Winning on the doorstep: Compass plots a radical fourth term

By James Maker / @CompassOffice

If David Cameron got anything right yesterday, it was his claim that the coming election is the most important for a generation. Conversely, however, it is the dangerous prospect of his election as Prime Minister that makes the poll on May 6th so decisive for Britain. As he stood opposite Westminster, looking over at Parliament like some distant outsider in a well rehearsed stage show, he posed as the moderniser, the man who had toppled the Thatcherite legacy of his party, and the chap to take Britain into the second decade of the 21st century.

Fast forward to 6pm and a similar act was taking place in the traditional Labour lands of Leeds. Styling himself on Barack Obama – white shirt, collar undone, sleeves rolled up, handpicked audience – he repeated almost word for word the same speech he delivered in his opening address of the election. His veneer is smooth, slick and efficient. The message is clear: vote for change or you’ll have Brown for another five years.

But despite the vagueness of his rhetoric, the unjust attacks on the Prime Minister, and his obtuse claim that Conservatives are the party of the poor and disadvantaged, the motif of ‘change’ can be a powerful one, as New Labour found out to devastating effect. Although powerful, however, change without substance is perilous cocktail.

Yesterday, Compass published Winning on the Doorstep; a Fourth Term worth Fighting For, 12 popular policy proposals that could potentially shape the radical manifesto Labour desperately needs to counter Cameron’s message of change.

Compass is regarded by some within the Labour Party as too radical, too left of field for the Blairite modernisers in a non-ideological era. But these proposals – radical reform to the banking sector, renewing democracy through AV+, a living wage, a high pay commission, correcting the failed nationalisation of the railways, a Robin Hood tax, and replacing the commitment to Trident with a new military covenant – are all mainstream ideas, popular with both low and middle income earners. As the publication states, this is not a policy list for traditional working class voters or a mythical middle England, but ideas to unite the vast majority of people in the country around a radical and progressive agenda.

Brown may have started his pitch to the electorate with an appeal to Middle England, but this could potentially be a dangerous one. The policy programme can’t take for granted the loyal support of its traditional electoral base, nor forget that millions of voters became disengaged with the Blairite agenda.

Yes Labour has a good record to defend – tax credits, SureStart, public sector investment, poverty reductions, the Human Rights Act and devolution – but must also distance itself from the failures of New Labour – inequality growth, failed banking regulation, and an imbalanced economy. The Tories may present themselves as the answer to these failures, but it is an attempt to fool the electorate into thinking they are modern.

Inequality more than doubled under Thatcher, poverty reached unprecedented heights, and aggressive neo-liberalism created the boom and bust economics Labour conceded too much to. The Conservatives remain wedded to the same orthodoxy; hence their tax cuts for business and the wealthy few. But it will be the very ‘ignored’ people Cameron speaks of that will have to foot the bill for the failures of the banks and private sector.

By acknowledging its failures, and plotting a radical forth term, Labour can fight the pessimistic assumptions you may hear on the doorstep of “they’re all the same” and it’s “time for the change”; Labour can still be the change.

As Steve Richards wrote in the New Statesman last week, it is a Labour victory that could potentially signal a stride away from the past, not the ‘what works’ agenda of Cameron which – when you scratch beneath the surface – remains the same “nasty party” of old. Look no further that Chris Grayling’s comments at the weekend.

Therefore, Labour should sit up and pay attention to proposals set out by Compass; we can’t simply bore the electorate into voting for Labour, nor promise little more than a hand to steadily the ship through difficult economic times. In Gordon Brown’s words ‘Let’s go to it’, but equipped with a radical alternative to the past.

Related posts:

1. Healey signals Labour’s moves to put council housing at the heart of radical fourth term agenda
2. News from the PLP meeting and Progress fourth term event
3. Radicals? Who’s radical?
4. A radical manifesto – reflecting Labour values?
5. Labour’s doorstep narrative isn’t working