Shadow culture secretary and one of the authors in The Purple Book, Ivan Lewis MP tells the Progress Rally at Labour party conference, there are two coalitions that unite with the right and we must fight them both.
I want to begin by paying a warm tribute to Robert Philpot and Richard Angell for putting Progress at the cutting edge of the debate about the future of our party.
I also want to make it clear that the flyers advertising tomorrow nights phone hacking fringe which state Hugh Grant will be appearing alongside Ivan Lewis are not spoofs and if you want to come and hear me speak you’ll be very welcome!
I attended my first conference 22 years ago not as a special adviser but a steward! There wasn’t much security in those days. I was just told to look out for dodgy delegates. I can assure you that filled my day!
Tonight I want to talk a bit about our record, the centreground of politics and my purple book chapter in the context of the future.
There are two coalitions at the moment. One which runs the country and one which unites the right with some in our own party in seeking to rewrite history about our record in government. They would have you believe we were a bad government. Well I want to challenge that head on simply through the narrow prism of the ministerial roles I held over nine years, through some of the human stories.
Tell the guy in his mid 20s in a skilled job because we rebuild the apprenticeship system, we were a bad government.
Tell the woman in her 60s who no longer has to hide the fact that she couldnt read from her husband and Kids because in her mid 50s she learned to read through our adult basic skills programme and now reads to her grandchildren that we were a bad government.
Tell the disabled adult who now organises his care and support for himself via a personal budget that we didn’t make a difference.
Tell the wife struggling to cope with the agony of her husbands dementia but is receiving good support from health and social care professionals that the fact we brought dementia out of the shadows hasn’t made things better.
Tell the pregnant mum about to give birth in the maternity clinic in Freetown, Sierra Leone certain she will get the right care rather than face a strong possibility of losing her newborn child or worse still dying in childbirth that having a Labour government in Britain didn’t make a difference.
We should be candid with the British people about where we got it wrong. I was one of the first first ministers to raise alarm bells that we were heading in the wrong direction. And Since the election I have been blunt, too blunt for some in playing back how many of those who left us at the election felt about us. But as Ed Miliband says we have to strike the right balance between humility and reminding people of how a Labour government transformed hundreds of thousands of lives for the better in our country. If we don’t believe that why should anyone else.
Enough about the past, politics of course is primarily about the future.
Firstly, we should be clear we can only win from the centre ground and need to find a way of rebuilding that coalition which served us so well of traditional Labour voters who instinctly identify with us but may have left us either to abstention or protest vote and the more mobile voters who ‘shop’ around and are focused mainly on getting on socially and economically. Seeking to make a false choice between these groups of voters would be folly. And I think Ed’s focus on fairness and responsibility will reasonate with both.
But those of us who believe passionately that we must always remain firmly in the centreground of politics have in my view made 2 mistakes in the past. We need to be honest with each other.
Firstly, we have too often given the impression that our only concern is the aspirational, swing voter and our politics are calculating and managerial. Secondly, we have allowed a dangerous myth to be perpetuated that the only people in our party with ideals and values who truly believe in more equality are to the left of Progress.
Its time we dispelled that myth which is why the purple book is so important. Redistributing power from the state to communities and individuals is every bit as important as redistributing income. In government had we have done more to combine the good aspects of the big society with our active state we would have not simply improved Britain but transformed Britain. The reality of Camerons big society is that as an antidote to a withered state it is destined to fail and be a lightning rod for public scepticism about the government’s motives. However, we must not allow this to give succour to those in our party who favour a paternalistic state. In the 21st century the redistribution of power from the state to local communities and citizens should be central to labours mission for a more equal Britain.
In my purple book chapter I make the point people are more insecure than ever before not just economically but culturally. The global market, mass migration, terrorist threat, climate change, advances in science,technology and communications, intergenerational aspiration, an ageing society are all impacting on people directly or in their anxieties about their families, communities and country.
They want reassurance, stability and security and a sense they can have some control over their own lives. That’s why blue Labour are on to something when they talk about family, flag and faith. Providing they also acknowledge that globalisation brings some good change as well as bad and there are some views propogated by certain groups under these banners which are an anathema to Labour values.
