Just days into her new job as housing minister Caroline Flint underlined her reputation for tough talking when she asked whether unemployed social housing residents should be expected to seek work as a condition of their tenancy. Six months on, the minister for housing is equally bullish as she rebuffs those who seem to think Labour will inevitably lose at the next general election: ‘It is just not acceptable to think like that. If we get into that mindset, what are we as a major political party?’

Flint accepts that ‘times are tough now’ but cautions those who think that a spell of time in opposition will rejuvenate the party: ‘I joined the Labour party in 1979 at 17, I spent the first 18 years of my [political] life in opposition. I know what it’s like, as do many other Labour members and Labour voters out there.’

And she pays short shrift to those who say the answer is to ditch New Labour and go back to being ‘real Labour’ again: ‘Reaching for that particular comfort blanket right now would be a disaster.’ Flint warns: ‘We won three elections with a coalition which included our traditional Labour supporters combined with aspirational middle Britain. We have to rebuild that coalition and we can. That means winning back the faith of traditional Labour voters, recognising there is still more to do to spread prosperity and aspiration, as well as responding to the concerns of the middle classes in our marginal seats.’

Flint is equally dismissive of the notion that a more ‘leftwing’ government would be a more effective one: ‘The alternative to a Labour government is a Tory government and everything the Tories talk about. So when the Tories talk about how unfair it is that in some parts of the country we spend more on health per head than they do in more prosperous areas, it is because they don’t recognise health inequalities or need.’

‘Compassionate Conservatism’ is merely a veneer, argues Flint. In power the Tories will revert back to a strategy which will ‘play to those richer areas and what they perceive as being their right’ and ‘ignore need’. Flint slams the media for currently giving the Conservatives a ‘free ride’, but admits that Labour should be working harder to expose the Tories’ ‘complete policy vacuum’.

The housing minister is no less compromising in her view of why Labour lost in Glasgow East: ‘I’m afraid we should have done more to make sure we connected with our electorate.’ Citing the continual campaigning and voter ID in her own constituency, Flint suggests that Labour needs to work far harder on the ground to get voters’ support. ‘When the times are tough – and times do get tough – it’s about whether or not you’ve built some resilience in.’ MPs can no longer ‘assume things will just carry on as ever’ in the ‘old comfort zone’ of ‘safe Labour seats’, Flint continues.

Flint is optimistic, however, that Labour can turns things around: ‘If we handle this right I think people will look around and say “they were really cheesing us off that government … but actually, when it came to it, they were steady, they were focused, they did some things that made a difference and we’ve come through this”.’ But the minister concedes that Labour must bolster its narrative and ‘pull together some of the strands of what we’re doing. Partly because of the situation we’ve faced over the last six months with the economy, it does sometimes feel we’re being buffeted by events.’

This doesn’t mean, however, that Labour should abandon its original message: ‘Life has changed, the world has changed, but in terms of the values we got elected on in 1997 – which was about economic competence … coupled with tackling inequality and supporting social justice – those twin messages are as important in terms of what they were in ‘97 as they are today.’

So did the recent National Policy Forum help to move Labour’s fortunes forward? ‘When you hear there’s 5,000 amendments in and we’ve honed it down to 3,500 for the weekend it’s quite a tough situation. Having said that, despite the fear of the amendments, we did get through it and I think out of it we got some clarity on certain policies.’ She is pleased, for instance, that on welfare reform, ‘there was an acceptance that we need to ask more of some people and for other people we needed to give more support.’

But was not the whole weekend dominated by union demands? The former GMB political officer laughs: ‘I’ve had my fill of the smoke-filled rooms and staying up all night going line by line through resolutions and I have to say, because the unions had a full staff behind them, they were always in a better position than our dear colleagues in the CLPs.’ Nonetheless, Flint believes that, ‘we need debate and it needs to be healthy but what we have to recognise – and what a lot of trade union representatives do recognise – is that we’re also having to balance a whole number of competing priorities in the government.’ There was, she suggests, discussion on some issues such as secondary action, which ‘it’s not in the interests of the trade union movement, let alone in the interests of the country, to go back to.’

But Flint is clearly pleased about the outcome of this year’s NPF conclusions in her own area of housing: ‘I think we’re in a new era …we can stop arguing about the fact that it’s not fair to move to an arms length management organisation and accept there should be some flexibility for those authorities that are proving they can do the job and do it well.’

And now, looking back on that debate she sparked when she’d just arrived in the job, how does the housing minister feel about the reaction to her call for greater conditions on social housing? ‘Part of being a minister and politician is being brave enough to actually confront some issues that are rather uncomfortable sometimes.’ Flint reiterates her concern that ‘a third of houses or flats given through social landlords had gone to young people under 25 of whom 80 per cent were out of work … we’re basically handing the keys to, in some cases, a newly-built flat or home and that’s the end of the story. I wouldn’t accept that for my own children and I wouldn’t want to accept it for anybody else’s children.’

But the minister also seeks to reassure those who have real housing need that they will not be disregarded. At the same time, however, she suggests that the present system is ‘like a race to the bottom’. Despite the best of intentions, the current system rewards the family or individual who can ‘present themselves as practically on the verge of collapse,’ rather than ‘someone who is in housing need and is finding it difficult to combine work with paying market rents.’ Flint continues: ‘Personally, I find that demeaning and a dysfunctional system because … there will be people who can play the game in order to get what they want – and we have created that system, we’ve forced people to play in that way.’

Casting her thoughts to this month’s party conference, Flint concludes with a couple of words of advice for colleagues and members: ‘We have everything to fight for here, fighting for what we’ve achieved but fighting for what more we can do in the future.’

More exclusive extracts from Caroline Flint’s interview:

“Part of being a minister and politician is being brave enough to actually confront some issues that are rather uncomfortable sometimes. I had lots of people write to me and say ‘this is terrible what you’ve said’, I had a bit of discussion in my own constituency, and that’s all healthy as far as I can see.

But when I was sharing with people some of the data I’d received – which was something like that in the previous year a third of houses or flats given through social landlords had gone to young people under 25, of whom 80 per cent were out of work – with the best will in the world, we’re basically handing the keys to, in some cases, a newly-built flat or home and that’s the end of the story. What we also know is that, unfortunately for those young people – some as young as 19 and younger in some cases – they carry on being unemployed. I’m celebrating my 30th year in the Labour party next year and that’s not good enough for me. I wouldn’t accept that for my own children and I wouldn’t want to accept it for anybody else’s children.”

“It’s not to disregard those who have real housing need but, as one of my Labour colleagues in local government described it, the present system is like a race to the bottom. Unfortunately, whatever the best intentions, we have a system where it seems that the family or the individual that can present themselves as practically on the verge of collapse are more likely to get a home than someone who is in housing need and is finding it difficult to combine work with paying market rents – but they haven’t really got much of a chance unless they present themselves with doctors’ certificates and other things to indicate they just can’t cope.

Personally I find that demeaning and a dysfunctional system because there will be people who can play the game in order to get what they want – and we have created that system, we’ve forced people to play in that way.”