Yvette Cooper attacks David Cameron for a ‘blind spot’ on women

Yvette Cooper addressed a lobby lunch today and put on an impressive performance. In contrast to her slightly wooden performance during last night’s debate, Cooper came across as straightforward and articulate — and surprisingly funny. She joked that alongside the ten meetings to sign off the Edstone, there were seven meetings for a ‘fiscally responsible water feature.’ She also told the gathered hacks ‘we want more Haribo!’ in reference to the sweet factory in her constituency.

Unsurprisingly, Cooper spoke confidently on the economy, demonstrating her years of experience on the frontbench. On Greece, she argued that ‘the British government should be using its role within Europe to argue for the Eurozone taking a long-term sensible approach to handling the Greek crisis.’ Cooper also offered some interesting thoughts on where and how Labour failed during the 2015 campaign. In particular, she spoke of the need to ‘reach out’ to areas that have been forgotten about — the areas where Ukip tend to do well:

‘I know we focussed on the Liberal Democrats voters, and in the cities that worked and the Liberal Democrats voters switched to Labour in the towns we did … but there’s a real challenge now for a lot of towns that do feel left behind, coastal towns in particular, small towns across Britain that Labour didn’t win.