8 things we learned about Labour last week

Last week was a big one for Labour, with major speeches from both Ed Balls and Ed Miliband. So what did we learn?

1. Labour isn’t trusted on the economy – this one has been something most people have been aware of for a while, but our polling last week confirmed it. Nearly half of voters don’t trust Labour on the economy – and both Balls and Miliband know it, as evidence by their two speeches last week, both of which led heavily on future spending restraint (there was far more in the speeches than that, but we’ll come to it).

2. There’s support for a distinctly Labour economic plan (if the leadership are willing to make it) – whilst our polling last week revealed the extent to which Labour aren’t trusted on the economy, it also showed us that there’s widespread support for a distinctly Labour approach to the economy. Nearly half of all voters back borrowing to invest in jobs and growth. A majority want to see more borrowing this year to invest in housing, and there’s tacit support for renationalising the rail network too, to make it better and cheaper. The focus of the briefing was on spending restraint, but actually there’s still plenty of room for optimism in Labour circles – investing in jobs, houses and infrastructure are still on the cards, especially…

3. House building is back on the agenda – we’ve been banging on about building more houses on LabourList since the site was first founded, and the interest in such an agenda within the shadow ministerial ranks has intensified in recent years. Frankly, you don’t get Jack Dromey as your Housing spokesperson and Jon Cruddas as your policy chief is building more (affordable? council?) houses isn’t going to be one of your key policies. Both Miliband and Balls made reference to housing in their speeches last week, with Balls going into particular detail. Building hundreds of thousands of new homes is clearly Labour policy now, so two questions remain. Why aren’t we talking about millions of homes, because that’s how many we’ll need. And why hasn’t Labour made a bigger housing announcement? Is this being held back for conference?

4. Universalism is on the wane – both Balls and Miliband will deny it, but by pledging to cut Winter Fuel Allowance for the wealthiest pensioners and refusing to commit to restoring the universal principle to child benefit, the Labour Party is no longer an entirely universalist party. We can get into semantics about when benefits were introduced and whether or not they are items of discretionary spending, but regardless, universalism is no more…

5. …but Labour members won’t fight for it (yet) – but the downfall of universalism has been greeted with little anger, so far, from the party grassroots or MPs. There’s two reasons for that – because we hate being in opposition so we’ll take some pain if it can be sold as a means of getting the Tories out, and – more importantly – because if the next Labour government has billions to spend, restoring benefits for the wealthy would seem grotesque, compared to where else that money would go. However, if the Tories now use this as an excuse for slashing at other universal benefits (which would be true to form for the tactical chancellor), then Miliband and Balls had better brace themselves, as they’ll come in for real criticism for “opening the shit room door”…

6. Contribution is the name of the game – contributory welfare social security, which we’ve been talking about for some time, is going to be key to Labour’s approach. That’s good if it restores public faith in the system. But can we really applaud a change that makes young people (who have had little work through no fault of their own) proportionately worse off? Contributory welfare social security is appealing, but only if Labour is serious about Full Employment.

7. You’re going to have to work longer – retirement is getting further away for all of us. It was notable last year when unions started campaigning against plans to raise the retirement to 68 that there was barely a whisper of discontent from within the party. Personally, I’m reconciled, as someone in their later twenties, to the idea that by the time I hit the retirement age it’ll be somewhere north of the 70 mark. And when you consider that the vast majority of the welfare social security bill is already made up of pensions and pensioner benefits – and that’s increasing each year as the population continues to age – a rising retirement age is a mathematical no brainer. Then again, it’s easy for me to say. I work behind a laptop on a job I love, try telling people who have worked in a factory or a supermarket their whole lives that they need to work a few years longer and see what they say…

8. On welfare social security, the media see what they want to see (and so do Labour supporters) – perhaps the most interesting thing about last week though, was the difference between how the speeches were, on the whole, received by Labour audiences, and how they were received by the press. Whilst the press viewed the speeches as Labour’s conversion to the austerity myth, Labour supporters on the whole welcomed the renewed focus on housing, and calls for investment in jobs and growth. That’s because both we, and the media, were seeing what we wanted to see. The truth is somewhere in between. The media don’t realise that Ed Miliband is serious about wanting to completely reshape the British economy, but the party still hasn’t quite come to terms with Balls’ determination to make cuts and restore Labour’s reputation for prudence and economic competence.

The grey area between these two points is vast, and it’s also, somehow, where the party must pitch its manifesto.