Looking back to 1997, it is difficult to remember what it felt like to be standing on the verge of that General Election. Four electoral defeats and eighteen years wandering the political wilderness still haunted us, hanging over every decision we took. The result was that we cautiously promised relatively little. Nothing was left to chance. No pledge was made that hadn’t been checked in triplicate. Consequently, it is difficult to know whether our victory was a positive endorsement of Labour, or simply a vote against the Tories. That lack of confidence spilled over into our first months in office. It was manifested most clearly in a decision to stick to Tory spending limits – plans which even Kenneth Clarke now admits the Conservatives would never have stuck to.
Despite this, our achievements in office are considerable. The record on which we fight this election bears little resemblance to the timid manifesto on which we stood at the last. A million more people in work thanks to the success of the New Deal; a minimum wage now set to top £4 an hour; a 10p starting rate of tax; huge additional investments in our schools and hospitals; pensions for those in most need set to rise by more than if the link with earnings had been restored; a £200 winter fuel payment and, most importantly, economic success of the kind the Tories could have only dreamed.
But no government can stand still, asking for thanks for its past record, and expecting the voters’ support. In the 1980s the Conservatives were kept in power, for a large part, by a constant flow of fresh ideas – however destructive and divisive to the country – which served to renew and revitalise their appeal at key junctures. Neither the popularity of an individual leader nor competent managerialism can sustain a government in the same way as a radical, imaginative agenda. We need to use the election to join the dots of individual policies and paint a big picture, bringing together all our past achievements and future aspirations.
Over the past year, Progress has been visiting constituencies, holding focus groups and listening to party members. It has been clear from these that, however proud members are of the considerable achievements of our first term, they want and expect the second to be marked by more radical, progressive ideas and policies. The manifesto must meet that expectation.
There is another reason why the party’s election platform must reflect members’ views. The manifesto is crunch time for the party’s new policy-making processes. Party members have participated in the process in large numbers; now they have to see that there is a direct connection between that involvement and the programme which Labour asks the voters to support. If members cannot see that link they will, quite justifiably, feel Partnership in Power to have been a fraud.
We could, like in 1997, opt for the cautious approach, offering a bland manifesto which is big on mood music, but short on clear radical commitments. We could offer a document of achievements, not vision. A list of market-tested micro-pledges, stripped of any commitment to eliminate poverty, create the best public services in the world, and fight for real social justice, would, no doubt, see us re-elected. And there is, of course, no reason why we should not seek to appeal to a broad base of voters, but we must not stoop to the lowest common denominator in order to do so.
The Prime Minister has promised a second term more radical than the first. But that requires a mandate. It is no good waiting until the day after polling day to unveil that radicalism to the public. Making clear our intentions before the election is the only way to overcome those roadblocks – like Labour’s fairweather friends in the press and those elderly reactionaries who still litter the House of Lords – which will seek to block our path.
Our first four years in power have seen considerable achievements. But they have also served a wider purpose. Labour has proved, once and for all, that it can run the economy and run the country – that it has a head as well as a heart. Now we face a choice. To rest on that trust, or build on it. Let’s now seek a mandate for a radical second term; one that will really see Britain transformed to face the 21st century. And one of which the Labour movement’s founding fathers would be proud.