Tom Belger

Delivering in Government: your weekly round up of good news Labour stories – LabourList The drama in Westminster this week has been difficult to escape. But beneath the noise, the machinery of government trundles on, and there are plenty…

🌹 📣 GOOD NEWS! It's your weekly round up of Labour's legislative achievements!

Crime, welfare, abortion: Where could Reform threaten Labour next? – LabourList “Today is just the start of something very big indeed,” Nigel Farage declared this week as he unveiled the new Small Business for Reform group.…

Crime, abortion, net zero: Are Reform campaigning on the best issues to threaten Labour - or is it's voter coalition too fractured? @tombelger.bsky.social looks at the policies Reform are looking at and the contradictions they hold.

Why don’t Labour’s workers’ and renters’ rights reforms cut through to voters – and how should they? – LabourList When millions of workers and renters don’t know you’re doing more to improve their rights than any government in half a century, something is going…

Why aren't Labour's life-changing policies connecting with voters - and what can the party do? It's down to messaging, how it's told, and the messengers...

Why don’t Labour's workers’ and renters’ rights reforms cut through to voters - and how should they? - LabourList Why aren’t even life-changing, flagship policies cutting through, and what can Labour do? LabourList asked a string of MPs and communication, polling and policy experts.

✊Labour’s doing more to improve workers’ and renters’ rights than any government in half a century.

🤦‍♂️Polls suggest millions don’t know about it.

❓Why isn’t Labour cutting through? And how can it?

✍️ I’ve written for @labourlist.bsky.social:

labourlist.org/2025/11/work...

Why don’t Labour's workers’ and renters’ rights reforms cut through to voters - and how should they? - LabourList Why aren’t even life-changing, flagship policies cutting through, and what can Labour do? LabourList asked a string of MPs and communication, polling and policy experts.

✊Labour’s doing more to improve workers’ and renters’ rights than any government in half a century.

🤦‍♂️Polls suggest millions don’t know about it.

❓Why isn’t Labour cutting through? And how can it?

✍️ I’ve written for @labourlist.bsky.social:

labourlist.org/2025/11/work...

Reform UK win borough council seat after by-election Reform UK have won a Stevenage Borough Council seat for the first time after Rob Henry was elected to represent Roebuck ward following a by-election…

A few weeks after a Labour councillor's defection, Reform has its first seat on Stevenage council.

It's a blow for Labour after an impressive performance in another by-election a few months ago.

Only 2 councillors but it makes Reform the third largest party...

www.thecomet.net/news/2558696...

Two of the last government's standards advisers literally quit over how bad things were.

This government's standards adviser cleared Reeves for an honest mistake that estate agents have accepted the blame for.

Perspective!

Great to make that point on Talk TV tonight...

Thanks to @politico.eu for covering it in today's Playbook even with Caerphilly dominating the news...

Though all the more reason to look at how and why many former Labour voters are prepared to think the unthinkable - and what can be done to fight back.

Teal and green waves put safe seat on knife edge as ex-council chief quits - LabourList When Andy Moorhead became leader of Knowsley council, a hotchpotch of post-industrial towns clustered around Liverpool, Labour held every ward in England’s second most deprived authority.

Read more here - including glimmers of hope for Labour, with even Reform-tempted voters far more balanced and conflicted on immigration and wary of Farage than headline polls and most papers suggest:

labourlist.org/2025/10/labo...

🗳️New: My report on the ground from Labour's 10th safest seat.

🔷 @plmr.co.uk MRP puts Reform in the lead.

🌹Once-Corbynite council chief reveals his Reform defection.

🟩 Greens on the march too.

📉Labour' lead across 10 safest seats just 4pp vs Reform.

Piece on @labourlist.bsky.social
👇

Motives sometimes remain a mystery to campaign teams, though, and perhaps even candidates themselves.

As one aide puts it: “Sometimes when a job comes up, you think ‘I should do this’ – and then you work out why. Some candidates start before they’re sure why.”

Then there’s the desire to “fly the flag for the tradition I come from”, as @richardburgon.bsky.social puts it , with the Socialist Campaign Group always fielding candidates.

Murray was likewise a “standard-bearer of the moderate wing”, one insider says.

@bellribeiroaddy.bsky.social wanted to champion members and “prove there’s a strong progressive base within the party”.

