So I am not a political pundit, and this is not based on any sort of polling. But bear with me while I talk through what I think may be a few reasons for our current problems and you can let me know if it seems to make sense:

First up: Unions.

Labour was founded by and for the trade unions. The clue's right there in the name; it's the party of labour, of the workers.

That was always the source, not just of its funding, but of its popular support. Your trade union provided your political education, it supported and helped your community, and it literally protected your livelihood.

In the big factory towns in the northwest, everyone was either a union member, or lived in a house that depended on a union member's earnings. You'd damn well vote Labour, because your dad'd have your hide if you didn't.

But the unions were broken in the '80s, and have never really come back. The industries they were strongest in have shrunk, for the most part - no-one's fault, in a lot of cases it's just technological progress - and they gradually faded from the communities that built them.

Initially, of course, people from those communities kept voting Labour - if anything, anger at Thatcher's union-busting spurred them on - but that was all nearly *forty years ago*. Two generations have grown up since.

Look, it's all very well for Guardian columnists to pontificate that it's "condescending" to argue that voters are being taken in, but this is a pretty straightforward correlation: if you take away the big driver of political education and organisation, you'll lose support.

Is there a solution? I don't know. It's mostly just transport and education now, and they're under pretty sustained attack. The "gig economy" is extremely hard to organise by its very nature. We might have to look to replace unions with other sources of activism and organisation.

Second: The Culture War.

Look, there's not much point in saying "Brexit's over, stop blaming it." Brexit was the whole and the entire of our political climate for four years. And it's still happening, right in front of us, and looks to keep doing so for years to come.

And there's this global shitshow going on at the moment, about race and gender and everything, and it's dragged everything from vaccines to TV shows to statues into its orbit, and there are rafts of voters who pin every choice and every opinion on which tribe they're in.

And you *can't ignore it*.

Labour under Corbyn tried to not be about Brexit, which drove a big chunk of pro-EU voters away, and it didn't help in the slightest because the voters absolutely identified Labour as a pro-EU party anyway.

I saw a tweet yesterday from a voter who said he'd voted Labour all his life but just voted Tory for the first time because Starmer was all about BLM and transgender rights, which flat out astonished me because I'd say Starmer's been pretty damn cagey about those issues.

But this is a Culture War, apparently, and it seems there ain't no Culture Switzerland. You're either fucking a flag or you're taking a knee. I don't think you can wish it away, even if you want to.

Again, I don't have a solution. It's likely that going all-in for social justice will lose some voters.

But I can tell you this for free: there's no point being "a bit bigot." Giving speeches in front of flags and talking about "real concerns" is just campaigning for the Tories.

Third: Principle.

It's not enough to be "not the Tories." It doesn't matter *what* we are, but we have to be *something*. We have to take some sort of stance.

Corbyn clearly had too many liabilities, but at least everyone knew what he was standing for. Everyone hates on Blair these days, but at least he had a message.

Starmer's a clever dude - it's why I voted for him - and I've usually been able to figure out his angle, when he's been triangulating or manoeuvring, but even so, for the past year, the overwhelming impression is of him *not being against* anything.

He's not against the police, he's not against Brexit, he's not against flags, he's not against the Government. I have no idea what he's actually *for*. I have a better idea of Marcus Rashford's political platform than my own party's.

We need to stand for something. I'd like it to be social progress and economic reform, but shit, I'll take a big dose of Blairism right now. Just give me something to vote for, and I'll vote for it.

Fourth: Internal War.

Yesterday, Jess Phillips tweeted to dunk on Waitrose Tommy Robinson and half the tweets in the ensuing trending topic were leftists talking shit, for some reason, at her.

The left wing are angry at the centrists for sabotaging Corbyn; the centrists are angry at the left wing for calling Starmer "Keith." It goes round and round. We look like squabbling children.

Look, Labour is a coalition. There's no point talking about whether we're the party of the white working class, or of university students, or of POC and LGBT people or whatever, because we need to be all those things. No one demographic can win a majority of seats.

Stop trying to "win" the party. Recognise that no one faction is the "real" Labour. Understand that a ton of us voted for Corbyn *and* Starmer (and some of us who are a little older voted for Blair *and* Miliband).

Fifth: Pandemic.

Thing is, crises are great for incumbent governments. Everything you do wrong you can pass off as "doing your best," everything that goes right seems like a heroic victory.

Johnson fucked this whole pandemic so consistently I'd check if he's had another illegitimate child with it, but it's done wonders for his polling.

And... there's no answer to that at all. Crises happen; voters tend to stick with their current leaders until crises pass.

But it *will* pass, pretty soon, and historically the ends of pandemics have always ushered in periods of major upheaval. A lot of people have found new ways to work, and learned to value their work differently.

Don't assume an election three years from now - or, shit, two years, even one - will look remotely like yesterday did. We need to be prepared to appeal to the society that's going to emerge from all thus, and I suspect that means being ready to be pretty radical.

Conclusion.

We need to stop with lazy, pat answers: it's Corbyn's fault, it's Starmer's fault, it's the media, it's the voters.

We need a message, and something to unite behind. Anything. *Please.* For the love of god.

We need to recognise that our old power base doesn't exist any more. Stop obsessing over old union-led factory towns that don't exist anymore. Built a new coalition; and if that coalition is based on Uber drivers, fruit pickers, students, POC and queer people, then embrace that.

Think about the future, about new solutions: campaign on electoral reform, on UBI, on citizen's assemblies. On ideas for the big changes that are coming.

Anyway, uh. Thanks for coming to me TED talk.