Shame!

But as you say, there won’t be much of a debate at all by the looks of things.

I would like to see the Labour Party decide whether being reallyleft-wing, as opposed to being a left-of-centre, “caring capitalist”, means being socialist in the traditional sense, or whether there are other ideas out there that are both radically left-wing (in the sense of being more than merely tinkering around the edges of capitalism), not socialist, and strong enough for a political party to coalesce around and sell to voters.

My personal preference is left-centre, but perhaps mainly because I don’t know of any better alternative (I tend to disagree strongly with most trad “socialist” policies). People like Chris Dillow talk of radical ideas (like promoting worker power) but I can never get much of a handle on precisely what the policies to do that would look like.

Do viable “not-socialist-but-still-radical-left” ideas exist, and is there any prospect of them gaining sufficient political momentum within the Labour Party? Or are we looking at a choice between traditional Labour left-wing socialism (which everybody seems to see as so unelectable that there is no sensible socialist leadership candidate) and one of a handful of not very distinctive politicians offering a vaguely left-wing variant on the mainstream political consensus?

(not that there’s necessarily much wrong with a vaguely left-wing variant on the mainstream political consensus, I’d just be interested to see if there’s anything else on offer out there)

If the party doesn’t have a period of protracted argument on why it lost power, and instead falls back on the reassuring ‘it was just time for a change’ idea, then that’s actually rather good news for the Tories.

You’re about to discover that it’s a bit harder for a party to change its image than just saying ‘we’ve changed’. And by choosing a young, wonkish talented leader with limited presentational skills (a tag that describes all the serious leadership candidates), Labour are looking like vaulting gleefully into the Hague model of party rejuvenation. Enjoy it…

I suspect predictions of civil war were based on the belief that Labour would suffer an electoral meltdown. If Labour had under 200 seats it may have led to much more soul-searching and a belief that things couldn’t get much worse even with a civil war.

However, Labour did (definitely in terms of seats and arguably in terms of votes) better than expected. Therefore Labour has a lot more to lose by ripping itself to pieces now. That Labour are within winning distance should another election be called is enough to install self-discipline.

Why would a civil war in the opposition be good news for anyone other than those advocating unchallenged centralist government? I don’t think Sunny has quite grasped that it is possible to be right-wing and not be tribal about it.

Anyway, a civil war is unlikely to happen in Labour (most internal Labour conflicts have been fought within the rules, not as open revolt, and I can’t see anything different happening here). However, will a debate happen? With at least three of the four main candidates seemingly echoing each other on claiming they didn’t listen to the electorate enough (which I think everyone has been telling them for two years) and that they see the error of the Iraq war now they want to get votes, I think Labour will end up with a consensus (whose consensus I am not sure – Guardian editorial writers perhaps) view of where they are going, but no clear vision or purpose. And that will likely count against them. For the sake of Labour as an opposition, it would be better if there was a non-consensus voice in the leadership contest, but I suspect this won’t happen because the party seems to be afraid of ‘division’ and ‘dissent’ more than it is afraid of lack of direction.

a long-term vision of the economy>/i> is nothing that will actively be a hindrance, Sunny?

I beg to differ. We have a government that has specifically laid out a five year plan, consisting of cuts now, and – fingers crossed – some recovery later. Some useful noises on reform of banks, and that’s about it.

I think if Labour want to recover, they need a long term economic (and political vision). They have to make sure they get a good one this time, because their last (let the City create all the wealth, we’ll tax them then spend it on public services) frankly was a bit shit.

You’re about to discover that it’s a bit harder for a party to change its image than just saying ‘we’ve changed’.

Except Tories had to do some serious rebranding to shed their old image. Labour doesn’t have an image problem as bad as the Tories did.

@Sunny

I think we on the internet have a tendency to understate how bad Labour is received in some parts of the country, mainly England. Immigration is one thing, but the Labour government have proven themselves incompetent with the economy, and it takes a long time for any party to recover from that stigma.

We also need to acknowledge that at present, Labour is offering nothing positive that you couldn’t get from one of the two government parties. So either, as you predict, it will swing right-wards in an attempt to demonise immigrants for political gain (which they did whilst in office anyway), or it will try and stamp on the muddy centre ground. Either way it will get PWNED by the government parties.

Yes Labour did well in local elections but that was partly because those were held on the same day as the general, driving up turnout. Now, due to the fixed term of this parliament, it will be a while until these elections coincide once more.

Something else for those that think the election “wasn’t that bad” for Labour: it got 29% of the vote, its worst share other than 1983 since 1931. The weirdness of the FPTP system covers that catastrophic results, but Labourites should not fool themselves: they got their asses handed to them. They cannot, on the one hand, say they should “accept the electorate’s verdict” as an excuse to not even try to get a coalition with the Lib Dems to work, and on the other, say they actually weren’t defeated but merely setback.