New Labour’s modernising zeal was good for the country and good for the party. Being most associated with change and the future helped to win three elections. but sometimes we weren’t sensitive enough to the need to support people through change and to understanding that many people on low and middle incomes felt left behind with a sense of injustice fuelled by a range of factors the benefits and immigration system, irresponsible bankers and MPs expenses. Some felt Labour had become a new metropolitan elite establishment disconnected from their daily pressures, grievances and fears.
In this context thinking about what we need to do going forward. People want clear rules which are fair and enforced based on a new rights and responsibility covenant between state and citizen where there is a greater correlation and transparency between what you put in and what you get out.
People feel passionately about human rights and civil liberties but the vast majority of people also want protecting from anti social behaviour, crime and radical extremism; they want to know immigration will be controlled and to be told the truth about what government can and can’t do.
They want to express and celebrate personal, family, local and national identity and heritage.
They should have much greater involvement and control over unique british public institutions like the NHS and BBC.
In my view if alongside economic credibility we can address peoples concerns about Labour’s instincts on these issues we have a great opportunity to offer ourselves as the only authentic one nation party. The Tories will continue to lose support in the north of England, Scotland and Wales. Despite the SNPs recent political success and the need for Labour to learn lessons most Scots don’t want independence. These cultural issues are important everywhere but most acutely in the parts of England where we were wiped out at last election.
Let Progress lead the debate about the future with passion and idealism so we renew our party and return to the only place we can give expression to our values, government.
Oh dear, Ivan! You started so well when you said you wanted to challenge the belief held by the Right and some of our own members (a reference to Ed Miliband?) that Labour was a bad government. Your examples of good Labour governance, while all true, only fall into the second and third tiers of important achievements. You could (and should) have listed some of the major improvements Blair and Brown governments made to the country’s health, education, social justice and welfare, crime reduction, national debt reduction etc. etc. etc. etc.
Sadly, after a reasonably promising start, the tone of your article plummeted. This argument for redistributing power from the centre to the individual strikes me as being sterile and irrelevent. It will always be associated with the Tory term “big society” which is yet another con trick to fool the electorate into believing they want a more equitable society for all (“we’re in it together”) whereas, in reality, it is an opportunity to transfer power (and money from the public purse) into the hands of right-wing vested interests and groups. Take the example of ‘Free Schools’. They are presented as a way of transferring control from state to parents but it actually means taking public money from state schools and giving it to, predominantly, right-wing, middle class, pushy parents who are arrogant enough to think they are better than the professionals. It is a cute way for Gove to ‘privatise’ schools with public money (watch as the number of presently private schools request ‘free school’ status). And by the way, why has there not been a hue and cry from any of our front bench on this and a pledge to reverse the policy? Indeed, why is Ed so keen to attack Brown and Blair, don sackcloth and ashes and entertain the media and Tories with oft-repeated self-flagellations but so reticent at listing past Labour achievements?
What Labour should be arguing is for more accountability and transparency of council leaders and representatives. The success of Labour at Westminster is dependent on its grass root support.
Finally, I find it both amusing and concerning that you seem to little notion of why Labour repeatedly lost voters at General elections. The truth is, despite successful policies, a combination of persistent negative press (invariably distorted or lies), effective PR campaigns from Cameron and Clegg (supported by the media) and woefully weak front bench and PLP advocacy led voters to believe (unjustly) that Labour were failing them. The 2010 defeat was not about failure of policy but failure of propaganda – the inability to correctly apportion blame for the global economic crisis.
One crumb of comfort for you, Ivan. I fully endorse your call for the BBC to more controlled by the citizen (unlike Ben Bradshaw who in early 2010-he was then CMS-thought the BBC was the best thing since sliced bread-“I would willingly pay the annual licence fee just for Radio 4”). As a Labour supporter I am angered by the endemic anti-Labour philosophy that pervades all levels of this publically funded organisation. I am sick and tired of the bigoted rantings of scum like Paxman, Wark and Dimbleby or the plethora of news presenters who are instructed to constantly harass, interrupt and criticise Labour politicians (who regrettably lack the necessary skills to neutralize the attacks) but are ‘soft’ with Tories and Lib-Dems. For that reason (and many others) the BBC needs a complete root and branch examination and re-alignment – which should have been done by Labour.