Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Time is running out for Labour

The leadership candidates are debating plenty of things – but not how to appeal to the southern and Ukip voters they need for power

issue 15 August 2015

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The Labour leadership contest was supposed to be a debate about the party’s future. Instead it has oscillated between petty personality politics and bickering. Nobody is addressing the question of how to win back lost voters.

The four candidates have barely mentioned the fact that Labour is not winning seats in the south of England, nor the huge challenge from Ukip in its heartlands in the north. Given that the party failed to win its majority in England, it is staggering that more attention hasn’t been paid to this at hustings and in speeches. The candidates make nebulous comments about the need to give Ukip voters ‘hope’, but that’s it. The south seems to have been forgotten.

This neglect by those pitching to run the party means that others are having to do the heavy lifting.

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