Originally published @ 10:11 am, Mon 20th Sep 2010
We should aim high; retrieve and secure the economic recovery; celebrate a free society and make it more equal (both rights and responsibilities); care for the environment; achieve more together as people and peoples. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/19/will-hutton-david-miliband-leadership -
It's at its most interesting when it asks people to look beyond the easy labels that have been given -
"David Miliband gets tagged by his critics as right wing, but his speeches tell a different story. He wants a moral economy in which British capital is less feckless and the City is reformed. He calls for a good society in which benefits and entitlements are earned, and there is more space for neighbourliness and the local. He wants to devise ways in which public intervention is less statist and more rooted in civic and social institutions. He is a measured deficit-cutter, daring to tax the middle-class sacred cow – property."
(My only point on the local is experiencing how much more effective we can be if national and international government and agencies are working to make things happen. Wider frameworks are vital to help progressive changes in localities from being undermined by the markets. Nottingham for instance would be at risk if driving on with public transport policies whilst other cities were simply allowed to say the car is king. )
No candidate can carry on as before in this election, not least since the defeat, a large number of criticisms have been developed about how Labour can govern better. Such criticisms say we can't win as we were before. As it happens, I think we can, but I wouldn't want to try.
I think we can because the 2 main factors in our defeat were -
1. "Too much had gone wrong" as Labour voters put it (thinking mainly of the fall-out of the banking crisis); the country wanted change as newly elected Conservative MPs put it;
2. the public didn't like Gordon Brown - as newly elected Conservative MPs most decisively put it;
It will be one of the great paradoxes in modern politics that someone who so many friends have testified is great company and who clearly had the authority and knowledge to negotiate a world-wide response to the banking crisis was simply not practiced or comfortable enough with meeting people in the street.
So I think we can win for the same reasons - the Government finds too much goes wrong (and with their approach to putting dogma ahead of securing the recovery, the Con Dems are certainly going about things the wrong way); and that our new leader is at least as likeable with people and compelling on the television than our opponents.
But we will want to win for different reasons and with updated objectives. Fundamental is being a movement. Now this does not involve being tied down to matters of detail in policy with all our partners. Being a movement means people understand the actions we take and policies we see through reinforce core values that in significant ways distinguish us from our opponents.
And here David Miliband is right to re-rehearse the party’s stated aim in its constitution –
“The Labour party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us in community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect.”
(I rehearse these distinguishing points as – achieving more together than we do apart; helping those most who need most help.)
David Miliband’s aim in government is to bring these values to life.
This is the first reason to expect change – as John Prescott would put it “traditional values”.
The second, again as John Prescott would put it, is “the modern setting”.
In May, that was securing the economic recovery. In September, it may already be recreating the economic recovery.
And the modern setting will change. Certain challenges are coming. Globalisation (and there be less unskilled jobs available in Britain). An ageing population (and the problems of care being dealt with on the basis of private insurance or not). Climate Change. Energy supply (and the peak in oil production having been reached as demand for it continues to grow).
Distinctive approaches to meeting these challenges can be appealing. A proper focus on economic clusters and enabling production as well as research and design. A National Care Service. Better insulation and management of heat in our homes. Much better use of sunlight and wind.
I want us to change not because we have to (we didn’t got so much wrong, but what we got wrong have been repeated by our own side too frequently).
I want us to change because the challenges we face requires change and new approaches.
We should aim high; retrieve and secure the economic recovery; celebrate a free society and make it more equal (both rights and responsibilities); care for the environment; achieve more together as people and peoples.