Oh dear, we are not there yet are we? I suppose I should not be surprised as it took best part of 15 years of Tory government last time to finally realise we had to get ourselves a leader that the country, rather than just the party, wanted.
The trouble is with losing elections is that people get hurt, some very badly hurt, before we can get back in and start putting things right. That is a huge responsibility, and too many factions within the party ignore it and use whatever disproportionate power they have to foist leaders on us that may appeal to their own narrow interests, but have no chance of getting us a majority Labour government.
Let’s be clear about what this election taught us: the country said they did not care that we have a million people using foodbanks. That’s OK as long as your average voter was OK – this means that the ‘me now’ society (or lack of society) that Margaret Thatcher forged is alive and well. All our years of government failed to change that. I must be naïve as I thought that all the success we had and all the great things we did while in power had actually changed that. It hasn’t.
This is so dangerous to our long-term wellbeing, and we need above all now a leader with a broad and deep vision, articulated in simple, strong messages that we know the electorate can understand and buy into. Forget the minutiae of policy detail, I want to see once again a big picture being painted about who we as a people, a country (not the party – that follows) actually are in terms of our place in the world, and how we live, grow and nurture each other in all our communities.
We are not there yet, but I am voting for Liz Kendall as she is saying some refreshing things and stands the best chance of developing into the sort of leader the country wants and needs. But the danger lies within the party, not out there among the electorate, as it is in that leadership development that Kendall will need the support of the whole party in the coming years in the same way we drew together in 1994-96 to get behind Tony Blair when we said with total conviction,’never, never again’ to the Tories. Remember that?
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Joe Mann MBE is former trade union general secretary