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Full text of John Denham's Progressive Manifesto Lecture, Thursday 8th May, Portcullis House
Southern Comfort
Given the highly publicised election results in Southampton last
Thursday you might wonder where I get the cheek to speak about
election fortunes in the south.
One reason is that I have written and spoken about this over many
years, in bad years, and in good.
The other is that I, personally, have been here before. I had to
take my seat from third place in1983 to scrape in by 500 votes in
1992. Before hitting a 14,000 majority in 1997.
We don’t have that long. But the process must be the same.
By engaging with the world as it is; not as we might want or
imagine it to be.
And we must. Not because as Labour people we want to be
elected.
But because it matters to Britain.
I am in absolutely no doubt that there is not a constituency in the
south of England where there is not a clear majority of people who
are better off today than they were under the Tories.
And who are better off today than they would have been under the
Tories. Partly through the things we have done directly - the new
deal, the minimum wage, sure start, investment in the NHS, family
friendly working – all of which were opposed by the Tories. And
partly through the things we have enabled people to achieve for
themselves as new jobs were created, inflation and interest rates
kept in low and sensible bounds.
The reason we want to win again is not for us; but because we
believe that people’s lives will be better; and that this country will
be stronger. If we ever give the impression we have any other
motive, then we are lost.
So today, I want to look at what we need to do.
We’ve said we will listen, so what should we be hearing?
I will say why the South is so crucial.
And I’ll say what we need to be doing, at least in the areas that are
my responsibility.
One important point. The South is a place. It’s where I’m from;
where I live. But there are many places in Britain which share
similar characteristics, similar economies, and similar politics. So
when I talk tonight about the South, I’m talking about both the
geographical south and the political south.
The South has the key marginal seats on which our majority
depends. That much is well known.
But the South is much more important than that.
The South should be at the heart of our election strategy.
In the South, we only win with support from a wide spread of
voters. We only win if we get the core Labour votes, the new
Labour votes and the “ ‘I’m not really Labour’ votes”.
If we win those votes in the south, we’ll win the seats we need in
other places too.
But there is a second reason for making the South the centre of
our strategy.
It’s because the issues that come to dominate politics tend to
happen first, happen faster, and happen harder in the south. And
what happens here will happen elsewhere later.
Of course, we are, on average, a relatively prosperous region.
And what the South enjoys today we, surely, want the rest of the
country to enjoy tomorrow.
The South shows us what success feels like in a globalised
economy.
More of our economy is ‘knowledge based’ – whether advanced
manufacturing, finance or services.
More of our jobs are filled by people with higher level qualification
and skills.
More of our economy depends on the world class research and
innovation in which Labour has invested so much.
But the South also tells us that success in the global economy
brings its own problems.
The raft of jobs which are not highly paid; which don’t offer
prospects to get on.
Wages may be higher but so are many of our costs. And if you are
amongst the poorest in the South you feel even poorer when you
look at the people around you.
When the housing market booms, first-time buyers and families
wanting affordable rents feel it most sharply. But when the housing
market stumbles, we feel the shivers because so much of our
sense of wealth and security is tied up in the homes which, on
average have higher mortgages.
Because our jobs market has boomed, we experience the
downsides as well as the upsides of migration changing our
communities. We draw in people from all over the UK as well as
outside. So we find it hardest to balance the demands of growth
and prosperity with protection of the environment.
Many people say that the challenge to Labour is the challenge of
the South.
But I put it differently.
The political challenge of the South is the political challenge of the
future.
Because if Britain is successful in the future, more parts of Britain
will be like the South. I don’t, of course, mean this will change the
distinctive traditions, cultures and outlooks of other parts of Britain.
But the type of economy, the type of jobs, the type of pressures,
the type of opportunities will be more like those we face in the
south.
If we want to be trusted to govern Britain in the future, in a Britain
more like the South, we must want to win the South.
This is what many of us argued in the early 1990s. Giles Radice’s
Fabian pamphlet ‘Southern Discomfort’ set out the challenge. The
handful of newly elected MPs (including Anne Campbell) made
similar points in ‘Winning in the South’.
But 2008 cannot be a re-run of the mid 1990s.
Then Labour’s core vote, hammered by the Tories for 18 years,
was committed. It was new votes – from the skilled, aspirational,
white collar, middle income voters – that we set out to win.
Today we have to earn support once more but from all parts of
society.
In 2008 we have to revive every part of the coalition. From the life-
long Labour voters who didn’t support us on Thursday to the young
voters who have never voted for us but whose support we need.
Nothing is more pointless than a debate about which group of
voters we want. That’s a luxury for other parts of the country.
But we must remember how we did it in the past.
Not by taking the traditional voters for granted. But by talking about
a society in which all could see their stake.
A society with clear values.
