“Something very familiar about all this” - Labour is learning that the problem lies not in the story itself, but in how distracted you become by it.
One of Labour's biggest problems now is that it seems out of touch with how society - and in particular, the modern media - operates in the 2020s.
The conundrum is that it has a policy that it wants to bring forward, but by the time it has explained the policy, or why it is doing what it intends to do, society’s judgement of the policy has already been determined, and by the time they’ve formulated an explanation, something else has happened that largely renders any explanation obsolete.
Sometimes people aren’t really that interested in any explanation anyway. Or the policy.
Like the decision to means test the winter fuel allowance: the government is proceeding with it as part of their ‘tough decisions, thanks to the Tories’ strategy, yet the policy has left many unhappy - even though, on demographics, support for the policy is broadly split right down the middle.
Labour propose all manner of different measures to mitigate the fallout of the policy, too. Additionally, the rational, ‘Treasury Brain’ explanations seem to sort of make sense - if you squint your eyes and perform all manner of facial contortions trying to work them out. Even pensioners themselves support it.
But it looks ‘bad’, and all that matters - according to the optics - is that this winter, pensioners are going to freeze.
For example -
When the policy was first announced in the Commons just before summer recess, it was met with audible gasps in Parliament. The audible gasps represent the sharp, impulsive and emotional response to something complex that requires, perhaps, a bit more explanation.
Social media works in the same way. One soul who sits back and tries, perhaps in vain, to make sense of it…
'Won't get fuelled again' - Making sense of Labour's 'Winter Fuel' policy as it prepares to be unpopular
One of the problems for the Conservatives that blighted its final couple of years was factionalism, and the speculation over ‘how big’ a rebellion would be that would take place over certain key votes.
…is no match for thousands on social media calling for Starmer’s head because the Daily Mail says so.
Labour are working out quickly the dichotomy of politics from a public perspective insofar as the fundamental message of ‘fixing the foundations’ is a good one, and many could support the long-term strategy if Labour are able to cajole the public around to their way of thinking, but, actually, in most cases, people want those quick fixes and sticky plasters, and preferably, without the explanation.
And - after 14 years of the Conservatives via austerity - frankly, who can blame them for being impatient?
Another problem that arises with Labour’s strategy is that for all the time it begs the public for patience while it ‘fixes the foundations’ leaves a door wide open for so many other things to go wrong.
When the perception is that your agenda is ‘boring’, and actually, deep down, there isn’t really ‘that’ much to complain about with Labour just yet, it encourages muck-raking journalists to work harder to go looking for drama, story and scandal.
Then, when it heads to the forefront of the agenda despite there being so much more happening - some things the government could be truly criticised on (ie. how Labour manages the Tory catastrophe of the prisons and probations services) - Labour are caught blind in a ‘media storm’ and they look utterly bamboozled by it.
All of it provides one of the major challenges for Labour as it attempts to proceed with its agenda: how can they prevent these distractions from commanding the agenda when they could be talking about what matters (ie. their ‘Change’ agenda) instead?
Over the last two weeks, for example, contrary to the narrative being pursued by the media (and social media) right now, Labour have been doing some fairly interesting [see also: ‘strange and unusual’] things: