Gay Tories: an oxymoron?

The phrase ‘gay Tory’ simply makes no sense. This is not because it juxtaposes two groups whose interests are as far apart as Iran and the US, but because it suggests that many gay people are shamefully ignorant of their party’s credentials as one which tried to block the repeal of section 28 and one where MPs view gay marriage as more terrifying than European integration.

I shudder to think that people who vote thinking that the Tories offer them a better deal economically (although this is untrue) are voting against their own self-interest.

The Tories have given the job of Women and Equalities Minister to Maria Miller, a woman who voted in favour of Nadine Dorries’ attempt to limit abortion and force women to have the ‘impartial’ counseling of church groups, and who has voted against every single bit of legislation on gay rights that Labour introduced- when she bothered to turn up, that is.

If it were up to her (until her recent and miraculous U-turn, à la Theresa May), gay people wouldn’t be able to adopt and wouldn’t be covered under the Equalities Act. In fact, until last week, she’d been silent on gay marriage.

Many gay people like to think that the drive for equality is over, that Gay Pride is redundant and everything has been achieved. They are wrong. The civil rights campaign is not over. It can’t be: anyone who has canvassed in some of the UK’s poorest housing estates or has dealt with MPs casework and seen the effects of cuts to local services, of cuts to Citizens Advice bureaux, cuts to EMA and Building Schools For The Future, will know that.

We must enfranchise the young, those unable to afford £9,000 tuition fees or even the bus journey to school. We must enfranchise the unemployed, those on benefits, bringing them into society and giving them the chance to succeed. This is the new frontier for those who have campaigned for gay rights in the past.

Yet the thinking espoused by some gay people now defies logic. A society that works together is a society that enriches those at the top as well as those at the bottom. Just as gay people can now work without fear of discrimination, no one should allow disabled workers at Remploy to face unemployment. Long excluded from many workplaces, gay people should not sit by and allow women to lose their independence because of cuts to children’s services.

Gay people might not have to worry about many of these issues, but they, like everyone in the UK, benefitted directly from Labour’s attempts to make society richer. If we ignore the fact that Labour enabled gay people not to be discriminated at school by repealing the Tory section 28 and equalizing the age of consent, that Labour allowed gay people to defend their country openly for the first time, Labour’s record is much deeper. In fact, by sharing the fruits of economic development with all, between 1998 and 2011, not only did productivity per hour grow faster than the rest of Europe, but real disposable income per capita rose faster than in the Europe and in the US.

Equality brings riches and as long as the Government believes that some people deserve unfair treatment because they are ‘plebs’, Britain will continue its social as well as economic decline.

So, this is the time for gay people to stand together, not just with other gay people, but side by side with people who are still disenfranchised: single mothers, young people, the unemployed, the disabled, and millions more. People, in short, whom the Tories have kept at arms length.

Alex Glasner is a Young Fabians member

Young people need to talk about politics, and politicians need to listen

Hoor Pathan, project manager of LetsTAP (Let’s Talk About Politics) wowed the Fabian Summer Conference when she asked Ed Miliband directy to engage young people in political discourse. Here, she talks about the principle behind the project. 

Young people are often brushed off the political landscape as apathetic, unrealistic or just not bothered at all with politics as a whole.

However, the truth is far different. With the rapid changes for the worse that the Coalition has brought in, and the massive cuts taking place across all sectors which affect young people both directly and indirectly, the young are being forced to face challenges of a magnitude they have never imagined.

Tuition fees trebled. No guarantee of work after graduation. A Tory peer recently said “Britain’s never had it better.” As an 11-year-old in Britain today, I say: “Britain’s never had it worse.”

But the recent problems go far deeper than just university fees and cuts to services. The biggest problem today is that young people are trapped in a type of poverty which many have not noticed. It isn’t financial poverty, although this remains a huge problem which politicians have yet to face. No, the poverty I’m talking about is the poverty of aspiration, and the poverty of hope in politics.

You could blame the disappointment of ‘Clegg-Mania’ for this. However, the problem goes further than simple partisan excuses. Young people aren’t switched off; they just haven’t had the chance to get their voice across. The dissatisfaction isn’t about policy alone; it’s about being heard by those in power.

