Posts Tagged ‘Croydon Central’

The Labour party is responsible for this defeat. It’s our fault. Nobody else’s

10/05/2015, 10:57:47 AM

by Atul Hatwal

Labour lost the election for the same reason that parties always lose elections – mistrust on the economy and leadership.

Defeat turned to utter disaster though following a grossly inept campaign.

As parliament was dissolved at the end of March, for the start of the short campaign, it was clear that Labour was going to lose. Just as it was clear at the start of the year and has been so for a number of years.

For the entirety of the past five years, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls trailed David Cameron and George Osborne in terms of who the public trusted to best manage the economy. At the start of April the deficit was 25%.

Econ lead

And for the entirety of the past five years, Ed Miliband also trailed David Cameron on the public’s preference for prime minister. In April, the average deficit was 15%.

PM lead

Two numbers. 25% and 15%. These are the reasons that Labour was going to lose to the Tories, no matter what type of campaign the party ran.

These are also the reasons that Labour was always going to lose to the SNP in Scotland.

The SNP pitch was only possible because Labour was evidently weak and Nicola Sturgeon could portray her party as the best route to stopping the Tories.

If Labour had been comfortably ahead in England and held the confidence of Scottish voters on the economy and leadership, this would not have been possible.

In the cacophony of polls, statistics and data journalism, this is the signal. All else is noise.

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In Croydon, we beat the Tories AND Ukip. Here’s how

28/05/2014, 01:33:46 PM

by Sarah Jones 

Last week, hard work and better tactics led the Labour party to election victory in Croydon.  And we can do the same again in 2015.

The Conservative campaign in Croydon was flawed for three reasons.

First, they had no message – treating the electorate with so little respect they didn’t even produce a manifesto.  Their focus instead was to run a negative and personal campaign, falsely claiming Labour would put up council tax by 27%. The voters didn’t buy it.

Second, they didn’t listen to local people.  We had talked to people across Croydon who had told us their priorities were cleaning up Croydon, tackling crime, and building more schools.  If the Conservatives had had those conversations, maybe they would have known what people’s priorities were. Instead they had nothing to say.

Finally, their tactics were all wrong.  They focused their attentions on a Labour ward, where they made small but not significant gains. They missed the real battle ground completely, despite us tweeting where we were there every day.  We were able to mobilise more people to get out and vote.  We ran a better campaign.

Those are the reasons why they lost. Looking at the Tory response, I think there’s a danger for them that they will keep on losing.

They will keep on losing if they convince themselves it is all down to UKIP. Yes UKIP was absolutely a factor, but it’s a worry for all the main parties.  Labour lost votes to UKIP as well.

On the doorstep, people say they are voting UKIP for two reasons.  First, and I get this more than anything else, because they are fed up with all the political parties after the expenses scandal and promises broken.  Second, it’s all about immigration.

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