7 – they got a lower percentage of the vote than William Hague’s unmodernised Tories in 2001. If a lot of that is down to Brown then not so bad for Labour. If not then I would suggest Labour does have a severe image problem.

I fear Sunny’s right. No real analysis or introspection, simply a tweaking of the on-message message, lip-service (but no more) to those betrayed or left behind by the New labour ‘project’. Clone wars perhaps, but no admission of guilt or culpability for the many mistakes and treacheries of the last 13 years, nor any contestants outside of the inner circle. No civil war, but no open debate either.

@Alasdair

Clone Wars – an excellent meme for the Labour leadership. Let memehood commence….

simply a tweaking of the on-message message, lip-service (but no more) to those betrayed or left behind by the New labour ‘project’.

Not sure about this. Ed Miliband has pretty much done this all the way through. What would you like him to say that he hasn’t yet already?

but the Labour government have proven themselves incompetent with the economy, and it takes a long time for any party to recover from that stigma.

No, the polls don’t show that. They are roughly tied with the Tories on the economy, and frankly it’s nowhere near the massive loss of confidence Tories faced when they got chucked out of the ERM

Except Tories had to do some serious rebranding to shed their old image. Labour doesn’t have an image problem as bad as the Tories did.

28% in the General Election? Fewer actual votes than Michael Foot? Second worst performance since 1918? When you’re talking about a party’s image – about its credibility and popularity you have to look at votes, not seats. In those terms, Labour are worse off than the Tories in 97.

Electorally, of course, you’re much better off. But things change, and with an actual vote level so low, Labour are very vulnerable unless some radical rethinking is done. It’s a lesson I devoutly hope you don’t learn just yet.

What there effectively is …is a lack of faith in any of the mainstream parties …

@ Sunny: Miliband, E. might, and it is a very very slim might be marginally better than the other main candidates, but that’s still not saying too much: had he had the chance, I’ll wager he’d have been right in there at the heart of New Labour pressing the whole neo-liberal schtick. Maybe not as strongly as his awful brother (who must never be forgiven for his lies on rendition and his chicanery), but one problem with Miliband E, is that were he to become leader he wouldn’t do the right thing and relegate his brother to the wilderness.

Tim J: 28% in the General Election? Fewer actual votes than Michael Foot?

Most of it down to Brown and any lack of serious ideas for the future. Since he’s gone the party has jumped to around 34% in the polls, which underlines my point.

Alisdair: had he had the chance, I’ll wager he’d have been right in there at the heart of New Labour pressing the whole neo-liberal schtick

Look, I want to know what policy exactly you’d like these candidates to break from, not whether people think Ed Miliband would have followed his brother.

Ed has gone further than all of the other four main candidates to repudiate what New Labour did, and people on here keep saying they want to hear more from the candidates.

What exactly do you want to hear?

Otherwise it just becomes mindless opposition for its own sake.

I think we on the internet have a tendency to understate how bad Labour is received in some parts of the country, mainly England. Immigration is one thing, but the Labour government have proven themselves incompetent with the economy, and it takes a long time for any party to recover from that stigma.

I agree with that almost totally, but I do think that those who are supposedly debating the future of the Labour party are simply holding onto the idea that ‘we didn’t do that bad’.

For the most part, and assuming there isn’t a destroying implosion within this coalition, what they are doing, going to do is much more in tune with what the country wants rather than against what the country wants.

I looked at the Beeb’s run down of the policies of this coalition – hell, even to the degree of getting ministers et al to take the frigging bus. Obviously these are the sweeteners before the cuts, but, again, look at the cuts that have been introduced. I think we can safely say that they are not as bad as first thought – so what are New Labour going to do to answer this? What we do see is that they are still firmly fixed to the tit of New Labour and will, by all evidence coming in, going to suckle that tit for many years to come.

IF the fixed parliament comes to pass then Labour has plenty of time to elect a leader who is going to be competent. That isn’t civil war, that is looking to where they actually stand. The low vote, seats are all valid points – and those in New Labour, and those who support them, are NOT taking that into account – well not that I can see anyway.

New Labour is void, barren and adrift. Darling spouts, about these cuts, ‘We were going to do this anyway …’ or words to that effect. The only way forward for Labour is to become The Labour Party and after they do is to apologise for the “New” part.

New Labour are still to the right of this coalition – and until they get back to the left they will, for quite a few years, be irrelevant.

