Jonathan Todd

I wrote this for Labour Uncut when I was on holiday in the USA recently.

On the day before his brother’s attendance at the royal wedding, David Miliband was in Washington DC. This followed his tentative steps back towards the philosophical front line with a speech at the LSE on the decline of the left in Europe. Then, at the centre for American progress, he addressed the politics of identity and fear. On both occasions, therefore, he tackled in an international context issues of profound domestic significance.

This approach, obviously, has the advantage of minimising any sense in which David is stepping on Ed’s toes. But such internationalism is also instructive. The challenges facing Labour are similar to those facing social democratic parties elsewhere. The rise of the English Defence League is not the only instance of the search for identity turning ugly. In different ways everything from the birther movement to the success of the True Finns and Thilo Sarrazins can be seen through the same prism.

Miliband identifies “a backlash against globalisation. In the context of a big shift in power from west to east, there are no votes in being an internationalist and there are votes in being nativist”. The west-east shift is involved with a deepening of the global economy, but political impulses form a counter-reaction to this. They may be less pronounced where economies are strong. Canada’s economy is relatively healthy and Bloc Québécois, who might be considered a nativist element in Canadian politics, suffered in recent elections.

Michael Sandel, a voice worth listening to from across the Atlantic, argues “in the age of NAFTA the politics of neighbourhood matters more, not less”. Particularly given that the UK is, according to Miliband, “an over centralised country with underpowered communities”, the renewed importance of neighbourhood politics makes the movement for change more consistent than it might initially seem with the international focus of his politics.

Sandel sees contemporary dilemmas mirrored in debates of the progressive era. “Some sought to preserve self-government by decentralising economic power and bringing it under democratic control. Others considered economic concentration irreversible and sought to control it by enlarging the capacity of national democratic institutions”. With Maurice Glasman’s praise for the “worker representation on the management board, works councils, pension co-determination, regional banks and vocational regulation” in Germany, blue Labour might parallel the former instinct. The later has an echo in calls for stronger European and global governance.

Miliband noted that Labour faces a strategic question over whether to support such calls and make the EU more central to Labour’s politics. We should – for example, on international co-ordination of financial and environmental regulation – when only joined-up policy will suffice. While the international forums that should respond to these issues are vital, they are too technocratic and remote to be rallying points towards progressive senses of identity.

The less technocratic and closer-to-home institutions championed by blue Labour are now important precisely because they remain capable of forming the stuff of such identities. Miliband credited Glasman and Jon Cruddas with “genuine insight” when asked about the contribution of blue Labour by Uncut.

New Labour, like other centre left parties, embraced the opportunities of globalisation from the 1990s onwards. However, such policies as re-skilling, industrial policy and city renewal, Miliband conceded, have not enabled enough of these opportunities to be grasped for all to be convinced of globalisation’s virtues. The response to this is only partly to be found in the emphasis of centre left parties on seizing the economic benefits of globalisation. Economic growth, particularly when equitably shared, can dampen the discontents of globalisation but it cannot alone eliminate them.

It needs to be buttressed by the left winning arguments about identity. “The paucity of the economic answer”, said Miliband, “means that we can’t vacate the identity terrain”. He spoke of a “demanding pluralism”, stressing the responsibilities that should come with the rights of citizenship, as part of this.

Both David Miliband and James Purnell continue to be spoken of as potential leaders of the Blairites. Both have recently spoken internationally on domestic matters. Both are grappling with some fusion of new Labour and blue Labour. This was implicit in Miliband’s remarks last week and has been stated more explicitly by Purnell.

We need the economic openness and aspiration of new Labour. And its willingness to confront change squarely where necessary. We also need the reassurances provided by the continuity and preservation of blue Labour where these instincts can be nourished. The challenge is in knowing where and when change must be embraced and where continuity is the appropriate virtue. Simply having the later gear seems an adaptation to the vintage new Labour model. For this to move us forward it must contribute towards a hopeful and credible account of what Britain can become. This has always been provided by Labour at its best and is the most potent antidote to the politics of fear.

I had this on Labour Uncut today.

The longer Gordon Brown was prime minister, the harder it became, sadly, to picture him in post at the 2012 Olympics. His purchase on the future evaporated. Ed Miliband has to recover this to return to government. He has to convince that he has the answers to the challenges of 2015 and beyond. And personify these answers.

While his speech to the resolution foundation looked towards this, the past is always knocking incessant, trying to break through into the present. As Jim Murphy told the progress political school, in politics, the past is always the context, the future the contest. The spectre of Iraq hangs over Libya. The fiscal management of the last government colours arguments about the approach of this. In many areas – NHS, schools, welfare and, increasingly, foreign affairs – David Cameron presents himself as more heir to Blair than a return to the 1980s. Labour begs to differ. The public is uncertain.

