Introverted or open-minded - the centre-left can be categorised in various ways. Just one of these is the contrast between those who embrace the international perspective and those who prioritise domestic experiences. Those of us in the former group expend a great deal of energy encouraging politicians and policy-makers to broaden their horizons. Yet while we try to dissuade an insular view of policy matters, we should equally guard against looking internationally for easy answers.
At the Progressive Governance conference hosted in London in July 2003, former president Bill Clinton warned that the ‘burden of progressive politics is that we have to treat every single year in politics as if it were our first’. Our past record, he claimed, was only of interest as an indication of what we will do in the future: we cannot simply hope to thrive or survive on our past record. This burden is what Par Nuder, the Swedish minister for policy co-ordination, prefers to call the incumbency/insurgency dilemma. Incumbent governments have a tendency to become the defenders of the status quo, rather than insurgents who seek to renew the attack on inequalities afresh in each new term of office.
The insurgency/incumbency dilemma is primarily of importance to progressives, because we purport to be the change makers. It is our job to convince people that the status quo can be improved upon, that politics can make a difference. So, six-and-half years into office, the question for New Labour is: where can this inspiration for regeneration come from?
Some would suggest Sweden, where the Social Democrats have governed for 63 years out of the last 72. It is, however, questionable to what extent it is possible for New Labour to draw any lessons from Sweden. If social democracy exists anywhere, then it is in Sweden, a country in which the civic traditions and political culture differ quite significantly from our own.
Canada and Australia, countries that on the surface seem to share much more in common with Britain, have also been proposed as possible examples from which New Labour can learn.
The Canadian premier, Jean Chretien, retires in 2004 after ten years in office. But Chretien and Blair already share much in common: both are charismatic leaders of the people, and both have cultivated the image of the pragmatic individual who has overcome dogmatic opponents - both within and outside of the party.
In Australia, the success of the Labour party’s extensive term of office was in part secured by a switch from the incumbent prime minister Robert Hawke to the then minister of finance Paul Keating in December 1991. After a downturn in the economy (and their working relationship) Keating pushed for a leadership contest - claiming a private agreement about transfer of power between the two men. For those in Britain, this story will have a familiar ring to it.
Unfortunately, it proved of limited success - John Howard’s Conservative party replaced this modernising government, and has since dominated Australian politics. Howard’s policy mix of sound economic management and active policies on crime and asylum is not that dissimilar to New Labour’s, although clear dividing lines can be drawn in social policy and on public services.
It is perhaps not surprising that the lessons New Labour can learn from abroad are rather limited - the British Labour party is after all in the avant garde of modernising social democrats. Rather, it may prove more instructive to assess the reasons that hitherto successful socialist or centre-left governments have fallen from power, and seek to ensure that similar mistakes are not made in Britain.
An analysis of the electoral failure of European left and centre-left governments in recent years illustrates that there have been two primary strategic failings.
First, incumbent parties that have been thrown out of office have generally failed to promote a politics based on values, one that links a clear programme of policy reform to a larger, grander vision of the good society. The importance of a politics driven by values is it prevents progressives from being seen as simple technocratic managers while simultaneously drawing a dividing line between a centre-left and a centre-right or rightwing politics.
One of the major failings of the French Socialist party in the presidential and legislative elections of 2002 was that they felt their economic record spoke for itself (they had created over one million jobs in five years, the best performance of any French government in the postwar period). Had they heeded Clinton’s warning, then the Socialist party may have sought to stress the relevance of this previous success to the future prosperity of France.
Unfortunately, it was not merely on the economic front that policies were simply thought to speak for themselves. Across the board policies were presented in a piecemeal fashion without any indication of how they fitted into future vision of French society. As Pierre Moscovici (former minister for Europe) has argued, the result was that the Socialist party appeared aged and introverted.
In the 2001 elections, however, New Labour successfully managed to promote a politics based on values - investment and reform in public services versus tax cuts. Not only did this draw a clear line between us and the Tories, it also presented a vision of a better Britain. It is here that the second lesson from the continent becomes important, namely the boldness of reform. If New Labour is to deliver on the reform of public services it must continue to be bold in the reforms it proposes.
In the Netherlands, as Dick Benschop (former minister for Europe) has argued, the failure of the Dutch Labour party to address the need for institutional reform and to identify new ways of fighting bureaucracy, of delivering greater choice and of empowering local communities left them out of touch with voters. While the choices these policies entail are necessarily tough, as Wouter Bos (the new PvdA leader) has shown, when you take these arguments into the streets, or engage people in town hall discussions, the strength of progressive visions and policies win through. In February 2003, only nine months after their disastrous electoral defeat, the Dutch Labour party regained 22 of the 24 seats it lost.
The lesson for New Labour, then, appears simple - be bold in promoting a politics driven by values. However, as Clinton warned, we will not be re-elected simply by delivering on our promise to reform public services, although we will certainly not be thanked if we do not. Come the next election, it will be essential to draw a new dividing line between us and our opponents.
The strength of the Prime Minister’s Big Conversation launched in late November is that, in engaging with and consulting the public, New Labour is much less likely to be out of touch with the concerns and hopes of the British people. A dialogue with our contemporaries in Europe and beyond shows countless examples of the shared nature of new challenges in the 21st century - in global governance, public service reform, democratic renewal, economic reform and social justice. But to ensure renewal we must go beyond simple and populistic European answers - we need to learn from the successes and failures of contemporary social democratic parties, in and out of power.