Labour is in a more difficult position now than it was after its defeat in 1992. In ’92, the electorate had sent Labour a clear message: move to the centre, don’t say you’ll put up taxes and get a better leader. But this time round, the message Labour has been sent is more complicated.
There are three groups of voters that Labour failed with at this election, I argue in the magazine this week. Aspirational voters who went Tory, the left behind working class who went Ukip in England and SNP in Scotland and Nationalist-minded ones north of the border. What the Labour leadership candidates have to explain is how they would win these voters over.
We can already see two fault-lines in this leadership contest which, to put it crudely, are New Generation v Old Guard and Southern Labour v Northern Labour.
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