Politics is power. The rest is commentary.

There’s nothing like a General Election to focus political minds. As Labour braces itself for the toughest election since 1992, all of us are digging deep, fiercely debating what it means to be Labour today. We know that the next election needs to be about more than our record. It needs to reflect the realities of a changed world – one very different from 2005, let alone 1997.

Of course there’s the negative – the perfect storm of a political crisis in MPs’ expenses and an economic one in the banking crash. But there is also the positive. As we discuss in the latest Anticipations the explosion of the internet has been a powerful democratising force, giving people more ways to collaborate, communicate and organise than ever before. The fact that the next General Election will be the first to be fought online may have become a cliche. But that’s only because it has been said so many times.

Against this backdrop David Miliband’s speech to Demos yesterday was particularly pertinent. A big picture set piece about the challenges ahead, he framed the next election as a choice between two competing political visions with fundamentally opposing ideas about the rightful role of the state. At the heart of his critique of Conservatism was an analysis of the role of government that is as simple as it is profound,

“The principle [that applies to the challenges we face] is that power needs to be vested in the people, but we do not reveal a powerful populace simply in the act of withdrawing the state. In fact a powerless government simply means more power to the already powerful.”

Does that mean that we shouldn’t be worried about government becoming too powerful? Of course not. Government power must only be exercised when it empowers ordinary people. That’s why we need to look again at electoral reform – it simply isn’t right that the majority of votes at the next election just won’t count. It’s why we need to look again at the balance between security and liberty – people need to feel that power rests in their hands and not in the levers of the state. Yet at the heart of all these issues lies a fundamental principle on which all left wing policy should hang. A principle that David Miliband highlighted in his speech.

Politics is about creating powerful people. The rest, to quote an old Jewish saying, is commentary.