This election isn’t about policy – and it shows

One of the complaints that allies of Jeremy Corbyn often issue is that his critics – whether in his own party, the media, the Tory party or the general electorate – tend to focus on the man, not his policies. His policies are, those allies argue, actually very popular with voters — when you test them without mentioning either Labour or Jeremy Corbyn. Which seems to be proving rather difficult in this election.

There are two problems with this. The first is that voters don’t give a fig about your wonderful policies if they don’t trust your party’s leader to be competent enough to enact them. Every Labour MP I have spoken to across the country says that the number one issue on the doorstep is Jeremy Corbyn. Some even describe voters saying they have a ‘hatred’ of the Labour leader. The only way they can respond to this is to boast of the ways that they too disagree with the leader.