Rebecca Long-Bailey Should Listen To Patricia Hewitt

Rebecca Long-Bailey is laying out her stall to be Labour leader:

We can take the Labour party back into power. Here’s how
Rebecca Long-Bailey

And:

This election was a historic chance to turn back that tide. But across the country, including in many of the areas hit worst by austerity, we failed. The country was sharply divided by Brexit, and our compromise solution satisfied too few. But we can’t blame Brexit alone, and we must recognise that it’s no good having the right solutions if people don’t believe you can deliver them.

Over the next few months, we must have an honest discussion about why we lost and how we can win. Strategies designed in Westminster were partly to blame, but it’s also true that Labour’s support has been falling in many communities for a decade or more. We must rebuild trust, not only in our party but in the idea that change really is possible. This means we cannot return to the politics of the past. Our transformative agenda is principled and popular, while triangulation and soft pedalling will only take us backwards. There are many lessons to learn from the defeat, but it’s clear we didn’t lose because of our commitments to scrap universal credit, invest in public services or abolish tuition fees.

It’s like reading Owen Jones as filtered through the Amanda Marcotte article production engine, isn’t it?

A useful suggestion would be that Long-Bailey – and others – listen to Patricia Hewitt:

It is obvious from out polling, as well as from the doorstep, that the “London Effect” is now very noticeable. The “loony Labour left” is taking its toll; the gays and lesbians issue is costing us dear among the pensioners, and the fear of extremism and higher rates/taxes is particularly prominent in the Greater London Council area.

Letter to Frank Dobson and other Labour leaders in The Times, 6 Mar, 1987.

OK, it might be that the gay thing is now the trannie one, the fear of taxes isn’t constrained to London. But the basic analysis, that the metropolitan liberals no longer speak for the industrial proletariat is there, no?