To change the game you have to win the game

What a week we’ve had. And thanks to a dreadful showing in the latest Ipsos Mori poll what was petering out may now be far from over.

I am very proud of the way the LabourList editorial team has led from the front in terms of representing the feeling of the grassroots of the Party to our MPs. Our Put up or Shut Up editorial seems to have captured the mood of party activists – as evidenced by us receiving well over 1000 signatures in less that 24 hours. On a Sunday.

Equally showing the feelings of the grassroots members of the party was the extraordinary story of the #WebackEd campaign on Twitter. The hashtag trended for hours with ordinary party members trying to counter the narrative that Ed was not without support in the Party. This was an entirely member-led intervention. There were no lines to take. This was an out-pouring of genuine feeling from the Party membership. It was a refreshing pleasure to see them so unleashed.

But there must be caveats. A lot of the feeling from both membership and some MPs was that this was a media conspiracy. It wasn’t and even if it were, it does us no good to claim it as such.

Yes, we have a febrile media who – for the most part – loathe Labour and particularly Ed Miliband. Of course they will do everything they can to stop him from being elected. It’s in their own interests after all to do down the man who made taking on phone hacking, championing Leveson and has talked passionately about changing the culture of the press.

But that was always going to be true. And we have always known these were the circumstances under which we would need to win an election.

We’re not going to change leader, and we’re not going to magically get an easier ride from Fleet Street (and if we did change leader, we still wouldn’t get a magical free ride from the press – they’d just have a fresh new target to tear to pieces). So instead we need to have a much sharper operation.

We won’t win if we’re cowering and we won’t win if we let ourselves be cowed. I don’t think anyone who wrote that editorial or most of those who signed it are under any illusion that things are perfect and going well. We too have individually called for more clarity of vision, more boldness in our policy offer and changes to the way we campaign and are organised. Those – like myself – who were particularly excited by the Arnie Graf model of community organising and the new lease of life it offered an often hollowed out party feel particularly disappointed by some of the return we see to messaging and campaigning as usual. In a world where the two party system is broken, “We’re not the Tories” is a redundant thing to say  never mind put at the heart of our campaigning messages week in, week out.

But the one thing we can all agree on is we want Labour to win the next election. Want the NHS to exist in 5 years time? We need a Labour victory. Want an economy where soar-away profits for a few and stagnant wages for the rest aren’t seen as economic “success”? We need a Labour victory. Want to stop an entire generation (and generations to come) from living their whole lives in unstable, insecure and overpriced accommodation? We need a Labour victory.

And we are going to have to win that victory not in circumstances that are fair and balanced (and I use the phrase advisedly) but in the circumstances we have. We can’t change the media so we have to find accommodation with them and find ways to negate them.  Mark Ferguson has already set out ten excellent ways we can make a start changing how our day to day interactions with members, voters and press can be improved.

At the last election, it was frequently said (not least by me) that our “ground war” (the membership tirelessly knocking on doors and making calls) were let down by our messaging strategy and campaigning that felt lacklustre. We cannot make this same mistake again. We must give people something to vote for.

It’s not too late. We are in the fight of our lives and we can still win it. But we must, must, must heed the warnings we are hearing. We must, must must take up the passion of our membership and march onwards with a proudly unfurled banner. We must be a party with a mission not a management statement.

Because we must get elected.