After spending all week stamping all over their own report about how to approach Ukip, Labour is now trying to work out what on earth led to the row. It’s not so much a leak inquiry as a cock-up inquiry, as the MPs who are supposed to be in charge of Ukip strategy in the party say they hadn’t seen the report at all – though those involved in writing it claim they did.
One HQ source tells me that Yvette Cooper signed off on the report, which was compiled by experts on polling and constituency data, including the man the party recently hired as the ‘Nate Silver of Bolton’, Ian Warren, other members of the field team and some MPs. But the official Ukip Strategy Group did not know about the contents of the report. A Labour source says;
‘Yvette and the Ukip Strategy Group were not aware this document was being drafted and did not see it before it was sent out. They certainly never signed it off. This was clearly a mistake and the document does not reflect Labour’s approach to campaigning.’
Even some of those who worked on the report itself complained about certain lines, but their main reaction to it was that it was the sort of document that only geeks should find interesting. It turns out they were wrong about that.
But there is clearly a problem in Labour’s campaigning team whereby there are so many cooking all tending different broths made up of different ingredients. The strategy group, which includes Yvette Cooper, John Healey, Jon Trickett and other MPs, has also been producing detailed constituency briefings for MPs who are vulnerable to Ukip and has been helping MPs to talk more about immigration rather than moving the conversation on. Those briefings did not have the line about moving the conversation on that has caused daily trouble this week.
Most problems in politics are caused by cock-ups, not conspiracies. The leak of the report and the confusion over whether the line about moving the conversation on from immigration was not official party policy (though surely sensible if your party has decided not to out-Ukip Ukip) were a result of a cock-up. But it does seem that there are different factions within the Labour campaign machinery who think slightly different things – and are prepared to publicly trash the other if necessary. Cock-ups will continue to happen if the structure of the party means people working on the same things are not talking to one another.
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