Is ideology a factor in the leadership race?

By Darrell Goodliffe

In some respects I am asking this as an open question because part of me feels that there clearly is and then another part of me feels that, in reality, there is little difference between the candidates ideologically. On one level this is to be expected; during any leadership contest the combatants naturally become much like empty glasses and this is partially on purpose so as many of us possible can pour all our hopes and dreams into them. They then come forward as the shining light, to carry our party forward.

David Miliband’s Keir Hardie lecture received a very warm reception and indeed, apart from regrettable attacks on Gordon Brown, there was plenty to praise in the speech. However, for my money it shaded towards the view that socialism and social democracy are more ethical and moral creeds, best defined as a series of obligations and recognition of society’s co-dependency and responsibility to the vulnerable, than concrete economic ones.

The younger Miliband leans the other way. Although Ed talks in a similar language, he sometimes also talks in harder economic terms about the need for an incomes policy and a living wage. So, David could live without structural change and focus more on cultural change and enablement while the younger Miliband is a more traditional social democrat; looking to use the state to make permanent and lasting change to the structure of society.

Diane Abbott, who you might expect to be the most ‘ideological’ candidate has rather buried that under her ‘I’m the outsider’ pitch which seems to have taken on an ideological dimension of its own. Sure, she talks the talk; renationalise the railways, scrap Trident, etc., etc., but you can’t help but feel her ideology is that of ‘Diane Abbott – Outsider’.

Andy Burnham, meanwhile, seems to be entirely absent from anything approaching an ideological standpoint. He makes popularist remarks chiding big business, while in the next breath tells the unions to show ‘restraint’. Heaven only knows what his ‘socialism of the heart’ actually means in practice.

And Ed Balls’ approach is best summed-up as ‘ask people what they think then reflect it back at them in slightly different packaging’. Yes, collective action is part of it but that doesn’t mean – as Ed Balls seems to in his views on immigration – that we have to follow people’s collective prejudices. State action is couched very much in terms of ethical responsibility which again poses the question of whether changing society to level the playing field is in fact a responsibility or, as it is in my eyes, a necessity for the wider good.

A lack of coherent ideological differences may be one of the symptoms of the benign nature of the contest. However, for those who celebrate this fact there is perhaps a warning note from history: the pointless personal bile that ran through the Blair/Brown years reminds us that in politics something will always appear to fill the void and to give differences their own, self-justifying, dynamic.

My personal view is that I would rather divisions were meaningful in a wider sense. I would prefer to see bitter ideological differences, as opposed to personal differences, on any given day of the week. It would be much better for the party and the contest if personalities mattered less and ideology mattered more.