Regular readers will know how much I disapprove of centre politics, which I regard as a quagmire of self interest, lack of vision and kicking the can down the road on almost everything which demands more than a sound bite or a quick fix. There must be a dynamic left and a reactionary right. Either can govern and both have to move towards the centre in government, because in the end a degree of public consensus is needed to achieve anything that lasts.
But the centre is not where the drivers are. For far too long this country has been in the grip of an appalling political inertia which has allowed the development of a grotesquely misshapen economy, in which the rich grow ever richer and the poor grow poorer. A vast new class of just managing has arrived where work is undervalued and assets are overvalued. Asset inflation partners wage stagnation. It has to stop.
And for far too long the ordinary people of our country, on whom every facet of civilised life and care relies, have had no choice, because in the end, apart from a different tribal T shirt, there was precious little difference between the offers of the political parties. Until yesterday.
The Labour Manifesto offers a totally different vision of quite different future, based on different values, bigger ambitions, the rebuilding of all public services shattered by years of outsourcing and cuts and the biggest investment programme in everything we need to expand our economy for many generations. It is a transformative offer. Not a renovation, but a rebuild. No longer can anyone excuse not voting with a dismissive ‘they are all the same.’
When I published my dissertation Turn Left To Power in May 1916, prior to the Brexit referendum the conclusion seemed to most fanciful.
‘An economic settlement which gives the top one per cent as much as the other ninety-nine percent combined, cannot sustain and is not acceptable. Almost everything which has happened since Thatcher has favoured capital over labour. Yet without labour, capital is nothing. The Labour Party must live up to its name, stop dancing on a sixpence in the political centre, rediscover its reforming zeal and show that it has a radical programme which will restore the balance.’
At last the Labour Party has done just that. The people must decide if they want to take up the offer.