The role of the state: Labour’s vuvuzela?

Richard Robinson‘s Speech Bubble

During the current Labour Leadership contest, I’ve been looking for something specific, a defining moment, a cause to run with, for any one of the candidates to offer a display of passion and a defining alternative to the current amorphous values of a ConDem administration singularly devoid of a vision of any description. And I’m inclined to disagree with Richard Darlington, who argued that the Newsnight hustings were a missed opportunity.

Admittedly, we didn’t get down to concrete policy ideas and vision straight away. The audience heard, for example, Diane Abbott say she was the “turn a page and the people’s candidate.” Ed Balls eulogised about the National Minimum Wage and Sure Start, whilst lamenting however the fact we simply “lost the trust” of the British people. The youngest candidate, Andy Burnham, argued that his unique selling point was that he could relate to the electorate, as he wasn’t part of the “millionaire cabinet” elite.

There followed moderately exciting discussions on Europe, Iraq, Trident, Gordon Brown’s leadership and the economy. While Diane Abbott distinguished herself in being the only candidate to oppose Trident, personally I did not connect with the presumed relevance of the Iraq factor in Labour’s defeat in May. I never heard it mentioned once on the doorstep. Whatever Labour MPs did vote for in 2003, should we really debating this now?

But just when you thought it was all too ordinary, too mundate, too misplaced, that you’d heard most of this before, Jeremy Paxman had a Vuvuzela moment, a moment of sharp, all-engulfing noise with constant clarity, a question to define a moment. He introduced the question “is the state too big”?

At last the would be Prime Ministers had a chance to express vision, a chance to tell us where they want us to go, a chance to rubbish the David Cameron “Big Society” idea that no one believes in.

So it was fascinating to hear David Miliband agree that Labour’s state had probably got 90 days detention wrong, and questioned why it needed 3 members of local authority staff at a local leisure centre to argue why a particular child couldn’t make use of the swimming facilities provided. But it was Andy Burnham who drew some distinctive dividing lines – the National Care Service could only be provided by an active and interventionist state to meet the challenges of an ageing population. Burnham reminded us too that it’s only the rich and powerful who actually don’t need the services the state provides.

So we did learn something from our leaders on Tuesday. Our candidates believe in the state, an active state with increasingly devolved powers. They all say no to a Big Society. I wonder when we’ll start debating what a Good Society might look like?