Tanks on Labour's lawn (yawn)

But its not Milburn's lawn, or Hewitt's, or Alan Johnson's. Or any of the New Labour grandees who helped to "transform" the NHS so that Lansley could "reform" it. Now Johnson can "repair" it with more "Our NHS" as the soundtrack for privatisation.

Do any of these focus groups who say they "don't know what Labour stands for" ever get asked what the phrase "modernise our public services" meant to them during the 90s and 00s? Do they ever get asked if they know what the public private finance initiative is and how it 'works'?

Rhetorical obviously. But I question the value of appointing a pollster as adviser when the output of focus groups is "they don't seem to know what they stand for". If you don't actually have a dialogue where you ask people - "do YOU know what they stand for" what's the use?

What seems to come out of these focus groups is statements of nothingness like "He doesn't seem to be for our country" and "Labour should be for working people". Was PFI "for working people"? Was the obsession with "choice" in education and health "for our country"?

Frankly just about everything on that C4 list of things said about Starmer, you could swap the name Corbyn. Or Miliband. We've heard it all before. And it doesn't add up to much. So what use is it? "He doesn't seem to have any policies". What kind of policies? Policies for what?

Ah no, but you can't do that. You can't get people in a room and actually interrogate what they understand by policies. Or what they actually remember of policies under Labour governments. You can't do that. Because these people are your customers. Because this is market research

So you get people in a room and let them vent in vague and derisive terms and write it down. Then you get them to imagine W*s Str**ting is a poodle and R*chel R**ves is a sheep. And then you say "Labour needs to have a clearer retail offer. And we need to do more market research"

And this is all so much surface level, insubstantial, long 90s bullshit. You waste time, money and biscuits and come up with post it notes saying "leadership" and big fat invoices. Stop fucking about and have a proper fucking dialogue. And challenge people. Challenge yourselves.