#UKGeneralElection2019 #JacquiSmith
Which brings me - at last! - to the other part of her claim -namely that losing some people from #Labour #headquarters after 2017 affected performance in 2019.

Curiously enough it may have done so. This is because some of them appear to have gone on to work on the #tactical #voting websites referred to. If they were as professional as claimed then presumably they would have known that their advice was #misleading.

#UKGeneralElection2019
The other part of the #JacquiSmith claim is that the performance of #Labour was worse in 2019 than in 2017 and that this as due to the removal of people who understood how to win parliamentary seats from #headquarters.

It is clear that the campaigning performance of #Labour relative to the #Conservatives in 2019 was worse. However this seems to have been due to a major improvement in the performance of the #Conservative Party - the causes of which are well documented.

#UKGeneralElection2017 #Labour

Still the #JacquiSmith claim, however unfounded, is at least different from the much more frequent claims of #treachery and #sabotage made about #Labour performance in 2017. Although these have rather more plausibility to them they also do not stand up to critical examination. It seems highly unlikely that if there had been any such #conspiracy it would have had a material effect on performance in just one out of nine English region albeit an important one.