@ianmurraymp.bsky.social wanted to make sure Scotland was part of the debate.

@harrietharman.bsky.social entered as she “couldn’t bear the idea of an all-male beauty contest”.

The role’s ambiguity is not necessarily negative, too, with candidates sensing they can make it their own.

Most politicians want to be listened to, and it offers a “platform to be heard”, in cabinet or not, McGregor notes.

There are many more reasons candidates do run, though.

Everyone interviewed relished engaging with so many members. Creasy calls it “incredible”.

Spending so long together quickly thaws the ice between campaigns too. “You wouldn’t guess who got on best backstage,” one recalls of a past contest.

On the job itself, Matthew McGregor, who ran Cruddas’ campaign, calls the job itself “arduous”, with the deputy countless people’s “port of call” for campaign days and fundraisers.

There's no powers beyond sitting on Labour’s NEC, and being consulted “regularly” by the leader.

Wooing colleagues is exposing, too. “Some were scathing, especially if trying to put you off,” one campaign aide recalls.

Women face more particular obstacles. “Men are seen as healthily ambitious, women as self-promoters. It’s like ‘how dare she’”, says one former candidate.

Many MPs wanted “brownie points voting Bridget,” one rival campaign source claims. 85 MPs curiously didn’t nominate at all.

Aspiring candidates know colleagues “want to back winners, or someone likely to do well against them”, a past campaign staffer notes.

Another hurdle is nominations.

@richardburgon.bsky.social (2020 candidate) says doubling the threshold to 10% of MPs in 2021, and the mere week MPs had to reach it, are a deterrent to stop the left.

He claims @bellribeiroaddy.bsky.social may have progressed with the old rules and a longer window.

Bridget is juggling cabinet, too. Peter Hain calls running in 2007 as a senior minister “one of the biggest mistakes” he made in politics.

Simultaneously handling power-sharing negotiations in Northern Ireland and Welsh devolution, he “didn’t keep enough focus on the campaign”.

Cash is the first hurdle. Then there's building a machine from scratch.

One 2025 campaign source says it started with “lots of people running in lots of directions” before things clicked, calling it “one of the most intense periods for anyone”.

“Someone asked: ‘Have you got a body in there? I spent the summer campaign lugging round this suitcase full of equipment, and catching lifts off people.”

@stellacreasy.bsky.social explains: “I didn’t have big backers, so I cleared out my savings. We have to look at accessibility.”

Is running for deputy Labour leader worth it? Former candidates reveal all - LabourList LabourList spoke to over a dozen candidates or campaign teams past and present to unpick the intriguing, varied reasons candidates actually run - and why so many more don’t.

The inside track on deputy leadership campaigns past and present:

labourlist.org/2025/10/depu...

Labour will have a new deputy leader this week.

But is the prize worth what it takes candidates to get there?

I spoke to over a dozen former candidates or campaign teams about the intriguing, varied reasons people run - and why many more don't.

@labourlist.bsky.social piece link here 👇

Hats off to party staff for making anything happen at such short notice at the busiest time of the year already...

That said, apparently the hustings isn't formally 'part' of the conference so some logic in tagging it on; events have also been moved to keep it within existing timetable.

Plus it'll be live-streamed, and some MPs and supporters are surprised and pleased it's happening at all.

Campaign groups @mainstreamlabour.bsky.social, @openlabour.bsky.social + @peoplesmomentum.bsky.social and MPs @bellribeiroaddy.bsky.social + @richardburgon.bsky.social are all speaking out.

Deputy election: Labour faces backlash as hustings gets conference ‘graveyard slot’ - LabourList Labour members are frustrated at the timing of the deputy leadership hustings being held in Liverpool at the end of conference.

New: Me for @labourlist.bsky.social on the backlash over the 'graveyard slot' the deputy leadership hustings has got at conference - after many members leave.

🧵

labourlist.org/2025/09/depu...

I'm also excited to stay involved in LabourList in a different guise, as I'll be writing both a monthly column and a string of news-features this autumn.

Do get in touch if you're keen to explore anything with either of my hats on - message me or email tombelgerwork@gmail.com.

I'm thrilled to be joining WPI Strategy to support their comms work as a Senior Adviser.

I've got to know some brilliant people of theirs over the years, and they're well-known and respected across the political spectrum for producing hard-hitting, evidence-base research.