Power behind the scenes

Is Labour capable of reversing the curse facing centre-left governments around the world? Josh Simons, Director of the highly influential think tank Labour Together says the party must be ready to confront the challenge of thinking about how it can govern and win a second term.

Joining Sam and Ayesha for a full and frank conversation, Josh Simons speaks about Labour’s plans for government and how people are working to shape the party’s policies but also its politics. Getting into who Labour Together are, where they came from and what they do - this week The Power Test looks at power behind the scenes.

The Labour Together Director says after 14 years “the next election will be a referendum on the government - but this will change very quickly.” “Labour will quickly have to bind and unify its own electoral coalition after the election” - becoming the next to try and tackle the challenge that Biden, Albanese and Scholz have all faced - “winning an election after the populist right imploded”, but not necessarily winning because you have a “neatly worked out political project”.

What does it mean to govern from the centre left in a way that is focused on winning an election after one you’ve been put in power by the implosion of your opponents? And how does Labour not just win but also change Britain for the better in a very harsh fiscal climate?

Simons says “you’ve got to be political in how you govern” warning that “policy is not enough on its own”. Parties and politicians can often “underestimate how much people are disconnected from the sort of levers you can pull in Parliament or Whitehall” - saying it is paramount that Labour “put their experiences at the heart of everything” it does in government. Storytelling and not just technocratic policies is key - as is sequencing.

Pressed on Labour’s approach to critical issues for the electorate such as immigration, Sam and Ayesha commented that “it’s one thing to win initial trust” but “another to hold it through the challenge of actually governing”. Being prepared to take but also communicate tough decisions will be integral to the success of a Labour government - and it must lay the ground work for those tough choices.

“The early phase of the next government has to not be about the Labour Party, or even the Labour government but the state the country is in” - something Sam has often made the case for in other episodes. “The focus needs to be in terms of storytelling explaining just how bad it is”.

Ayesha however says the “public expect, if one of the big messages is this is a chance to change, to have an expectation and right to know what that change is” - “there is so much misery, Broken Britain is a lived experience, people know it isn’t 1997 and there isn’t much money but they want some hope.”

Simons says “it’s a sequence and a process that Starmer and Labour need to take the country on.

But does Labour have time?