Gordon Brown has just spoken at tonight's weekly meeting of Labour MPs. It's a fairly routine thing for the party leader to do, but clearly the PM felt the need to try to raise morale ahead of what promise to be difficult council elections on May 1.
Most of his message was familiar - such as the need for Labour to define the "dividing lines" between it and the Tories. But interestingly, he acknowledged the need for Labour to show voters it is "on their side" - an implicit recognition that the Health Minister Ivan Lewis was on to something when he warned at the weekend that the Government was "losing touch" with the daily realities facing hard-working families.
The same danger signal emerges in the latest monthly opinion poll by ComRes for The Independent. Labour supporters and those who identify most with the party are much less likely to vote than their Tory counterparts at the general election, so Brown clearly has a fight on his hands to mobilise the Labour core vote.
But there is some good news for the PM: the Tory lead has dropped from 11 to seven points in the past month. Full details in tomorrow's paper and at Comres.
Are not "On Your Side" and Ivan Lewis other two messages "Fairness" and "Respect" copied from George Galloway? Is Labour giving up attacking Respect and instead trying to pinch Galloway's clothes?
Posted by: Diversity | Monday, 31 March 2008 at 08:42 PM
"And he marched them down again!
And when they were up, they were up!
And when they were down, they were down!"
etc etc
I have the champagne chilling to toast the ousting of London's worst-ever Mayor. Mr Brown can read it as presaging the vehemence with which he and his useless pack of yankee suck-ups will be evicted from Parliament in the most telling rout in Parliamentary history.
Posted by: Neil McGowan | Monday, 31 March 2008 at 09:06 PM
It is no surprise that New Labour are being deserted by their core voters. All three mainstream parties are chasing a tiny number of swing votes, seen as occupying the middle ground of politics.
All the mainstream parties are funded by big business. Neither Labour, the Tories or the Lib Dems are in touch with ordinary people. Public sector workers face a pay freeze while bills are skyrocketing. The government can bail out Northern Rock but working-class victims affected by the Farepak collapse are abandoned.
We need a new party to represent ordinary, working-class people.
Andrew Walton
Campaign for a New Workers' Party - www.cnwp.org.uk
Posted by: Andrew Walton | Tuesday, 01 April 2008 at 11:49 AM
uizrlncp zpiy jhvkd hjkmvlxwg pbgui yqjdzvkf gtxeuw
Posted by: mobhq zxbm | Sunday, 22 March 2009 at 05:01 PM