A national debate to be proud of: what Gordon should say as we go into the long campaign

The Labour movement column

By Anthony Painter / @anthonypainter

The early evidence seems to be that the parties are pretty much as they were prior to the conference season. Labour needed more. However, that is just the opinion polls; strategically, Labour is now in a much stronger position.

Ideologically, the Tories are just where Labour needs them to be. A few weeks ago I wrote that the Tories had returned to their neo-liberal comfort zone from around Summer 2007, which coincides with the onset of the financial crisis. Like William Hague and Michal Howard, David Cameron will now fight the next election on an essentially Thatcherite platform.

According to the Conservatives, we face a singular challenge. Government is the source, means, and continuation of all that is wrong with Britain. Keith Joseph would be proud.

The Tories’ much lauded education policy is now a voucher scheme in all but name (though I will credit them for planning to divert extra resources to the most deprived students, a laudable exception.)

Their planned inheritance tax cuts – though now planned to come into effect within three years of assuming office, rather than immediately – are targeted at those with the greatest wealth. They believe that the economy is self-correcting and any attempt to achieve otherwise is throwing good money after bad. This is true “blue baby, I love you.”

And yet, with some marginal improvement perhaps, Labour’s poll ratings seem stuck in a rut.

People are truly angry and frustrated about the economic situation; maybe Labour is bearing the brunt of an anti-politics atmosphere in the wake of the expenses scandal; the budget deficit seems scary and that just doesn’t seem to sit well while people are paring back their own household budgets. Whatever the cause, the Government just doesn’t seem to have caught people’s attention.

So what to do?

What certainly won’t pull the situation around is a flurry of new policy initiatives. That will seem like attention seeking for its own sake; a return to the initiativitis of the early New Labour years. Clearly, some credible approaches to lowering the budget deficit and national debt once the economic recovery is cemented will be necessary (the bolded qualifier is important!). But it will not be enough.

For Labour to have any chance of victory, the electorate will have to feel an emotional attachment to the cause once again. For that to be re-established, a humble attitude will have to be combined with an articulate story that resonates progressive values with national character.

The Prime Minister might articulate it thus:

“I know times are tough. I know people are angry and confused. I know that you are insecure. You are absolutely justified in feeling that way. Our economy is in recession and uncertainty is all around. We are at war – a war of national security but war nonetheless – and many of our citizens have gallantly laid down their lives so that we may be protected from Al-Qaeda. We salute them. Many of your representatives in Parliament have let themselves and you down. That is unforgiveable.

“All at once we as nation have moved from good times to a time where stormy weather feels like it may have become the norm. You see much hardship. I, too, have seen and known that hardship; when I was a young lad growing up in a preacher’s house, my father helped the dispossessed. Seeing such hardship was the reason I went into politics.

“But this is not about me. It’s about our nation. It’s about being honest about the past in order to build a better future. I know I haven’t always been able to communicate who I am and what I believe and why I am doing what I am doing.

“Equally. I have to be honest with you that I haven’t always got it right – and of course I have regrets.

“But I promise you that I always acted in good faith and – when it has mattered – as we faced the economic storm, there is consensus that we have acting quickly and effectively.

“We did what we did because we have a simple set of beliefs. And I believe they are the values of the British people also. If your neighbours’ house is collapsing in a storm you help them out.You give them shelter and support.

“Those British values of basic decency, mutuality and generosity – shared across these Isles – are why we could not just stand by and watch millions plummet into unemployment, destitution and desperation. Our opponents – the Conservatives – would have taken undue risks that would have led and could still lead to economic calamity.

“I like and respect the Leader of the Opposition: he is a family man; he has faced struggles in life; I don’t doubt his commitment to the NHS; I don’t accept that just because he attended Eton that disqualifies him from having a genuine desire to act in the public interest.

“But on the big calls, he’s got it wrong. And he continues to get it wrong. Because he blames government for all our ills, it blinds him to the possibility that by acting together we can really improve the lives of all.

“Perhaps you don’t accept this. But I ask just one thing: let’s lift our politics up over the coming months. This is a destiny election. Our vision of the future of Britain is radically different to our opponents’.

“We believe we face adversity down by coming together – as the British always have. We believe that we should all be equal not because it sounds good. We believe it because it means that people will be more free, our communities will be safer, and we will achieve more individually. Acting together, we will unleash our national creativity which has given us pride, time and time again.

“So let’s have a great national debate about who we are and the type of nation we want to be. I invite the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Liberal Democrats to travel with me to our major cities to debate our national future. Let’s lift our politics from the mire to the sky. Let’s make this election a proud advert for our democracy.”