Cruddas: Labour has lost its optimism

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

Speaking at the Hay festival today, Jon Cruddas said Labour has lost its optimism, and is no longer “the voice of the voiceless.”

Cruddas said:

“There is a crisis of social democracy, across Europe. How my generation of Labour politicians articulate those tensions and vulnerabilities is the challenge of our time. Politics will have to be reforged in the public sphere, and it will have little or nothing to do with Westminster. So the Labour leadership is not that interesting to me.”

“The one thing that Labour has lost is its optimism. It lost its class, it lost its revisionism and it lost its optimism. And it has to get that back because there is no progressive politics without optimism and hope. That is politics 101 for the left. That’s why what you see in the Labour Party now is a shrillness, a sourness, banging on about immigrants and welfare underclass. A Labour minister wrote an article this week where he said we’ve got to get tough with the welfare underclass. I thought, what is this about? No notion of power or the political economy, it’s just ‘you’ve got to kick the little guy.’

My mum’s favourite priest was a guy called Oscar Romero. He said that those with a voice must be the voice of the voicelss…we are not the voice of the voiceless.”

It will be fascinating to see how Cruddas continues to shape the nature and direction of the leadership election as it progresses. Watch clips of Cruddas at Hay on the Guardian website: