Organising for success

Post-conference and with a new leader, Labour has a chance to start building. But it must seize the opportunity, bring together what has already been achieved and learn from choices made by others.

Back in 2008 when the Young Fabians came back from Ohio, having played our part in getting Barack Obama elected as President of the United States of America, our hopes were high that the same scale of political engagement we had seen in the US could be generated in the UK. Through outlets like the Young Fabians events, Progress-organised CLP meetings and on blogs like Labourlist, we actively sought to spread the word about what we had seen and what could be achieved.

And the winner is…?

Heading up to Manchester for Labour conference, I’m wondering what the result of the leadership election is going to be, and thinking about the last minute predictions from un-informed bookies and pundits.

I hope, if everything has gone correctly at the ERS, that only a few people know the actual result yet, and I suspect that votes are still being verified. So it’s a bit frustrating to see the media trying to prejudge the outcome.

When I arrive in Manchester I’ll be going straight to my hotel and then to the conference hall for the leadership announcement. The 4pm start time will no doubt slip to something more like 5pm, or later, as always seems to be the way with events at party conference. But I don’t mind waiting, the result of the leadership election will probably decide if Labour returns to power again at the next election and may well determine when that election is.

A shift to the soft-left by Labour’s new leader would please some in the Party, but I know that this would not be the right thing for Labour or the country. Over the last thirteen years in government, Labour showed that it could use its democratic socialist values to inform policies that benefitted the whole country. Yes there were certainly times when that didn’t happen and we have been reminded throughout this leadership conference of those mistakes such as Iraq, so I won’t list them all here.

But while the leadership contest has rightly been a chance for party members and supporters to share their views on the Labour Government’s record and in particular what they were unhappy with. The election of our new leadership today in Manchester is the time to stop that sustained critique of our record, and to focus attention on the positive change that Labour initiated in government. The public do not need us to rubbish our record, coalition ministers are already doing that and in particular Labour’s economic management. Our new Leader need a robust response to the charge from Nick Clegg and David Cameron that public spending caused the financial crisis and that Labour’s mismanagement of public spending led to the challenging financial decisions that everyone now recognise need to be taken in order to reduce the deficit.

This should be a matter of urgency for the new Leader as they will be facing David Cameron at the despatch box on the 20th October to challenge the coalition on its brutal and ideologically driven Spending Review. The decisions taken by coalition ministers to cut budgets across government by up to a quarter will leave many voters un-touched, but for many people the cuts will be felt instantly. For example, research by the Fawcett Society showed that the cuts will disproportionately hurt women.

I’m almost certain that many people in the Labour Party will want to continue voicing their unhappiness with Labour’s record in Government. They will not want to stop attacking ‘new Labour’ or the people who led Labour in Government. They will want to attack their colleague’s in the Party for moving to the centre-ground in British politics, and they’ll want our new Leader to ditch the new Labour brand.

But I hope that our new leader recognises that Labour didn’t secure a majority in 1997, 2001, and 2005 by simply appealing to a small group of voters who are the true core of Labour. And that to win back power from this centre-right coalition Labour needs to stay firmly in the centre ground.

Some Labour shadow ministers have tussled this week over the need to reconsider our position on reducing the deficit. It’s also important that the new Leader has as sensible and well thought out position on this, that offers voters a real sense of what Labour would do if elected to restore people’s trust in our economic management.

I’ll be sitting in the hall with everyone else hoping that the right candidate is elected, one who will defend Labour’s legacy and lead us back to power.

David Chaplin
Chair, Young Fabians

Guest Post: The Leader of the Labour Party is going to need to box clever

Following last nights leadership contender Question Time. Young Fabian member Daniel Bamford lays out some advice for the next leader of the Labour Party.

Labour needs to box clever over the next few months. When we lose elections, we tend to lose them big: not necessarily in terms of seats but certainly in terms of time sitting on the opposition benches.

Below are key steps I believe our new leader must take.

1.  Look in the Mirror.

Appraise New Labour: acknowledge mistakes have been made and praise our successes.

There’s no point taking partisan positions over whether candidate such and such has a picture of Tony or Gordon on their bed-side table. Instead we must advance arguments for genuine political renewal: look forward not backwards.

Yet, we lost the election for fundamental reasons. Too many sensed their way of life under threat, something that found expression through concerns about immigration, housing and the changing nature of the relationship between citizen and state.

