Labour's problem is still that it doesn't know how to talk to people

I realised this too late...

During my teen years I was terrible at talking to girls. I'd just get tongue tied or babble something incoherently. Since I had no confidence in my ability to say anything interesting, I tried to make up for it by being really studious. Maybe if women saw I was an intelligent, 'nice guy', they would ignore my lack of charisma and personality. It didn't work, as you probably guessed.

I'm starting to think this is a good metaphor for how the public sees the Labour Party. Most of us who talk about the Labour Party regularly are policy geeks. We are conditioned to think we should focus on being bold to improve people's lives. Because we don’t know how to talk to ordinary people about politics – without getting angry or exasperated – we focus on policy in excruciating detail. Detailed policies are a good goal. But we are putting the horse before the cart. The leader of the Labour party needs to know how to connect with people before he can get their vote. That doesn't come through policy. It comes by earning their trust first. If they believe we are sincere they will they trust us, and then accept our policy ideas.

When was the last time you voted for someone you didn’t trust?

I’ve not been saying this for ages because, as some of you may remember, I earnestly believed Ed Miliband could win by being a nice guy with a nice mix of policies. In fact I was among his biggest cheerleaders. And then it all came crashing down in 2015. I could see it on voters’ faces when I spoke to them on election day. Sure, they liked him… they thought he was a nice guy… but… no they didn’t want him to run the country. It was a painful realisation. Blair's genius wasn't policy. He knew how to connect with people. Jeremy Corbyn was good at connecting with some people, but not enough to win an election.

Ayesha Hazarika says Labour has become the “patronising supply teacher” of politics, another excellent metaphor.

There’s some truth to the “going for a pint” test, and right now, we’re so worthy, gloomy and dull, even most Labour activists wouldn’t go for a drink with us. 

No doubt, some clever dick on Twitter will say Labour should focus on bold policy than winning the ‘Best Person At The Pub’ award. But again that misses the point. If they don’t like us they won’t listen to us.

Boris Johnson has now trounced this country's top left-liberals – my tribe – twice in our capital as Mayor, and twice across this country (the EUref and 2019). The fact he's doled out billions of cash and managed to oversee a fast vaccine rollout by the NHS has helped, no doubt, but isn't the driving factor. We need to (grudgingly) accept he is good at connecting with people and start from there. This is Boris Johnson’s world now, we have to adapt to it.

Which brings me to Keir Starmer. There’s no point in having a debate about the ‘red wall’ or ‘blue wall’; whether Labour should find a different mix of policies; whether it should start talking up an industrial policy or talk about ‘levelling up’. This is Westminster bullshit by policy geeks who don’t know how to talk to people. Starmer had a difficult year because he's needed to fight the government during a time when no one – other than left-wing Twitter – wanted to hear a policy geek tell everyone how he is right, again. No one is listening to the Labour party outside of Twitter. So he can’t be blamed for having a difficult year.

But Starmer does need to take responsibility for focusing more on fighting internal Labour battles than on introducing himself to the public. There are many on the hard-left use the centre-left as an excuse for their own failures. Now we’re seeing many on the centre-left use the hard-left as an excuse too. (yes, you Mr Peter Mandelson!) Corbyn is out; RLB has gone AWOL and Richard Burgon is a punchline to everyone’s jokes. They are not the reason Labour is still struggling. Starmer isn’t going to introduce himself to the public if he carries on infighting.

Focus on the prize: the people of this country. Learn to listen to them. Show them some love, some personality, some charm. Say something interesting and they might even listen. And only then will some of them vote for us. It’s really not that complicated.