Reviving Labour

Writing exclusively for Progress, 12 Labour MPs argue that we need more than policy initiatives, we need a bold new narrative

Labour needs to provide a convincing new narrative if left-of-centre politics are to remain the driving force in Britain. This has to be more than a series of policy initiatives. It has to set a new framework for post-credit crunch Britain, and in particular to provide the basis for us to move forward in three key areas: the economy, public services and the relationship between the citizen and the state.

And it needs to be bold. We have produced defensive policies to deal with crises like the housing market, or the 10p tax debacle. Yet as a progressive party, our natural territory should be leading the debate about new ideas, and our natural role should be to champion change and harness its economic and social benefits to serve the interests of the many.

Our most urgent task is to renew confidence in our economic competence so that people know that the country will come out of the current downturn with a resilient economy and a cohesive society.

Public alarm over what has so far been a slowdown is shaped by the experience of the last two recessions. Mass unemployment was the price that the Tories considered worth paying to manage inflation, and they considered jettisoning traditional manufacturing areas – the Labour heartlands – as the price worth paying for restructuring industry.

We rightly reject both, but have no explanation yet as to how we are going to steer the economy through the troubled waters ahead.

Clamour is understandably growing for measures to help families under financial pressure from rising energy prices and heavy mortgage costs. But one-off taxes and payouts, no matter how justified in their own terms, do not amount to a strategy.

Tax is very good for raising money to pay for public services and universal benefits. It is not very good for targeting money at particular pressure points. For example, the personal tax allowance hike to compensate people for the loss of the 10p tax band cost £2.7bn. Of that, £0.6bn went to the low-income earners who had lost out. The rest, £2.1bn, was a general – and unheralded – tax cut for standard rate taxpayers. Ironically, the £2.7bn would have been enough to pretty much wipe child poverty off the map of Britain.

We need to explain what we’re going to do about the things that affect people day to day: inflation and interest rates, household bills and mortgages. Harold Wilson talked about the ‘pound in your pocket’ and Margaret Thatcher likened the economy to a household budget - derided by the pundits, but understood by the public.

The Bank of England’s control mechanisms, that have served us well for a decade, have lost credibility and impact. People can see that the Bank’s Consumer Prices Index inflation measure does not tally with what is happening to their household bills, and that the Bank’s interest rate does not equate to what is happening to their mortgages.

We need to explain what is happening and show how a progressive Labour government can intervene in the public interest.

Second, the investment Labour has made in public services has transformed our society. Universal nursery education was a pipedream back in 1997. In the NHS, ‘suffering’ is waiting over 13 weeks for an operation – not over 26 months as it was back then. Schoolchildren now have interactive whiteboards, not blackboards. People’s chance of being a victim of crime is now only half what it used to be.

Yet there’s a malaise. We have spent money, diversified, provided choice. But we need to provide the public with a sense of ownership and explain how we are going to give both them, and the workforce, a say in how we design and deliver services.

This does not mean a return to a top-down command economy in the public sector. It means providing transparency in the governance of the academies, trusts and companies that spend public money. We should encourage new forms of ownership such as social enterprises that cross the traditional boundaries between private and public sectors. We can still provide fairness and sustainability through frameworks for access and finance. And, through better regulation, we can guarantee standards for the public whatever the model of ownership or management.

It also means showing that legitimacy for a local trust running a community asset can come from good governance and accountability. This can provide as much of an electoral mandate as those depressing local elections in which only a small minority of people take part.

A similar malaise afflicts the body politic, so the third big challenge for centre-left politics is the relationship between the citizen and the state, and the need to shift power away from centralised institutions to the individual, particularly in services that are self-evidently personal. Devolution of decisionmaking to the most local level, including to local communities to manage substantial assets – and not just old buildings – would create an empowering state.

There is also unfinished business in our failure to create a wholly democratic legislature, especially in a world that is becoming increasingly democratised. There is a lack of coherence in the devolution of powers to subsidiary tiers of government, and what should be the final settlement for Scotland. We need to show what a progressive state should look like. Fixed-term parliaments could provide some certainty to voters and redress the balance of power between the executive and the citizen.

More controversially for Labour is the need to provide security at our borders and on our streets without increasing the micro-management of the public realm. Specifying an age limit for buying cans of spray-paint, for example, was a step too far. Criticism of New Labour’s perceived authoritarianism has restricted the political space for pragmatic policies such as identity cards.

The reason for the urgency is the realignment in our political parties. On the right, David Cameron and his Notting Hill set are pushing their policy agenda: economic hard-headedness to appeal to middle-income earners, social conservatism for their traditional and religious voters, and enough moral liberalism to attract their non-traditional voter. They lack core values to underpin their position, as seen by George Osborne’s decision to dump his public sector spending commitments.

However, it’s an attractive bandwagon, and sure enough the Liberal Democrats are jumping on it – even to the extent of Vince Cable jettisoning his tax commitments. The significance of the Liberal Democrat leadership election was that in choosing Nick Clegg, they went for the man who would take the party to the right, not the centre-left.

On the left, we will probably see some of the failures of a top-down statist approach in the SNP administration in Scotland, which is trying to take decisions centrally that should be left to local bodies – such as on car-parking charges. It will also show us what happens when a party pours money into populist polices such as scrapping prescription charges, at the cost of improving the services that will provide real health equality.

So there’s a yawning chasm which we on the centre-left need to fill. Failure to do so would be a hammer blow, not only to the future of progressive politics, but also to our government.”

Janet Anderson, Karen Buck, Patricia Hewitt, George Howarth, Eric Joyce, Sally Keeble, Stephen Ladyman, Martin Linton, Shona McIsaac, Margaret Moran, Tom Levitt, and Paddy Tipping

Comments

Posted by Ingrid Cranfield on 03 October 2008, 7:35:18 PM

One more thing may help in the fightback. Cameron talks constantly of mending our 'broken society'. I am sure many people must find this talk pessimistic, derogatory, indeed, downright insulting. Whether he does or does not (the evidence points to the latter) have any remedies for the perceived state of affairs, Labour can and should take the wind out of these sails by complimenting the British people, paying tribute to their strength and decency, applauding them for coping with difficult circumstances, including them as valued participants in the effort to improve things in the country, and generally making them feel good. Wouldn't you rather vote for someone who built you up than someone who tore you down?

Nope I will vote for the people who have the best policies, who help the unemployed after 6.000 jobs go with six major employers leaving the area. We need the sick and the disabled to be protected, not hammered into the group to pay for a profit margin for some American piss poor company. Will New Labour be the team to vote for well if the rumors about the housing green paper has anything to go by then sadly I will vote for nobody. I'm sick and tired of spin, I rather be called a shit face piece of scum, so long as I'm employed and living safely in my council house. Labours has failed in to make our lives better so I say give the Tories a chance