The greatest challenge for Labour, gathering today in Manchester, is to explain what it is for. The greatest temptation will be to shout about what it is against. It will be easy for Labour to spend the next four days in a near-religious ferment of indignation, railing against the wickedness of the Tories. Every speech will contain ritual denunciations of this or that government policy – take your pick – and easy laughs at the expense of Cameron, Clegg or Cable.

Just to mention Andrew Mitchell’s name will win pantomime boos and theatrical hissing. It will be like the appearance of Emmanuel Goldstein in the Two Minutes’ Hate in Nineteen Eighty-Four.  ‘Thrasher’ Mitchell has gone from obscure Cameron crony to the most hated man in Britain, at least among the strange bedfellows of the British left and the Metropolitan Police. Never will the word ‘pleb’ have appeared so often at a public forum since the days of Cicero.

It is entirely possible that we all pack our bags on Thursday morning, with the rhetoric ringing in our ears, and the warm glow of satisfaction that hours spent with like-minded folk delivers. The challenge is that none of this moves Labour forward one iota. The conference speeches of Kinnock (which I heard) and Foot (which, alas, I did not) were masterclasses in eviscerating the Tories. They tore into their opponents with the savagery of a tiger devouring a goat. We roared our approval until we were hoarse. We stamped our feet until they hurt. But it left the voters cold. And sizeable sections of the British working population, including trade union members, voted for the Conservatives.

Every permutation is possible at the next election. Labour can lose, as we have most of the elections we’ve contested since 1900. Any serious student of Labour’s electoral performance since Keir Hardie slapped on a red rosette cannot fail to be amazed at the party’s capacity for failure. Even with the economy in turmoil, industries in freefall, dole queues and soup kitchens, Labour has lost elections. In the 1930s and the 1980s the Conservatives won the big economic arguments, despite all the evidence pointing to the opposite conclusions. An economy in recession, climbing unemployment, growing homelessness, and the spread of the modern soup kitchen, the ‘food bank’, does not mean Labour wins. History rather points to the alternative.

Or Labour can find itself as the senior partner in a coalition. I suspect anyone talking positively in such terms in Manchester will find themselves shoved under the nearest tram. This is the tribal gathering. The tribe doesn’t want to hear about joining forces with the neighbouring tribes. Those ex-SDPers who urge coalition between Labour and Liberal Democrats as vindication for the follies of their youth will get short shrift. It is hard to overestimate the loathing for Lib Dem ministers among Labour’s ranks. They are considered Quislings of the most venal kind.

To talk up Lib-Lab Coalition on the grounds that David Laws or Vince Cable are somehow Labour’s social conscience is to ignore what they’ve actually been doing for the last two years.  In other times it would be lampposts for them, not the chance for another five years in government. If the electoral maths delivers a minority Labour government, then better to fight for every parliamentary vote and try to win every argument, than lock in a formal coalition with the very people who guaranteed five years of Tory rule.

Or Labour can win the election. This is an entirely realistic prospect. It depends, not on the economy, or the coalition, but on us. As Cassius tells Brutus, it is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves. This week in Manchester will start to answer the question whether Labour wants to win or not. The answer depends, not on the strength of our denunciations or the vehemence of our vituperation, but on the patient construction of an alternative. Of course we need to win the big economic arguments for growth, for jobs, for investment and for reductions to public spending which help, not hinder, a recovery. We need to do that against the full force of a Tory attack which seeks to hang blame around our shoulders. Ed Balls must win trust back from an electorate which is still highly sceptical.

But the high-level economics is only the start. We need to start reconnecting with key sections of the electorate, especially in the south of England, on a range of concerns. Only if we think that the British public is no longer concerned by immigration, or worried about burglary, or blighted by street gangs, or bothered by noisy neighbours should we stop talking about these things. If we think the last Labour government, or even the current coalition, has fixed it, then we need not bother saying anything. But if we think there’s still deep concerns about communities in turmoil and kids out of control, then we need something to say about it.

And we need something to say about our plans for the National Health Service, for universities, for prisons, for the police, for schools, for nurseries, for the railways, for local councils and for everything else from libraries to parks. What is Labour’s policy for police reform? Or social care? Or reform of the benefits system? If we want to persuade people we’re an alternative government, we need the answers, and ones which recognise that greater public spending is not an easy option.

In autumn 1992, exactly 20 years ago, following a fourth Labour defeat, the usually urbane and technocratic Labour MP Nick Raynsford  wrote a cover-article for Fabian Review. It warned that Labour would not win the next general election by ‘simply relying on the incompetence and failure of the Tories to deliver us a victory.’ It warned us that we were ‘sleepwalking into oblivion’. If you have a copy in your loft or garage, dust it down and have a read. The articled summed up exactly how many of us felt at the time. Times change, things are different, of course they are. Political history seldom repeats in precisely the same way. And yet, the danger remains that Labour slips into the easy rhythms of opposition, lulled by poll leads, and reassured by the echo-chamber of people united in their opposition to the Tories. Somnambulation is no strategy for success. Most likely, it takes us over a cliff.

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Paul Richards writes a weekly column for Progress, Paul’s week in politics. He tweets @LabourPaul