Southern Discomfort Revisited

Introduction

Shortly after I was elected in 1992 the ten or so Labour MPs scattered across the south east and south west – a LP region that stretched from Cambridgeshire to Lands End – wrote a pamphlet 'Winning in the South' launched by Tony Blair to the 1992 LP Conference.

We believed that Labour should and could aspire to represent southern England with as much confidence as we wished to represent the rest of England, Wales and Scotland.

And we believed that our 1992 manifesto – one which debated more pages to homelessness than it devoted paragraphs to homeownership – had offered too little to southern voters.

About the same time, The Fabians published Giles Radice's ground-breaking 'Southern Discomfort' which emphasised how Labour failed to appeal to the aspirational working families of the South.

Whether it is fair to describe this work as 'new Labour before we knew that was what it was going to be called', others will have to judge. But under Tony Blair, Labour addressed southern England as never before. In 1997 we received 29% of the vote in South East

Ten years later we have to revisit that same debate. In 2005 we received just 24% of the popular vote. Across this region and across the east and the south west we had lost the support of a quarter of the people who voted for us in 1997. Many of my south east colleagues won again but only by their fingertips.

The most recent local elections left us running just two councils. Nearly half the councils in the south east have no Labour councillor.

It's a huge challenge.

To renew the coalition of voters that supported us with such high hopes in 1997.

Why does it matter?

One obvious reason is that Labour's working majority depends on a number of southern seats.

But we need to be more ambitious than simply hanging on to some key marginal Parliamentary seats in the South of England.

Can Labour can govern the UK for an extended period of time if we have limited electoral support, and very limited elected representation, in local government or Westminster?

The Tories failure to win in Wales or Scotland triggered massive constitutional change. Labour weakness in the south would have different consequences but similar issues of legitimacy would eventually arise.

It is particularly true of a region which creates a disproportionate share of the nation's wealth. Outside of London, the South East is England's largest, most prosperous and most productive region

Any Government will transfer of wealth from the most prosperous to the least prosperous regions, to mutual benefit. More rapid growth in less prosperous areas can reduce some of the pressures on development, services and infrastructure which the south currently experiences. But it becomes more difficult if the interests of different regions are reflected by a sharp divide in their political representation.

And there is no reason to take the south's enterprise and prosperity for granted. It will only continue if the south keeps its international competitive edge. That means ensuring the investment in skills and education, in science and technology, in transport and in housing, and in support for entrepreneurship are all in place.

Labour can rightly claim to have done far more for southern prosperity than the Tories. But a Labour Government needs strong Labour representation to make sure the south's needs are fully understood.

For all these reasons we cannot be sanguine about Labour's loss of support in the South.

As the Tories found it becomes more and more difficult to hold Westminster seats when your local government base is eroded, and when the prevailing political culture begins to run against the governing party.

Tonight, I want to raise our sights. To ask, as we did 15 years ago, how Labour can make sure we are a major political force across the South?

What today is Labour's case for the South?

Labour's case for the South

I was born within a mile of the south coast. I have lived nearly all my life within a couple of miles of the south coast. I have always reasoned that if my experiences could make me Labour, I couldn't see why it shouldn't make other people Labour too.

The south is my home; its people are my neighbours; their values are, I think, as close to my values as to the values of any other political party. Their aspirations are not those of strangers but the same aspirations that I have held for myself and my family.

'Southern Discomfort' forced Labour to look at southern voters with fresh eyes; to understand their aspirations, ambitions and concerns.

In the recent past we seem to have slipped into old habits. Dealing with an imaginary south, not the one I live in.

Some people seem to think that the South is inherently hostile territory for Labour; a place where we can only hope for a few strongholds, and a few toe holds.

They fear that Labour could only win here at the expense of losing our soul.

Others - who undoubtedly do want Labour to win here - seem to have persuaded themselves that south means selfish. That we are so prosperous, so comfortable and so self-centred that all we want to be is demanding consumers whether at the supermarket or in public services.

