Labour\u2019s 2024 election manifesto<\/a>, entitled \u201cChange\u201d, declared that a Starmer-led government would \u201cstop the chaos, turn the page, and start to rebuild our country\u201d.<\/p>\n \n But people have different ideas of what change means and how fast it can happen. Similarly, they are not impressed by graphs showing<\/a> that the UK economy is currently the fastest-growing in the G7 or that waiting times for NHS treatment<\/a> in England are at their lowest level in more than three years.<\/p>\n There are undoubtedly better ways of communicating<\/a> long-term change and Populist leaders are successful not because they have more convincing policies for house-building, ending child poverty or realising energy security. The change they offer appeals to visceral feelings rather than material needs. \u201cImagine how you will feel on the day that we come to power,\u201d they say. \u201cThink of how shattered all of those people who have ignored you, talked down to you, taken your jobs and pushed ahead of you in the queue for services will feel.\u201d <\/p>\n Populists such as Reform UK (according to current polls<\/a> the most likely party to win the next UK general election) are less interested in setting out a policy programme than in connecting with voters\u2019 raw nerves.<\/p>\n That is why the most crucial lesson for Labour from the 2026 local elections More important, however, is to be clear what is involved in taking on Europe will still be involved in its longest war since 1945. The US will continue to be an unreliable partner. The climate emergency<\/a> will go on wreaking havoc. Social care for an ageing population will remain a massive challenge. National debt will still limit the capacity for public investment. Regional disparities and indefensible social inequalities will still exist.<\/p>\n All of these challenges and more will result in sections of the electorate feeling alienated and disappointed \u2013 the very sentiments upon which populism depends.<\/p>\n The big question for whoever is going to be prime minister in the next three years is not just about policy and delivery (although it is also very much about that), but about offering an alternative to the psychic appeal of populism. That will entail adopting a three-point strategy. <\/p>\n First, politicians need to acknowledge the depth of disappointment felt by people whose parents and grandparents had once believed that the government was there to look after them in times of need. The prime minister should declare an urgent mission to build an infrastructure of cradle-to-grave care, which exists not to tell people how they should be feeling, but to be democratically accountable to their needs and priorities as individuals and communities.<\/p>\n
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\n Read more:
\n English local elections 2026: a story of a new kind of politics<\/a>
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\nIn a world full of entrenched, unequal social structures and complex, intractable
\nglobal problems, change is inevitably a long-term project. But voters tend not to be in the business of long-term evaluation. <\/p>\n
\nidentifying quick wins than the current government has adopted. However, the real battle is not between rival tellers of the mainstream narrative, but between two completely different conceptions of change. Remembering this will be crucial for Labour\u2019s Andy Burnham when he takes on populists Reform UK in the Makerfield by-election<\/a> in his bid to return to Westminster to challenge Keir Starmer for the leadership of the Labour party and his job as prime minister.<\/p>\nFeelings over facts<\/h2>\n
\nwas not their devastating defeat, but the unstoppable surge of Reform\u2019s appeal to
\nvoters that threatened to leave them in the margins in the next general election.
\nLabour\u2019s reflex response was to depose its leader. And possibly at least one of Starmer\u2019s rivals<\/a> for the job would be more effective at taking on this new form of political opposition. <\/p>\n
\npopulism. A new prime minister will be faced with exactly the same challenges as
\nthe current one and will not be able to deliver transformative change simply by force of an appealing personality. <\/p>\n![\"andy](\"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/736371\/original\/file-20260518-58-xpo2rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip\")
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