We need also recognise that, whilst Britain has got much richer under Labour, most Britons haven’t. Prospect magazine reports that real incomes have grown sluggishly for the majority of the population since 2002. Perhaps people felt they used to have it better after all.

2. Be Proud.

Let’s be very proud of our record in government: yes, there is more to do but we achieved a lot. Winning the argument with the coalition over Labour’s 13 years in government is a key priority. Our new leader must shout above the ConDem white noise and hammer home the improvements we made to our schools, hospitals and public services.

3. Listen.

Our leader must actively seek opinions. Happily, one of the positives of the protracted leadership campaign is wide exposure to opinion leaders outside the Westminster bubble.

To succeed we must articulate the aspirations and culture of a broad array of voters, including those who voted blue or yellow. We simply can’t do this if we don’t listen.

4. Be Progressive and Realistic on Economic Matters.

Labour is at its best when we are radical but anchored by the political reality of the time.

There is clear scope for progressive economic policy: push further on the minimum wage, seek to use the financial crisis as an opportunity for structural economic recalibration and do our upmost to protect apprenticeships.

However, in the 1980s we were the party the country could not trust on tax and spend. Tragically, even people whose hearts screamed Labour ended up ticking Tory in the ballot booth. This cannot be allowed to happen again.

Labour needs to clearly set out a credible approach to the deficit: we will fall into the coalition’s elephant trap if we allow them even an inch to claim that only they can face up to the country’s problems.

One leader? No thanks, I’d rather have five.

All the candidates have talents that give our Party strength; we can ill afford to discard any as we enter opposition. They all have a role to play at high table, whoever wins. Simple as that.

After New, what’s next?

In this guest post, Young Fabian Rob Newman reflects on the analysis of New Labour throughout the Labour leadership contest.

I’m still waiting impatiently for my ballot paper to arrive so that I can cast my vote in the leadership contest. I supported David Miliband from the moment that he announced his candidacy. My view has been reinforced over the course of these interminable months – not by the candidates’ visions of the future, but rather their assessment of our recent past.

There has been a lot of accurate analysis of New Labour – its undoubted strengths (an unprecedented three election victories) and its acknowledged weaknesses (too hands off with the market, too hands on with the State, in the words of James Purnell).

But there’s been a lot of inaccurate analysis, too – predicated on a persistent, but sadly mistaken, belief about what exactly New Labour was.

The argument goes that New Labour was simply a marketing device; a coup by people who weren’t ‘really’ Labour who compromised on our founding beliefs to get us in to power. Ed Miliband showed that, unfortunately, he falls somewhat for this myth when he wrote recently that “New Labour nostalgia says that there is a tension between our values and our electability”. According to this view, New Labour can be reduced to certain policies (ID cards, tuition fees, the war in Iraq – as if war can ever be a ‘policy’), or even to certain people (Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson, John Hutton – choose your bête noire!).

Therefore, with those certain people no longer on the front line and the junking of those policies – hey presto, we will have ‘changed’.

The truth is that New Labour did not identify a “tension” between our values and our being in government. What it identified was the fact that we had failed to broaden our appeal beyond certain groups in society; the “tension” was between our party and the electorate.

It identified other things, too. That economic prosperity and social justice were two sides of the same coin – and that you couldn’t have one without the other. That matters of crime and security profoundly affect our voters – much more so than the better-off Tories who could escape the fear of crime in their leafy suburbs. That the responsibility not to walk by on the other side doesn’t end simply because of a line drawn on a map.

Most of all, it identified that while our values remain immutable, the methods of putting them into practice must forever be in flux. The Labour of 1945 was of course different to the Labour of 1964, 1974 or 1997, with programmes which would have been unrecognisable or indeed antithetical one to the other. But each manifesto was right for its time – a bewildering fact, until we realise the truth of Herbert Morrison’s statement that “Socialism is what a Labour Government does”.

New Labour, then, was an understanding of the need for a broad-based appeal to the whole country – irreducible to Policy A or Person X. Some candidates seem to have bought the myth, moving from astute analysis of the last Labour Government’s failings (the failure to correct the excesses of the City; the lack of affordable housing; not addressing the rising tide of resentment at the speed of change in our communities) to a position of detachment from what is, in truth, a profound record of service to the country.

