Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Harriet Harman: Labour needs to let the public in

How does the Labour party recover? Harriet Harman set out how it will try to come back from its latest election defeat in a speech this morning which told the party to listen to the customer because the customer is always right. Her basic pitch was that just like a product or a shop or a magazine, it’s more important to work out what people want to buy, rather than what you want to sell or write because your own tastes might not be particularly representative of the market that’s out there.

To that end, she told the audience that ‘as we conduct this debate, as we elect our leader and deputy leader, we must have the public in the forefront of our minds. We must let the public in.’

She said her own fight to become deputy leader had been in a ‘cosy contest’ in which the party ‘asked ourselves – who do we like”.

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