Labour policy chiefs meet to fill in Ed Miliband’s ‘blank piece of paper’

Party to draw up policy in key areas in series of bold strokes • Interactive: What do you think should be in Labour’s policy review? Ed Miliband’s famous blank piece of paper, Labour’s policy prospectus, will start to be coloured in this weekend when the party’s policy forum meets on Saturday in the suburbs of Wrexham. The aim will be to start to achieve something no opposition party has managed in the last 30 years — to bounce back to power in just one term. That goal has led Labour’s leaders to decide they need to act with more haste than previously thought. The concept of a leisurely, academic disordered policy review, if ever true, is being disowned. The era of low-risk leadership is about to end with some bolder strokes on policy, personnel and party reform. Lessons are being drawn from a slew of books on the Tories in opposition. Tim Bale’s Conservative Party: Thatcher to Cameron has reminded Labour of how it took the Tories an extraordinary five years from the loss of power under John Major to the basic admission that it was perceived as the selfish, nasty party. Peter Snowden’s Back from the Brink is another guide to how slow parties can be to respond to crises in public perception. By contrast Labour has rushed to admit error. But Labour is also subtly reworking the policy review process. Figures such as the policy review coordinator Liam Byrne would probably admit the hydra-headed reviews, set up November on a largely ad hoc basis, lacked coherence. No fewer than 19 reviews were announced, on what externally looked like a random basis. The advantage was that it gave every shadow cabinet member something to do, such as – in one review – explore the causes of loneliness. But it hardly provided the overarching narrative that Lord Mandelson, a veteran of policy reviews under Neil Kinnock, said the party needed in his Progress speech this week. The foreign policy review conducted by Douglas Alexander seems only to be looking at Brazil, Russia, India and China, an important, but hardly sufficient foreign policy theme. No exploration of Labour’s increasingly questioned pro-Europeanism is being attempted. By contrast, Harriet Harman, the shadow international development secretary, has appointed no fewer than six sub-reviews. Yet there is no discernible review into the economy. Ominously for those who have memories of how Gordon Brown would often disengage from collective policy making, Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, is not conducting any specific review of economic policy. The official explanation is that he is overseeing other economic related reviews. In an attempt to bring some order to the process, the policy reviews have all now been rearranged under one of four sub-heads – rebuilding the economy to help the squeezed middle, keeping the promise for the next generation, renewing responsibility, and our place in the world. Some groups have met six or so times, drawing in as many outside experts as an unfashionable party four years from power can gather. Progress is uneven. The shadow transport secretary Maria Eagle, currently in Amsterdam looking at their tram system, pretty well knows her policy destination — free travel for young people, reintegrate the mainline rail system, prioritise buses over trains and devolve power to regional transport authorities. Other policy groups seem not have gone beyond clearing the undergrowth. Byrne argues the starting point is understanding why the public rejected Labour. In a speech yesterday he said: “If we want to win back the people’s trust to lead again, we have to understand how the public see us and why. Therein starts the business of renewal. This is perhaps the first great lesson from oppositions which stay in opposition for a long time. Oppositions that stay in opposition are the parties that fail to confront and take on the weaknesses the public see in them.” While this was true of the Tories after 1997, Labour after 1979 was not much better. “It was an incredible eight years before [Neil] Kinnock embarked on a major exercise of his own – talking to the public about the way they saw things. This is not a mistake we are going to repeat,” Byrne says. The aim this weekend is to provide some signposts leading to something more specific at autumn party conference, including something close to definitive on a replacement to tuition fees. On the squeezed middle, Miliband believes the centre-ground of politics has shifted from public service reform to a rebalanced economy, an issue belatedly addressed by Mandelson and now being taken up by the shadow business secretary John Denham. Critical to this squeeze is not just better balanced growth, but also lack of childcare and social care, constraining the amount of time the middle class, especially the second earner, can work. Miliband’s second chosen theme is the promise of Britain, the contract that the next generation should fare as well as the current generation. Social housing is now seen by Labour as the biggest barrier to young people getting on. This allows him to offer optimism, the ingredient he is convinced can win him the election – one the Tories, with the emphasis on the deficit, cannot offer. Byrne argues the Conservatives returned to power after only a term in opposition precisely because Margaret Thatcher engaged in an argument about what her party was for. Miliband has to be equally clear about the future. The review’s final leg will be responsibility, in the benefit queue and the boardroom. The party is going to try to renew social insurance, and to try to leapfrog the Tories on welfare. None of this answers the pressing question of the deficit, Labour’s dire polling on economic competence or Miliband’s own personal ratings. Last week Balls alarmed some by coming close to admitting he has bet the whole farm on his judgment that Osborne’s cuts will seriously kill growth. It may take two years for him to know if he or Osborne is right. In the meantime, to rebuild trust, Balls will look at new credible fiscal rules so an authoritative independent body can warn if Labour was about to head off on an unsustainable spending splurge. There is also dark talk of a mechanism to address waste in public spending. A party elder may be asked to set up an inquiry into the issue. Miliband is attempting something rare – shifting the centre of British politics to the left from the position of opposition, rather than from government. By next year he may remember what the Australian prime minister John Howard once said to William Hague: “You know, William, there’s only one thing harder than the first year in opposition … It’s the second.” • Interactive: What do you think should be in Labour’s policy review? Labour Ed Miliband Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 22, 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.