By all means let us examine what kind of appeal we can fashion for the whole country, not just parts of it, in 2015. By all means let us recognise that a political party, whether in opposition or in government, needs to maintain its connection with the public whose support it seeks. But let’s not pretend that anyone is going to be voting on Iraq, tuition fees or ID cards in 2015. They will be asking whether we have come up with a vision – not for big, interventionist government, or government which retreats and leaves people to sink or swim. Rather, they will be looking for a government which enables people to fulfil their potential; which curbs the excesses of the market while recognising that private enterprise is a wealth creator in our society; which asks people to take up their responsibilities to one another as well as protects their rights.

That government can be a Labour Government. It won’t be branded as ‘New Labour’ – but it will be buttressed by the same understanding that gave that electoral phenomenon such dramatic life.

Are the leadership candidates being asked the right questions?

Yesterday’s Times leader (I would provide the link, but it’s inconveniently placed behind the Times’ paywall) sets out an interesting problem for the five Labour leadership candidates.  Despite months spent answering questions, the paper’s view is that it counts for nothing as they aren’t being asked the right questions. After over fifty hustings across the country that is quite a disappointing prognosis.

Is the plethora of husting events producing better questioning of the candidates? If the Party had to do it over again then I think there would be a serious rethink of the hustings calendar. Regional and local Labour parties, socialist societies, unions and other groups forming part of the all important ‘Labour family’ eagerly grabbed their own personal opportunity to quiz the candidates. (Sympathies go out to the campaigns’ diary secretaries!) But the result has been near identical Q&A sessions being asked up and down the country.

My colleague David Chaplin had a point in suggesting that hustings could have been better orgainsed around distinct policy lines. The likely bun fight between areas wanting to hust the candidates on particular policy areas would have been an issue, but it would have helpfully broadened out the questioning and focused on policy.

A good idea has been to encourage like minded groups to come together to do joint hustings (like the joint Young Fabians/LCID/SERA/Co-Op Youth hustings on Labour in the World). Similarly we’ve been organising webchats with individual leadership candidates, to give Young Fabians across the country a chance to put their all-important question direct to each candidate, no matter what the topic (you can join with the the first is tomorrow with Ed Miliband at 12.30pm here).

Still, we need to focus on the right questions being asked. Everyone will have their view; my three all important questions which the next leader of the Labour Party needs perfect answers for are:

1)    What will be your immediate priorities be post this long leadership contest: The Coalition have managed to grab a 100 days of government free from any meaningful opposition. What will you spend your first 100 days focusing on?

2)    How will you unify the party and more importantly the Shadow Cabinet: Alistair Campbell’s diaries continually point to disunity at the top of the Party threatening to hamper a return to power – how will you stop this happening again?

3)    How are you going to attract the broadest support amongst the voting public: Both the left and the right of the Party argue that Labour lost the support of respective left/right sections of the public. How are you going to deal with that situation?

You can join our lunchtime webchat with Ed Miliband tomorrow , 12.30pm, here. You can also submit a question in advance by emailing me at vrampulla@youngfabians.org.uk.

#kenwasthen … Labour or London?

It’s interesting that the contest between Oona King and Ken Livingstone has failed to attract significant national media attention, or a huge amount of engagement from Labour Party members. Labour is often accused of being too London-centric, and some of the leadership candidates have certainly gone out of their way to promote their regional roots and focus.

But while we have surely all made up our minds by now about who we are going to vote for as our new leader?! I don’t witness the same level of debate about which Labour candidate we want to challenge Boris Johnson to be the most powerful directly elected politician in the country.

Perhaps this is because Labour supporters don’t think we can beat Boris? Or perhaps its because we are a bit tired of these nomination processes now and if we are going to go to the effort to go to a hustings, its going to be for the Party Leadership and that’s about it?

But while the Leadership contest is about the future of Labour and how we will challenge and hold the new coalition Government to account, the Mayoral nomination race is surely about the future of London, and nothing is more exciting to me at this time than that.

I’ve lived in London all my life, and I think Labour in London has always been weaker than it should be. We have had and still do have, a huge wealth of hard-working London Labour MPs, activists with huge amounts of experience and knowledge, and a structure of local and devolved government which allows for our councils, and our Mayor to have a real impact on the lives of Londoners and make our city a better place to live.

For me, its a shame that Ken has thrown himself back into the race this time. I think if he had said that he wasn’t standing then we would have seen some of his supporters throwing themselves forward, such as David Lammy.

