Danger: Could the electorate conclude that there is precious little difference between the main parties?

Last week Labourlist helpfully published a series of polls that showed public support for a range of policies that Labour nationally needs to be shouting from the roof tops. That included a majority for the re-nationalisation of the railways and a majority who agree with Ed Miliband’s proposition that there needs to be a massive, public housing programme aimed at providing homes, lowering rents and putting people back to work. Aneurin Bevan once said that ‘The religion of Socialism is the language of priorities’, a truism apparently borne out by those polls which once again show the public well to the Left of most of the political establishment.

Last week saw Ed Miliband give a thoughtful, well-argued speech that promised local authorities the power to negotiate rents on behalf of tenants on housing benefits. Of course he needs to go further – and beginning with a promise to Londoners in particular that rents controls are back on the table as is a commitment to halt speculative property acquisition by foreign buyers. He also promised to make job creation Labour’s top priority, with a guaranteed job for those youngsters who have been out of work for a year, covered by the minimum wage with ten hours training a week – all funded by a long overdue tax on bankers bonuses.

Given the rising public fury over the greed of bankers, the deliberate refusal of some of the largest corporations to pay tax and the fact that over 2.5 million people are languishing on the dole, these are welcome commitments. They now need to be magnified, simplified and amplified.

So far, so good. Much of this chimes with the public mood, and channels opinion towards Labour’s vision of full employment and social justice. The speech was given with the constituency in mind that matters, i.e. the one outside the so-called Westminster village. And yet what got that village crowing was what appeared to have been crafted with them in mind. Neither will be sated or convinced; their task has always been to re-craft Labour into what is acceptable to them – a toothless collection of caretakers, there to hold the fort while the Tories re-invent themselves.

So the move away from the vital principle and practice of universality that emerged over a commitment to cut winter fuel allowance for wealthy pensioners is a case in point. So was the refusal to commit to reverse the cuts in child benefits – a Tory policy fought with gusto by Labour in Parliament. Then came the weekend’s poorly thought through contribution from Ed Balls over a promise to include the state pension in the party’s new plan for a welfare cap. None of these policies have apparently been agreed by the party as a whole, and aside from the baying of the tabloids and right wing blogosphere, nor has there been a call to make them. The answer to both winter fuel payments and restoring child benefits is to increase direct taxation. The answer to cutting the welfare bill is to get people back to work, restore the country’s taxation base by making large corporations actually pay it and increase taxation on the wealthy.

‘Triangulation’ may have served Tony Blair well in the run-up to the 1997 General Election, but voters are now wise to these sort of tactics, nor do they much care for them. After all, why should those at the bottom always be called upon to make sacrifices for ‘fiscal responsibility’, when those who have responsibility for the current fiscal irresponsity, and who continue to line their pockets, get away with it?

While Ed Balls did not suggest that Labour would cut state pensions as the Tories have mischievously claimed, his comments were sufficiently confusing to allow them to make that claim. That said, there will be millions of Labour voters and those who Labour is trying to reach, who will have read and heard the top lines on pensions and child benefit.

There is a very real danger that they will conclude that there is precious little difference between the main parties, and precious little hope either.