A hugely impressive start to #ppw2012. Lord Mandelson and new Progress chair, Lord Adonis addressed the loyally assembled. It made for a perfect opening chapter to this year’s progressive pause in Labour’s political calendar. My charge was to review the second chapter …

Liam Byrne arrived late – timekeeping being one of the soft skills employers are telling him matter, as part of his policy review. He made up for his train delay with a typically swift and combative summary of why he is angry. He told us how angry the public are. If only they were, it was later pointed out. This Tory-led government is dismantling the Labour government’s record. The unity in our party ranks appears strong he offered, saying our defence of our own
record in government is also good.

It’s the public’s assessment of our record in government we aren’t addressing in indulging the above assessment out of context. Let’s concern ourselves with this a little bit more. The hiatus and navel-gazing of our leadership election after the 2010 defeat lost us so much ground on this whole debate, possibly never to be recovered.

Liam reminded us: Labour is founded on the value and dignity of work. It must remain at our core he asserted. Certainly, we believe we are our brother and sister’s keeper. And that the fortunate have an obligation to put something back, with blessings shared.

Byrne summoned Clem Attlee’s motivation to join the Labour movement. This followed the great man’s observations in the East End and a view that only Labour understood charitable policy was a virtue to be both preached and practised. Back to reality, our shadow minister outlined the disastrous and reckless record the Tories are overseeing on unemployment which continues to rise and cost so much to so many. He offered a deliberate insight as to where his department is settling its view. Labour’s intrinsic position on welfare combines industrial policy with a plan for growth and skills policies. Joined up! Finally.

The party’s pragmatic sense and values believe, he continued, that our country succeeds when our people succeed. Starkly, we cannot assume the Left can win, if it ever has, by default. Liam supported his statement – the left have lost 23 of the 25 elections since the fall of Lehman brothers and the global economic storm.

So, how can we address some of this; responding more directly to the title of the session, he stated the new centre ground is where Labour always wins. We must confront the electoral reality that this is not in the same place as it was in 1997.And demanded we move into the centre ground and call it our home. Again.

An accepted view across our party, as with all those gathered here today, is that our party’s recovery on the economy is the biggest and hardest challenge facing us in the eyes of the public. As with Rachel Reeves’ recent call to rediscover our fiscal credibility as a party, the DWP Shadow Secretary told us we have to accept that the debt level needs to come down if ever again we wish to execute flexible Keynesian policies in government.

Where we differ from the Tories and Osborne’s plan for the deficit is we understand it comes down best most if we get people back into jobs. Osborne has not been demonstrating a care or understanding of this, borrowing more to cover cost of unemployment since his tenure began.

Recognising the need for Labour to matter in both good and bad times; Byrne outlined three points to help reposition us on the centre ground.

Labour needs to arrive at a new and different industrial plan for the country and a modern welfare state. This one needs to complement a new and modern industrial policy. A policy that understands service and manufacturing sectors are now often combined. This was an astute observation though no further plan as to what sectors would enable this best or how new growth will be achieved.

Identifying need to skill and re-skill our people finally accepts that most current and all future generation’s experience of the world of work is one with a high volume and range of jobs is expected as standard throughout a career.

This sounds promising and we were promised more. In the first mention of the day and some time waiting, Liam informed us that Ed Miliband has asked for short sharp reports on the issues that matter across all shadow departments. We can expect these barbs to become richer, wider and more defined policies in the coming months and year. A welcome conclusion before handing over to our next contributor.

Patrick Diamond from the Policy Network provided a sudden and speedy tag and drag tour through the state of our defeat in 2010. Claiming, not unfairly, that our defeat has not been discussed in enough candour so as to move on with benefits of doing so. No starker statistic used is that in the South East, Labour’s support stood at 16% and across a range of demographies and income levels we haemorrhaged votes.

Chiming with the general thrust we’ve all signed up to address, Diamond underlined the seriousness of the economic credibility issue facing Labour and still under review by the electorate. This is the central issue for voters today in an economy where living standards have not improved or are expected to. Once we are in 2015, this will have been so for fifteen years.

This assessment, with the Bank of England Governor’s own review of the profound and crippling squeeze on household income surely presents Labour with the challenge and chance to make the next general election to be a fight on the standard of living. The government’s standards and record, or ours.