Training | 2010.08.31
The Labour party faces a choice of either politics or religion | Martin Kettle
Both Milibands offer a social democratic critique of New Labour. But one aims at a majority, the other at the core vote
If battle readiness were all, then Ken Livingstone would be right. Ed Balls has more of what it takes to get Labour up to ramming speed more determinedly than any of the party\'s other leadership candidates . If, God forbid, this were May 1940 again, with the country\'s future on the line and only Labour\'s five hopefuls to choose from, then Balls would be the one.
Fortunately for the country and Labour, the times call for something other than ruthless ability in the choice of party leader. They call, among other things, for judgment, openness and strategic clarity. For all his talents, Balls falls short on all three. Politics is no longer in the machine age.
Yet the first question facing Labour is not who should lead it. The question is what kind of party it wants to be. If it agrees on an answer, it can go on and choose the leader best suited to its goal. But if it chooses a leader without clarifying its needs, remorse may quickly follow – which is exactly what happened when it chose Gordon Brown in 2007 .
It has been widely noted that while the leadership contest has been tedious for the media, it has been good for the party. It shows that Labour is not at war with itself, as it was when it went into opposition in 1970 and 1979. True as far as it goes. Less widely acknowledged is that it may also speak to a general appreciation that there is more worth saving from the New Labour experience than some pretend. Labour does not want to lose the hard-won habits of being taken seriously and being in with a chance. Hence, in part, the restraint.
It is unfair to depict the race, as some do in hope and others in disgust, as a general drift, let alone a lurch, from centre to left. My impression is that most Labour people do want the party\'s centre of gravity to move leftwards, but not in adventurist or perversely backward-looking ways. The general mood is also extremely cautious, and with reason, since there is little evidence of a public hunger for leftwing solutions. The most striking feature of the contest has not been the repudiation of the Blair-Brown years. It has been the attempt – very explicitly from both Milibands – to make a moderate social democratic critique of New Labour\'s failings without jettisoning its genuine strengths.
This cannot be dismissed merely as a retreat into comfort zone politics, though that danger exists. Yet Labour is embracing social democracy at a curious time. Classic revisionist social democracy was a coherent programme in the postwar era. It belonged to a time when central governments were strong, economies were balanced, industrial sectors thrived, and two-party systems dominated, before large-scale immigration. Fifty years on, those things have changed irreversibly. So while the Milibands may succeed where Gaitskell and Crosland failed, social democracy will have to adapt a lot if it is to make meaningful sustained sense today.
On issues such as taxation, economic investment, public service delivery or localism it is by no means clear or agreed what adaptations Labour is genuinely willing to make. Nor is it clear that Labour has genuinely understood that electoral fragmentation and volatility are not passing phenomena but reflect the break-up of the kind of society and politics in which Labour was formed.
Both Milibands have said innovative things – David more than Ed – but much remains unaddressed by both. Their solutions to Keynes\'s challenge for the progressive political project to involve the simultaneous achievement of economic innovation, social justice and individual freedom remain a work in progress. Meanwhile, Labour\'s self-image is still as a party of the majority, when in reality it is increasingly the party of a shrinking minority, a process that would be underlined further if electoral reform ever succeeds.
Labour therefore faces a very big choice. It can either define itself for its core vote – as the party of the unionised working class, the poor and their middle-class allies – and delineate a philosophy of redistributive social democracy, which it believes will protect the core vote and the middle-class allies will be willing to support. Or it can define itself as a majoritarian party committed to social justice that recognises it will have to moderate aspects of those core values to become and remain the natural home of voters who do not fully share them – even in government.
In broad terms, the first is a more religious response, the second a more political one. Ed Miliband speaks for the first, David Miliband for the second. Yet the idea that they represent radically irreconcilable approaches, let alone that the brothers are becoming fratricidal over the differences, does not withstand serious scrutiny.
Both positions in reality involve the inevitability of compromise if Labour is ever in government. Ed\'s more purist social democratic party would be more likely to confirm Labour as a minority party, with a declining chance of governing except in a coalition. It would therefore have to be a party of electoral reform, and would have to compromise in order to govern, or accept a role on the sidelines ( Ed\'s silly refusal to negotiate with Nick Clegg implies the latter). David\'s more diluted version would make more of its compromises first, in order to broaden its appeal to the middle class and make itself electable – rather as New Labour did, though not in the same way. But it would have to be a party of reform too, in order to attract liberal voters.
If you are for politics; if you believe in getting hands dirty, not keeping them clean; and if politics is more about winning than staying pure, then choose David rather than Ed. But don\'t exaggerate the differences. Ed\'s way would lead to most of the same places as David\'s, but it would just take a lot longer.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]our-miliband-politics-religion
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