Dear Harriet, don’t take it out on the strivers

Dear Harriet,

What a dismal week it’s been to be a Labour party member. Every day, we have heard, with growing disbelief, that we need to support the government’s cuts to welfare spending to show we have learned our lesson from the recent election defeat.

Yes, Labour needs to be credible and understand the reasons why we lost the general election. But to try and address that by kneeling down while the Tories take an axe to child tax credits is madness.

These are cuts not to the so-called ‘skivers’ but those in work, striving every day to make ends meet. These are the very people the Labour party came into existence to help. Families who are working hard and setting an example to their kids.

Yes, let’s have a look at the welfare budget to see where we can make sensible reductions. But let’s do it in an ‘invest to save’ way. Devolving parts of the Work Programme to councils and allowing us to determine how money is spent in areas we know best would save huge amounts.

Instead of trying to convince the Tory press, who are setting both the leadership debate and our opposition response to the Government’s plans, we need to take time to seek alternative policies and show integrity and authenticity in what we say and do.

Let’s not forget: we are out of power for minimum of five years and won’t need a manifesto with our spending commitments in it for another four years. At this stage, we need to stick to a few basic principles, Yes, one of them is ‘you can only spend what you earn’ but another should be that it is always right to support those struggling in poorly-paid jobs.

Labour, whether old or new, has to have at its core the values of fairness and equality of opportunity. Yet our response to the welfare cuts this week is to say we agree with this smoke and mirrors attack on those working families who are trying their best.

The parliamentary party needs to stop dancing to the Tory and press agenda. What we need as a party is a proper period of reflection and then action.

Reflecting on why we lost in May. Why we failed to win enough marginal seats in the North, the Midlands and the South. But also why we’ve lost five million voters since 1997 and why the nationalists dominated Scotland, yet failed in Wales.

We also need to see action in terms of establishing a series of review commissions on issues like welfare, education, housing and local government, led by people with clout and experience, with two years to come up with fresh ideas and new dynamic policy suggestions.

Analysing why we failed and then rebuilding our party is a better response to where we currently find ourselves than following the Tory agenda like sheep.

Joe Anderson is Labour Mayor of Liverpool