The Welsh Assembly elections are a year away. The Labour Party in Wales is taking stock after the general election and preparing its manifesto and campaign for next May.
Our guest writer is John Griffiths, Labour AM for Newport East since 1999. He was appointed Counsel General and Leader of the Legislative Programme in December 2009 in the Welsh Assembly Government; previously, he served as Deputy Minister for Education, Deputy Minister for Health and Deputy Economic Development Minister
The Welsh Assembly elections are a year away. The Labour Party in Wales is taking stock after the general election and preparing its manifesto and campaign for next May. The current state of Labour’s fortunes in Wales are the subject of various analyses and interpretations.
With the glass half full: we now have the most senior Labour elected figure in the UK in first minister Carwyn Jones as leader of our Labour/Plaid Cymru coalition. Twenty six out of forty of the country’s MPs is a good tally in very difficult circumstances – and the UK Government Tory/Lib Dem alliance gives us a big opportunity to capitalise on their likely unpopularity with savage cuts to come.
The half empty version contends that Labour’s 36 per cent share of the general election vote in Wales is alarmingly low and follows the Tories topping the European elections last year, the loss of control of councils across the country and a disappointing Assembly election last time around. All in the movement in Wales would agree that there can be no room for complacency and we must constantly strive to renew and re-energise our thinking and organisation.
Thankfully, compared to the last time the Tories wreaked havoc in Wales we now have the Assembly to offer some degree of protection to our communities. It will be a huge challenge and test. Come next May we will be judged on our record in Government in Wales including our ability to safeguard the most vulnerable from the Tory/Lib Dem cuts.
We are not helped by the already unfavourable and unfair Barnett funding formula which underfunds Wales in relation to its needs. We will continue to call for a fairer system. Limited powers to pass our own laws are also a major issue and we will press on with a referendum on full law making powers, hopefully in the autumn.
In devising our manifesto and campaign we should build on the gains of devolution. Wales now has a stronger identity, new confidence and sense of purpose, and is more outward looking. The process of government and policy making opened up. Strategy based on collectivism – partnership, co-operation and collaboration – coming together for mutual benefit. Government with business and trades unions, local councils and the voluntary sector, in community regeneration. Renewing public services within the public sector.
We should move to a new progressive view of what constitutes best measurement of national progress, drawing on work elsewhere to use a ‘happiness’ measure, incorporating general quality of life rather than narrow economic wealth, including narrowing the inequality gaps, for more cohesive communities and lower crime rates, work/life balance, public services and the environment, as well as sustainable growth in wealth.
There has been a UK Labour tendency to emphasise managerialism and efficiency rather than values and principles. Then when things go wrong there is a sense that Labour has too little to offer, that people do not really know what we stand for anymore. We should spell out in the clearest terms that the Labour Movement is still a moral crusade, we are about redistribution of wealth and power for fairness and equality of opportunity and outcome.
Looking after the most vulnerable and ensuring in times of recession and rebalancing the books those most able to bear the burden do so – messages likely to resonate in a post recession UK with understandably strong feeling against the excesses of the bankers and the wealthy.
A gap between middle England rhetoric and redistributive practice may be seen as necessary socialism by stealth but it plays very badly to trust and respect. Far better to be true to ourselves and spell out clearly what we are about – what drives members and activists and makes us the people’s party. That is the spirit I would like us to take into next year’s Assembly elections in working up a manifesto and campaign for social justice in today’s Wales.
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4 Responses to “Labour is still a moral crusade”
2me2you
RT @leftfootfwd: Labour is still a moral crusade, about fairness, redistribution & equality: http://bit.ly/9pfLGO
One Society campaign
John Griffiths AM sets out agenda for Welsh Labour inc. narrowing inequality gaps. Can he persuade party to adopt it? http://bit.ly/9pfLGO
2me2you
RT @leftfootfwd: Labour is still a moral crusade, about fairness, redistribution & equality: http://bit.ly/9pfLGO
Alex
RT @leftfootfwd: Labour is still a moral crusade http://bit.ly/9pfLGO