Conference, like Christmas, comes but once a year. And while some greet its approach with all the excitement of a kid on Christmas Eve, others prefer to hide under the duvet.
Although this year’s Labour conference could not compete with the festive fun of the annual Tory leadership contest in Blackpool, there was, however, still plenty to get out of bed for. Two themes dominated the talk on the conference fringe in Brighton. The first was a debate over the meaning and interpretation of this year’s election result. The second related theme was how Labour could renew itself in its third term in office in preparation for winning a fourth.
Both themes were touched on at the Progress rally, reviving progressive politics, on the opening night of the conference. In a rousing, if lengthy, speech, the defence secretary, John Reid, called on the party not to abandon those New Labour principles that had kept it in government for the past eight years. ‘The question of change is the task of our age,’ he insisted, and it was up to the party to either accept the changed nature of British society, or go back to fighting lost battles.
His sentiments were echoed by Alan Milburn, Progress’ honorary president, who advocated the development of a ‘new New Labour agenda’ in the party’s third term in government. Stephen Twigg, Progress’ newly appointed chair, agreed that the party must ‘learn the lessons of New Labour’. However, he also believed there were real dangers in a generation of young people switched off from politics. He suggested Labour should emphasise its ‘progressive values’ to win back disaffected voters, while continuing ‘to occupy the centre ground’.
Other speakers contributing to this lively and well-attended event were the Europe minister, Douglas Alexander; health secretary Patricia Hewitt; Tessa Jowell, the culture, media and sport secretary; former Progress chair David Lammy; European commissioner Peter Mandelson; and the minister for communities, David Miliband.
The question of Labour’s disaffected supporters was picked up in the Guardian debate, ‘Winning back the missing voters’. Patricia Hewitt identified a central paradox behind current levels of political disengagement: while the public seemed put off by the big ‘P’ politics of Westminster, they were becoming more and more involved in the small ‘p’ politics of local and single issue groups. The task for the Labour party, therefore, is to reconnect with the people involved in small ‘p’ politics, through more innovative approaches to policymaking and party membership.
David Blunkett, the work and pensions secretary, echoed Hewitt’s diagnosis of Britain’s political malaise, adding that too often the government’s achievements were not acknowledged by the general public. ‘The government need to inspire more,’ he insisted, and avoid an over-emphasis on the minutiae of policymaking. By contrast, Douglas Alexander suggested the Labour party could look to how the American Republicans had built a broad-based political coalition in society. ‘Theirs is a coalition of vested interests and nasty people,’ the work and pensions secretary retorted.
Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee was amongst the speakers at a Progress fringe on a similar theme: ‘How does Labour win back the progressive vote?’ Toynbee made a powerful case for reform of the voting system, suggesting that proportional representation was the only guarantee that Britain would never go back to Thatcherism. However, Douglas Alexander warned against viewing PR as a panacea to the problems of political disengagement, and insisted that the government needed to reconnect with people’s ‘hearts and minds’ in its third term.
Meanwhile, Stephen Byers warned against a return to ‘business as usual’ for the government, while Northern Ireland secretary Peter Hain worried about the threat of the Lib Dems at the next election, saying that Labour had to ‘expose their rightward drift’.
Clearly, conference isn’t everyone’s cause for a celebration. Bah Humbug!