Panic is Defeatist

Well this is our first blog post since the Crewe and Nantwich by-election. No one is pretending that the result was good for the Labour Party but I think there are few important things to note.

Firstly mid-term by-elections are always bumpy for the sitting government which often leads to wild swings that are never replicated in General Elections. Secondly we were not really defending a 7,078 Labour majority; we were defending a 7,078 Gwyneth Dunwoody majority. There are many voters in that constituency that would have voted for Gwyneth regardless of the party. After her sad death, many voters would have felt more open to vote for other parties. This is something that will not be repeated on a national scale. This by-election by no means represented the end of the Labour Government.

I would like to say that Tamsin Dunwoody was an excellent candidate and it is a real shame that the people of Crewe and Nantwich do not have her as their MP. Many Manchester Labour Students spent a lot of time in Crewe campaigning for her and we were very impressed by her energy and drive.

The Sunday papers would have you believe that Gordon Brown is soon to be unseated as leader. I cannot help but feel they are blowing this whole thing clear out of proportion. Granted there are some Labour MPs that can be clouded by their own majority statistics which leads them to somehow believe that changing our leader would improve our election prospects. In my opinion, this is ridiculous.

If you cast your mind back to the 2005 General Election, you might remember the Labour Party’s slogan: “forward, not back”. This could not be more appropriate now. We could spend all our time talking about what was right or wrong about the campaign in Crewe, we could spend all our time considering the benefits or issues with our Prime Minister’s personality, or, here’s an idea, we could focus on getting the message to voters that the Government is getting on with the job and has the policies for the future.

May 2008 has not been the Labour Party’s finest hour, however we must move on.

The next General Election will be won or lost on policy. But we as a party will have no chance at all of presenting any policy if we spend all our time destroying ourselves.