Fairness and opportunity; rights balanced by clear responsibilities;
economic prosperity and social justice.
And each illustrated by examples of what sort of country we
wanted to build. Values that embodied what we went on to do in
Government.
I say we have been good for a majority of people in all southern
constituencies.
I believe that for that majority we made it possible for people who
were prepared to work hard to see steady if not spectacular
improvements in the quality of their families’ lives.
At the same time they could use public services that, in the main,
steadily improved.
And that statement has been true, whether you started amongst
the poorest pensioners, or were working on a low wage, or
whether you were already successful.
It’s what we promised ten years ago: not a message for the poor,
or the middle class, but for everyone.
It’s an achievement we should be proud of.
But of course, it’s not the whole picture.
Not everyone who works hard – or who worked hard during their
lives- feels that they have benefitted as they might have done.
And these people don’t think they’ve heard too much about their
lives in the past ten years.
Our communities have changed more rapidly than at anytime in
our lives, through migration, new development and wider social
change.
They are undoubtedly safer and less crime-ridden, but real fears
persist. At the edges, some families struggle to cope, with an
impact on all our lives.
We’ve put enormous effort into these problems, but it was pretty
clear last Thursday – and in my view had been for some time - too
many felt our description of their lives was not what they
experience.
Most of the time, this doesn’t matter too much. Rightly or wrongly
the public assume that governments will have a rosy view of the
real world whilst oppositions live in pathological gloom.
But when things begin to go wrong – when you have a succession
of international events – the credit crunch, food prices and petrol
prices – then any gap between government and people becomes
critical.
Voters will usually forgive us for events beyond our control. They
will often generously forgive us for individual mistakes, provided
they believe we are aiming for the right things. But they won’t
forgive us for apparently not understanding what is happening in
their lives.
When voters feel less secure about their own prospects they are
most likely to use to the expression known to every canvasser: ‘it
isn’t fair’.
‘It isn’t fair that I work so hard and find life tough.’
‘It isn’t fair that I play by the rules but others seem to get more.’
In uncertain times, the trade off between the taxes people pay and
the benefits they receive can seem less clear.
In the short term we can and will act to tackle some of the
immediate causes of concern.
But this will only work if we also have a single compelling story that
every voter can recognise.
The New Labour coalition is no less important today, but it did not
start eroding last Thursday. I told the Fabians a year ago that we
had lost over a million votes in the South East between 1997 and
2005.
For several years, we have tailored different messages to different
people, at the cost of a vision of society that unites voters from
different backgrounds.
It has simply left too many confused about what we stand for.
There will always be what Harold Macmillan called ‘events’. What
carries you through is public confidence that you know where you
are going.
Of course we do know, but we need to spell it out again.
And it should still be the core Labour story of the 1990s.
A fair society in which hard work is rewarded. A society where
individuals can prosper but we provide together the things – like
health and education - we cannot provide for ourselves.
A society that has a positive bias in favour of those who earn their
way. And has a bias against those who are not prepared to; or who
want to take more than their fair share.
But story needs re-telling for the 21st century.
To show we can bring these values to life in a competitive global
economy; to show we can make them work when we have to
tackle climate change; and where we can expect ever more
international pressures of the sort we have seen on food and fuel.
The story needs to make it clear where we stand on fairness.
That we understand that fairness is not just about the distribution
of wealth, but about the distribution of rewards. It’s not just ‘how
much do I get’; but do I get a fair return for what I put in.’
That our promise of fairness is rooted in our determination to
create opportunities for those who want to take them, not over-
protection for those who don’t.
And that while a Labour Government will always provide extra for
those who cannot help themselves, including children, we will
never think that this is enough.
But because there will always be those who need extra help, we
need to be clear what the deal is for those who normally won’t get
direct personal financial help.
They too need to feel life gives them a fair deal.
Look at what we doing and you can see the basis of that deal if
only we spell it out.
The chance to work, after the years of mass unemployment. But
more important still, the chance to progress, to get on, to improve
your working life. To have a good career and raise a family at the
same time.
It’s the job of Government to make sure these things are possible.
Second, through our commitment to public services, a fair deal. In
our action to improve schools and hospitals we are working to
create the right, always, to be able to choose the school, but also
never to have feel you have to choose. The right always to be able
to choose your hospital, but the right, also never to feel you have
to choose. It means your kids should have the right to go to
university, or the chance to do an apprenticeship, whichever their
aptitude and inclination determine.
That’s an outcome only Government can deliver.
And the promise that we will be the guardians of the taxpayer’s
pound. That every pound works as hard for the taxpayer who
earned it as it can.
That’s a responsibility of Government.
Last year I stressed the importance of Labour’s housing plans to
making it possible for southern families to get the homes they
need.
I also raised an issue of fairness we had not addressed.
