Ghosts of Labour past haunt the party’s future

By Dean Brown

Earlier this week John Prescott appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. He called for Ed Miliband to use his new power to choose the shadow cabinet and have an immediate reshuffle. “This is a Tory government that’s doing some outrageous things and we haven’t had many words of protest,” Prescott said, adding: “Ed, you’re the leader, get a shadow cabinet who’ll do that.”

Leaving Prescott’s point aside for the moment, his Today programme appearance was almost entirely unhelpful. Throughout the interview he came across as a patronising parent ruefully dismissing the efforts of his offspring. What he may have thought was refreshing candour from an old hand, sounded more like a ghost of Labour past haunting its fledgling future. Or it might simply be that he finds the amorous approaches of the media too tempting to resist.

But resist the media he should, as part of the problem of the perceived silence of the Labour opposition is that old Westminster denizens continue to hog the limelight. Peter Mandleson, Jacquie Smith, Alistair Darling, John Reid and Prescott, to name but a few, have made regular media appearances, whereas the likes of Maria Eagle, Meg Hillier, Mary Creagh and Ivan Lewis have featured only sporadically. It’s too easy to blame the media for continually seeking the opinions of well known former, or no longer front line, politicians. The media keep returning to Prescott et al because they know he is widely publically recognisable and will readily appear for them and provide comment. If Prescott really wants to give the new shadow cabinet the room to breathe he needs to make himself permanently unavailable for comment. And that goes for the rest of the old guard too.

Admittedly, the lack of noise coming from Labour regarding Coalition policy isn’t entirely down to the old guard’s media appearances. The lack of Labour policy has meant that attacks on the government have often seemed toothless as no alternative is available to be proposed. And there remains widespread public suspicion that Labour would have done much the same as the Coalition is doing now were it in power. Ed Miliband’s Labour party is still struggling to present itself as a separate entity from the ruling power of the last 13 years – continual reminders of the past provided by the likes of Prescott are not helping.

It must be difficult for Prescott to see his time in office being continually apologised for. In time, the long view of history may judge the New Labour project more kindly, but for the moment its political toxicity is only matched by that of Nick Clegg. New Labour is unelectable, but Labour isn’t.

We cannot afford to let the Conservatives have a second term in power – they will tear this country apart. The public continues to associate Labour with the generation of 1997 rather than the new class of 2010. The only way the shadow cabinet will fully blood in is by taking on government policy on programmes such as Today – which means Prescott and friends need to step aside. Removing some of the old faces from the media will help the party turn the political corner.