Know' is the overwhelming favourite right now.

 

But interest in politics is ALWAYS low - what makes you think there's going to be all these automatic opportunities for her to establish herself once she's elected? The successful politicians have to essentially force their way into the public consciousness. Most of the public knew nothing about Miliband for his first 2-3 years (until the hysterical scaremongering kicked in) because he/his message just couldn't leave an impression on the many people who didn't watch Newsnight, and there aren't any signs so far that Kendall is any different.

But interest in politics is ALWAYS low - what makes you think there's going to be all these automatic opportunities for her to establish herself once she's elected? The successful politicians have to essentially force their way into the public consciousness. Most of the public knew nothing about Miliband for his first 2-3 years (until the hysterical scaremongering kicked in) because he/his message just couldn't leave an impression on the many people who didn't watch Newsnight, and there aren't any signs so far that Kendall is any different.

Because the focus at the moment isn't on appealing to the public - it's on gathering nominations. The candidates are doing requisite public appearances to set out outlines of their stall, but pretty much none of them are doing anything beyond Newsnight/Marr appearances (no high profile speeches etc). There was basically zero public awareness of who David Cameron was at this stage in the Tory leadership contest in 2005, so it's a bit disingenuous to act like Liz Kendall is obviously a failure because name recognition for someone unknown a month ago is at 7%.

 

It's also a bit of a fallacy - people pay more attention to a leader by virtue of them being leader. At the moment they're all just candidates - the public isn't really especially inclined to pay attention to what any of them are saying, regardless of what their platforms are.

Because the focus at the moment isn't on appealing to the public - it's on gathering nominations. The candidates are doing requisite public appearances to set out outlines of their stall, but pretty much none of them are doing anything beyond Newsnight/Marr appearances (no high profile speeches etc). There was basically zero public awareness of who David Cameron was at this stage in the Tory leadership contest in 2005, so it's a bit disingenuous to act like Liz Kendall is obviously a failure because name recognition for someone unknown a month ago is at 7%.

 

It's also a bit of a fallacy - people pay more attention to a leader by virtue of them being leader. At the moment they're all just candidates - the public isn't really especially inclined to pay attention to what any of them are saying, regardless of what their platforms are.

 

Why didn't they pay attention to Miliband for so long, then?

 

I'm just saying if her whole pitch is going to be "you may hate my policies but I can make Labour win", then she'd better hope she starts topping the public polls by the time of the leadership election so that she actually has some evidence to back up her claim.

Why didn't they pay attention to Miliband for so long, then?

Well they kind of did intermittently - there weren't many who didn't have a view on the job he was doing about a year in. I somewhat suspect if you had a 'how well do you think the candidates are doing in the leadership election so far' type question similar to the leader approval question it would be fairly even for all the candidates (10-15% positive, 10-15% negative) with about 70%+ saying they don't know.

 

I'd be interested to see some equivalent polls for the last Labour and Tory leadership election to get an idea of whether public opinion was moving one way or another for EM/DM/DC before the election itself, or if perceptions only really started after the election itself.

 

On the subject-ish, just to get some thoughts down: I still think one of Ed's *huge* failures was a total misunderstanding of the power of image and branding - he refused to do 'husky moments' as he thought it was shallow and facile, without really accounting for the fact that it's only shallow and facile if you don't do anything else, or that images were a hugely powerful way for Cameron to define himself in the first hundred days after he won the Tory leadership to try demonstrate to voters he was a different kind of Tory leader as part of the detox. Ed never really got that - he was far too focused on rational appeals rather than emotional ones until it was too late, which don't really work effectively at all. In fairness to Andy, I think that's something he gets that Ed doesn't.

Husky moments are shallow and facile. Unfortunately, they can also be very effective and Miliband is too young to remember an election where such moments did not play a major part.

I don't think the power of imagery is shallow and facile at all, unless you're literally doing nothing other than the imagery.

Why didn't they pay attention to Miliband for so long, then?

 

I'm just saying if her whole pitch is going to be "you may hate my policies but I can make Labour win", then she'd better hope she starts topping the public polls by the time of the leadership election so that she actually has some evidence to back up her claim.

 

 

Danny, what matters most now for Labour is what works never mind where they are on the political spectrum!

what matters is what works

*.*

Danny, what matters most now for Labour is what works never mind where they are on the political spectrum!

 

Absolutely - and I think replicating the Lib Dems' spectacularly unsuccessful message for the election just gone, with a leader who doesn't even have Clegg-levels of charisma to compensate for how weak the message is, is the very last thing that would work.

Edited June 2, 201510 yr by Danny