Okay,then Sunny, an outright repudiation of, and apology for the back-door privatisation/marketisation of public services, a retraction from worshipping the market without bothering to rein in its excesses,an end to talking down to, and evidently mistrusting the populace (hence the micro-management and the erosion of civil liberties) a willingness to widen sources of advice away from wonks and management consultants, a readiness to admit failings and remedy them rather than plough on at twice the speed, maligning those with misgivings en route. Some humility, not feigned, but sincere, plus a long hard look at waht the State can and can’t do, with the equally necessary consideration of what the State should and shouldn’t do, with each candidate clearly marking out their beliefs on this fundamental issue. We know the Tories want to shrivel the State away, but too much New Labbery was, hey we’ve got this great machinery of power, let’s exercise that power. Step away from the (old-style) Fabian-derived instinct to manage the population from above through direction and regulation, a paternalistic and condescending use of the State, not to enable, but for self-celebrating ‘enlightened’ elites to lord it over the masses from on high on just how they should be living and behaving

The New lab project’s most toxic legacy (asides from foreign policy) lies with following and indeed promoting what we’ve seen domestically, strongly in the UK and within the EU, plus to a degree in the US : a capture of the state machinery by the corporate interests and elites, accompanied by both increased authoritarian intervention in the day-to-day lives of citizens and an invocation of positive liberty,in a narrow and twisted fashion that suits power elites at the cost of the citizenry,propagandising and pushing the (unsustainable) consumerism and consumption as freedom shtick: this is the way to a better,shinier,new,improved future, so we’ll force you towards it, whether you like it or not, then you will attain some higher,nobler liberty, because hey, we’re the smartest guys in the room so obey (or else).
Ed Miliband has come closest to recognising the problem, but offers little by way of answers, while his brother talks of having the vision, but doesn’t seem to acknowledge the problem.

Most of it down to Brown and any lack of serious ideas for the future. Since he’s gone the party has jumped to around 34% in the polls, which underlines my point.

32% in the latest poll I believe. Better than the election, but still just about where Hague was in 2001. And this is going to be supercharged by the wonderful leadership of… a Miliband? Ed Balls? Really?

Good luck and all that, but I don’t think you’ve really grasped how much work you have in front of you.

We did some great stuff in office, and overall I’d say both Blair and Brown were successful Prime Ministers (not that I’ve forgiven Iraq). However, I think that unless you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Blairite, it’s hard to deny that the party is somewhat ideologically exhausted, as it were. Labour had to be moderate to get elected in 1997, but under Blair, we made too many compromises, more than we need to make. Add to that the years of triangulation that have left us frankly reactionary on certain issues, especially civil liberties, and you have a party that needs to change its program and work out where it’s heading. That’s not something that can be done without a bit of a fight, even if it is a good-natured, comradely one.

Have I missed something?

Where have any elected Labour MPs – or their surrogates – explained a plan for dealing with the unsustainable deficit in the public finances?

@22

Their plan is to blame it all on the evil “flaccid ConDems” – double dick joke there.

What Labour needs is not a vanity contest between four white Oxbridge men, but an inquiry into just wtf went wrong in the last 13 years of government that by the end of it:

- the deficit was at £168 billion
- inequality had grown
- the BNP had won half a million votes
- immigration is still an issue despite them having gotten “tougher” (i.e. more racist) on it
- the LibCon government is to the left of Labour on issues like civil liberties
- Labour had its second-lowest share of the vote since 1918.

Harman could’ve stayed caretaker leader whilst this inquiry took place. Because as soon as the next leader (David Miliband) is installed, the party will roll into relentless opposition mode, opposing everything the coalition does without one thought as to whether it is right or wrong.

@24: ” the LibCon government is to the left of Labour on issues like civil liberties”

News on the extent of surveillance is still coming out of the woodwork:

“HOSPITALS have quietly created banks of DNA from blood taken from millions of newborn babies without the proper consent of their parents, emails show.

“Freedom of information (FOI) requests to hospitals around Britain have established that the blood samples, taken in heel-prick tests to screen for serious conditions, have been privately stored by parts of the NHS since 1984.

“According to guidance obtained by The Sunday Times, the DNA can be looked at by police, coroners and some medical researchers. They are able to identify named individuals.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article7134061.ece

This illuminates but one of many reasons why the left-wing v right-wing divide has become quite meaningless.

Btw I actually favour ID cards. For a forthcoming hospital appointment under the NHS, I’ve been asked in writing to provide documentary evidence of where I have lived for the last 12 months – which happens to be the address to which the letter was sent – and documentary evidence to show I “have a right to live here”, and this despite the fact that my official NHS records on the national database (costing £12.7 billions) report (correctly) that I was born in London before WW2. An ID card would be a helpful way of cutting through this (insane) bureaucracy.

Sunny –
Ed has gone further than all of the other four main candidates to repudiate what New Labour did, and people on here keep saying they want to hear more from the candidates….What exactly do you want to hear?

