I have to say, having spent years knocking New Labour for all its idiotic badly thought through policies, kneejerk authoritarian idiocies, personality issues and generally disliking the whole project, Jon Cruddas has always struck me as a bright sort with his head screwed on. I hope there are more like him out there when the final blow falls.

More intervention?
Is that it?

Trouble is
(1) people are sick to death of incompetent meddling
(2) if the economy gets so bad that they might welcome it that’s hardly great news for Gordo!

Good luck!

Northern Rock privatised with no obvious political costs………?????????

……..someone else has lost touch with reality. Tell 331 councillors they are of no polictical consequence.

Idiot!

Interesting that while Guido is writing about large multinationals leaving the UK for more welcoming business climes, the Labour party is discussing more regulation as the solution to our woes.

Extraordinary.

people are sick to death of incompetent meddling

They’re sick to death of incompetence, not meddling. The Tories tried the ‘you can’t privatise Northern Rock!!!’ trick. It backfired in their faces.

Interesting that while Guido is writing about large multinationals leaving the UK

Guido of course has no bias when he writes these stories. I mean, its not like he’s ever been played as a tool or run stories JUST so Labour can look bad.

C’mon Bishop, come back to us when you’ve got something useful to say.

PS, Jon Cruddas is excellent.

Sunny Hundal, I’m not a political blogger, I’m just one of the many disgruntled taxpayers in this country. I can assure you 100% that I could not choose which I despise more: the incompetence or the meddling.

Nobody I know thinks that the government sticking its nose into anything works, even when it’s as bumbling a government as this one.

Government meddling is entirely the problem, incompetent or not.

Don’t ban yourself from using the word “narrative”. Blair, Thatcher and Attlee all had one – even if they didn’t use the word itself – and it did them no harm. On the contrary, it is a prerequisite for political success.

I’m not sure that anyone in the current Cabinet has one. There are doubtless younger members who could develop one in Opposition, but a Cabinet with the baggage of ten years of office is no place to do so.

The basic problem (I’ve said this before, but sometimes you have to harp on the same string) is that Labour doesn’t know whether national governments can still deliver social justice in the contemporary economy. If they can, the “how” needs explaining, and if they can’t there isn’t any point to the Party.

What concerns me isn’t the poll ratings (they can change quite quickly), or even the clear exhaustion of the Government Front Bench, but the lack of any indication from leftist intellectuals – wherever based – that the basic problem can be answered “yes”, let alone how. And that’s before we get on to how the left, however defined, can give a coherent answer to the “nationality” question – failure to answer which, remember, was the reason the Communists themselves gave for the collapse of their system. It may yet do for social democracy too, unless someone can come up with answers a whole heap better than any currently on offer.

Government / centralised / top-down meddling is by definition incompetent, or at the very least inefficient. (In both public and private sectors).

Is Chris Dillow not a contributor to this site? It’s one of his main themes.

#3, #5: You mean “nationalise”, don’t you? Not “privatise”.

i certainly agree with the Cruddas points on emotion/narrative. Brown – and to be fair to him many of his current cabinet and former cabinet members – have to stop thinking that delving into the details policy reform will help them out.

issues like ‘public service reform’ or new, harsher ways to deal with incapacity benefit claimants rarely permeate the into the mass of public opinion – particualrly after 11 years of a government which has been using similar lines for that whole period – and only serve to alienate those closer to the issues, like voluntary sector groups and trade unions, which serves to alienate the core vote.

i’m not sure i buy the idea that the basic problem is Labour not knowing whether the modern economy can deliver social justice – i think the greater issue is that a generation of politicians whose formative years were during the Thatcher/early Major periods don’t think they can sell the policies required. Nothing frustrates me more than knowing an 11 year Labour government has allowed inequality to grow (yes, x thousands children are out of income poverty but the Tories are right when they note that most were dragged over the median cusp); what else can a Labour, rather than liberal, government be ultimately about than that?

This, to my mind, requires bold narratives based around new and strenghtened universal services (like the NHS, children benefit, CTF etc), that are for all but in practice help the most in need. It might be a bit late now, but if i were Brown i would just go for it on the basis that it is far better to go down fightening, with more enthused activists by your side, than to drift into opposition.