Labour should dump the 35% strategy

 Andrew Grice, writing in the Independent, may be right in saying that those of us waiting for Mr Miliband to "make his play for Tory switchers" will find ourselves "waiting for Godot".(Labour`s given up on wooing Tory voters,10/05/14) Lets hope, though, that this does not mean Labour will not be constantly reminding the electorate as a whole of what the coalition government has done over the last four years. How many people really want to vote for parties responsible for the destruction of the welfare state, the running down of the NHS leading inevitably to its privatisation, the selling off of the country`s assets at knockdown prices, the obscene tax benefits for the rich and the country`s 28th position in the equality league table, Gove`s mishandling of the education system, the ending of the Education Maintenance Allowance, the decreasing social mobility which according to an OECD survey of developed countries puts us in 12th out of 12 in their league table, and so on. Are voters happy with the continued profiteering of banks and energy companies, do they agree with the obscene bonuses, or the way private landlords exploit their tenants to maximise their profits? Is enough being done by this coalition to reduce tax avoidance and evasion? 

    By all means Labour should attack Clegg for his complicity in all things Cameron, but as Grice says, LibDem voters are not the only ones who should be the focus of their campaign. The young can be, as Obama showed, targetted successfully, and if Miliband "hopes to repeat the trick", all aspects of social media need to be utilised, with messages from, perhaps, "cooler" representatives and supporters of the party. A start has been made with the modest suggestions on rent rises, but there is room to go much further, especially as so many students are exploited by profiteering landlords, keener on enlarging bank balances than providing safe and suitable property for their tenants."Whether the young will turn out in large numbers to vote" depends not only on how well Labour`s propaganda machine functions, but on how soon the "35 per cent strategy" is dumped!