In the recent past this language has dominated much of New Labour's attempt to appeal to Middle England. It's actually a parody, a cruel caricature, which even the Daily Mail would not recognise.

And then we have so-called 'super-marginal' strategies which focus over-heavily on a small group of active swing voters in marginal seats. But this pessimistic approach obscures issues that must be addressed to build a broader and more reliable base of support.

In truth, Labour should approach southern voters with confidence.

The vast majority of southern voters have every bit as much interest in the outcome of public policy as anyone else. The issues they express most concern about – the health service, crime, housing, migration, education, the environment – are shared across the country.

Labour's core belief in fairness, in giving not just most help to those who need it but also to those who are prepared to make most effort is in tune with the values of the south. There is no deep resistance to tackling inequality and unfairness, provided it is clear that responsibilities are being met as well as rights given.

If we look beneath the apparent prosperity of the south we can see plenty of issues that only Labour will ever tackle: of inequity, of exclusion and of unfairness. There are thousands upon thousands of voters in every county and every constituency who will have no one to stand up for them if Labour does not.

A well managed economy is important to us, but it is not enough.

Of course, we want first to be sure that we and our own families are OK. But we care too about what society we live in; about what happens to other people.

And for most of us in the South, Labour's core belief – that we all do better if we look after each other - still holds true.

There is plenty in the values and aspirations of southern voters that can lend support to progressive politics. We can't claim these voters by right. But we can win their support.

And by what we do, and the way we govern, we can strengthen their support for a progressive approach to politics.

I hope it goes without saying that Labour's record over the past ten years far exceeds the Tories'. No one should take what I say tonight as a statement of Labour failure. Even on a big stress issue like housing, few people would prefer the storm of repossession and negative equity that characterised the last Tory Government.

But our declining vote shows that too many southern voters are no longer sure that we understand their lives or that we speak for them. We must to look at the south with fresh eyes; Opposition eyes even, to make a Labour case for the people of the south based on Labour values.

To avoid unseemly obsequiousness I have not littered this talk with phrases like 'as Gordon said recently'. Suffice to say that our next Prime Minister must rebuild Labour in the South.

For tonight I have used hard facts from the government defined South East. This provides convenient and consistent data but is rather arbitrary.

The true South is much larger: extending west, north and north east of the Government's region.

While the south is a place, it is also a political concept. There are 'political souths' – areas with similar social and economic characteristics – in other regions. Some of what I say may be relevant there.

On average, the South East is more prosperous than other parts of Britain. Our median earnings are higher – though at 8% more, not as much as some may assume. 95% of us describe our quality of life as good or fairly good. We live longer. We have higher levels of home ownership. More of our children do well in school. More of our children go on to Higher Education. Fewer of our children live in poverty.

Behind the headlines it's more complex. The south is feeling all the pressures of the international forces that are sweeping the world: a globalising economy, mass migration and climate change. All are changing the communities we live in and the lives we lead.

Labour has to show that our values equip us better to handle those changes.

A dynamic prosperous region brings its own challenges. It's no surprise that housing and transport are much bigger issues with southern voters.

We also share many of the same concerns as voters in other parts of the country – health, crime, immigration.

The quality of public policy matters every bit as much to the lives of individuals and families as it does in any other part of Britain. And on every one of these, the only polices that can work are those that work for the whole community, not just for individuals.

It is a Tory illusion that as income rises, people want simply to be left to do more for themselves. There is no personal solution to congested roads; no individual balance that can be struck between the need for housing and the protection of the environment. Few people in the south are so wealthy that they can insulate themselves from what happens in public services.

Many people in the south give qualified support to using private provision to bolster their financial security or for the provision of public services. We can build on this support to improve the quality of life.

But the support is qualified.

It's because more people have supplemented the state pension with private membership of company schemes that pensioner incomes are somewhat higher in the south. But when schemes began to fail, members – and opposition parties – looked to the state to protect them from their losses.

