Why Against the Odds should be in the running

By Ellie Gellard / @BevaniteEllie

On a bright Tuesday morning on the seafront in Brighton the stage was set. Gordon Brown was about to give his “make or break” speech and nerves were in the air. The hall was packed with expectant members, waiting…when something special happened.

No, not Sarah – though yes, she’s pretty special – the hall went dark and this video began to play…

There were tears (ok, that was mainly me) and cheers from across the hall, proud Labour activists reminded of why we were there, why we were fighting and why, as it concludes, we must win.

Conference was visibly moved by a sprinkling of this party’s formidable history; from Nye Bevan to John Smith, the NHS to the Minimum Wage, votes for women to SureStart. It was a welcome boost for all of us and added some fuel to the campaigning tank. But these are people already convinced that our party must win.

I’m interested in the people that aren’t.

I am calling for Against the Odds to be our next Party Political Broadcast. Not because of its effect on our loyal activists and party members, but because of it’s effect on those who haven’t yet made up their mind.

This film unashamedly shouts out about the achievements of our party and doesn’t apologise for doing so. We must be audaciously proud of Labour and give people cast-iron (if I dare) reasons for trusting us with their futures. When we spread ourselves too thinly, to try and attract everyone in sight, we look contrived, fake and, well, slightly dishonest.

I have shown this video to people “in the flesh” since conference – and others via twitter and my blog, and it has, at the time of writing, been seen by 3,920 people on YouTube. The response has shocked me. “It’s politics how it should be”, they say, “When you have a record like that, who needs smears?” – well, quite.

One comment on YouTube reads:

“I know a LibDem voter who saw this and will vote Labour now. Labour must get their act together, they have more to be proud of than ashamed of and showing this on mainstream TV would make sense. Tories can’t recall the old days as they did nothing but disappoint”.

I can’t know if this video would work but let’s face it: we’ve gone down the anti-Tory, negative campaigning route before, and I’m sure we will do again, but times like these call for risk-taking. Perhaps we need a little less ‘head-ruled’ campaigning and we should let the heart take over for a while.

Tories can promise the earth, but that’s the easy bit. We’ve got a history to show our party delivers, a history of which people need to be reminded.

As we enter election season as underdogs, Against the Odds would mark a refreshing change on screens across the country. I think a welcome one.

Join our Facebook group, sign our petition and Tweet to #AgainstTheOdds to show your support for Against the Odds as Labour’s next, proud Party Political Broadcast.

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2. Time is running out for PR
3. Parts of Labour are at odds with reality – inequality cannot be overcome by legislation alone
4. Many bloggers’ most frequent contribution to political debate is running commentary on other blogs – who cares?