Politics isn’t about spin: it is a battle of ideas. No amount of presentation will disguise an absence of ideas – just look at
the Tories. That’s why it’s so important that the Labour party leaves no policy pamphlet unopened to make sure
our policy agenda remains radical.
In July, the Progressive Governance conference will take place in London to discuss the next steps for centre-left politics in the coming decade. This will be a vital opportunity to learn from the successes of our sister parties – and to draw the lessons
of some of the electoral setbacks of the last couple of years.
Last month around 100 academics, politicians and advisers took part in a preparatory meeting to discuss some of the emerging conclusions that will feature at the July conference. The discussion was energetic and fascinating. Whether it was a Brazilian perspective on world trade, or a Dutch view of racial integration, there were lessons to be learned for Britain. The detailed policy ideas will be worked on in the run-up to the July conference. But three points were clear.
First, modernisation doesn’t end. New Labour was founded on the mantra of pursuing our traditional values, but for the modern world. In the 1980s, we became stuck defending policies that were ground-breaking for the 1950s and 1960s, but had become the wrong solution to the wrong problem.
We must not allow ourselves to make that mistake again. It is easy for incumbent governments to become focused on running departments, and defending existing policies. It is much more difficult to continue to be radical. But the lesson from electoral defeats in France and Holland is that we must continue to modernise – otherwise the electorate will not believe that we are listening to them and representing them.
Second, the left in Britain has a radical agenda. In our first term, people were worried that the parties had converged, that we were trying to do the same thing as the Tories. That was wrong then – but it was understandable.
Previous Labour governments had fallen because our supporters thought we had failed to live up to our promises – we had campaigned on manifestos that we didn’t intend to implement, and laid ourselves open to charges of betrayal. One of the brilliant insights of the 1997 election was to have a manifesto that could be delivered – line by line. It was radical in many parts – but the overall promise was of incremental change.
All that has changed. The more this government goes on, the more radical it becomes. We can lose sight of that fact as it gets mired in the daily battles of domestic politics. But talking to politicians from overseas shows the boldness of our own goals – whether aiming to end child poverty, or being the only government putting up taxes to increase spending on health and education.
Third, we must make sure we use all the tools in the policy toolbox.We were wrong in the 1980s to allow ourselves to be painted as ideologically opposed to markets, choice and diversity of provision in the public sector. Markets do have all sorts of weaknesses – but so do other forms of public provision. And they both have strengths.
The key is to choose the right policy tool for each particular goal – sometimes markets will be right, sometimes they won’t. It’s not an ideological choice – it’s a pragmatic one.
In other words, there is a convergence between the parties over means – but an increasing divergence over goals. We are heading in different directions, but we will sometimes use tools that people used to think rightwing. We should not be embarrassed about that. What matters is the outcome – improving better public services, reforming the welfare state and building a more equal society.