Labour cannot underestimate electoral task despite poll leads, Powell warns

Lucy Powell has warned that Labour “shouldn’t be under any illusions” about the “scale of the task” ahead despite the party entering 2022 with a 16-point lead in so-called ‘Red Wall’ constituencies.

Speaking today at a webinar hosted by ‘Labour in Communications’, a network of Labour-backing public affairs experts, the new Shadow Culture Secretary said government ratings had “nosedived” but her party’s own voter coalition had been “crumbling for a long time”.

Asked about Labour’s electoral prospects, Powell told the event during a Q&A session with attendees: “It is a different electoral challenge and a different voter coalition than it was in our recent past.

“A lot of people want to point to 1997 or other times. It was a completely different voter-coalition problem that we had in 1997, where we were very strong in the North and in Scotland, but we’d never been able to penetrate London and the South East. It’s almost a reversal of that, in many ways, now.”

The Manchester Central MP said Labour needed to be “synonymous with one or two things” such as a “very clear offer of economic change”. She explained that what “unites our voter coalition” is people wanting “their economic future to be more secure”.

On the government’s long-awaited online harms bill, which is yet to have its second reading, Powell said she was worried that “by the time we get this bill, it’s already going to need another bill to deal with some of the issues that this bill has not been able to future-proof itself on”.

The Labour frontbencher expressed hope that the government would take on some of the recommendations put forward in a report on the bill by a joint committee before Christmas – even if this meant the passage of the bill being delayed further.

Powell also talked about the potential privatisation of Channel 4, on which the government has conducted a consultation. She described the move as an “ideological decision, a purely political decision, if it comes” and said it would be undoing other “piecemeal” work the government had done on levelling up.

“It’s uniquely placed, because it is a not-for-profit organisation that has got public service broadcasting at its heart,” she said. “It’s able to make those big decisions about where it’s going to commission, where it’s going to invest, moving jobs and commissioning and opportunities to the regions and the nations as well as it is doing, and it’s doing that at a very fast pace.”

Powell is still in the early days of her role as Shadow Culture Secretary, having only been moved to the post from the Housing Secretary role in the November reshuffle. She admitted being “a bit shocked and surprised” by the switch as it was “not really a job I would have necessarily given myself”.

She described it as a “fantastic brief”, however, and referred to the “year we’ve got ahead, with celebrating what’s great about Britain, with the Platinum Jubilee, the Commonwealth Games, the centenary of the BBC”.

Powell was asked in the event today whether Labour nationally could replicate the approaches being taken by Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham. She replied: “His mantra is better housing, better transport, better jobs.

“He’s tackled the issues of homelessness, he’s taken on the bus-franchising issues, because buses are a real issue up here, very expensive, very unreliable, and transport in general, and obviously the economy is really growing up here, there is more access to jobs and things like that.

“So I think he’s got a simple message. He’s identified with standing up for a place and for the people who live within that place.” She described Burnham as “incredibly popular up here”, noting that he “stands up for the area” and “takes positions on things”.

Labour in Communications is set to launch a new series of events called “Labour in Power”, which will highlight the successes of Labour’s elected leaders across the UK, from First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford to mayors such as Andy Burnham.