Dear Jeremy
Subsequent to my previous letters to you on the subject, I am writing to say I have been pleasantly surprised by how much things have moved on.
Although, as I thought might happen, we did not manage to win against one of the weakest and most inept Tory governments in recent years under Mrs May’s excruciating leadership, we had a strong manifesto and your passion and ideals undoubtedly played a role in increasing the vote, particularly among the young – Glastonbury has given an additional edge to that!! However for all the feelgood of increasing the vote beyond expectation, we did not win.
I still, therefore, retain my reservations about your capacity to lead the party to electoral success. You will have to do more to command the middle ground where UK elections are always won and that means finding space for some of the old ‘Blairite’ group within the party. It is also important that you command the support of all your MPs and to do that you need to reach out and listen to those in other parts of the party who can take the Labour message into constituencies and groups of voters who at present will not listen to you. You also need to give some of these voices more airtime to represent the variety of viewpoints across the party as a whole.
If you can bring yourself to lead a party of all the talents, and to bring out their different strengths, to see yourself as the conductor rather than the soloist, then I think there is a better prospect of electoral success, a success that is surely needed now more than ever.
Yours
Danny Murphy
Danny Murphy's Blog 