Labour needs to understand hope

Life is really difficult at the moment. We’re being ground down. By despair, by uncertainty, by the relentless, never-ending grind of the surety that whatever happens, things are only going to get worse. If we have jobs we worry about losing them. We worry about the fact that our wages never seem to rise as fast as our bills. Our hours never seem to shrink as fast as our families grow.

Life in 2013 is harsh, cold and unrelenting. It is snowing in March and rising unemployment. It is a Chancellor who thinks that can be solved by cutting a penny off an over-priced pint of beer we can’t afford to buy in the first place. It is the disappointment of an opposition who don’t stand up and oppose measures they know don’t work – massively miscalculating their tactics at the expense of their strategy.

Amidst all this despair it could be so easy to become hard; to become jaded. When you have nothing and feel like you have nothing to lose, looking after number one is a natural and easy instinct.

But Britain hasn’t done that. Last week, we were asked to step up to help others less fortunate than others and we donated in our thousands. In fact, amid all the gloom, Comic Relief made a record breaking £75 million pounds. People laughed, they cried, they did daft things and they gave what money they could afford. We came together in a moment of community and understood a need greater than ours (real though that is).

I’m not immune to the hopelessness. Not at all. But I think about what Britain achieved last week and I am given hope. Hope that Britain wants better, and hope that Britain understands that it is through collective action that we will achieve better.

Labour has not had a good week. We forget to be better. We forgot to be the hope that people need. Britain has George Osborne for despair. They have David Cameron for pessimism. And they certainly have Iain Duncan Smith for hopelessness.

Labour needs to tap into the Britain that believes in hope. That needs hope. Labour needs to understand hope.

Hope is powerful because it is the best way we understand what is possible and what is yet to be achieved. It is not technocratic. There are no 5 point plans or consultation documents. Hope isn’t made in increments and amendments. Hope is neon. Hope is the rainbow.

This isn’t yet another piece about how Ed can must or should be Obama. He can’t, won’t and probably shouldn’t. But when things are this bad, hope can feel audacious. Can Labour be brave enough to believe we can offer Britain hope? Can we be audacious enough to try – to go flat out? To get up off our knees and to stop being timid?

I hope so. I hope so because it is the only way we can win. And we must win because that is the only way we can bring back hope. And I need it.