The fact is that we lost the election, and heavily. I don’t think it is right, as some senior figures in our party say, that we got all the policies right and that all we have to do is repackage the same New Labour brand to move from defeat to victory. I think we lost because, in truth, the brand as a whole has had its day. Great things were achieved and we must defend the enormous policy gains that were made, but we have to move on.
New Labour was absolutely right for its time. Arising from the pure unelectability of Labour in the early 1980s, utterly out of touch with the electorate, a Labour party, as Peter Mandelson puts it, which wished to avoid at all costs ‘compromising with the electorate.’ A professional, reforming party of the left-of-centre ground was required with discipline in the party machine and in policy. It secured three general election successes, a period of enviable prosperity and great social, constitutional and economic change.
But New Labour had its excesses too and sowed the seeds for failure after a long period of government. The politics of triangulation, typified fairly recently by the expensive hike in the threshold for paying inheritance tax in the first Darling pre-budget report, was draining of our party members’ enthusiasm to campaign and of trust more generally. This was because while it was apparently a shrewd tactical manoeuvre, we did not fundamentally believe in it, it did not ring true, and as a result people simply did not credit us with it. Counterintuitive policies were coupled with a lack of honesty about more socialist policies. Positive redistributive measures such as tax credits were not advertised or celebrated as trying to make society fairer or more equal and are, therefore, now more at risk because they were not sufficiently embedded. The same was true in relation to the Human Rights Act – we often gave the impression of embarrassed tolerance of its effects, rather than speaking up for its and our libertarian virtues. This is recognised by Ed who, of all the former members of the cabinet, has courageously spoken out most about the failings of the last Labour government.
If we are to encourage people once again to vote Labour we need to demonstrate a fresh start and set out a clear and straightforward vision of what a Labour future might hold. I believe that Ed Miliband is prepared and interested in doing those things. His vision of a more equal society is pegged in with practical policies such as the living wage and the High Pay Commission and, I believe, is in tune with our times. It will appeal to both the self-interested and the altruistic and the vast majority of us who are somewhere in between. Across the board he offers a new approach and a new policy outlook whether it is on a graduate tax instead of student fees, a return to Labour being the party of civil liberties, and more social and affordable housing.
By stating his aims of fairness and equality loud and clear, offering leadership instead of putting forward such policies by stealth, Ed offers a chance of leading the political centre ground permanently to the centre left as well as enthusing party and other activists, young and old, to campaign for success in an election against the coalition government whose stated progressive aims have already imploded in their first budget.
When considering how to vote I would invite you to ask yourself what will have changed about the party and its policy direction since the general election with each candidate for leader. If nothing of substance is the answer, I would urge you to move on to another candidate. No change of substance in the party or its policies will, in my view, lead us to be doomed to a similar election result as we have just suffered.
Ed Miliband offers both leadership and vision consistent with Labour values: the greatest hope for change to our party, success in the election and to a good society for all.
Photo: EdMiliband.org
To my mind Ed is the one that does ‘human’ the best and that is why I am supporting him. David Milliband is too geeky, too policy-nerdish and just doesnt have the common touch. Whatsmore he is linked very closely with the previous government to be creduble. At the likely election in 2014/2015 people wont want to be reminded of the previous government they want something new. Ed Milliband offers that
Apologies where necessary but the article above already demonstrates to me, as a former Labour voter who has now seen New Labour for the purveyors of injustice that they really are, that many in Labour simply haven’t learnt anything from the election defeat. Labour have been losing support for the past few years and the above article is so laden with the same vacuuous ‘saying everything without saying anything’ jargon and waffle that oozed from Gordon Brown’s speeches, that it just turns one off from Labour. ‘Positive redistributive measures’ – what a laugh. Paying universal benefits to parents with joint incomes of up to £48 000 per annum and yet somebody without children on Jobseekers allowance gets every five or ten pounds extra they earn in any one week immediately taken off them! Endless new indirect and regressive taxes, which take no account of ability to pay, introduced by Labour or increased by Labour: Council tax, abolition of MIRAS (remember that one ? How did that help low paid homeowners exactly Mr Brown ?!), Broadband tax, endless new parking charges (with no consequent improvement in public transport in many areas), endless hikes in fuel duties, huge rises in council taxes (in order to fund the massive increase in council bureaucracy and obscene salaries of council top brass plus the ever increasing tide of consultants and contractors charging exhorbitant fees), endless increases in consumer prices due to the passing on of increased Whitehall and EU regulation on business. How can Labour have the brass neck to talk about fairness when they refuse point blank to do anything about big business rip-offs: Extortionate gas and electricity prices – the refrain ‘the era of cheap energy is over’ is a joke – why were the utilities allowed to be privatised, and allowed to REMAIN privatised then ? Mrs Thatcher herself saif privatisation of the utilities would promote competition and see lower energy prices. We know what really happens – you get initial competition after privatisation as an industry is suddenly flooded with lots of new players but, like busses, railways, etc, after a few years all that has happened is that a state monopoly has become a private sector monopoly with only big business able to withstand the ever increasing tide of regulation and bureacracy. Sorry, but until Labour and it’s policy nerds and speech writers get away from their London-centric mentality, I for one, as a former Labour supporter who has not seen any increase in living standards, just low pay and endless new taxes, will not be voting Labour again.
@Cyril Did you actually read the article? Your comment seems more like a generic and badly informed anti-Labour rant.