Internecine Warfare

Prezza has written a scorching piece on LabourHome, laying into the campaign leadership (and thus the leadership) of NuLab. He claims there was no campaign strategy, no tactics, no execution.

I am not a Labour activist so I do now know the reality of how ill prepared they were on the ground for the campaign. But I do know this:

It was not how few leaflets they delivered or how poorly they targeted key wards. It was the fact that their Government has led the country into a recession, made it doubly bad by ensuring that our economy is in worse shape than any other developed economy, is now bereft of an agenda and is imploding on an hourly basis. That's what's done for you, John. And the fact that you can't see that, even now, shows how blind Labour is to the current situation.

There is a wonderful comment on Prezza's blog from a bloke called MathewF:

"Utter nonsense. First of all, Purnell says he isn’t standing for the leadership. How very cynical of you to suggest it John - you could almost be working for the Daily Mail. Perhaps you would like to reflect on your attack on Purnell’s character and publicly apologise to him. Are you big enough?

"Perhaps you might also want to reconsider the use of such intemperate language against comrades and fellow members of the Party. It brings us into disrepute - perhaps better to concentrate your attacks on the Tories? And secondly, we were going to lose these elections massively, before Hazel Blears resigned and Purnell (obviously) and Jacquie Smith and Bev Hughes, etc. All women. Perhaps you just don’t like strong women John?

"What has lost us this election is not lack of campaign skills or nice slogans (we have had too much spin, haven’t we?) or the need for more battlebuses, or pledge cards. This is toytown politics. We have lost these elections because we have no programme to put to the people. There is a vacuum at the heart of our Government. We do not know what we stand for as a Party anymore because Brown doesn’t appear to have any idea. He is not a Leader. The Party thinks so and so do the people.

"The most positive message Labour could put in the North West was Stop the BNP (a very necessary message) but what was our programme? Privatise the Royal Mail? Bail out the bankers? Replace Trident? Work the longest hours in Europe? Dilly dally over expenses reform? Always go for a short-term headline? Do in your colleagues? Give me a break.

"Unless and until we can give people a vision of a better, fairer society which will make a real difference to their lives - and for all your speeches and campaigning, they appear singularly unconvinced by 11 years of a Labour Government - we will never regain their trust. We need a fundamental re-think about where we are going and how we want to get there.

"And we need to regain people’s trust. This would be helped if ALL the people we have elected behaved themselves. You personally can’t wriggle off the hook and shirk your share of responsibility for the corrosive cynicism with which ordinary people now view politics, politicians and the political process.

"So don’t assassinate other people’s characters. Most of all we need a new leader who can communicate, connect and earn the trust and respect of the British people. No matter what you say, that Leader is clearly not Gordon Brown."

Need I say more.