“It’s not a simple thing to fix Britain” – Angela Eagle on Labour’s manifesto

Angela Eagle has just been to hospital. Two hospitals to be precise. But fear not LabourList readers, there isn’t anything wrong with the Shadow Leader of the House. Quite the opposite, as Eagle – often stereotyped as dry and reserved, is fizzing with energy. The hospital visits (to London’s St Thomas’s and Guys) were part of a series of “workplace week” visits that she’s been doing as part of the launch of Unions Together’s Manifesto for Change. Manifesto for Change is all about Labour in the workplace, and Eagle was joined by Unison General Secretary Dave Prentis for the hospital visits, and discussed issues around agency workers and high staff turnover (leading to a cycle of training and retraining), in the NHS.

She’s already been to a nuclear power station (Sizewell) and will be visiting a prison too. The day before, Eagle had been in Thurrock and Dartford, visiting supermarket workers. Many were on fixed term contracts (a maximum of 15-20 hours a week) so that their hours fluctuated wildly from one week to the next. It’s a phenomenon that people are talking about more and more, but it’s not new unfortunately – I remember the same thing when I was working at a supermarket in the early 2000s. Friends might be working full time one week and single digit hours the next. You can’t live like that. Eagle says it’s described as “flexible” working and raises her eyebrows as she says it, deeply unimpressed.

Clearly what Eagle has seen bothers her. It’s something I’ve noticed from many Labour MPs recently. Whilst there are obviously those who are dying to wield power, for most there’s an overriding weariness with how grim life for so many in modern Britain can be, coupled with the knowledge that they need to win an election to do anything about it. I ask Eagle how we can fix Britain:

“Well it’s not a simple thing to fix Britain.” (She’s right about that of course) “But what we’ve got to do is to start out thinking about people’s every day experiences at work and how you can make life at work easier for people…I think, what is coming across more and more is that people are increasingly being treated like they are factors of production rather than people.”

This refocusing on work – quality work – is something I’m hearing coming through from Labour politicians across the party at the moment. There’s a clear acceptance that just creating more low-paid jobs isn’t enough, the emphasis has to be on the quality of work as well as the mere existence of it. Put simply, there’s a refocusing on careers rather than just jobs. For Eagle that means:

“Higher productivity, more access to sector skills, training and up-skilling and we’ve got to try and create a virtuous circle where employers are rewarded for treating their staff properly rather than being told that they aren’t extracting enough out of them.”

As well as Manifesto for Change, Eagle has been driving the party’s policy process, chairing the National Policy Forum (NPF) to what was widely seen as a positive conclusion last year. The 80,000 word NPF document will now need to be refined down to the pledges and manifesto that Labour will present to the electorate. But how exactly does the NPF fit in with the manifesto? Was the NPF just a stakeholder management exercise before the manifesto is written in a back room? Such fears gained ground after Michael Lyons – who wrote the party’s housing report – told the FT(£) “The NPF are important but they don’t dictate the exact details of policy”. That certainly ruffled a few feathers.

Eagle denies that the NPF, independent reports and the manifesto aren’t linked, and says that the role she and others must now play is to “mesh these things together so we produce one of the most radical manifestos we’ve seen in a long time”. She says that “we’ve already had a more deliberative process than we’ve ever had before” with over 200,000 people involved in the process – as well as manifestos for young people, and women to name but two examples that are on their way.

But who will be holding the pen that writes that manifesto? In recent elections when manifestos are written they’re invariably talked about as if they’re written by one person alone. Labour’s manifesto in 2005 was known as the David Miliband manifesto. David Cameron wrote the 2005 Tory manifesto. Ed Miliband wrote the 2010 Labour manifesto. So who will wrote this one? Jon Cruddas perhaps? Angela Eagle? Who will be the person who we can point to – whatever the result in May – and say they wrote the crucial document?

Eagle says that “It is an honour to have the chance to work on Labour’s manifesto. This is the most crucial election that we’ve had in many, many years and the manifesto is our best way of communicating our vision for Britain to the electorate.” Yet she won’t be drawn on who/how exactly the document will be produced, except to say “This manifesto is a team effort, from everyone who has contributed to our policy process to those of us charged with bringing it all together now”.

Eagle is keen to stress that the manifesto will be written as much as possible by the experiences of those she and others have met throughout the long consultation process:

“Every single person that I have met on this tour so far has helped us all think about what the issues are.”

If that’s true, then the scope of Labour’s offer will match the challenges that Britain faces. Fingers crossed.