Labour needs to act like a “majestic flock of geese” to make the most of its time in Government, according to the party’s outgoing general secretary.
David Evans said the party has spent too much time acting like a “gaggle on the ground” rather than forming the “magnificent V-formation” associated with a team of flying geese.
But he urged party members to “break this cycle” and work to ensure the Government “never loses touch with the voters” following Labour’s general election victory.
His remarks came before delegates ratified the appointment of Hollie Ridley as the new general secretary.
Mr Evans, speaking at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, said: “Last week I was in my garden and I found myself watching a flock of geese fly over my house.
“When you see geese on the ground they look chaotic, noisy, awkward.
“Indeed, on the ground they’re called a ‘gaggle’. But when you see them fly in that magnificent V-formation, they’re majestic.
“In the air, do you know the collective noun for geese is a ‘team’. They’re not born to do that, they learn it – you can see where this is going.
“The lead goose shoulders the headwind to lessen the load on the others, it means they can go further, longer, faster.
“They’re noisy in flight, they’re always communicating. And best of all if a goose falls out of the V, they go back for them. No goose gets left behind.
“I’ll be honest, too often in our history we haven’t always been a majestic flock of geese, a team, we’ve been a gaggle on the ground, too easily turning inwards crying betrayal, losing shape when the going gets tough.
“We must break this cycle, we must seize the opportunity now, this week, to build a party and a government umbilically connected.
“It doesn’t mean a party that just follows blindly, it means a proper partnership in service with the British people, listening openly to each other, challenging each other to be better, so that we have a party that has the Government’s back every day of the week and we have a Government that never loses touch with the voters.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel