The Progressive fightback? Start by abandoning the word ‘progressive’

This weekend, the great and the good of the centre-left will converge on London to perform a post-mortem on elections and of Labour’s year in Opposition. Huzzah! It’s Fabian Society Conference time.

Sadly I won’t be there. It’s my birthday this weekend, so I can think of a gazillion better things to do on Saturday than debate Labour Party strategy.

And I suspect it won’t really matter not being there. It’s highly likely that some or all of the following will be discussed as reasons for a rather limp twelve months for the left: length and timing of leadership election; strength of opposition narrative; focus on Lib Dems rather than Tories; complacency; Ed Miliband failing to find his voice quickly enough; trust on economic issues; lack of policies; Murdoch press etc etc.

So, for what it’s worth, here is my two-penneth on how to mount a ‘Progressive fightback’: start by abandoning words like ‘progressive’. Bin them. No seriously. ‘Progressive’ is meaningless. It’s bunkum. And, more importantly, using it as a badge of honour isn’t going to win votes.

Time was when to be a progressive meant something. In the 90s they were the sparkly New Labour types. Trendy. Cool. Progressives fought against the loony left whose wet dream was for complete nationalisation of all industry. And against those on the right who lamented the collapse of the Empire. And against those beardy weirdies in the Liberals who couldn’t make their mind up on anything.

Progressives even had their own colour: purple. What colour are you? Blood red? Too Soviet! Puke yellow? No thank you! Royal blue? Off with your head! They’re not progressive. Purple is progressive.

Voters could spot progressives. And they liked them.

But in Coalition Britain, we’re all progressive now. David Cameron is a ‘progressive Conservative’. Nick Clegg is a ‘new-fashioned progressive’. And the left is working out how to mount a ‘progressive fightback’.

I guess you’d know if you’re not progressive. Non-progressives are the sort who would make people sell a kidney just to be able to afford kidney treatment. Or the sort who would euthanase immigrants to keep their numbers down. Or the sort who would reintroduce tongue clamps for women. They’re not progressive.

Not you? Then well done! You’re progressive! Bravo.

Except the term, by being appropriated by parties across the political spectrum, has become devoid of any meaning. It is a huge canvas onto which you can project almost any ideal.

But there are other problems with the term too.

Take the AV referendum as an example. As Jessica Asato, Director of Labour Yes to AV, has now admitted, the Yes to AV campaign should have had the slogan “a small change that will make a small difference”. Yet the more fervent supporters of AV whipped themselves into an orgasmic frenzy, arguing that those who didn’t see the point of AV (68% of those who voted, as it turned out) were heathens opposed to the betterment of society. AV was change. It was progress. If you opposed AV then you weren’t progressive. You were conservative. Or stupid. Or Rupert Murdoch. Or a stupid conservative Rupert Murdoch.

So terms like progressive alter the terms of the debate in an unhelpful way. Opposing specific forms of change doesn’t mean you don’t share ideals, necessarily. It might just mean you disagree about means. Labels like progressive put an impetus on those who describe themselves thus to constantly agitate for change. But change for its own sake is pointless.

And for voters terms like ‘progressive’ have probably always been meaningless. But now they look increasingly patronising too. It’s the sort of term that might have resonance in a small band of intellectual and political elite – the denizens of the People’s Republic of Islington – but it in no way meaningfully relates to what punters on the doorstep give a crap about. Like paying the bills, or what’s best for the kids, or how annoying the neighbours are.

In short, it’s not a term that will help Ed Miliband look and sound like a fully paid-up member of the human race. And based on the last few months, that is looking like an uphill challenge.

To be ‘progressive’ is now completely, utterly, totally devoid of meaning. It is to be anything and everything, and absolutely nothing all at the same time.

So my suggestion is to jettison it. To use simple language that has real meaning to the sorts of voters Labour needs to win back. Maybe then they might be more willing to get involved with the Party and its work.

Or, at the very least, to vote for it in future elections.

Alex Baker is Secretary of the Young Fabians.

