I feel like you can only do the "on the side of voters not members" when you're polling at least 38-40%. When your popularist agenda is in the low to mid twenties, you have to admit you're just another freak crank special interest group like the rest of us.
I disagree only in that I think “being on the side of voters” is almost always meaningless when you are in government other than for, like, five months before the election. Most of us are not “voters” in a meaningful sense in off years.
May 9, 2025 15:44On a side point, about the welfare thing. Is there an assumption at HQ that being tough on welfare is always popular? Because when it tips over into perceived unfairness, I’m not sure it’s necessarily true
There is, and I think it's part of their problem of vulgar poll reading. People think that some nebulous (or indeed, specific) person is on the take and that there is wasteful spending on welfare. That doesn't mean they support the specific, arbitrary and cruel measures in the welfare "reforms".
Everyone wants welfare reform until their niece's PIP is cut. Everyone wants fewer universities until their grand kid's gets closed mid-degree.
I think you’re underestimating how many voters know people who could and should be working! And it’s hard to argue that the last Tory government ballsed up everything apart from welfare specifically, and that what we need is an ever increasing number of the working age population to not be working 💀
