David Cameron’s local election kick-off speech today notably contained no reference to UKIP, but 12 mentions of Labour. The Conservative leader and his colleagues concerned with campaigns are on a damage-limitation exercise about the party’s chances in the local elections, and as well as taking the attack to Labour on the policy front – arguing that the Tories have freed councils from Labour’s restrictions, kept council tax down and reduced local government waste – a plank of their strategy involves attacking Labour’s prowess in southern council seats.
The key phrase which you can expect to hear whenever there is evidence that the Labour campaign is faltering in the south is ‘Labour’s Southern Discomfort’. CCHQ developed it after Labour failed to make an impact in Eastleigh, and hopes that it will be able to argue that this May, the Labour party is demonstrating it can’t really do One Nation politics as effectively as it had hoped.
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