Alternatives to state provision may be acceptable; and may be popular. But not if people are expected to bear the risk alone.

Public policy matters to the south. Our Labour belief that we can each do better is we also each look after each other best reflects what southern voters want.

Inequality in the south

To be poor in the South is, in relative terms at least, to be poorer than in other parts of Britain.

Labour has long argued that poverty is a relative, not an absolute concept. And poverty is relative to those living around you, not to those living hundreds of miles away.

A family with one working adult and two children rises above working tax credit when they earn about £270 a week.

In the UK as a whole, this puts the threshold of support at about 90% of median earnings. But a southern family loses support when they are on just 83% of the regional median earnings.

Higher average earnings mean less people are entitled to working tax credit. But for those who do, the relative poverty is more sharply marked.

And it means the South has a larger group of people who can't claim tax credits but who find the costs of daily life a struggle.

We don't have a regional cost of living index. But we know that people spend more on transport – about £15 a week.

Child care is more costly – about £30 a week.

Elderly care – at home or residential is more costly.

And of course housing is considerably more expensive.

It's a similar picture for pensioners.

Average pensioner couple incomes are significantly higher – about 26% more.

But for couples the Minimum Income Guarantee, delivers just 28% of average regional incomes in the South East; nationally, its worth 35% of pensioner incomes.

And the South has a more significant group of pensioners who receive little or no state support, who feel relatively worse off than many of those around them and who may feel they are not getting a fair deal for what they have put in.

Council tax has risen faster in South East over the past ten years, so we can understand how that group of pensioners feels hard hit. Our poorest pensioners are, relatively, poorer.

A changing economy

We also need to understand the impact of some dynamic and changing features of the southern economy.

The ready availability of both skilled and highly educated labour from other regions of the UK, and from abroad, and the equally readily availability of foreign migrant workers prepared to take low paid jobs makes social mobility for the poorest and least well educated particularly hard.

Agency based temporary work and short term contract work seems to be taking a firmer grip. Fewer employers offer the structured employment that enables someone to progress. What happens in the bottom of the labour market also has a drag on the returns from the jobs just above. The growth of temporary contract work is by no means limited to the most poorly paid jobs.

The poorer families in the south are relatively poorer and the dynamic changes in the economy make it harder for people to work their way up to a better rewarded job.

And the problems are not just for today.

The South will have more people who will find it difficult to achieve a reasonable income – relative to their earnings - through the improved and expanded pension system we are putting in place. Yet many will struggle to make the extra contributions needed for a better pension without support from employers.

We must not overstate the problem, The southern economy offers many good jobs. But nor must we ignore the relative inequality and the problems that are growing in the southern labour market.

It does produce a group of voters who feel that no one speaks for them or understands their problems. Their discontent is open to exploitation by opposition parties including extremist groups, even though it is difficult to see anything that they offer which would make a real difference to those voters.

Representing these voters must be Labour's responsibility.

Ten years ago Tony Blair set out a vision 'of a welfare state dedicated to social inclusion, founded on rights and responsibilities going together and designed to give every individual the chance to earn a living, support a family and enjoy security in retirement.'

Ten years on, labour need to acknowledge frankly that there are some families for whom this is not yet true.

To acknowledge their concerns does not mean that there are easy ways of addressing them.

Voters do not expect government to solve all their problems, nor do they trust people who promise they will. But they want to know that we understand how the world seems to them. And we should be able to point to measures which have some ability to move things in the right direction.

In some areas, we need to be clearer about both what we have achieved and how ambitious are our aspirations.

We need to show how a big expansion of affordable housing, the spread of affordable child care, the development of pre-and post school provision for children, the support for flexible family friendly working, will work together to make hard pressed lives easier. More than this, they will make it possible for families to have confidence in their own ability to make their own lives better, through their own hard work.

