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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| Labour's challenge: ‘Four years to find two million votes. We must listen’ | Labour's challenge: ‘Four years to find two million votes. We must listen’ |
| (6 months later) | |
| Three hundred and eleven days ago, Labour suffered its third-worst defeat in history, getting two million fewer votes than the Conservative party. | Three hundred and eleven days ago, Labour suffered its third-worst defeat in history, getting two million fewer votes than the Conservative party. |
| It was devastating for the Labour party but, more importantly, it was devastating for the millions of people across the country who are desperate for a fairer, more decent society. | It was devastating for the Labour party but, more importantly, it was devastating for the millions of people across the country who are desperate for a fairer, more decent society. |
| As shadow cabinet members, we are determined to play our role in helping Labour to rebuild and win again. The voting public cannot be spectators; they need to drive it. | As shadow cabinet members, we are determined to play our role in helping Labour to rebuild and win again. The voting public cannot be spectators; they need to drive it. |
| To give a sense of the challenge facing our party, there are seats we won in 1992 – often seats with a proud industrial and mining heritage, like Sherwood and Cannock Chase – which now have Conservative majorities. | To give a sense of the challenge facing our party, there are seats we won in 1992 – often seats with a proud industrial and mining heritage, like Sherwood and Cannock Chase – which now have Conservative majorities. |
| It was our desire to understand why that prompted us to visit those seats, as well as other constituencies we won in 1992 but lost last year, like Kingswood, Southampton Itchen and Thurrock, to listen to former Labour voters, and people who didn’t vote at all at the last election. We had traditional doorstep conversations and also went to shopping centres, cafes, pubs and supermarkets; in one case we enlisted the help of Survation, a research body, to gather a group of former Labour voters. | It was our desire to understand why that prompted us to visit those seats, as well as other constituencies we won in 1992 but lost last year, like Kingswood, Southampton Itchen and Thurrock, to listen to former Labour voters, and people who didn’t vote at all at the last election. We had traditional doorstep conversations and also went to shopping centres, cafes, pubs and supermarkets; in one case we enlisted the help of Survation, a research body, to gather a group of former Labour voters. |
| In all seats we met voters whose loyalty to Labour remains firm and who are desperate to see this Tory government removed. For example, in the Spike Islander pub in Southampton Itchen we encountered genuine anger over George Osborne’s pay-to-stay “tenant tax”. People need a Labour government and we left the pub having been reminded of the sheer impotence of being in opposition. | In all seats we met voters whose loyalty to Labour remains firm and who are desperate to see this Tory government removed. For example, in the Spike Islander pub in Southampton Itchen we encountered genuine anger over George Osborne’s pay-to-stay “tenant tax”. People need a Labour government and we left the pub having been reminded of the sheer impotence of being in opposition. |
| In Cannock Paul, who works for the council, said he liked the change Jeremy Corbyn brought to the Labour party. We met politics students in Southampton who had joined the party over the summer to vote for Jeremy and were excited by his “new politics”. But we were struck by the number of times concerns over defence were raised with us by Labour voters. | In Cannock Paul, who works for the council, said he liked the change Jeremy Corbyn brought to the Labour party. We met politics students in Southampton who had joined the party over the summer to vote for Jeremy and were excited by his “new politics”. But we were struck by the number of times concerns over defence were raised with us by Labour voters. |
| Our biggest challenge as a party remains convincing those who left us to consider us again. We met many former Labour voters who had switched to David Cameron’s Conservatives, who – while not enthusiastic about the Tories – showed no sign of regret that they had helped to elect a Conservative government. Comments that Labour needs to “really help the working man” or “fix the economy” were typical of the responses we received. | Our biggest challenge as a party remains convincing those who left us to consider us again. We met many former Labour voters who had switched to David Cameron’s Conservatives, who – while not enthusiastic about the Tories – showed no sign of regret that they had helped to elect a Conservative government. Comments that Labour needs to “really help the working man” or “fix the economy” were typical of the responses we received. |
| Not only do we need to win back former Labour voters who have switched to Tory, we also have to take the Ukip threat more seriously. In Thurrock we met a number of former Labour voters who had left us for Ukip. We encountered deep hostility towards Labour from this group. | Not only do we need to win back former Labour voters who have switched to Tory, we also have to take the Ukip threat more seriously. In Thurrock we met a number of former Labour voters who had left us for Ukip. We encountered deep hostility towards Labour from this group. |
| Can we ignore these voters and instead build an election-winning coalition based on those who previously haven’t voted? Sadly, we found those who don’t vote were as uninterested in politics as it is possible to be. They had zero faith that there was anything that any politician could do to change their lives. That is clearly the fault of politics rather than the people we spoke to but the uncomfortable truth is that they are as determined not to vote as we are to try to persuade them to. Is any of this a prediction of what will happen in the future? No, of course not. It’s just a snapshot of conversations we’ve had in the towns, suburbs and communities where Labour has to make significant gains to form a government in 2020. | Can we ignore these voters and instead build an election-winning coalition based on those who previously haven’t voted? Sadly, we found those who don’t vote were as uninterested in politics as it is possible to be. They had zero faith that there was anything that any politician could do to change their lives. That is clearly the fault of politics rather than the people we spoke to but the uncomfortable truth is that they are as determined not to vote as we are to try to persuade them to. Is any of this a prediction of what will happen in the future? No, of course not. It’s just a snapshot of conversations we’ve had in the towns, suburbs and communities where Labour has to make significant gains to form a government in 2020. |
| We have four years to find two million additional voters. To do that we have to put the needs of the voting public at the heart of everything we do. As Nye Bevan would have reminded us, we need to “articulate the wants, the frustrations and the aspirations of the majority”. That’s the task of all of us who are so desperate for a Labour government to change Britain. | We have four years to find two million additional voters. To do that we have to put the needs of the voting public at the heart of everything we do. As Nye Bevan would have reminded us, we need to “articulate the wants, the frustrations and the aspirations of the majority”. That’s the task of all of us who are so desperate for a Labour government to change Britain. |