Dust yourselves off…

By Julian Ware-Lane

With a consistent flow of bad news stories, all carping about our Government, it would be natural for Labour activists to suffer dents to their confidence.

This may not necessarily have inactivity as its by-product, but belief that a fourth term is still to be won may be waning, and some have taken up self-criticism as a form of defence.

Now, I have said that we must be the listening party; this as more of a reminder than a command. However, unaccountable right-wing commentators should not top anyone’s list of opinions to be taken on board.

In the real world there are concerns, and anyone canvassing will witness people’s audible fears about the future. Yet I hear very few voices expressing comfort with the narrative coming from Tory HQ. I suppose like any opposition they find criticism far easier than coming up with alternative answers, for little of the latter have emerged. I maintain that our best weapon is yet to come – the next Tory manifesto will expose them to the scrutiny they seem to evade at the moment.

Don’t get me wrong, the economy is in a mess and the Government deserves to be held to account. Yet if recovery does arrive we should get credit for it. Let’s hope that salacious stories do not obscure this.

We are not “all doomed”. Bad opinion polls are often contradicted by local election results (again this week in Erewash, for example). There still is everything to play for.

Dorothy Fields may not always be top of everyone’s list when it comes to inspirational words, but I offer the following words from her:

Nothing’s impossible I have found,

For when my chin is on the ground,

I pick myself up,

Dust myself off,

Start All over again.

So I urge all of you who believe that “by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone” to get out there and take up the cudgels of democracy.

If you find the current headlines demoralising, wait until you are faced with eighteen years of opposition.