Two pints of Fabiansim and a packet of crisps

It has been an interesting few months for the Fabian Society. Since Ed Miliband’s speech at New Year Conference and Maurice Glasman’s challenging contribution to the Young Fabian lunchtime session at the same event, Blue Labour has entered the Labour thinker’s lexicon for 2011, and often inaccurately set up Fabianism as its polar opposite. The debate continues over on Next Left today.

It was amusing then to see Labour’s leader use an old friend as a shield for questions about his plans for departure from bachelorhood – his stag party “won’t be two Fabian Society lectures and half a pint of beer”. Is Fabianism really the worst thing imaginable in the Westminster bubble and beyond?

If so, perhaps it is time to inject some dynamism into the society?

The second half of the year will see a new general secretary appointed to lead the organisation – and a great opportunity to show Ed Miliband why he needs an active and exciting Fabian Society. Naturally, there is plenty to build on: the leadership of the Fabians will be handed over with record levels of membership; a fantastic body of thinkers and doers in its youth wing (but as Chair of the Young Fabians I would say that wouldn’t I?); some tremendous local groups; and a history of significant interventions. Packed out events like this weekend’s Progressive Fightback conference (final few tickets here) show that the wider left wants the sort of discussion and debate that the Fabians facilitate. This is an organisation with a lot of potential for someone to take on.

So what’s the dynamism needed then?

The two things I took on board most strongly from the delegation I led to the Obama campaign in 2008 were the importance of people, and the holy grail of strategy. These principles make a good start.

The Fabian Society holds a unique position as both a think tank and membership organisation with democracy at its heart. The membership is a strength. The society can grow in size and influence by capitalising on its members talents. A small, hardworking staff with smaller than desired budgets could be supported by the people who sign up year after year and call themselves Fabians. These people are already contributing to the Fabian Women’s Network, numerous local societies, and of course the Young Fabians – but I’m sure even more members have even more to offer if empowered to contribute. Be it to greater policy debate as the critical friend of Labour, or having those difficult conversations the party steers clear of. Be it with abilities from their professional lives, as web designers, writers, industry experts, and fundraisers. Or be it liaising with local Labour parties and progressive campaigns. We should seek to grow the membership in numbers, but grow them also as individuals, developing their contribution to the movement.

The new leader of the Fabians will have new ideas. But they must bring the people on the journey with them. How? Tell them what you’re trying to achieve and facilitate their involvement in it. Get your strategy right, and stick to it. (David Plouffe’s The Audacity to Win is the key read here.) The Young Fabian executive committee has four strategic priorities (to increase membership, member involvement, funds and influence). This is public. The difficult decisions we make as a voluntary executive are taken through this gauge. And members are helping us – the Membership Ambassadors identified and supported by my colleague Anna-Joy Rickard, for example.

If the Fabian goal is to provide Ed with the ideas he needs to win a general election and improve the lives being damaged by this government’s actions, then a strategy in place to achieve that will be a crucial part of the new general secretary’s role. If the membership is contributing its maximum to this, I have every reason to think we can be successful.

If not, there’s always a night in with Ed and Justine …

• Submit your thoughts on the Future of the Fabians by clicking here.

Adrian Prandle is Chair of the Young Fabians.

Why “too far, too fast” isn’t enough

In this member post, Stuart Clark argues that Labour needs to improve its strategy for opposing the Coalition’s economic policy.

The details of yesterday’s Budget are still being dissected, but the economic and political arguments are well under way. On the face of it the Chancellor’s measures seemed to offer help to the British public: increases in personal tax allowances and duty rate cuts amongst the most heavily publicised. Yet these measures pale into insignificance given the context of this budget – the weakness in the British economy and last autumn’s Comprehensive Spending Review.

Osborne’s “Budget for Growth” saw UK growth figures for current and future years revised downward. This is where the opposition should – and has – primarily focused: Ed Miliband’s response to the budget was barely three minutes old before we were hearing, yet again, how government cuts were risking the fragile recovery and were going “too far, too fast”.

But this sound-bite is inadequate in contesting the ideological basis of the government’s economic policy.

Ideology was all too apparent in yesterday’s Budget; the country’s economic problems were tackled in a market-orientated fashion by a government determined not to use the state to its full potential to help people.

