LabourList’s Mark Ferguson concludes his piece on last week’s appointment of Obama spinner David Axelrod to Labour’s election team as a “big deal”. But is it, really? I hope it is. After all Axelrod doesn’t come cheap – an unstated six figure fee has done the rounds. Will his impact on the party carry more weight than say five or six extra full time Labour organisers working marginal constituencies?
I can’t help but feel sceptical about these big beast hires from overseas, regardless of who they work for. The Tories have imported Lynton Crosby from Australia to run vicious right-wing attacks – and yet they only appear to recover lost polling ground when they shut up and don’t say anything objectionable. They have also paid silly money for the Obama grassroots specialist Jim Messina. As I noted last summer, this is dumb when the Tory grassroots are suffering severe dieback. So what does Axelrod bring to my party that the collective wisdom this country’s labour movement could not provide? Continue reading