Contra Flux

By Hopi Sen / @hopisen

One of the few public highlights of my career as a bag carrier was being dubbed a “No-neck Blairite relic” by Quentin Letts at the launch of Gordon Brown’s leadership campaign. So I don’t mind a bit of abuse. Politics is about argument, and if you can’t take a bit of the old ad hom, you really shouldn’t loiter around New Palace Yard for long.

You think this is going to be a post about Harriet Harman, don’t you? Nah.

I was equally bemused by her joke and the scale of the reaction to it. Correct to apologise, correct to move on.

No, what got me thinking about insults was Toby Flux’s article on LabourList about the John Rentoul, and the wider “Labour right” reaction to Ed Miliband’s leadership of the Labour party. Honestly, describing supporters of a “New Labour” approach to policy as bitter dinosaurs who parrot the wet dreams of Tory politicians is a bit much.

Mind you, it’s a rather arresting image. It certainly got me thinking. Are Labour’s right being destructive? Is there a case for us to answer?

(A mild digression. I always find it a bit weird identifying as a member of the “Labour right”. I’m a progressive radical. I just have different ideas about the best way to get to the land of Cockaigne than Tony Benn)

Sadly, the argument Toby puts forward simply doesn’t hold up.

First, Toby attacks John Rentoul. Well, John is a fine fellow, but he is a journalist, not a Labour politician. We’ve no right to expect loyalty from him. That’s not what he is for.

Is Toby really suggesting that we should aim to leave every centrist journalist in the country fuming with impotent rage? I’m sure that will work well. I doubt baiting hacks will be a successful media strategy.

Turning to people who do have a duty to be loyal, every prominent member of the Labour “right” I can think off has been supportive of Ed’s leadership.

It’s actually been pretty gratifying to watch how Ed’s team have both rewarded their supporters and include others. It’s equally positive how well many who prefered other candidates have pulled together for the good of the party. We should be celebrating that unity.

Of those I know personally, whatever their concerns initially, they’ve recognised Ed won fair and square, complimented him and his team on a strong Leader’s speech, astute reshuffle and first outings at PMQs, while trying to contribute constructively to the policy and political debate.

Where there’s been dissatisfaction, it’s mostly been about Ken Livingstone, and no-ones going to tell me that David would have found that nut easier to crack. Indeed, he might have found it harder.

An example? You can’t get much more of a Blairite bitter-ender than my friend and colleague John McTernan, and he’s been a bigger cheerleader for Ed than half of Ed’s parliamentary endorsers.

As for myself, I’ve spent my time writing long-winded articles about how we can best attack the Tories on Welfare reform and the economy and setting out some ideas for political strategy. Boring and pretentious, definitely. Disloyal? I don’t think so. They’re intended to be helpful. They certainly haven’t been controversial, as they’re far to dull for that.

Indeed, the most prominent online voice critiquing Ed’s leadership has been Dan Hodges. Now Dan was very open about the fact that he conspired to get rid of Tony Blair “I thought Blair was dragging the party off the cliff. I spun, briefed, plotted, connived, caballed” quoth he. “It was labour’s right what cost us the election“, he says. No new Labour dinosaur there.

But even if Toby’s charge were true, and the sole contribution of the Labour right since September has been some sort of scorched earth strategy, aimed at destroying Ed Miliband, it wouldn’t matter.

Why? Because in truth, we’re a timorous weak crew, with little support inside the Labour movement and few organisational levers to pull. Even if the “right” were plotting awful insurrection, (which we’re not) such a move would be less troublesome to Ed’s leadership than Frank Field popping up on TV with David Cameron again.

So the worst thing about Toby’s piece is not his attack on the hardy souls in the Labour Party who still bear the “Blairite” mark, but his characterisation of Labour’s policy debate.

Because instead of trying to close down that debate and call those raising questions about where we go from here rude names, we need a better plan for handling the test of opposition.

That’s not surprising, or controversial. Opposition is hard, and we’re new at it. It’s going to take us a while to get it right. Arguing about the best path back to power (in a comradely fashion) is important.

Our nation has significant challenges – from deficit reduction to welfare policy to job growth. As an opposition we must have opinions on all of these, but lack the power to act on them. That is an exposed, vulnerable position.

We already know how the Tories want to define us. They want to spend the next four years painting us as wasteful in the public services, over-generous with welfare at the price of higher taxes for working families. They want to define us as opposed to the freedom to improve your local public services. They want to make us the voice of vested interests, welfare cheats and out of touch metropolitan elites. Ewwww!

Basically, they want to paint us as the high-tax, high-welfare, high-waste party. How do we know? Because it’s what Tories in government always do.

So our policy response must both be effective as progressive politics and bomb proof against these tory attacks. Both elements are essential.

A debate about how we ensure housing support goes to those who need it and is provided in a way that does not lead to an explosion in costs when rents rise is essential, not disloyal.

Equally, preventing support for universality being twisted into defending holidays for millionaire mums is crucial to securing electoral support for the universal principle.

A debate about how we combine sensible deficit reduction with decent public services and private sector job growth is not knee jerk reaction, but the critical question facting the left.

So raising these issues is not the action of a disloyal bunch of self hating socialists, but an attempt to engage with the crucial, essential challenge of winning back support for Labour. It may not be the right route, but it is intended as a helpful contribution.

Why do these issues matter so?

Because Toby is right to quote Luke Akehurst in saying that triangulation isn’t our path to victory. Instead, we need to worry about an older political technique, the wedge issue.

The housing benefit cap and removing child benefit for top rate tax payers are classic wedge issues. Most people support the seemingly fair principle behind them, and that principle is used to disguise a set of policies that many voters would not support.

Oppose the wedge policy, and Cameron and co accuse you of supporting the policy the public are against. It’s a trap.

The Tories see the deficit as the mother of all wedge issues. If we oppose a cut, they accuse us of refusing to tackle a serious issue the public are concerned about.

We must not let the Tories use the seriousness of the deficit as a device to peel supporters away from us.

That’s one reason the wider Labour movement should listen to those, yes, even those outside Labour in the political centre, when developing our policy responses.

It’s these “progressive centrists” who are most sensitive to the wedges being used against us. If we can’t develop a more effective response to their concerns than calling them dinosaurs, we’re in trouble.

Thankfully, I suspect the leadership of the Labour Party knows that these issues are serious ones, and require a policy focused, tactically smart response. The sooner the better.

Hopi Sen also blogs here.