'Labour must offer hope and not rely on bitter Tory infighting to win election'

27 August 2023 , 19:28

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Nadine Dorries continues to hammer nails into the Tory coffin (Image: GETTY)

Hell hath no fury like a Conservative scorned and denied a peerage, as Nadine Dorries hammers another bag full of nails into Rishi Sunak and the Tory coffin.

But Labour must not rely on this infighting. Instead, they must offer hope, which has so far been missing.

Not the widespread hope that an incompetent, weak and out of touch Prime Minister and his disintegrating mob will be smashed at next year’s general election.

Vengeful Dorries deepens that prospect by writing opposition manifestos - “demeaning his office”, “Prada shoes and Savile Row suit”, “zombie Parliament”, etc, etc, etc.

Despite this, Labour and the Libs split the vote in her Mid-Bedfordshire seat, so the Cons could conceivably cling to a 24,644 blue bastion.

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Nor the growing hope in Labour circles that Keir Starmer will be Britain’s next PM, a remarkable feat when he inherited from battered Jeremy Corbyn the fewest MPs since 1935. Tory bloodletting, blue-on-blue drive-by shootings, reinforce the old adage that governments lose elections as much as oppositions win them.

No, too often absent from Labour’s leadership is vivid, expressed hope of how the party will improve lives. The practical measures, easily sold on a 30-second doorstep chat, to transform opportunities and prospects.

Safety-first caution – junking radical policies and ideas to bomb-proof the party and avoid frightening the horses – is a risk when risk aversion equals blandness and leaves a party relying on not being the other lot as its key selling point.

To campaign in prose and govern in poetry would be wonderful if, once in power, a Starmer Labour Government got to work and changed Britain significantly for the better.

But first it must win – and that lack of hope is a handicap.

Relying on the likes of Dorries and loudmouth “30p Lee” Anderson – who admitted the Tories fail on migration and stopping the boats – to gift victory on a plate is a gamble that pays off or goes down as the worst mistake ever.

Kevin Maguire