THE local elections in May are very important. The outcome can affect tens of millions of people in important aspects of their lives. 

They are also an opportunity to send a strong message of rejection to this rotten government. We need the strongest possible vote for Labour, and I would urge everyone who can to go out campaigning too.

But if reports are to be believed, a rather strange debate has opened up within the highest ranks of the Parliamentary Labour Party about strategy in this and other elections. 

Of course, all these reports must be taken with a shovelful of salt, as Labour has very few friends in the press, and not even that many who are prepared to report on us fairly either.

The terms of the debate are instructive, though. It is said that on one side are the supporters of Keir Starmer who want to focus on “partygate,” and on the other are shadow cabinet members who want to focus on the cost-of-living crisis.

At the risk of appearing flippant, the obvious answer to this apparent dilemma is, why not do both? In the deluge of emails and letters currently reaching my office, there is an almost unprecedented level of concern being expressed about both these issues, way beyond the average level of communication from the public. 

It does not end there either. In addition, there has been an enormous number of messages of concerns about two other issues. 

These are the Nationality and Borders Bill, which is making very many worried about their future and that of their friends and family and disgusted by this government’s approach. 

The other issue which is causing widespread anger is the proposed privatisation of Channel 4. The view most widely expressed is that privatisation means the station will be worse, and that it is foolish to follow Netflix down a road it is now abandoning itself. 

Many other correspondents are simply desperate in the face of rising prices of essentials.

Of course, my email inbox may not be completely representative. But it is clear from talking to colleagues that many of them are also experiencing record high engagement levels with the public and on a wide variety of topics. 

I know, for example that some of them are receiving a large volume of mail about the disgraceful treatment of the P&O workers.

All this serves to illustrate a wider political point. Voters are not worried about a single issue at any one time. They have concerns about a range of issues and have varying levels of engagement with them. 

There is very rarely one single topic which dominates politics to the exclusion of all others. We cut ourselves off from voters if we operate as if there is just one.

So, the terms of this reported debate on Labour’s priorities are ill-conceived. It is impossible to believe they are as muddled in the real world as they are reported. Because insisting there is only one issue to engage voters would be utterly foolish, as anyone who has ever been out canvassing knows (which is most politicians, unlike most journalists).

The key slogans or topics for any election are tactics, important ones, but only tactics. They are not a strategy. Both are needed. In the famous words of Sun Tzu: “Strategy without tactics is the hardest road to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

Our strategy must be to build the widest possible coalition of interests, social groups and classes, geographical areas and age groups into a winning coalition. 

The government never has a single policy, or a single slogan or just one theme. The programme of this government is an all-sided attack on the lives and livelihoods of the people of this country, hitting the poor, the vulnerable and ethnic minorities the hardest. It only serves the interests of a tiny fraction of society.

Yet the same was true of its election campaigns from 2010 right up to 2019. Yet the Tories still won. It is also no use bemoaning the role of the media — that is not going to change any time soon.

Instead, we must learn from them and invert their coalition-building around a progressive agenda. That means that a policy of “constructive engagement” with the government is deadly to building our own coalition or preparing for progressive change. It simply reinforces the glue holding the Tory electoral collation together. 

If we have nothing to say about ending austerity, or reversing the catastrophic response to the Covid crisis, or if we refuse to outright condemn the vile treatment of refugees and to vote against it, we vacate the political and moral high ground and reinforce the reactionary Tory project.

The obverse is also true. To give a recent example, the policy of demanding a windfall tax on energy company profits was completely correct. 

These are windfall profits from soaring commodities’ prices. The Tory claim that taxing them interferes with investment is completely bogus. 

The boss of BP completely blew apart these claims when he said the company “had more cash than it knew what to do with.” And almost every household in the country is struggling with soaring energy bills.

The Tories have not gained any support for their spurious claims, or their attacks on the windfall tax policy itself. Instead, it is being reported that the Chancellor is not ruling out such a tax.  

Now, whatever course of action they take, the Tories will pay a political price. This is a result of adopting the correct policy and it is now Labour’s job to maximise that price. 

This is true across the entire range of key policies that affect people’s daily lives. Whether it is a six-point plan or a fully developed manifesto matters, but it matters less than we have answers which show that Labour is on the side of ordinary people, on the side of the most vulnerable and on the side of equality, including equality before the law. 

The people we want to defend comprise the vast majority. We need them and they need us.

Diane Abbott is the Labour member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. She served in the shadow cabinet as shadow home secretary from 2016 to 2020.