What is not in doubt, however, is that the past has to be overcome to own the future. The 1997 victory couldn’t happen until Labour had outrun the shadow of its discontented winter. Tory detoxification hadn’t removed the stench of Thatcherism before 2010. That foul odour now emanates from Number Ten, in spite of Cameron needing Nick Clegg’s help to limp over the finishing line of the general election.

Cameron has hired a head of strategy, Andrew Cooper, who was convinced of the need to detoxify the Tories before he was. Cooper is determined to now complete this long march. Only when this journey has ended, liberal Tories like Cooper think, will a Tory majority come. Mainstream Tories, such as Tim Montgomerie, less abashed by association with Thatcher, disagree.

Clegg now blocks the route that Cooper wants to pursue. It will be difficult to avoid the narrative that anything progressive done by the government is a consequence of the Lib Dems. These actions would serve only to prop up Clegg, not detoxify the Tories.

So long as Margaret Thatcher is held in such low regard in the northern seats that the Tories need to form a majority, mainstream Toryism cannot own the future. Equally, liberal Toryism is compromised by the Lib Dems claiming any of their victories as their own. Mainstream Tories and liberal Tories may battle for the soul of Cameron and their party, but these factors mean that neither is capable of owning the future.

It doesn’t have to be this way for Ed Miliband. But, first, we have to move beyond our past. Voters felt, as Fiona MacTaggart conceded at conference last year, that we were “taking their money and giving it to people who are taking the piss”. This is no prospectus upon which to form a government.

Labour canvassers rarely field complaints that we let the state get too big. This isn’t how people tend to conceptualise things. The Tory charge of profligate Labour spending still stings, though, because too many people feel Labour took too much of their squeezed wages in taxation, with too little improvement in public services to show for it, while being too generous with those unprepared to graft as they do (namely, some welfare recipients and, less fairly, immigrants).

James Purnell argues that Miliband can neuter the Conservatives’ attack that Labour is spendaholic by committing that no new Labour policy will involve additional spending. He claims that this would redefine the political battleground. Rather than being reform versus spending, it would be good reform versus bad reform. The story of the Cumbrian NHS exemplifies the virtues of Labour reform over Tory reform. Such arguments have to be taken on and won.

Labour reform enables more to be done for less, which is integral to being fluent on the deficit, as is a compelling plan for economic growth. However, the economic argument isn’t simply about fiscal management and growing GDP, but raising wages unchanged in real terms since 2005. The biggest long-term challenges that the country faces – earning our way in an Asian century, decarbonisation, ageing, banks both too big to fail and save – are all bound up with this most bread and butter of issues.

More immediate changes can help: tax incentives to encourage wider payment of the living wage and use of smart meters; more advocacy of the kind that saw consumer focus earn households a £70m rebate in the week before it was callously axed. However, the squeeze is intimately connected with the advance of globalisation and the failure of public policy to keep pace.

To be social democratic is to be condemned to optimism about capacity for improvement. Yet, as a country, we are far from having found the policies to grasp all the opportunities and meet all the challenges of an ever more Asian-powered globalisation.

Ed Miliband needs such policy, and ways to present it that are doorstep-ready. The big society wasn’t so ready and has become synonymous with small-state Thatcherism. It is now a rhetorical cul-de-sac for Cameron. Miliband cannot, however, own the future by default.

Only when his blank pages are filled with policy that escapes big government perceptions and paints a believable picture of a Britain at ease in the global age of today and tomorrow will he be able to own the future. This will take time and be no easy task. So long as we are privately advancing in these regards, the right public posture is enough for now.

“Like other Labour people”, Denis MacShane wrote in June, “I have been looking for the over-arching reason why we lost the general election. Now some among the Labour leadership contenders have found a reason: Johnny Foreigner. It’s nice, convenient – and utterly wrong.” James Purnell reflected around the same time that “it would be odd if the conclusion of Labour’s analysis into why we lost was that we should have been tougher on immigration and softer on public service reform.” Purnell continued:

 “The irony about the party’s current debate about immigration is that we already had about as ‘tough’ a policy on immigration as we could have. The points-based system is in practice not that different from the Conservative cap – but with businesses deciding where immigration is needed rather than the Home Office just having a blanket limit.”

Now, business groups are calling the cap which the coalition government have put in place “ludicrous”.

So, Labour left office with an immigration policy which was as tough as it could have been and also enabled business to access the skilled international workers that they need. While it may have taken us a few iterations to get to this point, it would seem, therefore, that we left office with the right immigration policy.

For whatever reason – whether the fact that it took us a few goes to arrive at the right policy or the corrosive cynicism of the media – it just didn’t seem like it to the Mrs Duffys who turned against us at the general election. Still, there is a lesson in this: Let’s not confuse having the wrong policy with poor communications. On immigration, it was the communication of our policy that we failed to get right, not the policy itself.

