Labour needs a slogan like Boris Johnson’s ‘get Brexit done’, suggests pollster

Professor John Curtice told the Express that during the election it was not the policies that were the problem with the electorate, but issues with the leadership trying to portray a convincing vision for Britain.

He said: ‘What one can say is one of weaknesses of Labour in 2019 was not that individual policies were unpopular.

‘The problem the party had was lots of individual policy but there were no broad vision which was the equivalent of ‘get Brexit done’.

‘We all remember ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ – a good clear slogan.

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‘They need a slogan which tells a story that conveys to people quickly what the party is about.’

Prof Curtice said it was too early to say how the coronavirus would play out with the public’s attitude towards the government, but it has the potential to change attitudes.

He explained: ‘Among the many uncertainties coronavirus creates is what the public’s attitude is going to be towards the role of government in our society and the need to get the economy back up and how do people think that’s going to be achieved.’

But he said that Labour’s new leader Starmer was already appearing more prime ministerial than his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn.

He said: ‘It’s very early days, and Starmer is not terribly well-known, and one of the basic jobs is to get better known, and obviously the circumstances in which he has got the leadership make that difficult, but the indication so far is that is more likely to be regarded as prime ministerial than was Corbyn, which is not bad for a start.’