This is not a liberal moment, it’s a pluralist moment – Labour must show it can be part of the change

The Labour movement column

By Anthony Painter

This is the change election. Yes, it has been said before. Yes, it will be said again. In fact, let me say it again. This is the change election.

Belatedly, Labour seems to have realised that. It initially thought that it could ride through this election on the back of the recovery – assuming that is confirmed when growth figures come out on Friday – and fear of the Tories. This election, though, has become one about who can provide a plausibly different vision of the nation’s future, not who is least scary, best manager. This is part political, part economic and part social. There is no point arguing against this change impulse – it is too strong and it’s been brewing for a while (as articulated neatly by ‘Hobhouse’ on Liberal Conspiracy.

What happens in this environment is that everything becomes volatile, the rules change, assumptions are smashed, strategies are jettisoned.

It was heartening to see the Prime Minister’s interview with The Independent this morning. It signals that there could a shift in campaign strategy to address this groundswell for change.

Still, there are glitches in the machine. Why continually refer to the Liberal Democrats as the ‘Liberals’? And why also suggest that the Liberal Democrats’ rise is just froth and that when people turn from presentation to policy issues, Labour will say, merely, ‘Who is the best for the NHS, schools, the police?’ The Liberal Democrats do have concrete policies in all those areas. It is for the other parties, including Labour, to address them on the substance, and not be dismissive. The suggestion – from a number of Labour spokespeople – that Liberal Democrat voters tactically support Labour to keep out the Tories sounds self-serving, patronising and very much like the old politics.

Actually, when you read the Labour manifesto, much of it reads as an argument for change – a new politics, a longer term, more sustainable economy that is not so reliant on financial services, and local services more responsive to individual needs. There’s a lot that is very good in there. The party can’t claim it has a monopoly on wisdom, though. It has to demonstrate an openness to new ideas. And that is the major impact of the last few days: in the cauldron of this election a new pluralistic politics has been born whatever is the outcome now.

Our political and electoral system is not designed for anything other than two-party politics. And it’s more than institutions. It’s about culture. It’s about accepting that good ideas and people with talent can appear across the mainstream political spectrum. It’s about understanding that power can be more purposeful and legitimate if it is shared. It is a pluralistic instinct about how politics should be done in a complex, changing and diverse society.

Charlie Beckett, Director of Polis, once contrasted a static politics with a diverse society in a conversation we had. This is exactly what we are seeing manifested in this election – a politics ill fitting the nation it purports to serve. This is not the strange re-birth of liberal Britain – and the Liberal Democrats would do well to remember that. It is a yawp of discontent at the entire way that politics is done.

There is a cautionary note in all this. The Liberal Democrats have managed to channel deep discontent but they have yet to articulate what their brand of change might mean in practice. It’s not that they don’t have the policies; they do. But with the exception of economics and political reform, we don’t have a keen sense about what the Liberal Democrat vision adds up to. How would it change Britain? How would our politics and society be different? In fairness, I’m sure they have been articulating this to distraction. Well, now people want to hear it, so they need to present these ideas again.

As for the Conservatives, a party more ill-suited to the new pluralism is hard to imagine. They want a new contract with the people. But the political signatories to this new contract will be the Conservative Party alone. It is not a contract that creates a new politics at all. It gives no expression to the new pluralism. It rests on Conservative power in the same old politics. Sound familiar? Well, it’s the same old politics really, isn’t it? The shallowness of Conservative claims to be the party of change was there for all to see in a bizarre leaders’ debate performance from David Cameron.

And that is Labour’s opportunity. It has to sound like it believes in real change and offers it. It can’t do it in a way that sounds like it’s trying to elbow the Liberal Democrats out of the way. The message to voters has to be: we’ve heard you, we get it, we have got ideas, but we have to continue to listen to, and we will conduct ourselves in a manner that give real expression to a new politics. And it has two weeks to do it.

So the challenge is not how often we can say: “I agree with Nick.” It’s how Labour can demonstrate that it respects Nick and other diverse voices in British politics today. Labour’s chances in this election seem now to rest on their ability to articulate a Labour vision of change – one that fits alongside other compatible visions whatever the result.