In other areas of policy our debate has only just begun. If income assessed benefits mark the threshold of full cost charges for other services, many people in the south are relatively disadvantaged and expected to pay more from budgets that are harder pressed.

So perhaps we need to encourage a discussion about whether we should have notional target for the maximum proportion of a family budget that should have to be spent on child care or care of the elderly. Should any changes to the Council tax system be tested against a target for the maximum proportion of a pensioner household income it will take?

Enabling people to get on

Can government really make a difference to incomes?

Trying to adjust tax credit rates, say, on a regional basis would be fraught with overwhelming design and delivery problems. Other ways have to be found of enabling hard working families to earn; to have jobs that offer better prospects.

Labour's investment in skills is critically important, but it is not clear that this will be enough for those working in the least well rewarded parts of the economy.

As I argued in a Fabian lecture two years ago, the transition from an insecure, poorly paid job to a higher skilled, better rewarded job is as difficult as the transition from dole to work. We need a network of Advancement Agencies to guide and support people through the process.

Our flexible labour has helped create many jobs. It's helped deliver good growth and at low levels of inflation. We must not damage the region's competitiveness.

But we should look at whether we can tilt labour market policies in a way that encourages more stable, higher skilled, better rewarded and better pensioned work. The 'high skill, high wage' economy we spoke of in the 1990s.

Effective enforcement of all employment related legislation would help drive the very worse employers and agencies out of the labour market.

Fair rights for temporary agency workers would rebalance the labour market towards more secure work and rewards.

And we should kick off a wider debate.

Not every part of the economy is exposed to global competition.

Low wages in the care sector results from domestic policy decisions.

Cheap food is processed by migrant labour who need housing and public services.

Who is making these choices, and in whose interests?

We should ask about corporate responsibility and the huge payouts in the City by companies which don't pay a living wage to their cleaners.

One of the more negative effects of ten years in power is the tendency to think that if government can't legislate, regulate or intervene we should not discuss these issues.

That's wrong. We should lead public debate. We should bring Labour's values to the fore. Such debates will bring greater social responsibility, a better understanding of the costs of what we buy cheaply, and different choices by consumers and users of public services.

Where government can't or should not directly legislate or intervene we can, nonetheless, send signals. We would like more employers to make decent pension contributions? Then encourage all jobs to be advertised at a combined value of pay and pension contributions, so the good employers get the recruitment and retention benefits of doing so.

Don't assume these issues are anathema to the south. We have a keen sense of what is fair, and what is right.

Family wealth

Before we leave inequalities, let's also remember that there are marked inequalities within families; many home-owning parents who have enjoyed substantial increases in the capital value of their homes have children who cannot easily get their foot on the housing ladder.

A distinctive feature of the South is the family wealth held in housing.

Across the UK as a whole, only 5% of estates attract inheritance tax. Estimates vary, but in the South East this figure is between a fifth and a third of all estates. This inevitably makes inheritance tax a much more salient issue than in most of the UK. And while it falls on the truly comfortably off, it also begins to bite on families whose working lives were spent on relatively modest incomes.

Personally if I have the choice I would rather pay tax when I'm dead. But I do think Labour needs to re-frame the debate about this tax to reflect social changes that are already underway.

Increasingly housing capital is being seen as family wealth to be used before death. A third of first time buyers in the South East receive help from their families – in many cases by borrowing against parent's homes. In other cases, capital is drawn on – sometimes reluctantly – to fund long term care or, through equity release, to improve retirement incomes.

This is a social trend that government should gently encourage. Relatively modest Government risk-sharing could make the prudent use of housing capital more flexible and cheaper. We might revive idea – too hastily abandoned in 1997 – of capping personal liability for long term care costs for people who self-insure.

But this means being prepared to see housing wealth as family wealth, to be used for and between generations.

