[Tealeaf]

Those of you who take more than a passing interest in the body politic will be aware of the recent death of the Labour peer, Lord Gould. You may even have read a detailed obituary in one of the more serious newspapers. Irrespective of his socialist credentials, he was widely regarded as a decent bloke by all sides and as a sharp political operator. The reason? He was the person who realised that Labour were unelectable in the format they had in the ‘80’s and early ‘90’s and as such was part of the team that relaunched ‘New Labour’ eventually leading to its electoral success in 1997.

Irrespective of that government’s subsequent record, Gould’s philosophy was quite simple – you have to listen to what the people say if you want to be elected. You have to address their fears and their concerns and seek to provide solutions to their wants and aspirations. His most notable concentrated method of addressing this issue was through the use of ‘focus groups’. By various methods, he – and Labour – chose cross-sections of people and asked the questions ‘What do you want?’ and ‘What do you think about this?’ The answers were usually simple and involved ditching the dogma and using a bit of common sense. Result? Elected into office three times on the trot.

It would now appear that Red Ed and those labour MP’s who follow his every dictum have now forgotten this message. It is pretty obvious by now that Ed – like Michael Foote, thirty years ago – is totally unelectable. He went to print this weekend with a pseudo-Marxist rant (no doubt copied up from one of his father, Ralph’s old notebooks) about the crisis of capitalism and the justification of the campsite outside St Pauls. He also told his MP acolytes to make similar statements in advance. GJ duly obliged.

Well, we’re all pretty urinated off with the antics of the bankers and their bonuses; with the exorbitant pay rises of the FTSE 100 directors and of the unjustifiable pay of premiership footballers. Ed’s message was that the government should listen to the electorate. Exactly, Mr Milliband and Mr Jones – listen to the electorate. But do not pick and choose what you care to listen to because there are other issues just as important, such as the collapse of immigration controls into this country, the terrible economic cost of EU membership (without any visible benefits) and the ongoing comedy which is now our legal system. The highest court in the land – the so-called Supreme Court – is now no more than the outside toilet for the European Courts.

So I would suggest to Mr Jones – nice man that he is – that he takes a lesson from the late Lord Gould and once again pays attention to what the voters want. This little forum may not have the numbers of a YouGov or a Mori Poll, but its members are pretty representative of his constituents. Mr Milliband will soon be out the door and it may well pay Mr Jones’s political career to be brave, follow his instincts and rebel now rather than later.