Labour’s report on its election defeat is finally out, and it says there are four reasons for its defeat:
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Failure to shake off the myth that we were responsible for the financial crash and therefore failure to build trust in the economy.
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Inability to deal with the issues of ‘connection’ and, in particular, failing to convince on benefits and immigration.
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Despite his surge in 2015, Ed Miliband still wasn’t judged to be as strong a leader as David Cameron.
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The fear of the SNP ‘propping up’ a minority Labour government.
These are not surprising, and the report’s narrative verdict on how the party lost is far more interesting. It charts Labour’s failure from its refusal at the start of the last Parliament to challenge the Tory and Lib Dem narrative that it was responsible for the economic crisis, through its complacency following the ‘omnishambles’ Budget in 2012, all the way to the party’s inability to communicate a vision to voters.
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