It would open up new ways of tackling current real problems. As social service departments make income assessment more rigorous it leaves many older people needing home care services who receive little if any state help. Valuable but illiquid homes can be a further burden. Most people judge the extension of comprehensive and universal free care to carry a prohibitive tax burden. Much more feasible for the state to share the cost of enabling homeowners to make better use of their own wealth

Development, change and migration

The South's economic and social change is rapid. Communities are growing, changing; public services face new demands.

The pressures for more intensive use of land and higher population densities is encouraging social segregation as those who can afford to move out, leaving more densely populated towns and cities with growing numbers of the poorer, the older and the transient.

Migrants come from other parts of the UK, including those moving out of London for a better quality of life. The limited overseas migration over the past 40 years has generally been a very positive experience, adding to the wealth and diversity of southern lives. But the very rapid recent migration from both the EU and beyond has caused new stresses.

The availability of labour can mean that people on the margins of employment find it harder to get jobs or improve their position.

There is pressure for new housing to meet local need as smaller households proliferate - but few mechanisms to ensure it is not snapped up by newcomers.

Imagine a southern NIMBY and you will probably think middle class, highly educated, highly articulate and professional.

But the greatest concern about this rapid change, including migration from other regions, is expressed by older and working class voters. I don't think that is a surprise.

Migration brings benefits and costs that are not evenly or fairly distributed. It is the poorer and older who are most likely to see rapid change where they live; to feel most pressure on the public services they use, to see new and existing housing taken up by migrants rich and poor, UK and foreign; and to feel the pressure on wages in the most insecure parts of the economy.

It should be Labour, with our concern for fairness and equity that can best handle these pressures.

Labour's new advisory committee needs to weigh the full costs as well as the short term benefits. But we also need to equip local communities to respond to rapid change; to make sure the benefits and costs are fairly shared.

The funding of local services does need to reflect rapidly changing populations and the costs to public services and support for integration that it carries.

Planning and development policies should enable communities to develop housing of the size and tenure that meets local needs first.

We know we must increase the supply of affordable housing,. But we also know that the prospect of change causes concern..

New development cannot be just a matter of bricks and mortar, or of roads and schools, but of creating communities in which people feel at ease and in which they want to live. We will only succeed politically if we can show that growth can strengthen and not undermine our communities.

Making sure that housing meets the local need it has been planned for is one necessity.

The constant tension between central and local government over housing numbers is draining. We need a new settlement for the South. Local government must accept the need to provide for additional housing, but must have greater flexibility about how the growth is delivered at local level; greater discretion to influence the level of affordable housing, the density of development, the pattern of redevelopment and the mix of housing type that can ensure balanced and successful communities.

Community government

The south's communities are so different and so diverse that centralised policies are bound to seem inflexible or inappropriate. No area can opt out of its contribution to the pressures facing the whole region, but the Government's renewed interest in devolving power to local communities must be carried through with real energy and commitment.

This should not just mean devolution to the existing local councils. We should be backing bottom up cooperation, like that in the Partnership for Urban South Hampshire, and reward councils that cooperate together and make it easier to pool powers over transport, planning and development.

We need to examine how Government resources are distributed.

From a national standpoint many of the South's poorest areas are only on the margins of indices of deprivation. But in relative terms our poorest towns and cities can be even further adrift from the region around them

Perhaps somewhat more of the south's resources should be devoted to tackling the relative poverty of our own deprived towns and cities.

We need to tackle poverty and social exclusion. But we also need to ensure that deprived urban areas remain attractive places to live for a broad cross-section of society.

We should consider making areas with higher population densities more attractive to families by, for example, offering lower cost child care and improved access to leisure facilities to all..

I've not wanted this to be a mini-manifesto for the South. There are some important issues, like crime and transport that I will not deal with in any detail.

In all policy areas, Labour's aim must be to respond to and strengthen the south's progressive. The way we tackle difficult policy issues will make the difference between building support for progressive values, and leaving the voters cold.

I've talked a lot about fairness, because it's a core Labour value and a core value for South.