Ken should have recognised that it was time for the next generation to take on the challenge on re-engaging with Londoners, and what a great nomination race it would have been if Lammy and Oona has both been vying for our votes. Labour could have showcased its diversity and talent in London at a time when the Party is desperately looking for experienced and engaging personalities to re-connect with voters.

As we get closer to the nomination of our candidate for Mayor (it will be announced in London on the day before Party Conference) I hope that London members will get more engaged in the debate, and will see that Labour has to re-energise itself in London with a new and vibrant candidate before we have any chance of taking on Boris Johnson in 2012. In my opinion, there is only one candidate who can do that.

What are your views? Email me.

David.

David Chaplin
Chair, Young Fabians
dchaplin@youngfabians.org.uk

The Emergency Botch-it

Last night the Young Fabians and Progress jointly-hosted an event on the Emergency Budget. Rachel Reeves MP, Kitty Ussher, Councillor Claire Kober (leader of Haringey Council) and Young Fabian Chair David Chaplin were all on a panel, chaired by Stephen Twigg MP.

Despite coming only hours after the Budget speeches ended, there was a good, detailed discussion.

• Rachel Reeves MP highlighted the false comparison between the Greek and Canadian economies and the UK, suggesting that the measures in yesterday’s budget ran the risk of a double-dip recession. She didn’t believe the budget presented a positive vision for what the economy would look like in future, focusing far too much on government expenditure – she believed it was false to ignore growth as one of the main pillars of deficit reduction. She argued for a balanced, fair economic recovery.
• Cllr Claire Kober spoke about the difficulties the new housing benefits regime would cause not just for her own Borough, but also other in London where property prices are high. She also said that her own council were looking at ways of creating their own Future Jobs Fund following the abolition of the central government programme as an “efficiency saving”, highlighting the wider indirect benefits of such programmes – for instance, reductions in crime.
• Kitty Ussher, now Chief Economist at Demos, highlighted the ideological nature of the cuts in today’s budget as well as the Osborne’s evasive tactics in relation to the OBR’s revised forecasts which appear to show that, as a direct consequence of the budget measures, growth would be lower and unemployment higher – she pointed out that cuts in benefits and a rise in VAT would impact consumer spending, a key determinant of growth in the UK economy.



• David Chaplin said it was the first time he had experienced a Budget speech where cuts were ideologically driven, and that many other young people would be experiencing the same for the first time too. He highlighted measures which he thought would affect young people in the future, particularly a reduction in the spending on skills which he said was vital to social mobility. He also argued that Labour needed to change the way it responded to the economic narrative being written by the Coalition government or risk being out of power for a generation – he called on the Labour leadership candidates to be more specific about the sorts of economic measures they would advocate were they to win, arguing that we couldn’t oppose every single measure implemented by the Government without offering a credible alternative.

The debate from the floor was good – particular policies were highlighted as pernicious, such as the changes to disability living allowances and housing benefit – but there was pragmatism in the room. The panel and the floor recognised that had Labour been in government then they too would have to have made difficult decisions, and also that Labour didn’t get everything right while in Government (there was particular discussion about improving the housing benefit system).

Nonetheless, as Rachel Reeve eloquently argued, we need to tackle the Coalition head-on on the argument that the cuts presented yesterday are “unavoidable” – growth is a key way of reducing the deficit and the measures announced will slow trend growth – and even where we do cut, there is a fair way to do it and then there was yesterday’s budget.

Perhaps surprisingly, there was little discussion about the Liberal Democrat’s role in the Budget measures.

Overall, the consensus at yesterday’s event was that Osborne’s announcement wasn’t a budget, it was a botch-it.

(As a footnote, I’ll add that it is reassuring we have elected officials like Rachel in Parliament and Claire in Local Government – we need more like them. It is also a shame that Kitty felt she’d have more impact outside of Westminster, than as part of it.)

A podcast of the event will be published on the Young Fabian website later.

The Fabian Leadership Hustings: a campaigner’s view

Here Young Fabian member and campaigner Ben Knight gives his views on the Fabian leadership hustings earlier this week.

This made it the third leadership debate I’ve seen in 4 days, and far from being a case of 5 people in auto-pilot, it was a lively and engaging debate.

Overall, I am greatly enthused about the future of Labour, both as an effective opposition and as a future government. David Miliband, in his opening remarks, said that it was now time to move beyond the era of Blair/Brown and this is something that needs to be hammered home – provided that lessons are learned of course.

