Essentially yes.
Blair had his strategy right - the way to move the country to the left is to give people centre left versions of their current policies. Majority of people won't jump a mile from their already held positions, they will only edge bit by bit. And look what he achieved - the national minimum wage, LGBT rights enshrined, peace in Northern Ireland, massive investment in A&E departments and the NHS in general, lowered child poverty, etc. His way works and Labour should be trying to replicate it whenever possible.
Example: people on the left look at immigration and say it's because everybody is a xenophobic racist but that's bollocks. However when people argue for less immigration, it's fair to say that most people are actually asking for less of the perceived effects of immigration. If you can sort out jobs for the working class, if you can sort out waiting times in the public services and you can sort out low cost housing and the ghettoisation of some areas then a lot of the immigration worriers aren't quite as worried about it any more. Just like the NHS - people aren't worried about the funding of the NHS, they're worried about the lack of nurses/Doctors, the lack of pay in that sector and the service inefficiencies. Those sound like the same thing but they're not the same thing.
Corbyn's policies aren't addressing people's direct needs, they're addressing some people's direct philosophies which is why he's failing. Let's take for example the renationalisation of water; stealing from a Nils Prately article today, the Government can currently borrow on public markets at 1.5%. The Severn Trent company has a dividend yielding 3.4% and the Government could refinance its debt at a lower rate than the company has it at which could push that up to potentially 4%. So borrowing at 1.5% to make 4% is a somewhat sensible deal on the face of things. But here's the problem - they're renationalising in order to drop water bills which means that profits will drop so the figures won't add up any more in the same way. Will that 3.4% stay above 1.5%? I dunno. But neither do they currently.
So they can't really substantially drop water bills which would have an effect on people's lives. And if they're not renationalising to directly affect a need, what is this policy for? Because many of left Labour movement feel that nationalisation is a good thing so will make any excuse to happen. This is perfectly fine for the record, I don't have a problem per se with ideological driven Government but that ideology has to be driven by the ideology of the electorate which it isn't.
If he's really bothered about water then he should be pushing for greater powers for Ofwat, to reign in companies owned by Cayman Island offshores which end up down a hole of shell companies and we don't know who owns the water in our pipes. That's a pretty sensible and agreeable option and he can say that the Government will work with the franchises in a PPP in order to update the piping networks or super sewers in an investment scheme where the Government injects capital and gets shares in return. Everybody wins - we got a dividend into the public purse, water bills ultimately come down, it keeps private competition and the markets healthy and we actually invest rather than spend money. This addresses a need to businesses, to consumers and to philosophy all in one policy and it could actually be passed in Parliament. Corbyn's writing Bills that he cannot pass even if he wins the election due to opposition within his own party and the public aren't buying it because again, it addresses their philosophy rather than their needs.
The Labour Party manifesto is something written by a Politics class in a University. It's all ideology rather than directly targeting voters in things that they will vote for.
The other issue with the re-nationalisation of the water companies is that, when combined with Labour's industrial relations policies, it would inevitably lead to higher wage settlements in the industry. Some might consider that a good thing, nevertheless it would reduce the return on investment.
