I’ve not made much secret of the fact that I greatly admire the work Stephen Twigg has done during our time in opposition. I’ve had plenty of arguments with those who think he endorses Tory policy (he doesn’t), that he will open up the schools system to a market free-for-all (he won’t) or that he is losing Labour’s credible record on education (he isn’t).
He offers an interesting path for Labour to take, if it is to continue the modernisation of both the party and the country which was brought to fruition under Tony Blair. He is relentless in driving the message that ‘evidence, not dogma’, should form the basis of our education policy.
He is entirely right, of course. The day the Labour party becomes a true natural party of government is when it becomes comfortable with being a natural party of government. Those (usually on the unelectable left) who wish to cling to ‘ideological purity’, rather than vote-winning policies, will perhaps never be comfortable with Stephen’s push on education.
Does that mean he has sold his Labour values in order to win votes? Such is the cry from the stubborn groups in the party any time a Labour politician calls for modernisation. This attitude comes from those who are so blinded by their calls of betrayal that they fail to see our first loyalty should be to the electorate.
We’ve had the debate on free schools before, but it’s worth making one more point. The shadow education secretary was right to suggest we wouldn’t oppose them. His policy move wasn’t about free schools. It never was, until it became a stick with which to hit a Blairite shadow cabinet member for daring to offer a realistic stance on education.
His policy was about enshrining the core value for the Labour party in 2012 – that policy is not about party politics or outdated ideology. It should be about looking at what works, what doesn’t. We won’t know the outcome of free schools for quite some time. That means we should remain open to them. Will a voter put a cross in the box of a Labour candidate if we have promised to undo the work that led to a better education for their child?
I have next to me the notes which Stephen kindly gave me following his talk at Progress annual conference on the direction Labour should head in on public sector reform. The words in capitals under the title ‘value for money’ should form the basis of our 2015 argument – ‘VITAL WE OCCUPY THIS TERRITORY’.
This is precisely the commonsense policy direction the Labour party needs to head in. If we are to make a success of the next general election it is right that we face up now to the challenges of 2015 and beyond. The economy is faltering, the coalition’s plan has failed. That doesn’t mean we can open up policy debates to those who want to spend our way back to economic competence. We will have question marks over our own spending for a generation.
One more interesting thought to take away from Progress annual conference was whether 2015 would be a hope or fear election. We can’t predict it, but it’ll likely be a mixture of both. Hope for stronger public services, fear for stagnation in our economy.
The calls for ‘evidence, not dogma’ on which to base policy are a fundamentally good thing for the Labour party to take into both types of election. The new head of the policy review, Jon Cruddas, would do well to listen to his colleague.
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Alex White is a member of Progress, writes for the Young Progressives column, and tweets @AlexWhiteUK
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