Who is popular today?

The review of this election disaster needs to be as brutally honest as that conducted by Labor after its shock defeat
“Labor lost the election because of a weak strategy that could not adapt to the change in [government] leadership, a cluttered policy agenda that looked risky and an unpopular leader. Not one of these shortcomings was decisive but in combination they explain the result.”
Only a few weeks after Labour’s general election disaster, this seems a fair analysis of what went wrong. Except that it is no such thing. It is the Australian Labor party’s internal review after its shock general election defeat last May. It is an honest assessment, available to all, of why and how democratic leftwing parties lose elections. Given what unfolded in the UK election, it is unlikely that anyone close to the Labour leadership had read it. Or if they had, they ignored its central findings. Continue reading...