Cameron’s Trap has a missing piece which can be filled by Black Labour

The Policy Network’s new pamphlet, Cameron’s Trap, written by Gregg McClymont MP and Ben Jackson, contains two very important historical lessons and two equally important recommendations for the Party.

The first lesson is that austerity programmes in the 1920s, 1930s and 1980s all played well electorally for the Conservative Party.

The second lesson is that, even when the economy struggles, the key issue that determines election outcomes is the “relative economic competence” of the parties not the economic problems themselves.  So Conservative Governments have secured re-election during periods of economic under-performance simply by arguing that things would have been worse under Labour.

Those who think electoral victory will follow as soon as Labour is proved right on the economic consequences of austerity would do well to note these crucial insights.

The two recommendations are equally trenchant.  They are, firstly, that Labour must avoid being forced into a sectional defence of public sector interests and public spending.  I would add to this that the Party not only needs to avoid this in reality but also needs to avoid the perception that it is taking such a position. Hence the need for a much clearer line against public sector strikes, for example.

The second recommendation is that Labour should distinguish themselves from the Government by asserting the need for a more ambitious industrial policy that can create jobs, growth and higher living standards.

These recommendations, the authors argue, will ensure Labour avoids the trap being set by Cameron that will allow him to paint Labour as both profligate and economically incompetent.

This is all exceptionally useful stuff and it is great to hear it from one of the new intake of MPs now with a major front-bench brief.

But there remains a gap at the heart of the pamphlet.

The authors argue that their analysis is designed to help Labour be no more than a one-term Opposition by becoming the “party of economic renewal and growth”.   It was such an approach, they argue, which led to Labour victories in 1945, 1964 and 1997.  The dissonance, however, is obvious: these were all elections which followed serial losses for Labour.  Most importantly, they were all elections in which the reasons behind the Party’s original loss of power had faded from memory and a new generation of Party leaders, less tainted by the past, had taken over. In short, voters were ready to trust Labour again with the reins of government.

Given the crisis of 2008-2010 will still be fresh in voters’ minds and that there will not be a new generation in charge by 2015, the question has to be asked what more Labour needs to do beyond McClymont and Jackson’s recommendations to avoid opposition beyond one term.  In The Black Labour offers an answer.

In effect, ITBL argued that Labour needs to find a short cut to regaining voter trust that more usually can take two or even three terms to secure.  It can only do this by facing up honestly, openly and maybe dramatically to the unavoidable reality of austerity.

This certainly means adopting the active growth strategy of McClymont and Jackson as the only realistic route to more and better jobs. But it must also mean embracing a clear commitment to fiscal conservatism.  It requires the speeches, symbolic measures and fleshed-out policy which shows that Labour is deadly serious about dealing with public deficit and debt.

In short, Labour needs to have developed, well before 2015, a route to a stronger and fairer economy that leaves no-one in any doubt that it has ditched the tax, spend, services and welfare model of New Labour.

Only then might voters begin to accept that the Party has a trustworthy and realistic programme which allows it to avoid the electoral trap so perceptively identified by McClymont and Jackson.

Adam Lent is co-author of In the Black Labour.  He was formerly Head of Economic and Social Affairs at the TUC.