Ed Miliband endorses ‘Blue Labour’ thinking

Labour leader writes preface to Blue Labour e-book in which he praises movement for recognising the centrality of life beyond the bottom line Ed Miliband has gone further to embrace the thinking of “Blue Labour”, the loose set of intellectuals who believe the party must do more address a conservative working class, by recognising that New Labour’s embrace of globalisation ignored the importance of human relations and community provision of services. Miliband has written a preface for a Blue Labour e-book in which he praises the movement for recognising the centrality of life beyond the bottom line. “It is our families, friends and the places in which we live that give us our sense of belonging,” he writes. The book is based on a set seminars held since the general election looking at the way in which neoliberlaism cut the party off from some of its community traditions. Critics claim Miliband is being forced to embrace Blue Labour and its politics of “radical conservatism” because precious few other intellectual currents are alive in the party, but some Blue Labour thinkers have long admired Miliband and are his close personal friends. Miliband, under pressure to move towards some policy specifics, is due to take further steps in the next week to set out where he thinks the party needs to go after the staging post of the local elections. Mliband argues in a preface to the e-book: “Even in the aftermath of a profound economic crisis, politicians of all parties need to realise that the quality of families’ lives and the strength of the communities in which we live depends as much on placing limits to markets as much as restoring their efficiency. “And for social democrats in particular, the discussion points to the need to ask how it can support a stronger civic culture below the level of Whitehall and Westminster.” Jon Cruddas, the influential Labour backbencher and a supporter of Blue Labour, underlined the political meaning of Blue Labour, saying: “Appealing to Lib Dems is all well and good. But we have to start to reach out to the millions of working class former Labour voters who left us for the Tories. We need to encourage them to come home.” The authors, including the Labour peer Lord Glasman, are sharply critical of Labour following its election defeat saying: “Labour lacked an organised party, it had no plausible ideology, and it had no narrative of the past 13 years that could explain its lack of transformative power. It has no shared interpretation of its history, and it had lost its idea of reason and its conception of the person. “The coalition government had accepted much of its progressive agenda of social tolerance and constitutional reform, and Labour lacked an alternative. It had no viable political economy through which it could address issues of the deficit and sustainable growth. The party was administered, not organised, and its membership had fallen as its power was removed. In England there was no redistribution of power to localities that was not managerial. There had been no development of the appropriate relationship between state, market and society, and of the role that the labour movement and a Labour government could play in generating a good life for our country.” Some of the authors call on its leaders to do more to admit Labour government errors. Marc Stears, an Oxford University academic, writes: “In an understandable desire to protect the reputation of the outgoing government, senior Labour party politicians are frequently found publicly denying that the country’s financial troubles are the party’s fault. But it is extraordinarily difficult for these same politicians to help build new and better relationships in the face of such denials. People will not engage in common action with those who they believe are shirking responsibility. “The crash in the financial sector and the resulting deficit came under Labour’s watch. The party and its leadership is thus always going to be popularly held to be at fault, whatever the disagreements on macro-economic policy. “An acceptance of responsibility – an acknowledgement of weakness in this regard – would not make the crafting of new relationships between Labour’s leaders and its people harder, as is currently implied. It would make it far easier. Pride in our party’s achievements should not prevent us from acknowledging our mistakes. He also urges the party to not to believe “radical politics consists merely of a culture of complaint, and an expectation of state beneficence”. He also delivers a warning that Labour must break out of its current electoral enclaves. “Just like Stanley Baldwin’s National Government of the 1930s, David Cameron’s coalition knows that it can be re-elected without Wales, Scotland, and large swathes of the north of England. It does not need the public sector to be on side. It can quite happily allow Labour to represent the rump, while it collects the support of the rest of the country.” Jonathan Rutherford, one of the central Blue Labour thinkers, warns: “Labour must now have a reckoning with itself. It stopped valuing settled ways of life. It did not speak about an identification and pleasure in local place and belonging. “It said nothing about the desire for home and rootedness, nor did it defend the continuity of relationships at work and in neighbourhoods. It abandoned people to a volatile market in the name of a spurious entrepreneurialism”. He also warns Miliband against becoming associated with a progressive liberal class, at the expense of a wider group in society. “In England’s larger cities, and particularly among the educated elite, economic modernisation has led to an affirmation of racial and cultural difference, and a celebration of novel experience and the expanding of individual choice.” But he says across the country a more conservative culture holds sway which values identity and belonging in the local and the familiar. Economic modernisation, “the new”, and difference, are often viewed more sceptically, and as potential threats to social stability and the continuity of community, he writes. Ed Miliband Labour Jon Cruddas Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 17, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.