Labour failed and is still failing to communicate effectively that the size of Britain’s deficit is not the result of overzealous public spending but a calculated economic decision taken to protect Britain’s economy from the loss of private sector demand and investment caused by a global financial crises and severe recession which followed.

Labour made a moral decision to use the power and resources of the state to shield the ordinary people of this country from the worst effects of the recession and in so doing accepted the need to run a deficit. As the private sector recovered, tax receipts would have risen and public spending could have been withdrawn – this was a viable strategy focused at preventing excessive unemployment.

The Chancellor’s rhetoric may be about growth, but if he really cared about it he would spare the country the cuts in public spending and increases in VAT, which will reduce demand and therefore harm our economy’s prospects.

Criticising deficit reduction as “too far, too fast” concedes the argument in favour of some sort of mandatory deficit reduction, something which Labour’s plan to halve the deficit in four years is also guilty of.

Reductions in public spending should be wholly conditional on growth.

Labour, by failing to articulate the success of the stimulus and the continued viability of UK borrowing in the short term, has made it far too easy for the Coalition to argue that cuts are necessary immediately.

And this makes it harder to expose the coalition policy as one of ideology rather than one of economics.

Finding a voice

In this guest post, Young Fabian member Louie Woodall responds to Vincenzo Rampulla’s post about Ed Miliband’s PMQ’s style, arguing that, without the substance of detailed policy proposals, style matters a great deal.

Mr. Miliband is a leader of substance. However, his style has been somewhat lacking.

While Ed Miliband’s whirlwind ascent to the big league understandably necessitated a time of retreat and reflection, there has now arisen a gnawing fear that Labour is mired in the doldrums – a fear amplified by the press and manifested in worrying displays of parliamentary disunity.

Miliband has made some astute strategic choices that have and will continue to improve Labour’s polling, but the lack of current policy proposals offered by the party mean that he must personally hold the fort in the face of the government’s political attack. This requires him to bolster his own personal profile and establish himself as an assertive PM-in-waiting.

So far, his style of communication and presentation has made this transformation unlikely.

His decision to launch a policy review may prove a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it allows the development and consolidation of those ideas which will lead Labour back into power; on the other, it has left its leader without an effective set of counterfoils with which to attack coalition policy. In their place, Ed has had to use his personal profile to make an impression on both the government and the public. So far, however, he has been floundering in his search for a coherent and strident voice.

Elsewhere, his set-piece speeches have been frustratingly vague and his definition of key catchwords obscure. The speech to the National Policy Forum was typical. The “squeezed middle” was only described as “people”, not a set type, group or range of people, just people.

In recent weeks, Ed has appeared to up his game – following Vince Cable’s now infamous indiscretions, he did well to place one rogue minister’s blunder in the wider context of a coalition at war with itself, where all semblance of equal partnership was simply a “sham”.

However, he has yet to be seen suitably impassioned by the harm incurred by the government’s policies, yet to be seen landing palpable blows on the Prime Minister, yet to have inspired any substantial group with his words and actions.

At the moment, words are Labour’s only ammunition and the leader’s performance in this period of phoney war matters. Ed should adopt a more commanding and yes combative tone in his engagements with Cameron. He needs to take the fight to a government whose approval ratings are falling and articulate those themes that resonate now more than ever – social justice, fairness and equality.

After all, the next general election may come sooner rather than later.

Ed, take your time and don’t be hurried

PMQs is a pantomime but it’s one that needs to be entertaining for the right reasons.

With poll results coming in showing Labour on 40 per cent and, amongst students, 42 per cent the question has to be weather difficult PMQ episodes like today’s really matter? Some say yes, some say no. It is no good claiming piously that PMQs is a Westminster oddity that plays badly to the country – we all know it is one of the worst public excesses Westminster allows itself. Nor is it a case of simply taking it on the chin as a ‘bad week’ which won’t happen again. Irrespective of your view, a British political leader needs to show their ability to command PMQs.

The New Generation: what do you think?

Young Fabian Vice Chair and editor of ‘The New Generation’, Adrian Prandle, introduces the Young Fabians’ 50^th anniversary pamphlet, which was launched by Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP in the House of Commons. We are very keen to hear what you think of the pamphlet – please let us know your thoughts by posting a comment. This is the first in a series of posts from the authors of ‘The New Generation’.

When Ed Miliband, in his first leader’s speech, told Labour Party Conference that a new generation had taken charge, ears pricked up. He spoke of a new generation ‘idealistic about our future’ and ‘not bound by the fear or the ghosts of the past.’

The Young Fabians – and the four essays in our just published 50^th anniversary pamphlet – epitomise this new generation. We bring not just a new generation of ideas to the centre-left, but also an optimism, an ambition, and a determination about what government and society together can achieve. As Douglas Alexander, in his speech to launch the pamphlet, said: “Don’t underestimate the motivation, inspiration and insight that young thinkers, activists and participants have in our collective future.”

At a time when the potential of a mass membership movement is being recalled, the Young Fabians are ahead of the game. Our involvement in Labour politics may focus on ideas and participating in change, but in publishing this work we have also developed a highly participatory model of policy development.

The four Young Fabians policy development groups that have been meeting since May have utilised the heartbeat of our organisation: members. Members who individually, and collectively, are both doers and thinkers. The belief in collectivity, central to the movement, should never again allow us to forget the value of participation.

This is a key theme of our work on Labour Party reform. From participating in a functional policy-making process, and participating in driving change in our communities, to ensuring a boost in participation of the full diversity of Labour’s members, we must speed up in replacing command and control with listen and learn as the basis for action.

And so, Young Fabian members, involved and empowered, have presented their policy ideas in a variety of fora: meetings, magazine articles, blog posts; to politicians, to experts, and to each other. We have run wiki-policy experiments, and held online meetings bringing in passion, expertise and experiences from the breadth of the country, not just from within the Westminster policy world.

The policy development groups met in a unique context: with Labour out of power for the first time in most Young Fabian members’ political lifetimes, coalition government may well have brought ‘a new politics’, and, still in the aftermath of the global economic crisis, public services begin to feel the harsh impact of the new government’s extensive and ideological spending cuts. The results are impressive, and the pamphlet pushes for party reform and offers policy recommendations across a diverse set of areas.

Change starts at home, which is why Jessica Studdert, Chair of the Young Fabian special project group, Transforming our Party, argues for a vibrant, diverse Labour Party, utilising its members to respond to the issues of the modern world with relevance and innovation and to provide a link between leadership and wider electorate.  In The path to green and equitable growth, Adam Short presents the case for a holistic approach to dealing with the interdependent challenges of energy, global governance, and developing economies and livelihoods. Chair of the Young Fabian Work and Families policy development group, Josie Cluer, calls for a proper definition of the fairness Labour represents, a new economic narrative, and a willingness to transform workplaces and family life. In the final contribution, Young Fabian members Bren Albiston and Dan Harkin discuss the interrelation of aspiration and education, and look for a commitment of involvement and participation from beyond the education sector – in families, in communities, in trade unions and in business – with the support, not control, of government. Each chapter is packed with ideas.

Take these ideas to your CLPs, your union branch meetings, your community campaign groups. Write about them, talk about them – and let us know what you think.

This pamphlet presents new ideas for a new leader of the Labour Party – but also for the whole movement. Change is needed and together we must participate in that change. The new generation is ready and able.

A similar version of this post was published on LabourList.

Right stupidity

In this Guest Post, Young Fabian member Christine Quigley takes issue with calls for “a leader of the Labour right”.

For ten minutes, we were all playing nice. Labour had elected a new leader, and Party Conference saw a swell of support for (not-quite-Red) Ed from all sections of the party. Most of us were just relieved that the long wait was over, and that we could begin the serious work of winning back the country from the Conservatives, rather than sniping at rival supporters over Twitter. For me at least, the Manchester conference this year embodied a feeling that we were all on the same side.

A feeling that lasted right up until I read Sion Simon’s blogpost yesterday about the need for a leader of the Labour Right.

You could be forgiven for thinking that the Labour Right has a leader. His name’s Ed Miliband. He’s the same leader as everyone else in the party has.

