I have a dilemma. Tasked with reviewing the first session of today’s Progress Annual Conference 2012 titled ‘Is there a new centre-ground? – how does Labour win it?’, I instinctively falter.
The reason? Other than a long week and the usual writer’s search for a worthy-enough ‘hook’, Ed Miliband’s timely speech later in the conference echoes through my mind. The well-chosen points resound – that politics is increasingly a minority activity, that the same people can’t knock on the same doors if people who are disengaged from politics are to see its relevance, that organising counts and that increasing the number of people involved is central. The message has to get out there – that the Labour party is changing and that, community by community, it is going to win back the right to being seen as ‘one of us’ rather than ‘one of them’. Hooray, I couldn’t agree more. And yet I am about to write sentences that include words like ‘centre-ground’, ‘universalism’ and ‘civic inventiveness’. Oh yes, and ‘penguin’. Somehow it vaguely slaps of hypocrisy.
Knocking on hundreds of doors sharpens us and you could feel the sharpening influence of recent elections permeating the room today at Progress’ conference. The perfect filter for essential strategic and policy discussions. We won’t win if we don’t have a strategy and we won’t win if we don’t have attractive action plans for change. But neither will be win if we stray too far from what makes sense to people on the doorstep. So, with a healthy sense of balance, let’s review the new centre-ground as argued by Liam Byrne MP (shadow work and pensions secretary), Phil Collins (Times columnist and former chief speechwriter for Tony Blair), Peter Kellner (YouGov president) and Mary Riddell (Daily Telegraph columnist).
Does the centre-ground exist? Yes (Liam). Yes but it’s no longer in the centre – cue Marine Le Pen and George Galloway (Mary). Yes for policy but no for values (Phil) and by the way ‘what does it mean anyway? – the total sum of what most people think? Finally, yes but it moves around and only exists in the minds of the people who use it (Peter). Good, a well-rounded view of a complex term with mild agreement that it has an important use.
This usefulness, of course, is the key. What are the current insights on the centre-ground that inform our strategy? On the policy side, jobs and growth are central argued Liam. Everyone has family, friends or neighbours who have been touched by unemployment and job insecurity. You can’t get more central than the concern for jobs and income, and there is now a wide understanding that we can’t pay off the deficit if unemployment is high. Focusing on this is fundamental if the mood of anti-politics that is ‘alive and well’ is to change. Mary agreed; Labour has been in the right place at the right time with the right story on jobs and growth. She highlighted four further policies for the centre-ground: real progress on childcare and social care, and continuing to champion child poverty and the 0.7 per cent commitment to overseas aid.
Phil stepped up to warn Labour not to stray too far in opposition from what it will need to do in government, with Nick Clegg on tuition fees as an example. There are certain ways to approach large system reform, he said, that can be defined as centre-ground because all parties end up there.
Finally, it was Peter who provided perhaps the most interesting food for thought. When voters talk about the centre, they express that the centre reassures them whilst the extremes frighten them. They reject risky politicians and parties. However, 1945 and 1979 show that radical reform can be perceived as the reassuring centre, when continuing with the status quo is considered dangerous. The take-away lesson? That radicalism that is perceived to be risky will not win Labour votes in 2015, but a reassuring reform programme that will deliver a better Britain without turbulence will.
I return to the doorstep. One of the conversations that sticks with me from these 2012 elections was with a young lady in social housing in Holloway, Islington. We chatted on a Saturday morning with her in her pyjamas and the rain thankfully holding off. She had recently moved from the east Midlands (something we had in common) and, new to London, she wanted to know what the mayor did and what candidates were promising her. We chatted for about five minutes and at the end she beamed at me and said ‘Thank you, I think that’s the longest I’ve ever talked to anyone about politics’. I am convinced that winning the centre-ground, new or not, has to involve having conversations like that.
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Anna-Joy Rickard is a member of Progress