Labour are still in search of the ‘Big Idea’

By Richard Darlington

It’s often noted that nobody voted for a coalition government and that no one voted for the cuts in the budget. But we have to accept that 36% of the country did vote for David Cameron’s ‘Contract for Change‘. I didn’t vote for it but I did get a contract from Cameron by virtue of signing up for emails from the Tory website. I also got an ‘invitation to join the Government of Britain’ during the election and this week Cameron gave his first speech in government about how the ‘Big Society’ is going to work.

Cameron says he’s going to “turn government on its head” and replace “the old system of bureaucratic accountability” with “a new system of democratic accountability.” Every Whitehall department is going to publish a ‘Structural Reform Plan’ that removes central targets and replaces them with “specific deadlines”.

Doesn’t sound too radical so far.

This week’s speech shows that Cameron’s pre-election ‘heir to Blair’ positioning is here to stay. He argues in favour of competition between organisations providing public services because “it’s the richest who can opt out while the poorest have to take what they are given”. And the ‘choice agenda’ is back. Private and voluntary sector organisations are going to provide public services while being paid by results.

As Labour considers who will be its leader, Cameron is shaping the terms of political debate to come. He’s got a ‘Big Idea’ and he’s sticking with it.

Cameron says he is doing all of this in the name of reducing “inequality” on the same day as Ed Miliband says that reducing income inequality should be an explicit goal. Who says all politicians are the same? One tells civil servants he wants a “specific deadline” and the other tells activists he wants an “explicit goal”. Of course, every ‘progressive’ wants a piece of the ‘inequality’ action but Ed Miliband’s focus on income couldn’t be more different to Cameron’s promotion of ‘choice’.

Ed Miliband says “the problem of the ‘Big Society’ is it is basically saying to people it’s your fault.” Miliband’s answer is not to cut back the state so that society can move in but to “enable people to spend less time in the workplace” so that they can make more of a contribution. David Miliband went a little further last week when he conceded that Labour has “allowed ground to be created for [Cameron] to pretend to occupy.” He accepts that the danger for Labour is “if we are not standing for an empowering form of government, we stand for big government – and people don’t want big government”.

But while both Milibands agree on the need to reform the state and stop Cameron from owning ‘society vs state’, Ed has now opened up a difference of opinion on the size of the state, or at least the scale of cuts to the state. Ed argues that:

“you’ve got to have a different balance of tax and spending. We had a plan at the election which was a 2:1 ratio, they have an 80:20 plan… I think whoever is the Labour leader will, by the time of the spending review, have to show that they have an alternative plan, because I don’t think that we can just simply rest on where we were at the manifesto.”

Before the budget, David Miliband defended the 2:1 ratio but none of the candidates have got anywhere near saying which taxes they would raise or what spending they would cut. While Ed Miliband has said the 50% income tax rate should be permanent and Ed Balls has said it should start at £100,000 and not £150,000, none of them have yet credibly filled the gap. Demos analysis shows it can be done.

Credibility on deficit reduction is now the hygiene standard for Labour’s next leader to get a hearing from political journalists. But having a ‘Big Idea’ to compete with the ‘Big Society’ is what will give Labour the traction it needs to win back voters in Labour/Tory marginal seats.