The Tory election campaign has started – and it’s only going to get uglier

The Tories are not going to go strong on their record in Government at the next election. Why would they when it’s largely a catalogue of failures and fetishisation of their own weird obsessions.

Nope, the Tories have decided to fight the 2010 election campaign all over again, but this time without any of that wishy-washy forward offer stuff (which is what one has to assume was the point of the Big Society). They’re going to run the next election on Labour’s record – or their distorted version of it.

Their botched attempt to politicise the Keogh report and neutralise both Andy Burnham – one of our best media performers – and the NHS – one of our strongest issues is classic “swiftboating“. It’s dirty, nasty politics straight out of the Karl Rove/Lynton Crosby playbook. But it can be extremely effective – just ask John Kerry.

It’s no point us just crying foul. We can’t stand back and hope the truth will out. We have to be out there fighting the Tories and their little Lib Dem accomplices at every turn.

Yes, we also need to build a strong, positive Labour offer that attracts a majority of voters across the whole country. Yet, to do that, we will need to debate what that offer is among ourselves. But this summer has felt like the most introspective Labour has been for a long time. We’re too busy fighting each other to fight the Tories. A lot of heat on our own disagreements – not nearly enough light shining on the failings and poor policy decisions of our opponents.

I have an ideal vision of what I want Labour to do. I have issues I care about – a unilateral ditching of nuclear weapons, a imaginative rather than formulaic approach to Social Security, a mass house building programme and a huge rise in good quality apprenticeships to name just a few.

Some I will get, some I won’t. I accept that as the price of believing in the collectivism of the Labour Party. I will keep campaigning on the issues I care about both internally and externally. Any Labour Government will let some members down on some issues because there simply isn’t consensus on everything. That disappointment can become overwhelming if we let it.

So we need balance. We need to remember that even an imperfect Labour Party has more to offer about which we agree than that with which we disagree. And a hell of a lot more than the disastrous policies that are being enacted by this government now and would be under an emboldened future Tory government.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t fight for our best visions of what Labour means to each and every one of us. But we must never, ever do this to the detriment of our focus on the damage the Tories are doing. We must never, ever do so to the detriment of our focus on beating them at the next election.

And most of all, we should never allow our own disagreements with aspects of the last Labour Government – and again we will all have some – we should never, ever let our record be tarnished by those who seek to do so much worse.

The Tories are trying to set the terms of the next election. They’ve embraced their nasty party label and are relishing it. We know, with certainty, that Labour will be under attack every day between now and May 2015. Let us not give them a free ride or a helping hand.