I’d consider myself left-wing; I voted positively for Labour from 1987-97, reluctantly in 2001 and not at all afterwards. As they are presently constituted there is no point to the Labour party. We have a centre-right coalition already.

In the election just gone I voted LibDem for the first time, without expectations. I wanted neither the Tories nor Labour in power. In an ideal world, I wanted the LibDems to be in a position to push through first electoral and then constitutional reform.

As a left-leaning voter, what I want from a Labour leadership contest is at least a discussion on how to rejuvenate the projects of egalitarianism and justice, which at some point in the past Labour used to stand for. Any attempt to outflank the Tory party from the right will be an utter disaster for the population given the prejudices of the media.

I don’t expect old-skool Socialism, but I would have thought that a bunch of extremely bright Oxbridge candidates schooled in politics, philosophy and economics could at least try to synthesise a vision for social justice and co-operation.

I wouldn’t even consider voting for Labour again until they renounced their support for authoritarianism at home and for military aggression overseas. If I’d wanted that I would have voted Tory in the first place.

*candidates should read graduates

Harman could’ve stayed caretaker leader whilst this inquiry took place.

Again I have to agree with this. there isn’t any rush at all. The longer the inquest goes on the better.

This election should not only clean up the past but also look to the future.

As far as the past is concerned its at least now admitted there was a thing called the Iraq War, though no one seems to have been responsible. But what about other obvious and non-socialist failings of Nu Labor. On civil liberties it has been a disgrace. On ordering Hi Tech information systems its record is also dire.

How are Labour going to deal with these things in the future. On the Information Technology front, isn’t there a case for trying to set up a technically competent body, free of industry placemen, to recommend these commissions and systems rather than relying on woefully technically ignorant politicians?

And what’s its relationship going to be with the City of London – fawning acolyte or keen-eyed and critical regulator?

And what proposals does it have for regenerating manufacturing industries and the provinces in general.

Labour is not the party of the South East. It should start behaving as the party of the rest of Britain.

james its funny when you read posts from torys like john , he wants the labour party to be like the conservitives , how stupid id that , john we dont need another tory party we have two , the libs and the cons we dont need a therd ..

I am rather hoping they have kept quiet on Big Ideas and Narratives till after the Queens Speech and these important 5 days in Parliament. Once these are out of the way the real debate within the Party will start in earnest. I’d like to see a mutual evoloution of narratives and ideas as opposed to a purely combatative approach. Whoever emerges as our new leader should do so harnessing the best of our Party and including his competitors and their supporters.

Alisdair – A contradiction: you want the state to step away from certain issues, but at the same time you want an apology for the privatisation of services?

Look, the role of the state is very important. Perhaps you could write it. What should the narrative be? But as far as I can see, the cadidates are not offering a grand narrative because they’re always too fluffy and open to ridicule. Remember Big Society? The Third Way? All have a mixture of what you said, but still there are sceptics.

Donna
As a left-leaning voter, what I want from a Labour leadership contest is at least a discussion on how to rejuvenate the projects of egalitarianism and justice, which at some point in the past Labour used to stand for. Any attempt to outflank the Tory party from the right will be an utter disaster for the population given the prejudices of the media.

I agree with all this/

Look, out of the main candidates I’m a fan of Ed Miliband. I don’t think he has fleshed out an adequate major vision, but I feel he’s the furthest on the left of them all.

If you guys want them to come up with a narrative, then write it for them. Let’s hear it. Maybe they’ll take it up. But don’t just criticise – suggest options please.

@ Sunny: that’s my point: they are hiding behind the vaguest, most non-specific verbiage. Oh for even one of them to firmly outline what he or she thinks the state is good at and should do (not necessarily the same thing) and what the state is bad at and shouldn’t be doing. Me, I’d say any and all services that relate to universal provision so that’s health&education&defence&policing&criminaljustice,but also the post,railways and roads. Then there’s essential infrastructure (some cross-over with services here) such as a genuinely a fast broadband grid.Next (but lower down the list)would come the state as an enabler/incubator: the biggest element here would be decent welfare provision, and support for emerging technologies and businesses tied to them. This is the state as a remover of barriers. Where New Labour really overstepped the mark was with their ham-fisted,counter-productive attempts at both social control and social engineering: nobody ever thanks you for it, it is patronising at best, damaging control-freakery at worst, with unintended consequences (eg increased communalism, using the term in the Indian subcontinental sense). Above all the state has to trust and serve the people, so no top-down micro-management (but stiff regulation for failures when they harm others), no remote interference with personal liberties: a stance that shares much with some strands of left libetarianism. I’d qualify that with reverent reference to Mill, though and his invaluable distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding actions.