It’s hard to imagine now, but when the Queen last stood before parliament, it seemed all too easy to imagine that the Coalition would cast Labour into perpetual opposition; that David Cameron and Nick Clegg had succeeded where Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown had failed, that British politics had been realigned: and that Labour was on the losing side. While no one can realistically call the 2015 election, this much is clear: the coalition will not lead to a permanent Christian Democratic majority. A government that promised to transform Britain is now little better than a fractious, incompetent and scandal-ridden accountancy firm.

There will be a moment after the Queen’s Speech – which will do nothing to convince anyone that the government isn’t hopelessly, drastically adrift – when Labour will have an opportunity to showcase what it is for and what it would do. That is a moment that Labour has to use, not only to show that it is serious about reducing the deficit, but also that it has a mission beyond mere accountancy, even an era of spending restraint.

Corporate welfare was one of the last Labour government’s great sins. Long before a bank had been bailed out in anger, the last government handed out billons to make up for low-paying businesses. An alternative Queen’s Speech should abolish the tax credits system and introduce salary caps for businesses that don’t pay their employees a living wage. A company which can pay its CEO half a million a year can afford to pay its cleaners a living wage. The savings to the taxpayer could be passed on in the form of tax cuts for low and middle earners.

With limited funds, government has to find a way of placing the onus upon business itself to create a responsible capitalism. That means that companies that endanger lives in developing countries or cause massive environmental damage can’t just face reputational damage and piddling fines; senior executives must face the real possibility of jail time. If the worst a company faces for endangering workers in China is a few hours’ trending on Twitter and a comparatively small fine, corporate behaviour will never improve. Senior executives must be made criminally liable for the behaviour of the businesses they run, because Mitt Romney is right: corporations are people.

Labour should also take real strides to enforce existing laws, from the unregulated metal trade – which means that some of Britain’s greatest treasures can be stolen, melted down and sold with no hope that the perpetrators will ever be caught and brought to justice, to the ongoing scandal of unpaid internships – nothing short of slavery – to the non-existent conviction rate for female genital mutilation. These don’t even require significant legislation; they simply require an activist central government willing to use targets and the machinery of government effectively.

Labour should also show a willingness to engage in an intelligent manner with the private sector, by encouraging the development of credit unions and micro-lenders while at the same time regulating the high-interest loan companies that trap low earners in a cycle of dependency and debt. But Labour mustn’t go from corporate welfare to corporate warfare; Labour should recognise that, just as there can be no deficit reduction without growth, there can be no growth without a banking sector that feels able to lend. Breaking up the banks is a great leaflet but a terrible and unworkable policy.

The next Labour government will face a harder task than any of those that preceded it; revenues will be shrinking, and it will be harder and harder to build a social democratic Britain. An Alternative Queen’s Speech must show that there are ways to build a new Jerusalem without a free-spending state bankrolling the enterprise.

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Stephen Bush is a member of Progress, works as a journalist, and writes at adangerousnotion.wordpress.com

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Photo: UK Parliament