Photo: sheepback.cabin

Deep recession. 2.5 million of the UK’s workforce unemployed. A collapse in share prices of over 50%. Forced closure of leading national banks. Sound familiar? What about all of this followed by an historic Labour Party victory? Given the current media coverage, this might not be how you expect the story to end. But in 1929 the country entrusted economic recovery to the party who promised the most radical shake-up of the national economy; the party who was the boldest and shouted the loudest. It was a national leap of faith. Labour had only formed a government on one previous occasion – even then it had been for just a single year. Labour’s appeal to the electorate was not based on their previous record in government – a tactic pursued by Alistair Darling who was already writing the epitaph on Labour’s 12 years of government at their conference in Brighton: “when the history of the past few years comes to be written, this government and this party will be proud”. Neither did they play the game of “they stole our policies”, a popular pastime doing the rounds at Westminster today. Labour castigated, rather than mirrored, the policies of embourgeoisement pursued with vigour by the Tories during the inter-war years. The party chastised the “Tories tax on the poor” and promised an overhaul of the railways and coal industry as well as a progressive programme of national insurance reform. They bravely set the dividing lines between themselves and the Conservatives and it struck a chord with the electorate.

This does not mean that Labour should pledge itself to a programme of (re)nationalisation or indeed the formation of a ‘Socialist Co-operative Commonwealth’ as the party promised in 1929. Yet much can be learned from the visionaries of the late 1920s who fought tooth and nail to secure only the second Labour government in British political history. If you had suggested to a voter in 1929 that Labour and the Tories were essentially the same party they’d have shown as much faith in your political opinions as Germans did in the Weimar Republic. Now the saying “they’re all the same” typifies the apathetic mood of the country. Voters find it very difficult to imagine how a Conservative government might differ from a Labour one – they just have a hunch that its time to find out. Both parties will have to make spending cuts, both present them as “tough choices”. Both parties plan to cut incapacity benefits and the next Chancellor, of whatever hue, is likely to raise VAT to 20%. And, to the probable dismay of Daniel Hannon, spending on the NHS will be ring-fenced and protected. Where are the dividing lines?

The problem is that they exist – Labour just expends too much energy claiming that the Tories have stolen their policies. Frustratingly this claim is not unjustified. Labour initiated reform of incapacity benefits in 2007; the Tories new independent schools – Michael Gove’s cure-all of the education system – sit not a million miles to the Right of Labour’s independent academies; and George Osborne admitted at the Conservative conference that he would retain, temporarily at least, the new 50p tax on top earners. Labour must stop being so reticent in areas where a bold policy initiative might give them the upper hand at the next election. There were positive signs at the Brighton conference. Labour no longer appeared so comfortable fraternising with the ‘filthy rich’ as they once did. Brown admitted that whilst the party once “gloried in a neo-liberal economic policy when it gave us the boom…we now believe you have to intervene”. This is a definite change in tack by the party and one which, if pursued, could redefine economic and financial policy. Darling has expressed his opposition to a cap on bankers bonuses but his plans to link those bonuses to long-term performance and to ensure banks have new minimum financial reserves should be posited as evidence of Labour’s new enthused efforts to crack down on the financial system. Presenting a sea-change in Labour policy would not only represent a popular appeal to voters; it might also shun the accepted, misconstrued Tory argument that Labour got us into this mess but the Tories can get us out of it. It was notable that David Cameron made virtually no mention of bankers or their bonuses at his party conference speech – it was Brown’s record as Chancellor which came under-fire.

This is a problem of presentation as much as substance: Labour should go to greater lengths to espouse its reformist agenda rather than relying on the mantra that the Tories are the party of cuts. Other proposals too need to be pursued. Electoral reform should be given serious consideration. First-past-the-post does entrench a two-party system and a move to reform this inequality might be seen as a brave step by the party to democratise British government – a welcome tonic after a summer of duck-houses and second-home renovations paid for by expenses. The fact that the Conservatives are anti-reform could be left unsaid but at least implied. Labour too should become champions of the environment. The Conservatives have stolen the eco-friendly ground from beneath Labour’s feet but there are still concerns that the Tories will struggle to satisfy investment in the environment with their penchant for spending cuts. Conservative MPs voted against green investment in the budget and Ken Clarke’s recent faux pas on wind-farms seemed to reveal the depth of division and hostility inherent within the party to investment in the environment. Labour could still seize the initiative on one of the most pertinent issues to modern, everyday life. A green drive might expose the shallow depths of the Conservative commitment to the environment as well as providing a positive response to recession: investment now could make Britain a leading exporter of green technology in the future. Part of this is also about reengaging with the British worker: no one wishes to repeat the plight of Vestas workers on the Isle of Wight witnessed over the summer. In 1929 Labour promised to protect “wage-earners, shop-keepers…lower-middle classes…workers”. As the financial system receives a painful scalding and bankers a severe telling off Labour should look to its core support and consider how best to protect the interests of workers in the services industry and in manufacturing. Labour’s electoral victory in 1929 was a close-run thing but a bold agenda and hard fought campaign transformed them from a party of relative obscurity into a party of government. Similar bravery needs to be shown 80 years on.