\n<\/p>\n
The government must find ways to reconnect emotionally with voters, Keir Starmer\u2019s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, is said to have warned cabinet ministers, in a meeting where the prime minister said they were in \u201cthe fight of our lives\u201d.<\/p>\n
The prime minister sought to rally his cabinet on Tuesday, telling them to ignore the polls and to prepare to take on Nigel Farage\u2019s Reform UK.<\/p>\n
But sources said that in a presentation by chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, ministers were told the government needed to gain back voters\u2019 trust with three Es, emotion, empathy and evidence.<\/p>\n
One source said McSweeney warned that the government had a \u201cdeficit in emotion\u201d, though a No 10 source denied he had used that phrase.<\/p>\n
Cabinet ministers are understood to have raised concerns about the government\u2019s ability to connect with voters. Starmer said a relentless focus on the cost of living would mean Labour could win the next election, though the prime minister\u2019s new year plan has already been derailed by the need to respond to Donald Trump\u2019s raid on Venezuela and threats towards Greenland.<\/p>\n
Starmer, who spent the final months of last year dogged by leadership speculation, said he had strong faith in his cabinet and he would \u201crelish\u201d the fight against Reform.<\/p>\n
The latest YouGov poll put the Conservatives ahead of Labour for the first time since the general election, both of them behind Reform, with Labour on just 17%.<\/p>\n
Ministers saw a presentation that urged them not to panic about Labour\u2019s dismal poll ratings, likening them to the plummeting popularity of previous governments after taking office.<\/p>\n
But the presentation did not include direct comparisons of previous governments with the current government, according to sources. Starmer\u2019s ratings are unprecedentedly low for a new administration, partly because of the effect of a new party dominating the polls.<\/p>\n
Starmer said No 10 strategists were looking closely at the re-elections of centre-left governments in Norway, Canada and Australia and how they revived their fortunes by focusing on the cost of living, though Trump\u2019s election was a key factor in the latter two.<\/p>\n
The prime minister\u2019s visit to Reading on Monday, which was aimed at highlighting frozen bus and rail fares, was dominated by questions over the future of Greenland and the abduction of the Venezuelan president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, who has been indicted in New York since his capture by US troops.<\/p>\n
Starmer \u2013 who travelled to Paris on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d on Ukraine \u2013 told his cabinet that the government had to keep a tight domestic focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cA Labour government renewing the country or a Reform movement that feeds on grievance, decline and division,\u201d he said. \u201cThey want a weaker state, they want to inject bile into our communities, they want to appease Putin. This is the fight of our political lives and one that we must relish.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not underestimate the scale of the task. But I have no doubt about this team. Governments do not lose because polls go down. They lose when they lose belief or nerve. We will do neither.\u201d<\/p>\n
Starmer will try to bring focus back to the government\u2019s actions on the cost of living with another UK visit on Thursday after legislation is introduced to end the two-child benefit cap, a key ask of Labour MPs and a measure that will bring almost half a million children out of poverty.<\/p>\n
The new Labour deputy leader, Lucy Powell, attended cabinet, saying she was looking forward to \u201chelping to tell the story of whose side we are on\u201d.<\/p>\n
Powell told MPs on Monday night that the party would switch to an \u201cincumbency first\u201d model to protect MPs at the next election rather than targeting seats and would support MPs to become \u201cleaders in their communities\u201d and learn how to benefit politically from changes made by the government, for which MPs have so far gained little credit.<\/p>\n
She also told MPs in the first parliamentary Labour party meeting of the year that they needed to stop infighting amid continued discontent with Starmer\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n
MPs will be offered workshops by organisers in Labour HQ on how to take credit for improvements in the local area or for policies directly helping constituents that have been implemented by the Labour government, including frozen rail fares, local community and high street funding and the warm home discount extension.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big switch organisationally and politically,\u201d a Labour source said. \u201cThere\u2019s tools and training the party is providing but Lucy and Anna Turley [the Labour party chair] are leading some political work about what else is needed and how MPs can support and share best practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Powell told the PLP meeting that the government needed to speak more directly about its achievements and said \u201cdark forces\u201d did not want a Labour administration to succeed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a big argument to make and win. That Labour is on the side of ordinary people addressing the cost of living crisis, rewiring the country in the interests of the many not the few, taking on the vested interests, holding the powerful to account,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The government must find ways to reconnect emotionally with voters, Keir Starmer\u2019s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, is said to have warned cabinet ministers, in a meeting where the prime minister said they were in \u201cthe fight of our lives\u201d. The prime minister sought to rally his cabinet on Tuesday, telling them to ignore the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[5798,11764,558,134,18716,380,321,2980,5584],"class_list":{"0":"post-40543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-cabinet","9":"tag-emotional","10":"tag-government","11":"tag-labour","12":"tag-lacks","13":"tag-link","14":"tag-ministers","15":"tag-voters","16":"tag-warned"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}