Labour’s plan to kill the “lazy Labour” narrative this summer

Last year the Labour leadership – and the Shadow Cabinet in particular – were accused of taking their foot off the gas over the summer recess. Both party and leadership have been clear for months that won’t be the case this year.

It was mooted by Newsnight’s Allegra Stratton earlier this week that Labour’s summer offensive was about to be unveiled. Initially rumours swirled around Westminster that every single member of the Shadow Cabinet would be making a speech over the next month. Fortunately, it seems that’s not the case – 23 speeches (many by people who are not even well known in Westminster) is not the way to capture the attention of the British media during silly season, nevermind the British public during any season.

The number of speeches being made is around the dozen mark (still a hefty number by anyone’s measure) but speeches are far from the only way for an intervention to be made – something the Labour Party sometimes forgets. This summer the Shadow Cabinet and others will be conducting a panoply of visits, rebuttals, articles and interviews. Holidays will still be had (this is the last chance for the shortest of breathers before the election campaign begins by default in September) but work will be done too.

Good.

Last summer wasn’t good enough. There were long periods where the Labour Party seemed to be drifting, unable or unwilling to generate a news story of any substance or even at times rebut attacks effectively. There was the sleepy summer feeling you expect to see from a party that either thought the game was won or feared it was lost. Neither of those is/was true of course, so such a lack of energy was baffling. This year, we are reassured, it will be different. If it isn’t Labour’s chances of winning next year (already slimmer than they were a year ago) will recede a little more. There must not be an early flurry of summer stories to kill a “lazy Labour” narrative, only for everyone to go off on holiday and still leave charges unanswered and attacks unmade.

But we can be reassured that the party understands what went wrong last year and is determined to avoid a repeat.

And the theme of this summer? The NHS mainly (putting to bed, surely, any argument that Labour would make NHS cuts to balance the books) but also attempting to shore up the progress the party has made internally recently on policy – and building that out into the bigger vision of what a Labour government would be about in time for party conference. But old habits die hard – there’s also a dividing line. Miliband will say today:

“A choice between a Labour government that believes the way a country succeeds is with the talents of all or a Tory government that thinks the only people who create wealth are those at the top.

“A choice between a Labour government that will build our country so that it works for ordinary families once again or a Tory government that will look after only the few.”

As the economy continues to grow – but disproportionately aide those at the top – that’s an argument Miliband needs to make, and win, in the next 9 months.