How will candidates fight to win the country, not just the conference hall?

For too long, our leaders and policies have not been forged in the white heat of a marginal seat. Yet this is what frames the electoral coalition that we must assemble and the seats that we must win back. The Marginal Seat Test has taken off for all candidates – and they should not expect to become Labour’s next leader without passing it. All over the country, this frames the electoral system within which we compete for votes. I want to re-inject the principle of power, of being in it to win it. How will candidates fight to win the country, not just the conference hall?

I have invited every leader and deputy leader candidate to Bury North to take a walkabout with me, do a public meeting and answer the concerns of everyday life in Bury and towns like mine. It takes leadership hopefuls away from the protective, sound-proof Labour majorities that so many of those confident in Labour’s victory before now have returned to. All leadership and most deputy candidates are confirmed to attend before the ballots drop.

Labour’s national election efforts weren’t just insufficient – they undermined the campaigning in seats across the country. If you haven’t got enough to go around, you know all too well how much things out of your reach cost and you’re sceptical about the word “free” because there’s always a catch.

The next leader must offer an energetic, optimistic and believable vision of the future, with a shadow cabinet of must-haves –  especially those with original, authentic ideas for these modern but often anxious times. Anxieties felt by everyday people are not relieved by repeating them to others or each other. Nor is the poverty trap escaped from by making it a spectacle for speeches at galas or in debates without most of all committing to do what is required to win an election.

This is a call on the party and our movement to understand the home-truths – truths we find on the doorstep of voters that break from the kids’ bath-time, work calls or the telly to answer the door to us. To win, we need natural and unnatural Labour voters to vote for us. Our systems are outdate: we were sending hundreds of activists to Tory seats that we had no hope of winning, at the expense of seats such as mine, and we spoke only to those we believed might be for us.

This is not a call to return to the centre ground but grounded in country, towns, city and a desire to re-capture our purpose. To show we’ve not just listened, but that we are smart with our appeal to voters. Appealing to the emotions of an issue. To address the experiences of life as we find it. Few people want revolution, they want an evolution. For life to get better over time. To climb, to succeed, for improvements in their living for themselves and their family.

Labour must awaken a spirit of straightforward improvements to everyday life. And forfeit the brand of the aggressive, agitational, half-glass empty assessment of society that pursues the dismantling of life as we know it, instead of sure, steady, transformational and believable improvements to it.

It’s all very well having a manifesto we ordain as what the country needs but it doesn’t mean a thing if it’s a manifesto that nobody believes. Elections are won partly on inspiration and partly on assurance – 80/20, I think. For those we don’t bring with us through inspiration, they may just need the permission to turn towards us or seek the assurance that we’ve got it covered.

We must not be without radicalism either. A plan to tackle the climate emergency and the new economy must be built, and it requires a radical shift. The white heat of a marginal seat is a phrase deliberately coined. This is a time akin to Harold Wilson’s, with the dawn of a new Industrial Age and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and this is a time for an active, engaged state changing lives with the possibilities of government. End the redundant cities-first-and-only economic instinct. Breathe life into rural, urban and coastal communities, reach across generations, address regional imbalances, tackle social care and housing.

A renewed national identity can come with new start-up national industries. Our leader shouldn’t be obsessed with just what the Labour Party can take back in-house with nationalisation, but must instead be inspiring us as to what a Labour Party in government can start up. The new creation of national industries; social parameters for innovation, social capitalism, social enterprise, pro-worker and pro-social business, exciting skilled work, creative possibilities linked to a transformed further education plan and a vision for a proud England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with space to express the patriotic identity of each.

The snap election interrupted my time in parliament. But as we said in my campaign, we keep going. We keep the faith. I am remaining faithful. Faithful to the cause and faithful that the Labour Party in government is the best force for good we have. So, keep the faith! Remain faithful.