Alastair Campbell has warned Sir Keir Starmer “you can’t afford too many missteps” in government after recent weeks were dominated by different Labour rows.
Mr Campbell, who served as Sir Tony Blair’s director of communications in Downing Street, suggested too many mistakes would cause voters to lose patience with the new administration.
He also claimed Labour governments are held to a “much higher standards” than Conservative administrations.
Pointing to the winter fuel payment decision, the ousting of Sue Gray and the “freebies” controversy, Mr Campbell told the BBC: “As I say, these are all recoverable but you cannot make too many missteps in government. Government is harder than opposition.
“Labour governments are held to much higher standards than Tory governments and I hope that this is the reset that is needed where people understand this is really hard, they have got big missions which frankly they should be what we are talking about, they should be what the Government is emphasising with constant explanation as to what they are doing, how they are doing it and why they are doing it.”
He added: “You can’t afford too many missteps. You can’t afford too many things which allow the public and allow the media – we still have a very bias right wing press in this country – to say they are all the same as each other.
“Labour are very different to the Tories in many, many ways, in policy, in values and I think actually we now have the most working class Cabinet that we have ever had frankly.
“But if you are not constantly developing, executing and narrating a very clear strategy then a sense of a vacuum can develop and then that will be filled with stuff like this.”
Source: telegraph.co.uk