I want now to discuss three policy issues, climate change; the health service and education. To show how Labour's current approach needs to be developed to reflect the progressive south.

Climate change

In the English south the already inevitable climate change will affect agriculture, the environment, coastal protection and, crucially, water supply.

There is no way in which we as individuals can escape the greatest threat facing the world. All parties are now prioritising climate change, but Labour's belief that each of us as individuals can do better if we work together should allow us to make a unique contribution to the challenge.

We should champion measures that bring communities together to reduce carbon emissions in ways which bring benefits and offset the costs of change. Solutions that benefit all but bring most help to those who will otherwise find it hardest to cope.

We should have a strong bias in favour of community based insulation schemes to reduce energy consumption at source. We should favour community based combined heat and power over remote and centralised technologies which separate communities from solutions. We should favour renewable energy which offers cheaper bills to local people, enabling communities to balance environmental impact and community gain. We should ensure that those families who can afford to invest in emission reducing technologies have a secure financial incentives to do so.

If Labour championed these approaches we would be working with the grain of many of the regions more prosperous but socially aware consumers who have already led support for farmers markets and the local production and distribution of food, made a religion of recycling and who buy fair trade products,

The Health Service

The NHS is the ultimate example of Labour's belief that we each do better if we look after each other. On almost all the available measures, the South's NHS is doing far better than it was ten years ago.

Yet the NHS is not quite the vote winner that it should be and its clear why.

Against a background rhetoric of patient choice about where we get treated, NHS decision-making has been centralised. Contracts have been developed in the name of patient choice that appear to provide the opposite.

Patients may now be able to exercise more individual choice when they need treatment, but as members of communities they have little ability to shape the pattern and configuration of services.

Communities don't know if imposed changes that are being imposed are genuinely in their best clinical interests or driven by cost or other factors. It produces opposition to even the most benign and important reconfigurations; opposition that is often fuelled – rightly or wrongly – by NHS staff.

Choice is important. But we don't want to be simply treated as consumer in a health market place where the big decisions are taken by others. We can't empower patients without empowering communities to take some responsibility for the shape and organisation of local services.

Yet many recent changes driven by the belief that they reflect what patients want. It is worth remembering that four years ago – about the time that the current market based approach began to replace the 2000 NHS plan - Labour had a 24% opinion poll lead on the NHS. Today we are 4% behind.

Our priority must be to give local communities a far more significant say in the delivery of local services.

Greater openness about contracts and reorganisation; strong encouragement to local councils to use their scrutiny powers to the full. Labour must aim to create consent for change. Perhaps change will be slower. Perhaps, sometimes, the results will be less than the theoretically optimum clinical outcome. But that balance needs to be determined with local patients.

We also need to allow a frank discussion about resources. The funding of our NHS is lower, per head, than in other regions. The main reason is a good one. Other regions have higher levels of ill-health. In other regions, people simply die younger.

But when we fall ill, need care, and approach death, we do so as expensively as anywhere else.

So the south needs to know that the extra investment in other areas is being used to reduce the ill-health gaps, not simply to provide better treatment or to buy off difficult changes. Places in the south that are as unhealthy as the north must not lose out from being in a more expensive region.

Children and young people

The south's children do well at school; and the south's parents have high aspirations for them. We have relatively few failing schools, although 70 still get less than 40% 5 A*-C at GCSE. Too many are coasting; doing all right by national averages but under-performing by the ability of the children.

Our recent emphasis on parental choice and school diversity doesn't necessarily hit the right note for most southern parents. Policies tailored for major city voters in major cities who fear sink schools don't automatically attract southern voters.

Some have a limited choice, if any, of secondary school. Others don't want to choose between good and bad if they do. Buying into a good catchment area can devastate those who can just afford it and slam the door on those who can't.

There are clear signs that the constant over promotion of choice is simply fuelling unresolved parental anxieties and increasing pressures towards social segregation..

