Rav Casley Gera

Labour’s current Britain-wide predicament seems to polarise between “New Labour ultras” and “left Labour traditionalists” - the former stressing winning aspirational middle Britain voters, the latter “core” or “traditional” working-class voters. But this offers a false choice. There are core voters in every constituency in Britain. It is not possible to form a Labour government by winning key marginal seats where aspirational voters predominate unless core voters turn out.

We have lost support in both sectors, and our challenge is to win them both back. The New Labour ultra assumption that core voters have nowhere else to go is plain wrong: they are staying at home, or voting for minority parties, including, sadly, the BNP. Equally wrong is the assumption of traditionalists that aspirational voters’ concerns are secondary.

Peter Hain offers a refreshing dose of sanity in the Compass-Progress feud