Why Ivan Lewis is wrong on the economy

By Tom Ladds

In the week following the local elections, there has been a wide array of interpretations of what the gains mean for Labour. There have been comments that the Conservatives did well considering predictions that they could lose up to a thousand seats. Others claim that Labour had a bad night (which it indisputably did in Scotland).

Yet of all the commentary, none come close to the speech that Ivan Lewis briefed to the Evening Standard. The shadow culture, media and sport secretary gave a speech to Progress on May 11th, and its content could have been mistaken for a Conservative Party stump speech.

Lewis claimed that Labour in government had been a “party which overspent without delivering sufficient value for money”, although this was later withdrawn after the story was picked up by Conservative attack-dog Baroness Warsi. Whilst it is part of party politics for disagreements to emerge amongst members, it is unbelievable for a member of the shadow cabinet, and a member of the previous government, to make such an inflammatory claim. In the briefing to the press, Lewis failed to highlight that the government he was part of had to inject over £500 billion in the successful effort to save the banks and stave off a depression created by a global financial crash.

The most outrageous claim by Lewis was that Labour is now seen as “the party of the North, standing up for the poor, benefit claimants, immigrants and minority groups”. This is of real significance considering this was a speech supposedly highlighting the problems that Labour must overcome. For a member of the shadow cabinet to claim that representing the vulnerable and disaffected in our society is an impediment to winning back power seems to be an attack on the central tenet of the Labour party.

The narrative that Lewis and other figures in the Labour Party seem to be pushing after the local election results seems to be that the Conservative-led coalition is winning the debate. The key Conservative attacks have been accepted; that Labour is completely to blame for the financial crisis, and that it is no longer in touch with key parts of the electorate.

This is not the narrative that Labour can genuinely use if it wants to both win the next election and to remain a centre-left party. Lewis’s speech shows he is effectively buying into the Conservative view of the past 13 years. Labour must stand up to those who want a shift to the right to tackle the Conservatives. Ed Miliband has started on the right course by talking of the “squeezed middle”, which has effectively entered both the media‘s coverage and Conservative opinion makers have acknowledged its power.

There is much more to do to win back power, and Ed Miliband is surely aware of that. The local election results showed signs of improvement, and a base from which to improve upon. To claim that the results are a clear indication that Labour’s core values are vote-losers is hyperbole in the extreme, and should be called out as such.