Polly Toynbee is right to argue that Labour, and the centre-left more broadly, need the genuine debate about ideas they unwisely avoided before the last general election (British politics is fractured and chaotic – but at last it’s brimming with ideas for the future, 2 June). They must have the courage to think anew. The issue is not merely how to face up to the immensely difficult challenges Toynbee cites, of soaring wealth inequality and an inadequate tax base coupled with rising pressures on public services, but how Labour understands its core purpose and ideological mission.
In the 1950s and the 1980s, successive defeats compelled the Labour party to reappraise its core principles in the light of the changing nature of capitalism and the role of government and markets. It should be just as thoroughgoing today.
New Labour under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown embraced the market economy, completing the policy reforms begun under Neil Kinnock. Social democracy in the 2020s needs to be more discerning in its approach to markets in the light of the failed privatisation experiments of the Thatcher era, coupled with the avaricious nature of global capitalism, driven by the rise of technology companies alongside the sharp increase in regional inequalities, which have left too many places exposed to deindustrialisation bereft of economic purpose.
Patrick Diamond
Professor of public policy, Queen Mary University of London, and former Labour special adviser
Polly Toynbee is right to celebrate the end of the “no discussions here” era in British politics. No policy means no government, just drift. But ideas are not enough on their own. They need to be translated into reality, and that means bridging the gap between where you want to get to and where you are now.
Doing that requires not just a deeper understanding of individual issues, but also how they fit into the big picture – and what trade-offs are necessary to avoid one undermining the other. That is why we need not just a greater openness in discussing ideas, but also a greater willingness to set out, explain and evolve our understanding of the price, literal and figurative, in delivering those ideas individually and collectively.
Against that perspective, Alan Milburn’s first report on young people not in education, employment or training shows the real value of spending time to understand a subject. The real test, however, will be whether his second report is upfront about the investment needed to transition from a benefits culture to one focused on equipping people for work – and whether he can get the Treasury, and the country, to pay that price for as long as is necessary.
Investing to save makes sense, but it requires patience and a confidence that it will deliver. Those are two virtues Britain has sadly lacked in recent years.
Tom Kelly
Prime minister’s spokesman 2001-07
Polly Toynbee’s claim that there is “no facile Nigel Farage or Zack Polanski solution” to the UK’s ills is extremely glib. Lumping Farage and Polanski together ignores the fact that their political analyses stand in stark contrast. Furthermore, on the day Toynbee’s column ran, you reported that the UK green economy is now worth more than £100bn a year – a total vindication of Green party arguments. Polanski and colleagues have been putting in the hard yards to identify cogent ways forward for the UK. Those efforts should be recognised, not dismissed.
Michael Orton
Coventry