“We are fighting for a majority” – Douglas Alexander’s State of the Race Memo to party activists and members

Here’s the second of Douglas Alexander’s state of the race memo  – which LabourList readers can read exclusively before anyone else. We’ll be posting these each week to give you a unique insight through the final weeks of the campaign:

Dear Friend,

At the beginning of this week the official General Election campaign finally began. Many of you have been fighting it on the streets of towns and cities across Britain all year. And as we head into the sort campaign, it is clear that this is an election that remains wide open, but more people than ever are now realising that it is winnable for Labour.

Last night’s debate helped explain why. Although there were seven party leaders on stage, there was only one alternative Prime Minister. David Cameron seemed liked the invisible man for much of the debate, fading into the background, failing to defend his
record but also failing to set out a vision for the future. We know the Tories have said that they wanted to make this election about leadership, but when the post-debate polls came in last night, it was clear that they had lost their trump card.

Delivering a message vs landing a blow

Throughout the debate, one thing that struck me was how reluctant David Cameron was to talk about his own plans compared to how much he seemed to relish talking about ours.

His performance last night reflected a Tory campaign focused on painting a false
picture of Labour, rather than telling a real story about the country. Their minimalist strategy is based on the assumption that they can try to trick voters into getting a Tory government by making every effort to scare people off voting Labour.

That is why they’ve spent millions of pounds on poster campaigns with scare stories about a non-existent coalition between Labour and the SNP and why last week they conjured up a story about Labour’s tax plans which even the IFS called “unhelpful” and of “little value”.

If the Tory campaign seems focused on us, I think that reveals more about them than they intended. It exposes how they have taken a strategic decision to avoid presenting their own election offer. They know that if they did, not only would it risk dividing their own party but it would also alienate the public.

When it comes to David Cameron personally, he has begun the campaign by trying to plant ideas of alternative Tory leaders in voters minds, refusing to take part in debates himself and also wants people to know he won’t be Prime Minister for very long. So much so, that I think people will start to ask, what is it that David Cameron wants to hide?

The truth is, his advisors aren’t hiding David Cameron away from the public because they worry that he’ll become inarticulate during a debate or make a mistake in an interview. He is a formidable performer and runs a slick media operation. No, what Conservative strategists fear is that the more the public see of him, the more the gap between his vision of Britain and the reality of how Britain actually is, risks being exposed.

I think that is precisely what happened when Jeremy Paxman caught him out on food banks and zero-hours contracts last week. And that is what his advisors are so
terrified could happen again.

By contrast, this week Ed launched Labour’s campaign by stating that we are the party of the “optimists” and by making clear that we are putting our positive vision for the future of Britain at the heart of our campaign.

This doesn’t mean being naïve about the challenges we face – but it does mean being clear about our positive proposition in this election: that Britain only succeeds when working families succeed.

I choose Labour – it’s as simple as that.‎

It is always great when you hear someone else express what you feel even better than you could do yourself. That is how I felt when I saw the first take of the Martin Freeman Party Election Broadcast that we launched this week.

When we started work on this first Party Election Broadcast, we decided that what we wanted to convey a sense of the starkness of the choice people face in this election. When you cut away all the commentary, the campaign stunts and the political point scoring…what are you left with?

You are left with a simple choice – between a failing Tory plan and Labour’s better plan. The simplicity of that message is what inspired the simplicity of our Election Broadcast – the white set, the style of production, the single camera angle and Martin’s own words.

Politicians should be humble enough to admit that sometimes the strength of a political message can be improved when someone else delivers it. That certainly seems to have been the case this week. The total online views of Labour’s innovative election broadcast have already topped a million and the film is now thought to be the most-seen party political broadcast ever online.

It is a broadcast we can all be proud of and one that I hope many more people will see – not just because I think it makes the case for voting Labour, but because however they end up voting, I think it also makes the case for politics.

Debates expose David Cameron – and he knows it

Sitting in last night’s spin room made me think back to this same period in 2010. I was involved in the TV debates back then as well and I think the truth is that what we didn’t realise then was that a lot of people had already made up their minds about Gordon Brown. He had been in public life for so long, they wouldn’t change their views based on a few hours of TV. This time around I think the same is true for David Cameron.

But with Labour, because we are in opposition, because Ed Miliband is in a different position to Gordon Brown and David Cameron at this stage in a campaign – the British public are now understandably starting to want to look at Ed again and reach their own judgement.

And I think people tuning in on Thursday were surprised by what they saw of Ed. They were surprised not to see the same caricature that they read about in the papers and they were surprised again last night that last week was not a fluke, but a fair reflection of his character and his approach.

Up for the fight

In politics you don’t always get to be the optimists. Sometimes the circumstances aren’t right. Sometimes the politics won’t allow it. This time it is the right politics, and it is also the right strategy.

So we are fighting to win. We are fighting for a majority. And together I believe we won’t just change the government – we’ll together change our country.

Thanks as always for your support and hard work.

Douglas

Douglas Alexander is Chair of General Election Strategy