Martin Bright

The Labour Party Must Look to the Next Generation Now

I have just watched the last images of the election campaign on the Ten O’Clock News on the BBC. David Cameron was surrounded by some seriously off-putting party apparatchiks (why not choose some of the perfectly presentable and normal-looking young people for CCHQ rather than these awful gargoyles?), meanwhile Gordon Brown was struggling to fill a room and Nick Clegg was being mobbed. 

I remember a Labour spin doctor (OK it was Damian McBride) telling me that he knew Gordon could never win a beauty contest against David Cameron. He didn’t seem to have twigged that modern elections are beauty contests – that is one of the reasons Tony Blair did so well against the considerably less beautiful John Major, William Hague and Michael Howard.

Of course this has been a beauty contest. People vote with their guts in a general election.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in