For those whose approach to politics begins by pigeon-holing, I am usually shoved in a box marked ‘centre ground’. The great thing about being placed there is that I am in the middle of things and within easy reach of everyone else.

So I have never been scornful of those, such as Owen Jones, who find themselves in other pigeon-holes. As a matter of fact I rather enjoy the challenge that he and others who articulate their passion for politics and social justice present us. Yet, Owen’s Guardian article last week, left one with hardly anything to learn from it. Or where to pigeon hole it.

To summarise, Owen believes that the way to take on the Greens is to adopt three of their policies; rail nationalisation, living wage and a referendum on proportional representation.

I have a few issues with Owen’s claim that these policies add up to a radical agenda that will save Hove and other constituencies from the dreaded ‘Green surge’.

Traditional parties are being clobbered by insurgents like Ukip, the Greens and the Scottish National party. They are often splayed across the political spectrum from left to right, despite the fact that the lunacy of their policies, such as Ukip’s ending of international cooperation and the Green pledge to end all international trade, plonk them squarely in the same pigeon-hole, simply marked ‘ultra’.

In the case of Ukip, Owen tells us that adopting any of their policies would be ‘political suicide’ for Labour, that we must not try to ‘out-Ukip’ Ukip. I agree. Conversely, Owen argues that the way to tackle the Green surge is to adopt their policies, to out-Green the Greens. I disagree.

There are two reasons for this disagreement. First of all, every Green councillor in Hove and Portslade, with the exception of their parliamentary candidate, has either resigned or done a chicken-run to safer climbs in Brighton Pavillion. So while the Greens run away from their policies, Owen’s recommendation is to run towards them.

Second, and most importantly, these policies, taken together, lack the true radicalism that will solve the long-term challenges faced by those in deprivation. Or the people needing help to overcome the obstacles of daily life in the fast-changing 21st century. They certainly will not inspire people, for no other reason than they have been knocking around for so long they feel more like the last prize at a raffle than the solutions to modern living.

My campaign team is a busy one. We capture the insight of around 2,500 conversations with residents each and every month. I have had another look at the results, and can say with near certainty that two of Owen’s prescriptions are rarely described as priorities by residents in the left-leaning wards of the constituency and never mentioned in the three working class areas.

You can see why. The working class wards do have chronic travel issues, but it is not the cost of getting the train to the City of London every day. For most it is the rise in bus fares coupled with the doubling of residential, business, and visitor parking that’s been inflicted on our city by the Green party, which is making a trip to the city centre a rare treat for those on low incomes. Commuter fares are a big, big issue, but it is not the only transport challenge facing traditional Labour supporters and we risk alienating those in greatest need of a Labour victory by making rail our only transport talking point.

On the subject of proportional representation, for those of us passionate about constitutional reform, one of the many annoyances at the Liberal Democrats in power is how they managed to discredit the subject to the extent that I have never once heard any of Hove’s 11,000 former Liberal Democrat voters mention it as a priority since the bungled referendum.

So what would I do? For starters, Labour has a peerless record on making work pay for those on low incomes. We should never cede this ground to the Greens, or anyone else for that matter. Our commitment to raise the minimum wage to £8 is both significant and impactful, and Owen is right to mention low-pay as a core Labour issue with resonance.

However, if we get into a supermarket-style bidding war on the minimum wage there will be losers – many of whom live in cities like Brighton and Hove. Here there are extraordinarily high numbers of self-employed people, ranging from sole-traders to start-up entrepreneurs. Brighton and Hove is an outlier in this, but the rest of the country is catching up. In fact by 2018 there will be more self-employed people than people employed by the state.

When observed in this light, Owen’s prescription to attract Green voters by offering them a radically higher minimum wage is anything but radical, because it simply will not have any bite for the majority of people who do not work for the state in Brighton and Hove, disenfranchised left-leaning voters included, because they are exempted from it.

A radical agenda that actually impacts everyone would be to place alongside a review of the minimum wage a look at how we extend rights and opportunities to those who aren’t employed by organisations but are economically active. Most take too little holiday time and many have periods of less-than minimum wage earnings. A starting point would be to examine the contracting relationship between organisations, consultants, and sole traders.

Instead of talking about proportional representation, I want to talk about housing. The Greens promised 1,000 new ones but delivered 146. Labour in Brighton and Hove have pledged 500 new homes here and a raft of new rights to tenants in private rented accommodation.

And radically, lets build new social housing and pledge to end the scandal of educational, economic, and social underperformance of people who grow-up in it. Yes, we must build new social housing and refurbish the old. But we need to invest far more in the people who live in it and the communities around them – and be more challenging too – in order to extend the opportunities of 21st century Britain further than it has ever been before.

These are the kind of policies that point to a way of tackling the real challenges that are articulated to us by working class and disenfranchised Labour voters alike. When Labour is not being held back by those who are limited by the other party’s lack of imagination it has the ability to reassure our core vote and energise people disenfranchised from politics in general. This way lies the route to winning support back from all the insurgents – because the solution is to outpace them, not follow them.

Do not be limited by the conservatism of Green thinking. Lets look forwards into the coming century and radically solve the problems that a changing modern life presents society.