Labour urged to act like a ‘majestic flock of geese’

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.”