No takers for Byers

Though I have always had a certain amount of respect for elements of the New Labour project, I have never considered myself a supporter of that particular strand of Labour ideology. Nor would I identify myself with ‘Old Labour’ (as either an insult of a badge of pride), whether that is taken to mean the sort espoused by Tony Benn, or the sort advocated by the likes of Dennis Healey. I am interested instead in the model of Labour Party we will see in the future.

I respect New Labour the most at the parts which Tony Blair tended to treat with the most public disdain. In particular I have great respect for the government of 1997-2001, which I believe demonstrated a necessary break with a brand previously tainted with failure, but in many ways also managed to embody a kind of moderate democratic leftism, tinkering with union freedom here, building the odd hospital there, repairing ruined and cash starved public services. Though to the left of all of that, I believe that more than the periods that followed, it had something to be proud of.

I could never understand why it went the way it did after this, and why it never seemed to understand the effect that its rightwards shift had on the voting public. Labour started to frame debates itself through pure strength of narrative, but always seemed to frame them to the right of where it previously had done. The public soon followed. More wanted a more equal society. Less wanted the redistribution that required, and nobody was there to seriously discuss it as an alternative. New Labour left a gap in the public debate, but boxed itself in.

Stephen Byers and other ultra-Blairites played a big part in allowing this to happen, in particular on tax, and the bulk of Blairite public service ‘reform’. Some reform was successful, but most did not represent the right way forwards. It is only now, with a new concentration on cooperative and co-productive models, and with advocacy of progressive taxation, that Brown’s New Labour is moving in the right direction.

Byers and his allies have always been close to those who would decrease the role of democracy in the economy and expressed comfortableness with social inequality. So it doesn’t come as much of a surprise, particularly given the number of ultras who actively tried to dodge tax on second homes, that Byers was also relatively comfortable with the economy, or at least the private part of it playing a bigger role in democracy.

Labour was, is and will be a great party. It is the only party capable of improving life for people in this country. But that can only happen if its next generation can look past politicians like Stephen Byers and Hazel Blears. ‘The project’ has been a long way off the pulse of British opinion for a long time, starting in about 2001. Perhaps this is where it ends. Hopefully. We need a break.

Labour needs to look to itself for renewal as the way forward. If big business is this efficient (I suspect that it was ever thus), and Labour people are now capable of this level of submission to big business, then heaven forfend that a party without any ties to everyday working people ends up in government.

Update: I am very glad that the Labour Party are taking this seriously.