It’s the fighters and believers…

By Adrian Prandle

Stage one accomplished.

During its annual conference in Brighton this week, the Labour Party and Gordon Brown needed to show that it was prepared to make its case and really go all guns blazing to win this general election – not for itself but for the millions of Britons who need a Labour Government.

Gordon Brown, his colleagues and his party members have shown that they are. The next step is to go out there and do it. Easier said than done – but it really can be done.

Brown was successful in talking to his party. Reactions in the hall to the first few minutes of the speech in particular demonstrated the passion and support the Labour Party has in it and that Brown can invoke. What will emerge in the coming hours and days will be how successful he has been in talking to the country.

The speech was strong on Labour priorities – more money, not less, for schools in the coming years; the National Care Service; and guaranteeing rises in the minimum wage, tax credits and child benefit for five years. The devil will be in the detail on internships as it’s a tricky area but this has the potential to be great for ensuring opportunity is not solely the preserve of the middle classes and for raising aspiration and opening up new worlds of possibility. Brown’s words on the NHS were split, with the longer, later section likely to resonate stronger outside the activist base. The big surprise was the announcement on electoral reform (I’ll write another time on why this isn’t for me, however).

When members of the Young Fabian executive met with David Miliband earlier in the week, I was clear that I thought the party needed to absolutely hammer Cameron and his party for the next 8 months and go gung ho at his decision-making and the very apparent link over the past twelve months to traditional Tory small-state ideology. Much, much stronger attack. Where Brown’s speech talked about the Tories, it dealt with them well – I especially liked the bit on cuts:

“These are not cuts they would make because they have to – these are spending cuts they are making because they want to.”

But the attack needed to be better threaded throughout the whole of the speech to make the kind of impact needed. As PM, it’s difficult for Brown to lay-in to the opposition to such a large extent aside from big party occasions like this. In July 2008, James Purnell did a set-piece speech for Progress, focussed entirely on attacking Cameron’s Tories. Gordon Brown needs to do similar, and soon. Progress may well provide the opportunity again, as they normally stage their annual conference in the months between summer and Christmas.

So, stage two now is to ignore the flak for ‘dividing lines’ and make the threat of a Tory government clear. And then don’t relent in painting a picture of how people will see their change cement itself in our communities and public institutions.

Stage three? Armed with the policy and the politics, is to get the party moving again. Invoke the passion and determination that party members have and reignite the fight and the belief. There’s some organisational work to be done – as the YF delegation to Obama’s campaign, almost a year ago now, found out.

Two thoughts on whether Brown succeeded in speaking to Britain this week. I watched the speech outside the conference hall in the exhibition area. Towards the end I was told by a (non-affiliated) union activist that her and her friend, with a combined age of over 100, had never voted Labour before but that after this speech they may well do so – they felt they ‘get it’ now.

It would be naive to assume though that most of the population will judge the speech in such an undiluted way – and the media reaction is obviously important. We can not underestimate the significance of the front page splash in The Sun. Though long-predicted, what a shame this pre-determined position did not give Brown’s speech a chance.

But if this disjunct between the conference oratory and the printed coverage doesn’t rile Labour activists into action, nothing will.