Can we stop fighting the Tory Party of the 1980’s?

Every time I hear that clip of John McDonnell saying he would go back in time and assassinate Margaret Thatcher I shudder.

I know many people will say that I’m too young to remember Thatcher and so I wouldn’t understand the way some people in the Labour Party like the ill-judged McDonnell or other long-standing Thatcher opponents such as Ken Livingstone still feel about her and the politics she represented. Perhaps it’s ok if they are allowed to continue to hate her, fight her, and moan about her. Its conversely similar to the way some web-savvy Tories still talk about her.

But the rest of the Party – those who actually want to return to government and win the confidence of voters again – must now stop fighting the Tory party of the 1980’s.

It’s not just the mobile phones which have changed since 1980’s, it’s the politics and also our society which has moved on, and so Labour should too. We’ve got to accept that this new coalition has shaken up our politics and it’s made people think that there is a new centre-ground in British politics which is a natural space for the Conservative Party and their Liberal Democrat colleagues.

But to show where this coalition is failing – and it already is – we need to do more than simply point out the mad right-wingers who still dominate the Tory backbenches. We need to stop arguing that Tories are all toffs with baronets who want to destroy the state and privatise everything in sight. Otherwise people won’t want to listen, we know that because we’ve tried it before and it doesn’t work.

Crewe and Nantwich showed us that, remember the Labour activist dressed-up in a DJ and top-hat? I think that’s a campaign to forget.

What I’d like to see now from all the Leadership candidates is a new and confident message about the modern conservative party under David Cameron which shows how their ideology is driving the desire to cut spending. The contest to be the next Leader of the Labour Party should help us reframe our view of the conservative party and find a way to really hold them to account and challenge them, not fall back to our old arguments about class and Thatcher.

David Chaplin
Chair, Young Fabians