The left’s day of introspection
Debates over the Labour party’s future are overshadowing the left-wing Progress organisation’s annual conference.
Leadership contenders Andy Burnham and Ed Miliband are attending but it was frontrunner Ed Miliband who stole the headlines as he delivered the conference’s keynote speech this afternoon.
Mr Miliband said Labour had lost touch with the “modern needs of transparency, openness, pluralism [and] dialogue”.
He told the conference: “We were disconnected from our voters but also from our members.”
The progressive left in British politics faces an introspective period as it confronts the reasons for Labour’s ousting from government in the 2010 general election.
Trades Union Congress general secretary Brendan Barber told the Progress conference it was the lack of a “compelling new vision” which was responsible.
He blamed the party’s failure to move on from its 1997 winning attitudes for the defeat.
‘1997 mindset’ blamed for defeat
“Self-imposed constraints meant that ministers ended up keeping quiet about popular policies that resonated with voters but which did not fit with that 1997 narrative,” Mr Barber argued.
Overnight the leadership contest focused on the impact of the 2003 Iraq invasion, as contenders Ed Balls and Ed Miliband turned their backs on the government’s attitude to ousting Saddam Hussein.
The former Cabinet ministers’ emphasis gave different interpretations of the conflict, however.
Iraq war divides Labour leadership candidates
Ed Miliband made clear he did not believe the war had been undertaken “for the wrong motives”, but acknowledged that the war had led to a “catastrophic loss of trust” for Labour.
Mr Balls, a close ally to Gordon Brown and the ex-children’s secretary, went further by calling the war “a mistake”.
“Saddam Hussein was a horrible man, and I am pleased he is no longer running Iraq. But the war was wrong,” he said.
David Miliband gave yet another alternative take, calling on voters and party members to move on from the issue. “If we had known then that there were no weapons of mass destruction, obviously there wouldn’t have been a war,” he said.
Meanwhile the party faces some of the frustrations of opposition, as shadow leader of the House Rosie Winterton fired a complaint at George Osborne’s plans to announce spending cut details to the media rather than parliament.
She has written to Commons leader Sir George Young complaining that MPs, rather than journalists, should be the first to hear the chancellor’s plans.
“Some may find this difficult to reconcile with the government’s claims of ‘new politics’,” Ms Winterton protested.
Coalition’s ‘Commons neglect’ over Osborne announcement
Labour ministers received repeated criticism from opposition Conservatives that they were not giving the Commons as much attention as it deserved. Now the roles have been reversed but, it seems, the problem remains.