I had the piece below published on Labour Uncut on 16 June 2010:

The Daily Telegraph isn’t normally essential reading for Labourites. But yesterday it should have been, especially for Harriet Harman. Fraser Nelson set the backdrop to the politics of the deficit and the “emergency” Budget, to which she, as acting leader, will respond. This week’s report from the new Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) dramatically changes this political context. Nelson has been quick to realise this and, while our instincts differ markedly from his, we need to be equally fleet-footed.

The limited discussion on the deficit in the leadership election has denied our candidates the opportunity to demonstrate this quality. Though, of course, they could engineer such an opportunity for themselves. I’d be impressed if any of them do flesh out a more substantial economic platform, not least as The Economist is right to note that, “nothing will make or break the next leader of the opposition like his response to the government’s austerity programme”.

The coalition, preparing the ground for the scorched earth to come, has grasped any and every opportunity to exclaim their horror that “it is even worse than we thought”. Labour, apparently, have not just cooked the national books, but eaten and spat them out again. It’s what we always do. We can’t help ourselves. It is the coalition’s duty to pick up the pieces; in the national interest, of course.

The coalition has pushed this story since its creation. It matters whether it is believed. It wasn’t until after black Wednesday that the spectre of the winter of discontent stopped being a drag on Labour’s support. If the deficit is perceived as Labour’s deficit, then the pain of reducing it will be a similar drag. However, a major spanner has been thrown in the coalition’s attempts to embed this perception. As Nelson observes, “something is going badly right” for the British economy.

The OBR reported earlier in the week, as Nelson noted, that unemployment “will be almost 200,000 lower than had been feared. Economic growth will not be quite as strong but the tax revenues – which are far more important – will come in much more strongly than Mr Darling gloomily forecast.” So, the reality is that public finances are in better shape than the Treasury forecasts bequeathed to the coalition gave them to expect.

How troubled George Osborne must be that this reality, so out of kilter with his desired spin, has been presented by the OBR. After all, he established this body, as Nelson puts it, with the intention to “demolish the economic Potemkin Village that Gordon Brown built during his time in Downing Street and reveal the full extent of his fiscal vandalism”. Yet, rather than exposing Labour irresponsibility, the OBR has shown “Mr Osborne’s election goal – to abolish “the bulk” of the structural deficit by 2014 – would have been easily achieved had Mr Darling remained in place. No more taxes need to be raised, or budgets cut, to honour this Tory manifesto pledge.”

This is a tremendous vindication for Darling and inconvenience for Osborne. If Osborne now persists with plans to cut further and faster than intended by Darling, he will be doing so for reasons of political belief, not economic pragmatism. Nelson understands this and urges him to press on “because he wishes to restore the power balance between state and society. A true liberal believes that people spend their own money more wisely and effectively than government can do on their behalf.”

While Rachel Reeves has expertly explained why comparisons – encouraged by the scaremongering spin of the coalition – between the UK and Greece are spurious, our deficit does require careful management. However, there is a world of difference between the careful prudence of Darling’s plan and the ideological, small-state zeal that would carry Osborne beyond it. Nelson encourages Osborne in this direction because “with Labour embroiled in a five-way leadership contest, he will never face weaker opposition”. Precisely why we must be vigilant against him.

What the formation of the coalition told Philip Stephens about David Cameron was that “he is a Conservative in the centrist tradition of Harold Macmillan rather than a radical such as Margaret Thatcher”. However, we need to be ready for his Chancellor leading the coalition on a distinctly Thatcherite course in his first Budget. Having scrapped the Child Trust Fund and the Future Jobs Fund this might be no surprise, particularly after the coalition agreement made, as James Purnell noted, “no mention of abolishing child poverty. Of reducing inequality. Of protecting education funding. Of guaranteeing jobs for the long-term unemployed.”

In responding to Osborne’s Budget, the key distinction is between actions that can be justified as decisions of economic necessity and those that are driven by political belief. We strip ourselves of credibility if we do not acknowledge the necessity of some pain. We can absorb more of this pain in the form of taxes than Osborne will propose, but we can’t hide from the need for some spending cuts. To remain credible we need openly to concede this, but we also need clearly to identify the areas in which Osborne is acting as the ideological vanguardist that Fraser Nelson wants him to be, losing sight of the sober economic reality presented by the OBR.

That this reality is much brighter than the coalition’s spin is a credit to the decisions we made in office. We need to be equally strategic and forensic in our economic decision making in opposition.

Some political realities need to be acknowledged if Labour is to move forward. These are:

First, Gordon Brown will lead Labour into the next General Election. The reaction (or, at least, non-resignation) of other leading figures in the party - particularly, Peter Mandelson, Alan Johnson and David Miliband – to James Purnell’s resignation finally confirmed this.

