Back on the Road to Power.

The Labour Party has a problem. A big one.

I’m not just talking about the current leadership battle between Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith and the all-out war that seems to have broken out between the Corbynistas and the rest of the Labour Party though that is a problem. I’m talking about a problem which Ed Miliband’s policy chief Jon Cruddas identified in his post-election inquiry.

Labour is losing the support of its base.

This was demonstrated with startling and painful clarity during the EU referendum. If you look at the results almost all the areas that voted most heavily in favour of leave (with the exception of course of London and Scotland) were Labour heartlands in the north of England and Wales. In his speech to the Mile End institute in September last year Jon Cruddas described the problem like this

“ Labour is losing its working class support and UKIP benefits. Since 2005 voters who are socially conservative are the most likely to have deserted Labour. They value home, family and their country. They feel their cultural identity is under threat. They want a sense of belonging and national renewal. Tradition, rules and social order are important to them. Labour no longer represents their lives.”

Cruddas’ point was quite clearly that those who Labour used to rely on to get themselves elected can no longer be relied on automatically. Of course there are still half a dozen donkey seats out there but no-where near the number that there once were. During the Blair years Labour ran after the middle class commuter vote with such fervour that it left its main support behind. But that’s not the only problem. Those old supporters could probably be tempted back into the Labour fold if Labour actually stood for something, but at the moment it appears people struggled to understand what Labour is for, beyond just being against the Tories. In the same speech Cruddas’ also had this to say.

“Since 2010 Labour has marched decisively away from the views of voters on issues that are fundamental to our electoral prospects: immigration, personal financial interest, welfare, public services, and business. In short, that Labour is out of step with the wider electorate and this divide is growing.”   

So this is Labour’s problem. It doesn’t have half the support it once did, and those that do support it don’t know where it stands. If at some point in the future Labour hope to be in government it has to stand for something, and something that is uniquely Labour.

So how does it go about doing this?

I think Owen Smith has made a good start talking about a “British New Deal” and stating that he wants to rewrite Labour’s sacred clause IV to talk about inequality. But it’s easy to talk about inequality and harder to deal with it. So how should Labour go about dealing with the staggering levels of inequality in this country? How do you create a manifesto dedicated to eradicating inequality?

For me you have to go back to Beveridge.

For those who aren’t ware the Beveridge Report was a report put together by social reformer William Beveridge which served as the cornerstone for the Attlee Governments welfare reforms. In it Beveridge identified what he called “the five giants of evil,” ignorance, want, disease, idleness and squalor.

Those five giants while much weaker than previously I think are still very much prevalent in this day and age. This is what I think a manifesto based around Beveridge’s ideas would look like.

Ignorance

Education, Education, Education was one of Tony Blair’s famous lines. Education has to be one of the most important and vital things that a government can invest in. Decent education easily available to all can be the key to turning someone’s entire life around.   A Labour party that invests heavily in education will be one that has demonstrated its interest in levelling the playing field. However this cannot just involve putting people on the school to university conveyor belt. Resources needed to be invested in apprenticeships, diplomas and further education so that everyone can find the form of education that suits them.

Want

The gap between the rich and the poor is widening as well know, and food bank usage has risen by a startling amount. Any future Labour government will need to address this, presumably with spending on the welfare state. However as was pointed out in Cruddas’ inquiry one of the things that concerns people about the Labour party is that they just wanted to give people money for nothing, so the party will have to come up with a way to make work pay, while still leaving a suitable safety net in place for those with no other option but to rely on welfare.

Disease

The National Health Service is one of Labours proudest achievements and so it should be. But it cannot be denied that it is also to a certain extent overworked and underfunded. A future Labour government will have to find ways to increase funding and recruitment to the NHS as well as at the same time investing in its future, in new hospitals and new technology. This may mean some form of public/private partnership but this does not mean that the NHS should be privatised. Whatever happens it’s free at point of use nature must be maintained.

Idleness

For many people, especially those out of work, lack of something to occupy time is a great problem. A future Labour government should seek to invest in new volunteer schemes, possibly tied into the welfare system in order to help give people a purpose as well as extra skills that they can use to find a job. It should also work with local councils to invest more money in sports clubs and local events to give children and young people somewhere to go and something to do as well. This will in turn hopefully create a sense of community cohesion, as well as keep young people off the streets, which may help reduce crime numbers.

Squalor

Housing is an issue that needs to be addressed. Not only do more houses need to be built, but with regards to the rental market, a future Labour government would be well placed to introduce new regulations for landlords in order to ensure that their properties are well maintained and suitable for habitation, as well as new laws regarding rental prices, in order to prevent the exploitation of the young. However squalor does not just refer to housing. It would also be sensible for Labour to look at urban regeneration projects in the future, in order to improve towns and cities, especially looking at the state of council estates. Again if fresh life was breathed into these places and people took pride in where they lived, this may help with crime figures.

Above all though, Labour should bear in mind the old saying that “all politics is local.” For too long, politicians from both parties, have attempted to create one size fits all laws, forgetting that the needs of Hull are different from the needs of Cambridge and the needs of York are different from the needs of Truro. Any future government should work with the local governments (preferably devolve more powers to them first) and help create laws and policies that fit what the country is actually like, not just what policy makers think the country is like.

Of course all of this is just my opinion. But it is one way that Labour could get out of the ditch it is currently in, and get back on the road to power.