This leadership contest needs more vision, direction and policy

If there was a box marked “none of the above” it would probably be on course to win the first round of the Labour leadership contest.

There is little in terms of content (so far) to get excited about. The process seems to be too long. And the tone is becoming increasingly acrimonious.

Where’s the vision? Where’s the passion? Where are the ideas? With a month or so to go before ballot papers go out, we need our leadership candidates to give a better account of themselves. Just as we need to give a better account of ourselves as a party to the country.

As a member, what I want to hear is each candidate setting out their thinking across all the main economic, domestic and international issues, letting us judge who is the most convincing leader to take us forward.

We also need an explanation from each of them about why we lost the election, as well as some clear indicators about the direction we should now take. We also need to hear the opening of a discussion about the themes and emerging policies that we will need to win in 2020.

Neither should we allow this leadership race to descend into a grudge match where one side is labelled the “New Labour Taliban” or criticised for being “continuity Miliband”. When the dust settles and a candidate is chosen, we all need to come back together as a party. The least said, the soonest mended.

In these remaining weeks, we need the contenders to up their game and give the party what it deserves: a contest where we speak to the country about what matters to them. Housing, education, immigration, the economy, the failure of the welfare to work programme and how to fix our clapped out justice system.

But I worry that the rest of the contest will descend into a discussion about tactics, namely how to stop Jeremy Corbyn from winning. Again this is led by the media, looking for more negative “left versus right” stuff. We shouldn’t supply it.

So far, the press has had more than its fair share to say, because they have little or nothing else to do after the general election. They are leading candidates to where they think we should be going and what they think we should be saying as a party.

It’s the same with the parliamentary party. The recent vote on the welfare bill showed the party at its worst. Scared of a fight. Not willing to stand its ground on behalf of the people we serve. All in case the Daily Mail or the Murdoch press have a go.

But people don’t elect Labour MPs to have them abstain on scrapping child poverty targets or slashing support for working families. Instead of accepting cuts to those in work, let’s talk about alternative options to prevent cuts hitting the poorest.

Let’s means test benefits to the richest (i.e. pensioners getting £100,000 private pensions), plus free TV licences, winter fuel and Christmas bonuses. There are ways of making savings out of the £700 billion public spending total which can protect the “strivers” we just need to look for them. That’s what leaders do.

We need to see more vision and guts from all those who want to lead our party. Too many people are reliant on us for us not to pull together and offer the leadership for our country that they deserve.

The election defeat, predicted by many of us and not listened to by the leadership, has happened. We have to deal with it.

But we have another six weeks of this process to show the vision, sense of direction and new policy ideas that will shape how we can win back the confidence of the public ahead of the next general election.

Joe Anderson is Labour Mayor of Liverpool