Adam Harrison assesses the impact of The Purple Book one year on

‘Predistribution’, ‘One Nation Labour’, reform of the state and market, universal childcare, and greater activism on housing were just some of the proposals made last year by Labour modernisers contributing to The Purple Book. With the ambition to fashion a new Labour programme fit for changing times, they sought to draw on the party’s long-neglected decentralising tradition to find new ways of tackling inequality in an age of austerity.

The book argued for a redistribution of power throughout the state, market and public services, with more local ownership and control of community services and assets. The state should become more open and efficient; the ‘big state’ should be left behind.

So what impact have its ideas had one year on?

Perhaps most prescient in anticipating shifts in the tale Labour tells about itself, its future, and its ambition for the country, is the idea of ‘predistribution’ which Tristram Hunt identified in his chapter of the book. Achieving a fairer distribution of power in the economy is not only the right thing to do in and of itself, it would also help shield Labour against future ‘tax-and-spend’ attacks, he argued. That it was the centrepiece of Ed Miliband’s Stock Exchange speech this September testified in part to the growing recognition within the party that, not only is redistribution through the organs of the state now less feasible than before, but that Labour can campaign for and achieve positive change without it: through revising the rules and setting new standards.

Similarly anticipatory was Ivan Lewis’ chapter entitled One Nation Labour, which argued that Labour is the only party capable now of representing the whole of Britain, of defending the union, and strengthening people’s local sense of identity and belonging. He maintained that ‘redistributing power from Whitehall to the town hall to local residents’ is key to ameliorating the insecurity that he argued characterises modern society. Unlike the politics of division pursued by the coalition, ‘One Nation Labour can once again ensure that hope triumphs over fear,’ Lewis wrote.

Purple Book author Patrick Diamond called for all central government programmes and agencies to be subject to a public value test: functions should be decentralised and removed altogether, resources focused on the frontline, and neighbourhoods and communities enabled to devise their own solutions. ‘Labour has to show that it is willing to apply high-octane reforms to an excessively centralised and bureaucratic state,’ he argued. Douglas Alexander recognised too that, in power, Labour failed to find a language in which to critique state failure. The answer to the public spending challenge of the future is to ‘balance the necessary reforms with the necessary resources … People need to believe we are as serious about productivity as we are about investment.’ Since then the Labour MP Stella Creasy weighed into the debate with a call for Labour to conduct a zero-based spending review oriented around our priorities, a suggestion taken up by shadow chancellor Ed Balls. A clear Labour lead on this, in contrast to the haphazard and indiscriminate scythe the coalition has taken to the public finances, would establish clarity and confidence even in hard times for both party and populace.

Reform of the market is also crucial, and we can see again the beginnings of a Labour way of doing this that stands in stark differentiation to the Tories’ approach. Tristram Hunt called for the reintroduction of tax breaks for employee share-ownership, with progressives principles ‘hardwired’ in by demanding that the breaks apply only once a significant number of shares have been distributed to all members of staff. The Conservatives’ answer, in contrast, is simply for workers to relinquish their employment rights in exchange for shares.

The book’s call for a universal childcare service was made by MP Liz Kendall, who now sits in the shadow cabinet. More extensive and better-quality childcare is a likely election-winner if the party can make the necessary difficult decisions on funding it, the choices about which are outlined in the forthcoming Purple Papers. Writing for Progress in July, shadow education secretary and Progress honorary president Stephen Twigg said: ‘Childcare should be at the heart of our future offer to the British people’, and Labour has now set up a Childcare Commission, which aims for ‘a tax and benefit system that doesn’t punish mums who decide to work … A real, professional service that can help those families that are feeling squeezed.’ Meanwhile, the coalition is moving towards deregulating childminding, in the teeth of opposition by the Labour frontbench and evidence from the Netherlands that deregulation in this sector does not work.

Caroline Flint’s Purple Book proposal for a register of private landlords has also begun to be realised, with Labour councils such as Newham taking up the powers that lie with them to introduce accredited landlords schemes. The registers were backed by shadow housing minister Jack Dromey and Labour in parliament put down amendments to the localism bill which would have required local authorities to establish such schemes.

In 2015 any party will face identical challenges, but there is a Labour way of doing things and a Tory way of doing things. Labour has a rich history it can draw on to see it through. The Purple Book seeks to recall a time when the party fought to empower working people in their communities, when the state was more foe than friend, and provide the powers and tools for all to take control of their own futures.