Inheritance tax where in the South we knew of too many families of
relatively modest incomes to whom it seems unfair.
In Government we are tackling the unfairness of inheritance tax for
the vast majority of ordinary, hard-working whose homes are the
main thing to show for a life of work.
Taken together, we can and should make a powerful case for
fairness that reflects effort; and for the role of a Labour
Government in creating it.
Throughout it all, we need to re-assert one more simple belief.
That what government does, matters. Not all of government is
good government, even under Labour. But Government can make
a difference. And many things people want to achieve can only be
done if Government opens the doors and makes it possible.
In my own department, Innovation, Universities and Skills, I’ve
being looking at how we reflect this approach in everything we do.
Because my Department is at the centre of the efforts to make
Britain more competitive, more prosperous and fairer in the future.
To make more of Britain as prosperous as the South.
We are at the heart of creating a fair deal for hard working families.
Not just the chance of a job, but the chance to get on, to do better.
And for your children to do better still.
And it is now, when the economy has slowed, that we need to spell
out this message.
The Tories say we should have put money away for a rainy day.
Gordon created the department with rising real budgets at a time
of real spending because it is our investment in education and
skills that is the real protection when the international economy
shivers.
Investment in scientific research continues to grow, because
without it we will damage our ability to compete in the future.
And the biggest single factor that will decide whether everyone can
share in future prosperity will be whether people have the skills to
get the better jobs.
We want to make sure people have the chance to work and to
progress, to get on.
More and more of the jobs of the future will go to graduates.
Because of Labour more people have the chance to go to
university than ever before. Our new university challenge will bring
university centres to 20 more towns and cities, making sure more
people can study flexibly and close to home and family.
We are making sure that the colleges, employers and public
investment work together to ensure that training delivers what the
jobs of the future will need – in biotech, in advanced
manufacturing, in services, hospitality and retail.
It can be hard moving from a dead-end job to a better one. So our
new Advancement and Careers Service will help guide people
through skills, tax-credits, child care, housing and transport
choices.
It can be hardest for people in the worst jobs. I’m pleased Gordon
wants to find a way forward on agency work because those who
survive on casual, work are perhaps least likely to be able to get
the skills they need to break out to something better.
We want to open up opportunities for families.
David Cameron derided our ambition to see half young people go
to university. But over half of young people from every social class
now want to go. Our target simply expresses Labour’s
commitment to meet the aspirations of the rising generation.
Labour rescued apprenticeships in 1997. We’ve doubled the
number of apprenticeships and nearly trebled the success rate.
With Ed Balls, we’re aiming to give not one in fifteen young people
the chance to do one as we have to day; but, in the future one in
five.
We want the system to be fair for everyone
We saw that students from the poorest backgrounds might be put
off if they thought they couldn’t survive at uni; so we’ve raised limit
for the full grants from a £17,500 family income to £25,000.
But because we believe in fairness for all, we also saw the need to
support the hard working families who are doing the right thing
supporting their children at uni. So we raised the upper limit for
grants to £60,000 a year.
We are making it clear who will benefit as we widen participation to
university. It’s not just the bright students from the poorest
backgrounds, but millions of hard-working, tax paying home
owning families with no past experience of higher education – the
people who keep the country going.
We want to reward those who make the effort
This isn’t about government telling people what they should have.
More and more we are giving both individuals and employers the
right to decide how public investment in skills should be spent, so
that each is getting the training that is best for them supported by
us.
And we want to make every public pound work as hard as it can.
We’re investing £2bn in FE colleges, but I’ve made it clear I don’t
just want nice buildings but specialist provision to train for the new
jobs we are creating. I want every new project to provide training,
for the people who work on it; not just take the contractor with the
lowest price. I want each built to the highest green standards. So
that the pound that trains someone today, will also help protect our
children and grandchildren.
And we want to strengthen our communities too.
Give an adult better job prospects and their children be healthier
and will aim higher. Concentrate ESOL on long-term residents and
we bond communities together with a common language.
The driver of migration is jobs that local people cannot fill. No
British worker should lose their job to a foreign worker because
their skills are poorer – whether the job goes abroad or the foreign
worker comes here. Improving skills is part of our response to the
touchstone issue of migration.
Every single one of these issues resonates in the geographical
South and the political South. Each let’s us re-open our
conversation with southern voters.
Practical policies, shaped by Labour values, let us deliver
prosperity and fairness. They enable us to reward effort and open
up opportunity. They help us meet the challenges of the future.
Every one is an issue where the difference between us and the
Tories is clear.
They lack the commitment to invest.
They lack the ambition to make sure Britain can match up to a
changing world and make the changes we have to make.
And, they simply do not recognise that in all these areas, what
government does actually matters and makes a difference.
And because we know Government matters; Government makes a
difference, we know we can, we must and we will win the next
General Election.
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