Minister: We neglected Labour's core vote
Chris Bryant
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Monday, 13, Jul 2009 12:00
By politics.co.uk staff
The new junior minister at the Foreign Office, Chris Bryant, has admitted Labour has neglected its core vote.
Speaking to the Western Mail, the Rhondda MP spoke about how Labour had lost to the Tories in Wales during the recent European elections.
"I think the one thing that's absolutely clear is that Labour cannot desert places like the Rhondda, where it's a white working-class population, many of whom have not had much opportunity in life but want the chance to get on.
"And some of them clearly felt that we had."
He continued: "It was quite sore last year [in the council elections] when people kicked us in the shins, and it was much more painful when people went a bit further north this year."
Mr Bryant was asked how Labour should counter the BNP, who did well in the European elections.
He said: "I don't want to give them publicity, by virtue of inviting them round to my house to have an interview on Radio Cymru, but I do just want to win the argument with them, and I'm pretty confident that we would always win the argument with them."
He had good words to say about discipline in the government after the spasms of revolt earlier in the summer.
"Clearly some people were very unhappy, but it doesn't feel like that at the moment," he said.
"It feels like people are getting on with things, new ministers are just getting on with their jobs."
He added: "I'm a lot more upbeat than a lot of others... I think it's more because ideologically and politically we're more united than we've been. It's a big difference within the party compared to the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s."
"So whatever differences there may be are largely personal rather than anything else."