Calls like Sion Simon’s do nothing but further foster factions within the party. Debate is good; division is not. We need only to look at Labour’s implosion into internal wrangling after the 1951 and 1979 election defeats to know how disastrous this sort of infighting can be. Just last week, some Conservatives were attempting to capitalise on disaffected David Miliband supporters by extending the warm hand of friendship (and an invitation to join the party). I have great faith in all those who supported the defeated leadership candidates to back our new leader; putting party over petty factionalism.

We have always been a party that accommodates different voices, and we are stronger for it. It’s crucial that important decisions and policy positions that we take up over the next few years are discussed and debated, to ensure that we’re getting them right. But the scattergun support picked up by the leadership candidates itself demonstrated how individuals can cross factional boundaries. Setting up a candidate to channel right-wing dissent isn’t helping anyone. (And really – Ed Balls?) We have to stop talking about right and left and start talking about what we all believe in; fairness, equality and justice.

So, whether you’re a unilateral-nuclear-disarmament, nationalise-it-all, dyed-in-the-wool red, or the palest pink ultra-Blairite, now is the time to redouble your support for Ed Miliband and the new Shadow Cabinet team. We won’t all agree on everything the party leadership does over the next four-and-a-half years, but we can agree on one thing; Britain is better under a Labour Government. That’s something we all need to fight for.

Out of the shadows and genuine contenders

Gosh, it’s like the start of the season isn’t it, when after several months of no action, a few last minute arrivals on transfer deadline day, and then finally you get to see the team that hopefully is going to lead you to glory. 

I maintain what I wrote over on the Progress blog at the end of the summer, that there is much for Labour to be optimistic about. That is not to say that times won’t be tough – they will – but to believe that we can build confidently from the position we are in.

Ed’s got a strong team. Number of women is pleasing and the other side are quite rattled if this offensive blog from Toby Young is anything to go by. A few surprises last night, but it’s already quite exciting to see the job titles next to the new names. Our leader began well last week of course when he forced Nick Brown not to stand for Chief Whip. 

Alan Johnson is a great choice for Shadow Chancellor. He will provide a stark contrast to George Osborne and, despite his prominent allegiances during the leadership election, will be fiercely loyal to his boss. Most of all, there seemed a risk that Labour’s most natural media performer was going to be buried away shadowing the Leader of the House. Here, he will be up front (last football metaphor, I promise) and the public face of Labour opposition to flawed Tory – ahem, Coalition – economic policy and its potentially devastating consequences. 

It’s good to see Yvette Cooper get a prominent role, though I think I would have kept her in domestic policy. Is Andy Burnham’s move from health to education a sign Ed isn’t going to make the national care service a central plank of his policy offer? Andy’s personal experiences and drive to challenge barriers to aspiration and achievement will make him a passionate voice on education. 

One of Ed’s big decisions was over Peter Hain. Did he promote a key ally or did he signal the new generation by appointing one of the other Welsh contenders who lost out? It looks to me like the re-appointment of Shaun Woodward to shadow Northern Ireland is aimed to mitigate Ed taking the former approach. Angela Eagle is a good choice for shadow chief secretary but previous post-holder Liam Byrne is hard done by not to get bigger job than shadow cabinet office minister. 

I was pleased to see John Healey do well last night and think he will succeed in both articulating new Labour health policy and attacking Andrew Lansley’s complex reforms of the NHS. 

Some early reflections then with plenty to stew over ahead of parliament’s return next week. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing them all get stuck in.

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.

A single issue voter

During the general election I came across plenty of single issue voters and in this Labour leadership election I plan on being a single issue voter myself. My issue is women in the Labour Party and what our next leader plans to do to increase the number of women participating in the Party and standing for election. My experience of being a candidate was of operating in what at times felt like an all male world. Even within the Young Fabians it is a challenge to get young women to stand for election to the Executive, although our Young Fabian Women event the other week showed we have no shortage of bright, young women with lots to offer. I want not just commitments around All Women Shortlists and balancing the cabinet, whilst important, in many ways these just disguise broader issues around the engagement of women in politics. I want to hear the candidates’ ideas around how they will get more women involved in grass roots politics, the role of women at Party Conference and how they will encourage more women to seek selection as parliamentary candidates. That’s my single issue, so far there have been a few promising murmurings from some candidates but I want more. Whoever comes out with a clear plan for getting more women active in the Labour Party gets my vote.