Jonathan Todd

Given my call for Labour’s centre to be ideologists, I should say that it is my view that those in centre or even on the right of the party are often more ideological than can be presumed – it sometimes just doesn’t feel like it. Nonetheless, those on the left of the party would be mistaken if they, as ”the Marxists et al” of Crosland’s day may have done, conducted themselves as if they alone are the party’s ideologists. This is because this isn’t the case. Take the comment from James Purnell below, for example.

“Today’s public debate of politics is trivialised and sclerotic. When we discuss policy at all, we rarely move beyond false choices … Triangulation cuts the path to trivialisation. This is because it sets up false choices – our left wing critics would do this odd thing; our right wing critics would do this bad thing, so the only option is to do our reasonable thing. By definition, such false choices cannot be debated. Those who disagree with us do not feel we are representing their position fairly or accurately, so do not engage with our arguments. We fail to convince them when we’re right and fail to hear them when we’re wrong. The result is detachment and frustration”.

To do the “reasonable thing” is to be “mere pragmatists and administrators”, as Crosland said to Hattersley. It is only ideological debate that moves us beyond this. Both in the sense of clearly articulating what ideological ends we see policy as achieving and explaining why we see a particular policy as being the best means of achieving this ideological end. Purnell calls for a ”candid, rounded debate within the Labour Party because we face real decisions about our direction of travel”. The way we approach these choices should be ideologically driven and move us beyond the staleness of debates characterised by false choices. Such debates only lead to the kind of “detachment and frustration” which allows the left of the party to conclude that they are only ideologists in the party.

What needs to be rediscovered is the radical centre in British politics. This is what Barack Obama has really brought to the US. He is nothing if not pragmatic, which is little if not a capacity to do “reasonable things”. However, he is also undoubtedly a radical. Where the virtues of pragmatism and radicalism are fused, the radical centre is to be found. New Labour was rightly long on pragmatism but sometimes seemed too short on radicalism. The challenge for those like Purnell who wish to reinvent the New Labour project is readdress this balance.