Something that really set this evening apart from previous debates was a question about the candidate’s regrets. The candidates were asked ‘Which are the three most important issues on which you disagreed with the Government since 1997?’ Quite rightly, Iraq was the most common response. Diane Abott and Ed Miliband are making sure that their opposition to the war is well known, and I think that being able to say that they opposed such a devastating and unpopular war will help avoid future pain on this issue.

I was somewhat disappointed that Ed Balls expressed concern over the ‘loss of trust’ Iraq led to, rather than the loss of life – for both sides. Whilst he is certainly right to make his point, I think perhaps a sense of perspective is needed. In order to go forward, the mistakes of the past must be openly and honestly debated.

Staying with the theme of regrets, Ed Miliband was the only candidate to mention not being tough enough on the banks. I would have hoped that this would be something of a pressing concern for all five candidates, given that the coalition is trying to rebuild the old system as it was, rather than dare try a new model.

I was also impressed with Ed Miliband’s proposals for a high pay commission and his campaign for a living wage; they are both great causes worthy of support and I hope to see them come to fruition soon. With only days before the first budget of Coalition, it is imperative that banking reform is kept at the top of the agenda, and that Labour continues to be the voice of those least able to speak up for themselves.

I felt that the evening gave a good sign of things to come and that regardless of the eventual victor there are some dead certs for Labour’s future. Firstly – electoral reform. All candidates made arguments in favour of the Alternative Vote, as it requires any successful candidate to be elected with a majority of the vote, and it retains the crucial constituency link between voters and MP.

Secondly, there is a lot of support for Harriet Harman’s proposal of appointing women to 50% of shadow cabinet posts. The candidates argued this was needed in order to change the male-centric culture of Westminster, which at present poses a barrier to female entry and success in politics.

For me, the most salient point of the night was made by Andy Burnham, who seemed far less nervous tonight then when I first saw him speak. As the other candidates debated the pros and cons of AV versus PR, votes at 16 and House of Lords reform, Burnham reminded them that to a vast majority of people these issues are simply not the most important right now.

As unemployment is predicted to go up, welfare is reduced and harder to get, and with the government seemingly taking abject glee in watching it all unfold, Andy Burnham has delivered a sobering message to us all. It is imperative that Labour is vocal, organised and united so that it may once again offer an alternative vision – and offer hope – to the people of Britain that Mr Cameron and Clegg’s ‘new politics’ neglects to be concerned for.

A vision for our future: Why I’m Backing David Miliband

Unlike most of MPs who nominated David Miliband for the leadership of the Labour Party this week, I haven’t worked with him, I haven’t chatted with him in the division lobby, or on the benches in House.

Unlike the journalists who try to un-pick the Labour leadership contest, I’m not looking for a juicy story, I’m not interested in his choice of tie colour, or how he’s getting on with his brother.

I’ve been watching this leadership race develop like every other Party member. I’ve met some of the candidates on the campaign trail in London during the election; I’ve seen them on TV and I’ve read their articles in the press.

Now that the final list of candidates is clear, I’m also clear on who I want to support, who I want to win and why.

I’m a life-long Labour Party member and I want our new leader to be the next Prime Minister.

I want to support a candidate who has demonstrated their credentials for that job and who is up for the challenge of taking on David Cameron and Nick Clegg from the day he or she is elected.

As a normal party activist I want a new leader who will be proud of the record that our party has in government, particularly the advances made under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown since 1997.

I don’t want a leader who is going to trash that record. I don’t want a leader who is going to exploit disagreements within our movement. And I don’t want a leader who wants to step back from the difficult decisions we need to take.

I want a leader who can talk openly about our disagreements and who can confidently acknowledge our mistakes, but who will also move our Party forward together and learn from where we went wrong.

Our Party needs reforming, from top to bottom. We need to re-think the way we recruit members and how we organise ourselves in our local communities. We need a new and more open approach to discussing policy that is inclusive and transparent. We should be cutting-edge and dynamic in our local and national campaigns. We need a leader who wants the Labour Party to change and is willing and able to drive that.

I want a Labour Prime Minister who understands the aspirations of everyone in my community, including those who struggle to get by, and wants to help them get the best for them and their family. Someone who will recognise the needs of everyone in society, not just people who are members of the Labour Party.

I believe David Miliband is that leader, and that’s why I’m endorsing him today as my candidate to be Labour’s next Prime Minister.