Our politics makes for good government
By David Miliband
—Ed Miliband’s successful speech to party conference has rightly put Labour supporters in good heart. No one doubts the scale of the challenge, either to oust the Tories or rebuild Britain. But there is energy and passion as we set about both tasks.
The signature tune of Progress is often seen as its focus on winning. And, of course, we are concerned with winning: it is better to be obsessed with getting Ed into No 10 than living in the shadow of heroic defeats.
But the contribution of Progress to the party is about governing, not just winning – governing from the centre-left, to change our country, in a Britain that is diverse and dynamic, in a world that is complex and chaotic.
I believe that governing needs our kind of politics – the politics of reforming, pluralistic, modernising social democracy. The politics that has won Labour all its election victories – for national renewal in 1945, for meritocracy in 1964, for healing the wounds of Thatcherism in 1997 – but more importantly, the politics that has achieved the biggest change in Britain.
In fact, if you are on the centre-left, unless you govern with our kind of politics, you will not be able to govern at all. Fiscal responsibility is not a choice. If you are not fiscally responsible, you get driven off course … before being forced back on course. Ed Miliband and Ed Balls are right to recognise this. If you do not reform the state, you get swamped by the demands on the state. If you do not switch spending from legacies of the past to investments in the future you run out of money for the projects you want to launch. If you do not recognise the impact of globalisation, you will be swallowed by it. If you do not reform your party to open up structures, revitalise the culture, then you run out of steam, as happened in 2010.
And the opposite is true in each case. If you win confidence for your fiscal stewardship, you get some slack. If you reform the state you release energy among your staff and in the public. If you switch spending you drive efficiency. If you engage successfully internationally, you can carve out space domestically. If you open up the party you bring in new people and build your base.
So the case for our kind of politics is that it is necessary to govern, not just necessary to win. And there is a very particular reason for that – we have lived through the biggest market failure for 80 years. Under-regulated markets have generated grotesque inequalities of income and wealth, and short-termism in financial markets is killing the innovation that is necessary for the survival of western economies. The financial crisis has blown a massive hole in the right’s thesis of efficient markets.
But government is as much on trial as markets. The sovereign debt crisis has resurrected the 1970s debate over the fiscal crisis of the state. That is why Labour cannot be conservative.
We need to be confident enough to decentralise power so that, on housing, youth jobs, transport, and more, we live up to the commitment on our membership cards to spread power as well as wealth and opportunity. The truth is that urban areas drive modern economies. It is not just that 65 per cent of the world’s population live within an hour of an urban area. It is that 65 per cent of global GDP and 85 per cent of technological innovation come from just 40 big urban areas, like Shanghai, São Paolo or London.
We need to be imaginative enough to engage citizens in the delivery of public services. In government we invented personalised budgets for disabled people. Yet we lag Tonga when it comes to self-management by asthma sufferers. We should be the people pushing the boundaries. We need to be bold enough to switch spending – because, from long-term care to childcare, there will be no great leap forward unless we find new sources of funding.
Labour councillors will know what I mean. There is much less to spend, so they are changing the way they spend, and making a difference as a result.
This is not about a choice between realism and idealism. This was the powerful message from Ed at conference. Idealism is the oxygen, realism the anchor.
This year’s party conference was my 23rd. At each one we are confronted with false choices: to stand for freedom of the individual or equality of society, when one is dependent on the other; to be for parliamentary opposition or extra-parliamentary activity, when we need both. Even the choice to be on the left or the right of party, when both have something to say.
When I saw Philip Gould for the last time before his untimely death last year, he said to me ‘there has never been a better time for our kind of politics.’ I think that was a comment but also an injunction: one look at the policy and political landscape we face – structural, economic and social challenges combined with deep public scepticism about the way politics is done – tells you that we need rigour and imagination in that task.
—————————————————————————————
David Miliband MP is a former foreign secretary
—————————————————————————————
Labour cannot be New Labour, David
Labour, to be successful can only be New Labour, Mark, as David eloquently says above.
David gets toward the heart of the question of “What is the Labour Party’s role in our society?” The fact that we have to keep having this argument is both depressing and encouraging.
It’s depressing because a significant number of members and supporters feel that the party is a party of social protest more than a party of, or for, government.
It’s encouraging for the same reason, because it points to the passion for social justice that our members and supporters have.
For decades, Labour members felt jealous of and contempt for the Conservatives because they ran a machine with a laser-like focus on getting and keeping power. Jealous because we were less than laser-like. Contempt because they kept their quaint passions secret.
Things have changed: we have an improving machine while the Tories’ is heading for the knackers yard. But, in both parties, there are those who misunderstand the role of political parties in general in our democracy today. They want a movement of protest, when, in reality, the role of a major party is either as a government or a government in waiting.
If I want to see state power exerted responsibly for and with the citizens of the UK, then I join Labour and I work and campaign with it to promote its vision. If I want to protest, then I join a protest organisation. If I want to advocate a sectional interest, then I join a sectional interest group. If I want to do all three things, then I join all three.
I just need to know what I’m doing and why. And not mix up my agendas. This is easy to say but hard to do. Which is why, for the foreseeable future, Labour will have to keep debating its role.