I believe in certain unalterable truths about politics.

I believe that the fundamentals matter most, and that if you stick to the fundamentals in the end you win.

I believe that the nature of politics is fluid and to succeed you must constantly renew.

I believe in trusting the people and I believe they know best.

I believe that winning is not an impediment to idealism but is in fact its culmination.

I believe that our enemies are strong, professional and well organised, and that to defeat them we have to be stronger, more professional and better organised.

I believe that the politics of inclusion are better than the politics of division.

I believe in courage and determination, and never, ever giving up.

I believe that as long as we are fighting we are alive, and as long as we are alive, we can win.

And above all I believe in hope.

It is true that you can look at the bleakness of the political landscape that we face, we can feel hopeless. But you can as surely look at the same landscape feel a sense of hope and possibility. This is true now, and it was always true.

We can see the future and be trapped by it, or we can see the future and seek to change it.

We are progressives precisely because we choose hope over fear, optimism over pessimism, above all because we believe in change: that no moment in history is pre-ordained, no life course pre-determined, no outcome inevitable.

Change is always possible. Potential always realisable. Victory always conceivable.

I believe this as a matter of faith. It is why I am a progressive. And it is why I will fight this election as hard as any of the five that have preceded it. But I do not say this in a spirit of untempered idealism, of great dreams leading inevitably to glorious and unsullied defeat.

I may be a progressive because of my idealism, but I am moderniser because of my realism. I believe idealism without power is an indulgence, that power requires hard choices and not easy options, and that a failure to constantly renew leads inevitably to political death.

If the victory of our idealism is our cause, then it is our responsibility to pursue that cause with the greatest professionalism, the greatest determination, and the greatest discipline that we can find it within ourselves to muster.

In this world it is not the left that holds the power and the advantages but the right, and the price of continuing progressive power is eternal vigilance. We can never ever take our eye of the ball, and if we do we will pay the price.

The other night I stayed up to follow the Massachusetts election result and saw once again a progressive President struggling as the forces of reaction mount against. This in truth was not entirely or even mostly his fault. President Obama has done just about as well as any President could have in a difficult and challenging first year. But one year in, in Ted Kennedy’s seat, the right won and the left lost, something that should never ever have happened. I have suffered from cancer, and I know that there are many in the United States with little income, also suffering from cancer, desperate for health cover that is literally a matter of life or death. I have seen cancer patients, with partners so fearful and full of worry they could barely meet my eye. They wanted help not next year or next month but now. Fortunately those that I saw were getting care, but beyond them were tens of thousands who were not. At risk of death and suffering because the system was not in place that could help them.

That is why I believe not just in progressive policies but modernised progressive policies, which takes idealism seriously, but has the determination and strength to turn idealism into the electoral victory, that can form coalitions that can win power and sustain power, that supports policies that match values to modern circumstance, and that is always open to the world and to the future.

But my optimism today is not just general it is specific. It is about this country, this election, this opportunity.

In recent weeks I have done many focus groups in the UK and I agree that these are hard times for us. But they are not hopeless times.

It is true that the public is a negative and cynical mood.

Here is a very short exert from an account of a focus group I did recently:

‘They were all pretty low, pretty miserable, pretty pessimistic. They had lost faith in politics after the expenses scandal, and they don’t think that enough has been done to restore their trust. They felt insecure and unprotected in a world they could not control. Their overall mood was bleak.’

Of course you can look at this research and feel depressed and deflated. But I don’t, I see grounds for hope.

I see a country that wants to shift from old politics to new politics. That wants politicians who can once again be trusted, and who deserve their trust.

I see a country that wants to change from pessimism to optimism.

That wants to be patriotic but is unsure what of what a modern Britain is and what modern patriotism means.

I see a country that feels that the social contract that has held our nation together has been strained, and may be snapping, and wants this contract to be renewed and reconstructed with fairness and shared responsibility at its core.

That fears isolation and wants community.

That is anxious about global uncertainty and seeks security.

That is above all still rooted in its fundamentals to modern progressive values.

This is an election that wants change, but not change to the right. The electorate want progressive politics but they want them renewed.

What the public want is a new form of politics, a new conception of fairness, a new optimism, a new sense of national purpose, and a new contract between citizen and government. I am certain the Party that offers this future will win, and I equally certain that this is a future that only the Labour Party can offer.

This I believe is our opportunity. Of course it is not easy. We have been in power for 13 year, we are the establishment.

But the truth is that what the public want is not change from a progressive political project to a conservative one, but the renewal and regeneration of the progressive project started 15 or more years ago.

Of course it is hard for a progressive party in power for so long to renew itself, but it is harder still for a conservative party to meet the new challenges of a new decade.

The reason the Cameron project stalls in the polls is because he does not offer the change the people want, because it does not understand the change nation needs.

The reason Labour still has a chance in this election is that we do know the change that is needed, and we do have the means to deliver it. It is still modernised progressive politics that provides the best pathway forward for Britain.

This does not make victory easy but it makes it possible, but we must campaign in new ways:

We must fight as insurgents, not as incumbents.

We must offer hope rather than fear: be positive rather than negative.

We must be a coalition of movements not a centralised command and control campaign.

We must use the internet in completely new ways, transforming the nature of political communication.

We must own future, and expose Tory change as change that will take us backwards.

Above all we must keep fighting, because sooner or later the polls will have a moment of narrowing and that is our moment to strike. The Tories are not ready, they are not confident; they are not agreed on strategy; they are cautious when they should be bold.

I am now working for Labour with all the energy my health allows. I am not doing this for show, but in order to win. To stop the Tories gaining power.
This is not 1997 except in one respect. 13 years ago the only way forward for Britain was modernised progressive politics. In 2010 that remains the case. Of course the political landscape is different, and the project has changed. But if we remain committed to the power of renewal, the creation of a new national purpose, to the politics of inclusion and opportunity, and above all a commitment to the wisdom and values of the British people we can win again. It is the fundamentals that determine political success and it is on the fundamentals that we are right.

There is a business book by Jim Collins that ends with these words:
‘Failure is not so much a physical state as state of mind; success is falling, and getting up once more, without end’.

That is our obligation to our party. Never to give up, never to stop renewing. If we do this not only can we win, but we will deserve victory. It is easy to be pessimistic; it is hope that requires courage.

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