Southern parents simply want a relentless pressure on standards. An assurance that schools that under-perform in absolute or relative terms will be identified and action taken. We know what works – good leadership from heads and governors, buildings and facilities that shout that children matter, a positive effort to attract a balanced intake of children from all backgrounds, and getting schools to work together in informal partnerships and formal federations.

New governance structures may have a role – I'm supporting an Education Trust in Southampton. But we (and the Tories) will make a costly and disruptive mistake if we let parents believe that only trust and academies can be good schools or that this change is the key to high performance.

Voting reform

I will just mention one important ingredient to Labour's long term southern strategy. As Chairman of the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform, you would expect me to say that electoral reform is essential.

A more representative voting system would, at a stroke, give Labour better representation and greater legitimacy in the South. It would, almost certainly, increase Labour's overall vote somewhat by bringing into the open our support which is currently suppressed in unwinnable seats.

A reformed electoral system would also force Labour to consider more explicitly the interests of voters outside the areas we currently hope to hold.

But electoral reform is not a magic bullet. It does not guarantee the political debate about our overall strategy and approach.

Drawing some conclusions

The Labour Party in the South

Labour can't rebuild our support without a Labour Party on the ground.

This agenda offers opportunities here to revive the southern Labour Party's campaigning.

Many employers do not offer tax free child care vouchers. Few local authorities have taken the chance to offer a further Council Tax discount to pensioner households. These are not policies that can be enforced by central government, but changes that can be brought about by active campaigning.

Campaigns for affordable housing, for local green energy policies, to promote fair rights at work and flexible working, for better child care, and provision for the elderly can all enable Labour's values to come alive in each community.

We have a political interest in the devolution of power to local councils and beyond. The perception of centralisation allows too many Tory and LibDem councils to blame the Labour Government for the inadequacies of their policies. Greater autonomy would give southern labour parties much more scope to push and campaign for credible alternatives to the other parties.

Labour's values for the south

Let me draw out some themes from what I've said.

I'm struck by how many of the issues that I have raised are about southern families. The incomes we enjoy; the pressures of travel to and from work; the homes we live in; the need of our elderly parents and grand parents, and the aspirations and activities for our children. All define the quality of family life.

The polls tell us we have lost support amongst women voters in particular. Family issues are no longer women only issues of course; but by setting out Labour's aspirations for the quality of family life we can begin to win back that support.

Everything I have said about the South is rooted in Labour values.

Firstly fairness.

Fairness to the south: by ensuring that we retain enough of the wealth of the region to address our key needs for transport and housing.

Fairness within the south: certainly by doing most for those who have the greatest needs and who make the greatest efforts for themselves.

But also recognising those individuals and communities who do not share in the wider prosperity of the south but whose deprivation does not stand out on a national scale.

Fairness by acknowledging that for working and retired families, we need to do more to ensure that people are fairly rewarded for the efforts they have made.

And fairness by recognising that most of the south's prosperous families, and those who pay the highest taxes, also have a completely legitimate interest in public services and public policy. By delivering services that are good enough for them, we will deliver services that are good enough for everyone.

Secondly our core belief that individual opportunity and success depends on the strength of community action. I want to strengthen and reward the progressive instincts of southern voters.

By recognising that we cannot empower individuals – as parents, patients or residents - without also empowering communities to meet the challenges of a changing south of England.

And that by empowering communities as well as individuals we can encourage the common provision of services and showing that good public policy actually works.

And, thirdly, our core belief that economic efficiency and social justice must go hand in hand. The continued prosperity of the south will not be created by government, but it will certainly be enabled by a government that is committed to investment in infrastructure, science and education.

Fairness, rights and responsibilities, economic efficiency and social justice.

That's where we came in. Those are the values that built Labour in the South 15 years ago and will do so again.

We need to update some of our policies for changing times.

But, as someone once said, traditional values in a modern setting.

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