| | | | Two quick reminders. Firstly, we've a new weekly podcast. Each week I'll be joined by two experts - yes, we still believe in those - to peel back the news and at look at the dynamics which created it, whether it's economics, law, history, science or something else entirely. This week give the in-depth treatment to the Windrush scandal. You can subscribe and listen to the first episode here.
Secondly: from May 25th new EU regulations come into force and we won't be able to send you this email unless you resubscribe. Yes, we know. Those dastardly Europeans with their red tape. If you don't want to miss your Friday's dose of politics and commentary, click the button below. Takes three seconds. | | | There are a lot of political commentators who are keen to write off Jeremy Corbyn. They run from the centre-left to the hard right, from Remainers who feel betrayed by Labour's Brexit support, to Brexiters who feel the party is too soft on the issue, from those outraged by the anti-semitism scandal to those aghast at Labour's flirtation with Putin-orchestrated conspiracy theories about events in Salisbury and Syria. Then there are all the people who have encountered his supporters online and concluded that there must be something rotten in the project as a whole if that is the type of person he attracts.
The Labour leader has a ready-made army of people who want him to do badly, mostly for good reason. And today's underwhelming local election results provide plenty of evidence that he cannot challenge the Tories. His support holds - it is solid - but he can't secure a breakthrough. A general election now would probably see the Tory majority chipped away at, but Labour only able to govern in coalition with other progressive parties, in such an unstable formulation that it couldn't hold for long, if they could even set it up in the first place.
But think back. Labour did pitifully in the May 2017 local elections, falling four per cent while the Tories rose eight per cent. A month later Corbyn was being credited with securing a much-better-than-expected general election result which deprived May of her majority.
So what's the difference? There are countless motivations in general elections and even more in locals - the results are reflected through a prism of local issues, local connections, local parties, national politics and national issues. It's a mess and the scramble afterwards to come up with one narrative explaining it all does no justice to what really happened. But there is one major difference between local and national elections: local elections get hardly any broadcast coverage or mention coverage.
And it was in that national campaign in 2017 that Corbyn excelled. In a canvassers-only election, you get trench warfare of the type that leads to the stalemate we're seeing this morning. But where there is a national message - on TV and radio stations, online, through manifesto launch events and the like - he has the opportunity to shake up assumptions.
The Labour leader only really comes alive during elections - whether they are internal attempts to unseat him or national contests. The rest of the time he is on standby, crumpling his way into parliament each day to read out a series of political Hallmarks cards about how morally pure he is and how compromised everyone else is. He isn't really interested in opposition or what it entails. But campaigns visibly energise him. And he is, much to the chagrin of most political commentators, very good at them. He seems natural, unvarnished and trustworthy.
We are in a unique historical moment in which the Tory leader has the precise reverse of the Labour leader's qualities. She has many faults, but she is specifically very bad at campaigning. Her performance last year was arguably the worst we've seen from any party leader in recent memory. Corbyn's humanity and natural behaviour in campaigns is highlighted in contrast to her.
Things look bleak for Labour this morning. The results are average, they are hammered by scandals on a daily basis, their polling continues to slide below the Tories. But the fundamentals haven't altered. Corbyn has strengths where May has weaknesses. General elections have a structure which favours his advantages much more than local elections do.
Today marked the end of the year-long self-congratulatory party that Corbyn supporters have been enjoying since the general election. But that's all it does. People shouldn't be too quick to rule out the Labour leader. We've been here before.
| | Latest Articles 
On May 2, 2018 8:45 AM
Never before have so many complicated names been put forward for ideas with so little substance. Today Theresa May is calling a 'War Cabinet' to finally hammer out a customs solution.
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On Apr 30, 2018 9:49 AM
So this is how the liberal one behaves. Last night, just after the papers were put to bed, news of Amber Rudd's resignation was released - ostensibly over the Windrush scandal, but really over the fact she had been less-than-accurate with the home affairs select committee.
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On May 4, 2018 7:51 AM
If voters used local elections purely to vote on local issues, then we'd have to conclude that the spectacular collapse of the Tories in the 90s was because their councillors gave up on bin collection, whilst the Lib Dems were good at sorting potholes during the 2000s but went on strike in the 2010s.
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On May 2, 2018 7:49 AM
In one of their recent videos, a campaigner from 'Our Future, Our Choice' walks around Hull asking Leave voters if they want a say on the final Brexit deal. Naturally they all say yes.
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On May 1, 2018 2:16 PM
What exactly did the House of Lords do last night, with its amendment on a 'meaningful vote' on the Brexit withdrawal agreement? Is there now a path clear to overturning Brexit, or is this all much ado about nothing?
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On May 2, 2018 7:44 AM
Governments wanted citizens to behave in ways that benefited them, but didn't want to be seen to be telling them what to do or how to live. The answer was to be found in 'choice architecture', a term popularised by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein in their 2008 book 'Nudge'.
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Opinion Former videos
On Mar 5, 2018 11:35 AM
This animation, from the CPRE, highlights that England hasn't built enough genuinely affordable homes in rural or urban areas for decades.
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On Jan 26, 2018 9:57 AM
Antibiotics are becoming less and less effective.This is because bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi are evolving to outsmart the drugs used to kill them. Scientists call this process antimicrobial resistance – or AMR.
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Opinion Formers articles BASC has secured significant discounts and members can now receive thousands of pounds each off the cost of models from 22 of the world's leading manufacturers.
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Opinion Formers press releases A new report highlights how care workers are losing out because of the confusing and unhelpful way in which their working arrangements and low pay interact with tax, welfare and minimum wage rules.
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Danielle Hamm, Associate Director of Campaigns and Policy at Rethink Mental Illness said, "This landmark review confirms what we have long known: that there are serious problems with the Mental Health Act. People who have been detained under the Act have been telling us how it fails to protect their rights and dignity, and how they are kept out of decisions about their own care."
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