So what needs to be done? The good news is that Labour has already started taking steps in the right direction. Ed Miliband promised to focus on young people when he said “The work of a new generation has begun” in his acceptance speech after becoming leader. He’s already proved this isn’t just empty rhetoric, that he really means it, by holding talks with young people across the country.

But it doesn’t end there. Like in other walks in life, getting young people engaged in politics is a process of ‘Follow the leader.’ Members of the shadow cabinet, junior ministers, and local politicians including councillors, mayors and local cabinets need to go out and reach out to a generation who feels like they have been abandoned. A generation who feels as if a parent has left them and forgotten about them, a generation who feels that the government has lost love for them.

Both national and local politicians need to hold meaningful, rather than tokenistic, talks with young people where young people can actively raise their voice, put forward their concerns and feel as though they are being heard. Then we can move on to the bigger challenge, putting politicians into a position where they have to admit to the young where they’ve got it wrong and show how the ideas young people have are being used to shape policy.

As the political spectrum changes once again, the future of progressive politics lies with involving the young. The new centre ground is where the young who come from generations of non-voters feel inspired to go home and get their disenfranchised families out to the polling station come May 2015.

Hoor Pathan is project manager of ‘LetsTAP’

LetsTAP is a project aimed at involving young people in dialogue and debate with key local and national politicians, heads of services and decision makers in order to provide a safe platform for regular dialogue between decision makers and the young people.

LetsTAP aims to not only open channels of regular dialogue between decision makers and stakeholders, but also provide young people with a chance to actively scrutinize policy and services which affect them through various different methods, each relevant to the specific area of discussion.

Twitter: @Lets_TAP

Is Labour the party for labour?

Bringing Labour more closely in line with the interests of organised labour is the solution to the party’s electoral woes, not the problem. 

This week, I took part in a debate at my university between our campus’ Labour Party Society and a branch of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL), a UK-based network of socialist activists who seek to create a working-class movement against capitalism. The debate sought to answer the question: “Is Labour the party for labour?” and explored the relationship between the party, Trade Unions, and the working-class over the course of the 20^th century.

Labour has been entwined with the interests of organised labour since its birth in 1900. Back in the 1940s, Nye Bevan described how Labour “grew from the bowels” of the Trade Union movement, and Ed Miliband stated earlier this year that “the link [between the unions and Labour] will stay and I believe in that link.”  The Unions have traditionally been seen as the political vehicles of the working-class, and have been courted by Labour throughout the 20^th century in order to provide funds, members, and activists for the party. Labour’s alliance with the Unions has also historically been seen as legitimating its claim to be “the people’s party.”

However, the course of history shows that Labour has not always been as close a friend of the Unions as it likes to profess. As a speaker for AWL explained,  the problem with the party is that it committed itself from the very start to parliamentary democracy, disavowing other methods of political expression in order to pursue representation in the Commons. This principle is blamed for limiting Labour’s ability to accurately represent the interests of labouring men and women. AWL promotes a much broader conception of democracy, where the working-class can gather together, make decisions, and take action as a self-organised collective.

Labour has also always shied away from openly taking the side of the unions during industrial actions. This tendency originates way back to 1926, when Labour lent only lukewarm support to the General Strike of that year, and continued right through the 1980s, when the party sought to distance itself from the ‘ultra-leftists’ leading the Miners’ Strike. Again, this is a result of the party’s commitment to established political practices. Labour’s first Prime Minister, Ramsay Macdonald, argued that the party had to win “respectability” in order to compete meaningfully for control of the Commons, and claimed that this could not be gained by endorsing disruptive strikes and direct action.

This tendency has frequently set the Unions at odds with the party leadership. In recent years, there has even been talk of certain Unions disaffiliating from Labour in order to dramatically demonstrate that the party is no longer seen as representing working-class interests.

How important is it that Labour is seen to be on the side of the working-class and organised labour? In this age of austerity, the answer is self-evident. Labour’s next majority can arguably only be won by regaining the 5 million voters it lost between 1997 and 2010. These ‘lost voters’ were overwhelmingly working-class or unemployed men and women who gradually came to believe that the party they once supported no longer represented them. In the last Labour government, where was the policy on employee rights, union freedoms, and a living wage? Today, talking about continuing to chop away at the welfare state in a similar- if not identical- fashion to the Tories will not win those voters back to Labour.

The Unions can help Labour here. The number of Union members in Britain far exceeds the number of Labour party members, and as political organisations they produce policy ideas and suggest reforms that can be utilised by the party to bring it more in line with working-class needs.

The AWL speakers at our event suggested that Labour must democratise its internal party structures in order to incentivise working-class people and union members to take a leading role in the policy process. For too long this has been in the hands of the party leadership and MPs, out of reach of the vast majority of party members. Perhaps a full-scale review of internal decision-making procedures will ensure Labour’s policies will be more in line with the people it says it represents- and win back those 5 million voters to boot.

Louie Woodall is Assistant Editor of the Young Fabians Blog 

A new approach to public health

How much do the government and the market affect people’s ability to pursue a healthier life? In this Guest Post, Amrit Caleyachetty says ‘not enough.’

The Conservatives generally think that the answer is not much.  Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, believes that reducing nutrition-related chronic diseases such as obesity, coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and cancer, can be achieved by individuals taking personal responsibility to eat less and move more.

In the UK, socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable illness and premature deaths for chronic diseases are directly attributable to socioeconomic differences in dietary patterns.  Research has demonstrated that lower income households generally consume more calorific, nutrient-poor foods and drinks compared to more affluent households, which are more likely to subsist on a diet of healthy fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean meats and fish. Therefore, belonging to a lower socioeconomic group carries with it a greater likelihood of becoming overweight and obese.

At a time when Labour is thinking about developing progressive policies in the context of there being less money to spend, reducing the burden of NHS healthcare spending is an important consideration. Last summer, The Lancet reported that if the current obesity trends continue into the future, by 2030 there will be approximately 8.5 million incident cases of diabetes mellitus, 7.3 million incident cases of cardiovascular disease and more than half a million new cancer cases, with treatment costs approximately £2 billion per year.

The food and drinks industry’s response to this has a sense of déjà vu. The tobacco industry systematically undermined tobacco control policies, claiming that increasing the price of tobacco via taxation was regressive and that regulating tobacco interfered with individual freedoms. They aggressively lobbied government to endorse a policy whereby the industry would regulate itself free from state constraints. The current government has mollycoddled the food and drinks industry, suggesting that it will not let widening social inequalities in health frustrate big business’ pursuit of profits.

In upholding commercial interests over the public’s health, the Conservatives are at least consistent with their ideology. However, this does not mean Labour can be too pleased with its own record. The party failed to recognise that an unfettered market combined with loose government oversight was a recipe for enduring social inequalities in chronic diseases. When Labour left office, a sign of this unhealthy relationship was that 40 of England’s 170 NHS trusts had signed long term commercial leases to fast food restaurants and high-street coffee shops.

Reform is desperately needed to prevent an obesity epidemic in the future. An unhealthy food tax should be introduced, alongside marketing regulations that restrict advertising to children and put an end to confusing food labelling. The Institute of Fiscal Studies has recommended that rather than taxing fats and sugars, unhealthy snacks should be targeted with exemptions for products that meet certain threshold nutritional requirements. This would shift food purchasing behaviour towards healthier foods and encourage the snack industry to produce healthier products.

Given many low-to-middle income households are understandably wary of food price increases, a food tax may be considered regressive since individuals on lower incomes generally spend proportionally more of their income on food, purchasing more energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods than relatively affluent individuals. However, a tax aimed at unhealthy snack food and drinks combined with subsidies for fruit and vegetables or improving the nutrition of school meals, would not be regressive as there would be a range of cheap, healthier alternatives. Furthermore, a reduction in the consumption of less healthy foods would decrease the proportion of individuals with lower socioeconomic position suffering from nutrition-related chronic diseases.

Labour’s new generation cannot see the problems it sees and not try to change it approach to public health. There will be fierce opposition to any effective policies that aim to rebalance industry interests. But this is the time to find the spirit of past public health movements which responded to the widespread health problems created by rapid industrialization.

We must make the argument that effective government action to reduce inequalities in chronic disease is a pro-health and pro-economic choice. If public health is defined as what we, as a society, do to assure the conditions for all to be healthy, then clearly we have not done enough.

Amrit Caleyachetty is a member of the Young Fabians

Labour Women’s Conference – what women want

The Labour Women’s Conference in Liverpool today is its own justification. Numerous people over the past few weeks, within the opposition and media, and disappointingly within the Labour Party itself, have queried the need for a separate women’s event. If women want to be mainstreamed, isn’t the best way to do that to make their views heard within the framework of the mainstream party conference?

But the discussions today have amply demonstrated the need for a dedicated space for women in the Labour movement to discuss the serious issues facing us in Britain today. This is more necessary than ever during the current cuts, with women suffering disproportionately as both public service users and as public sector workers.

Yvette Cooper in her rousing keynote speech, and Fiona Mctaggart and others in the subsequent panels, highlighted just how badly women are doing under the Coalition government, and how the gains made through the hard work of women in the Labour movement over the past 60 years are being threatened and undone across the board.

As Angela Eagle MP put it “this government has a problem with women.” Well, we have a problem with this government.

Hard-won rights and services are being undone by a government that has just four women in its Cabinet, and that – as a recent leaked memo revealed – canvassed women’s opinions not through serious consultation and representation but by rounding up the few women in Number 10 for a brainstorm of ‘what women want’.

If we’d been asked we could have easily told the Coalition.

What women want is the ability to work and raise a family, or to do just one of these, without being vilified or disadvantaged.  What women want is the right not to be raped, stalked or harassed at work and to be able to prosecute successfully if they are. What women want is fair representation in public life.

And what we need is the support and encouragement of the Party- and the right to self-organise in women forums and yes, at Labour Women Conferences – until such a time as what we want becomes a reality.

Claire Leigh is Treasurer of the Young Fabians

Future of Finance Perspective: Why we must never allow Westminster to turn into Washington

In her first column for the Young Fabian Blog, Young Fabian Future of Finance Network member Gillian Econopouly writes about the the US debt ceiling crisis and argues that British politics needs to avoid the toxic political discourse which has enveloped US politics.

This weekend, America woke up to the news that its seemingly infallible triple-A credit rating had been downgraded, as ratings agency Standard & Poors’ made good on warnings that wrangling over the US debt ceiling could have serious consequences for the country’s finances.

Whilst blame has been attributed to both parties, from both within and without, fascinated UK observers watched as moderate US Republicans struggled to bring the fulcrum of power within their party back to the centre ground and away from the now-infamous ‘Tea Party’ activists. This time, they seem to have failed in their efforts, even if the party won the day on the debt concessions.

Whilst Labour Party supporters (and let’’s be honest, many Conservatives and Liberals too) who hope to see a second Obama victory will welcome the electoral opportunity created by such internal division on the right, what has happened in the past weeks and months is actually incredibly damaging.

News reports have focused mainly on the embarrassment of the debacle to the US, as the country was chided by China for its irresponsible behaviour. This makes for excellent geo-political drama, to be sure, but the real cost as usual is to those already hit hard by the recession. Americans who have found their way back into work after the economic crisis will fear for the security of their jobs, whilst those still seeking paid work will continue to face an uphill battle. Even taking into account the cuts to public services in the UK, the social safety net for Americans remains much less developed, meaning poor parents will struggle to put food on the table and access health care for their children.

The Tea Party is not the only culprit in this saga, but it has a lot to answer for. The group ascribes to a political philosophy which is not only knee-jerk and divisive, but also seems to reject informed debate and instead rely on a folksy defiance against tax and government involvement without considering the relative merits of each issue. Critical analysis is rejected, and a values-based rhetoric about freedom and personal choice is being used to lure poorer Americans into basically voting against their own interests.

Whilst we have our own difficulties with fringe parties in the UK, we must never let what happened in Washington come to Westminster. Not just the downgrading of our credit rating (although that too would be damaging). But the lowering of political debate to a level so toxic and unproductive that we lose sight of the people who rely on policymakers from both parties to use intellect, information, judgment and yes, compromise, to make the decisions that the country needs.

In opposition, the Labour party has a responsibility to avoid the temptation of low-brow politics and instead focus on creating informed debate, undertaking considered critique, and putting forward real solutions and alternatives.

Our democracy demands it, and ultimately, voters will respect it.

You can find out more about the Young Fabian Future of Finance Network by clicking here.

Labour and the World: The Rational and the Romantic

Yesterday evening the Young Fabians hosted a round table as part of our Labour in the World Policy Commissions with Labour MEP for London Mary Honeyball. The meeting got a little stuck on the tactics of how Labour talks about Europe, rather than the political direction for Europe. Specifically, the question discussed was: how do pro Europeans make the case for EU membership in a net contributing EU member state?

There seems to be two approaches: the rational and the romantic.

Of the large net contributors to the EU budget, the French and Germans seem to fall on the romantic side, they hold a deep routed historical and ideological commitment to the European project following the aftermath of WW2. However the significant CAP and Structural Funds they share between them bend towards the rational. The Italians have the EU to thank for ridding them of the Lira, another rational argument. But what has Britain got to shout about? And will it be rational facts or romantic ideals that will work to make case for EU membership in any potential future vote on the matter?

During our period in government, departments successively made the case for Britain’s EU membership rationally and dispassionately, dealing with hard-headed facts. We spoke about trade, jobs, market access and a single set of market rules all meaning British companies and jobs are better off with Britain in, even if we pay more to the budget than we get back in hand outs (the rebate included). So our position in effect was (and largely still is) this: we pay more in, but without it, we’d be poorer. So in effect, EU membership is an indirect fiscal benefit to the Treasury and thus UK taxpayers.

So far so rational, but it’s not exactly going to send people rushing to the polling station to cast a yes in any prospective future referenda. So what is?

Do we need instead need to break the issue down to the emotive and evocative, using stories and images backed up by hard-headed facts?

The image that Europe, a continent that had been in conflict for centuries, has been at peace for over half a century is strong but it doesn’t seem as relevant today as in the last century.  But twin that with the rational facts of our inter-dependent trade and we might just have a script.

So to tell a story evocatively, as well as dealing in rational facts, Labour should weave a narrative of Britain needing to stand on the world stage with others and not alone, needing to draw on the resources of others to forge a way forward, needing to help those in their greatest need and a Britain that looks outward not inward and to quote a phrase, looking forward not back.

Brian Duggan is Young Fabian Policy Officer.

You can find out more about the 2011 Young Fabian Policy Commissions by clicking here.

Reviving the Fabians: What the new General Secretary must do

The selection of a new General Secretary is an important juncture for the Fabian Society. It is a chance to revisit our purpose and vision, refresh the way we do things and re-fit the organisation to the changing context in which it operates.

But for this opportunity to be fully realised, Andrew Harrop, who has been recently appointed as the Society’s new General Secretary, needs to be clear about the severity and nature of the challenges that we face.

We exist in a world in which many people have given up on politics, in which the social equality which the Society was founded to promote is facing its biggest onslaught for a generation, and in which Labour appears powerless against a Coalition Government which is both more radical and politically more stable than anyone thought possible a year ago. At the same time, the Society risks being marginalised as the labour movement seeks to rebuild, cast as a fuddy-duddy irrelevance that cannot provide the kind of transformative ideas the party needs.

More immediate crises – the precarious finances of the organisation, for example – need to be addressed as part of a much more fundamental stock-take that asks what the Fabian Society is for, where we want to get to and how we need to change in order to get there.

Over the next three years the Fabian Society needs to rediscover its ‘USP’ – its strengths and the things that set it apart – and then build on it. We are never going to be all things to all people. We need to know who we are and then endeavour to be really excellent at it. Our three unique characteristics also represent three important opportunities: our membership, our substance, and our independence.

Member-led

First and foremost the Society is a members-led organisation. But this needs to become something we actually do/live/breath rather than just say. Our members have a wealth of talents – specialist knowledge and skills, networks that extend far beyond the society’s reach, access to the movement outside London – and need to be given far more opportunities to use them.

We need to grow our membership across three dimensions: (1) by recruiting more members in absolute terms, (2) by diversifying our membership across age, location, gender and ethnicity and (3) by empowering members to engage more deeply with the Society and its activities.

Becoming a truly ‘members-led organisation’ is not only a way to have a greater influence and to draw on the creativity, energy and ideas of a greater number, it is also the smart way to expand Society activities at low cost. In other words we need ‘less top, more bottom.’ By capitalising on our greatest untapped asset the Society would at the same time demonstrate how the Fabian Society is not diametrically opposed to the Blue Labour/community organising zeitgeist, but rather can play a part in realising the vision of a revitalised grassroots movement.

Intellectually Substantial

Secondly, the Fabian Society is substantial and intellectual, and should be unashamedly so. Rather than combating accusations of wonkish irrelevance by dumbing down or taking a more populist approach, we should recognise that substance and new ideas is what the movement is crying out for, and the Fabian Society is better placed than anyone to provide it.

It is precisely our ability to offer big, singular new directions and ideas that will prevent us from becoming marginal or irrelevant. It is for this same reason that we should fight the urge to take a scattergun approach to our published outputs, events and media presence. Clear themes and substantial projects should continue to be the modus operandi. However, this should not necessitate an exclusive and centralised command and control approach. The Society could do far more to democratise involvement and ‘crowd source’ inputs from its members.

Affiliated but independent

Finally the Society’s USP rests on being affiliated to, but not part of, the Labour Party. This affords us an unequalled level of access to the party leadership and influence over parliamentarians. But it also means that we can be critical, objective and take risks in a way that the party itself is often unwilling or incapable of doing. While the Labour Party was in power the Society had one type of role to play. Now we have entered a period of opposition, another role is demanded of us. We need to rediscover an ‘opposition voice’ that is bolder in its vision for the left and more critical of the Coalition.

So the focus of the new General Secretary should be to help us as a Society rediscover who we are and what makes us unique, and then to focus on becoming really good at it. But there is little time for naval-gazing and time is of the essence. The next three years takes us almost to the next election, meaning internal reform must be front-loaded and efficiently managed.

The best of luck to Andrew as he takes the helm at an important and potentially exciting time in our history as an organisation.

Claire Leigh is Treasurer of the Young Fabians and was shortlisted for the position of Fabian Society General Secretary.

Why Labour’s economic narrative needs to change

In this member post, Young Fabian member Max Krahé argues that Labour should own up to its economic mistakes, or risk losing the argument at the next general election.

In order to win the next general election, Labour must grapple honestly with its economic past. It should highlight its mistakes, and not overstate its achievements. Labour has everything to win from admitting mistakes, and everything to lose from denying them.

This article is not about actual economic analysis and will not dissect Labour’s economic record. It is about taking a step back and looking at narratives that can credibly be constructed. It is concerned with the image of Labour’s economic management, not with the actual record.

Labour got a lot of economic decisions right in government. But attempting to tell a story about ‘Labour’s decade of economic golden years’ is foolish: in the midst of the largest recession since 1929, a narrative of success is unlikely to wash.

The recession started under Labour, and in a sector closely associated with the Labour boom. People who have lost jobs, seen their savings wiped out, or find themselves in negative equity do not care if inflation was under control for the last 10 years. Labour’s economic successes are too far removed from most people’s day to day experience.

Negative stories on the other hand, including of course the Tory ‘deficit denier’ narrative, fall on fertile ground: they effectively exploit a gulf between positive Labour statements, e.g. ‘look at how well we managed the economy’, and people’s daily lives.

As a simplistic positive narrative about the economy is not viable (nor indeed true), what should Labour’s message be? A simple story might be this: Yes, debt was on the high side, and not every pound spent was spent wisely. The deficit was structural.

Nostra culpa, nostra maxima culpa*.

It’s not a line that should be used unprovoked, but could form part of any response to the next round of deficit denial and ‘Labour mess’ allegations.

How might it play out? By accepting the Conservative’s accusations we end the argument about national debt levels, and vacate ground on which the Conservatives are winning. Reducing debt levels is generally perceived as a good thing (as distinct from the narrative of ‘cuts and austerity’). So let’s not talk about debt.

Of course, the Conservatives may continue to attack ‘Labour’s high deficit’. So much the better: criticising a previous government’s policy would make the Conservatives look like an opposition party, undermining claims of being forward-looking and concerned with growth and the future of this country. It would lend support to our rival narrative of the ‘no-vision austerity Tories’.