Second, as I have previously said, Labour has three options: 1.) Back Brown, 2.) Replace him, 3.) Allow him to continue without backing him. The third of these is the worst for Labour and choices of Mandelson et al have closed off the second. Thus, the first must be genuinely embraced by the party.

Third, in yesterday’s Guardian ICM poll, Labour only out-scores the Tories on one issue – better protecting public services.

Fourth, as Liam Byrne’s press conference earlier this week illustrated, Labour’s current line on future spending is not the strongest in the world.

Fifth, this is recognised by people. A new poll  on Politics Home finds that only 16 per cent of voters think that Labour is being most honest on tax and spend, behind the Tories on 37 and the Lib Dems on 28. Not even a majority of Labour supporters think Labour is being straighter on this than other parties.

Sixth, the government genuinely is providing real help now, as the tag line goes, to prevent this recession producing the kind of build up of youth unemployment that recessions under the last Conservative government witnessed in the 1980s and 1990s. Martin Bright recently noted: “There are still some potentially promising ideas knocking about. The Future Jobs Fund, which provides a subsidy for employers willing to take a 14-18 year old at risk of long term unemployment, and the Young Person’s Guarantee, which promises to find work for young people unemployed for over a year, are both attempts to tackle the unemployment tsunami about to hit Britain. The Graduate Talent Pool proposed by DIUS to match graduates to internships is the seed of a good idea and the proposals from the Communities and Local Government department to fill empty high street businesses with creative ‘pop-up’ shops and could also help”.

Sixth, the good work  on youth unemployment lacks co-ordination. Bright goes on to say: “Without coordination, (these policies) risk becoming just another set of eye-catching initiatives … One of the most useful jobs to be carried out by Tessa Jowell in the Cabinet Office or Lord Mandelson in his new Department of Everything would be to coordinate all the work being done to stimulate employment and tackle the recession”.

Ninth, while the economy undoubted still faces major challenges, it has started to grow again. Labour’s activism on tax and spend must have contributed towards this improvement.

Tenth, the British public are far from sold on David Cameron, as Michael White notes.

So, where does this leave us?

The first and second points tell us that Labour has no sensible option but to unite behind the architect of the 2005 General Election campaign: Gordon Brown. A key theme of this campaign was Labour investment versus Tory cuts. The third point might suggest that this strategy should be deployed again but the fourth and fifth points imply that this would not be credible. Instead, the government should build out of the support that it enjoys for protecting public services – the third point – to create support for what can be achieved through public services.

Our story on public services shouldn’t be about how much we invest in public services but about what we can achieve through public services. Our politics and policies should be focused on outcomes, like reduced youth unemployment, not inputs, which discussions about investment always constrain us to. Let us make a make a mission of the outcomes that we prioritise and let us be defined in these terms. The spending choices that we make should reflect these priorities, re-enforcing them both in the minds of Whitehall and the public. Which of our missions, for example, is satisfied by persisting with ID cards? The spending commitments that are not central to our missions should be subjected to the strongest scrutiny.  

The upturn in the economy – the ninth point – is beginning to give a taste of the outcomes that might be achieved when government targets its resources and energies on well-defined objectives and makes missions of them. Youth unemployment must be a mission. Thinking of the other things that should be missions makes me think of something Neal Lawson said recently:

“The story of the last thirty years has been the transfer of risk from the collective, the social and the community to the individual”.  

The risk of being left on the scrap heap of unemployment is not a risk that anyone, least of all the young, should have to face alone. The risks of growing old in an ageing society will be far larger than they should be for far too many people unless we collectively decide to make a mission of improving health and social care for the elderly. The risks of climate change are massive for all of us and can only be tackled by any of us on a collective basis.

This is the stuff of a positive case for government. It is in setting out this positive case that Labour’s best hope for the next General Election resides. This is a different kind of strategy from the 2005 campaign but one which needs to be embraced. It wouldn’t pretend that government can provide the answers to all our problems – this country still needs to have a more mature conversation about what government can and cannot do and what the responsibilities of citizens are and are not - but it would provide a coherent basis for Labour building upon the success which the beginnings of a turn-around in the economy represents. 

The anti-government reaction of the Conservatives to the banking crisis (e.g. opposition to fiscal stimulus, etc) suggests that they may be wrong footed by a strategy predicated on a positive case for government. From George Osbourne’s economic policies to Iain Duncan-Smith’s social policies, they still see government as more problem than solution. Let’s start, however, by building a positive case for what we can use government to achieve, rather than erecting unconvincing dividing lines on spending. 

The trend detected by Lawson implies that the Conservatives’ anti-government tendency is out of kilter with the times. This may explain – the eighth point – the fact that the public remain to be sold on Cameron. Labour successfully presenting a positive case for government over the next year may make him more politically vulnerable than he now appears.