Compare this with a continued defence of the deficit. In the short term Labour risks looking like a sore loser, and the deficit denier story may sink in for good (dishonesty is probably more damaging than excessive spending).

Even if the Tories eventually stop making ‘deficit denier’ accusations, this would merely freeze the debate. At the next general election expect the Tories to wheel out the same accusations: Labour cannot be trusted on the economy, they are still deficit deniers etc etc. Unless a credible counter-narrative has been established in the meantime, these statements will fall on fertile ground.

So if we don’t settle this debate now, we risk being branded (successfully) as economically incompetent at the next general election. Or we admit to our mistakes at a later time, taking the inevitable hit in the polls closer to the election.

The time to own up is now.

We should not be afraid of buying into the Tory story of the ‘Labour mess’. This will settle the issue, neutralise one of the more potent rhetorical weapons in the Conservative armoury, and will do so with plenty of time to spare before the next elections.

If we do not own up to our mistakes now, we leave ourselves open to Conservative attacks. And doubts about Labour’s competence on the economy are likely to re-surface at rather inconvenient times.

*Admitting to leaving behind a bit of a mess shouldn’t taint Labour as economically incompetent, if managed well. In owning up to the ‘Labour mess’, we regain the credibility needed to argue that 2008 was 1929 but 2009 was not 1930. Yes, debt may have been on the high side, but let’s not miss the wood for all the trees: Labour has prevented a catastrophic collapse of the banking sector; Labour has saved the country from the brink of an economic depression. Maybe it’s ok if we didn’t leave the kitchen spotless in the process?

Introducing our 2011 Policy Commissions

The Young Fabians will soon be launching four Policy Commissions. Our Policy Commissions form the backbone of our policy work and since their inception they have increasingly become strong access points for our members into the policy making process of the Labour Party.

This year we launch the Commissions at a crucial time for Labour. With a thorough examination of party policy under the stewardship of Liam Byrne MP, there is a timely opportunity for our members to take a firm grasp of the chance to offer Labour our ideas on the party’s policy renewal. The process we are undertaking will be a vehicle for our members to develop their ideas and test their suggestions which we will offer into Liam’s Fresh Ideas policy review.

Over the coming months, four Young Fabian members will lead informed debates and discussions, open to all Labour supporters which will result in our submission to Labour’s Policy Review and a Young Fabian Pamphlet setting out our ideas for Labour’s future policy offer.

Our four commissions will look at:

1. Renewing and Reforming Our Economy – Maneesh Sharma and Graeme Henderson

The task of this group will be to investigate the path Labour should take to build a more sustainably prosperous economic settlement for Britain. It will investigate the need for an active industrial strategy, the fairness divide in our economy, job creation and productivity. It also will look towards opportunities in the green economy and in new and emerging markets as well as looking to incentives for business to break out of the ‘low pay low skill’ cycle.

2. Building Stronger Communities - Richard Angell and Anas Sarwar MP

This group will look at the strength and resilience of British community life in the modern world. It will investigate how families across the country are working harder for longer for less. The consequence of this for family life and community activism will be explored. It will also look at the challenge of how communities are empowered into the political process so that citizens become stakeholders in their communities and in national life.

3. Securing the Future of the Next Generation – Joani Reid

Ed Miliband has stated that “the British Promise, that the next generation would always do better than the last, is now under threat like never before.” The key challenge of this Commission will be to investigate how young Britain is coping with the consequences of government fiscal retrenchment. Facing debt, a difficult labour market and a challenging housing market, the next generation of Britain is under huge pressure. This commission will look at how Labour should respond to the challenges facing the next generation.

4. Labour and the World – Debbie Moss

Foreign affairs is at transformative moment and this group will explore Labour’s role in the World. It will span aid policy in a time of austerity, to security in the context of defence cuts and the criteria for military intervention in fragile states and the balance between domestic security and external stability. Labour in the World will look at Britain’s relationships to other states and institutions and how we form an ethical foreign policy and learn lessons from past conflicts.

Young Fabian members have much to offer these four big policy areas.

Please sign up to join our Policy Commissions and join in the debate about Labour’s future policy offer.

Together we look forward to offering the Labour Party a series of new, fresh and robust ideas.

Brian Duggan is Young Fabian Policy Officer.