4 hours ago
5
Dear prime minister, a word in your ear. It’s Groundhog Day. Again. Let’s start with the first tranche of Mandelson papers released last week. You should know this will go on and on: the beginning of a relentless media process of picking over the same mistake. And it needn’t have been so. It would, perhaps, have been better to have held all the papers back and to release them in one massive dump. A lot of stories would have been generated in one day – but they would have fought against each other and in some cases cancelled each other out. Still, we have the process we have – in that archetypal bureaucratic phrase “we are where we are”. So what is to be done?
The art of politics, like magic, is misdirection. Normally, media types work hard to fill the airwaves while you work hard on the medium- and long-term challenges. But right now, it’s not like that. At the moment, we have the gift of news events absorbing political discourse wherever you turn. Whether it’s Peter Mandelson, or the May elections, or the new forever war in Iran, we are surrounded by “news sponges” – topics that are discussed and rediscussed, generating all heat and no light. That opens up a space. Let’s use this time productively.
The best way to do that is to go global – and go local. Time to turbocharge a closer relationship to the European Union. In your new year interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, you rightly said that closer ties to the EU were in our national interest. And you specifically said we would be “better looking to the single market rather than the customs union for our further alignment”. That was the dog that didn’t bark. Where was the outrage from Nigel Farage? It was undetectable because, as a smart political operative, he never wants to talk about Brexit again. The verdict is in: it was an expensive error. The prize for you is the growth the single market offers – and the authenticity. Everyone knows you want to do it – so, go for it.
International affairs has always been your strong suit. The EU is your bridge to progressive voters. Domestically, voters need to feel change. The danger of rhetoric on communities is that it comes over as a poor Rishi Sunak tribute act. All about filling potholes and hanging flower baskets on high streets. That is simply tackling symptoms, not causes. The problem is the lack of resources locally; devolution without fiscal powers is not just a dry topic, it’s impotent. Give the new unitary authorities a tourist tax to invest in sports and culture in their patch. Transfer surplus central government land, whether owned by the Ministry of Defence or the Department for Work and Pensions or the railways, to councils and mayors. Let a new municipalism flourish. Building council houses. Remaking town and city centres. Transforming public transport with trams, trains and council-owned bus companies.
Let’s call it “Manchesterism for all”. As you know, Andy Burnham is coming back. It’s inevitable. Have the generosity to welcome him openly and speed up the process. You’re the party leader as well as the prime minister. Make the Labour party feel good about itself and it will give you the credit you deserve for turning a crashing defeat into a landslide victory in a single term. Burnham can be the emblem for the generational change you have made in Labour.
Some have described your refusal to join the offensive attack on Iran as your “Love Actually moment” – and, in an international law-coded way, it was. However, the reality is that it was your clause 4 moment – repudiating the failed neocon foreign policies of the past 30 years. And in doing so aligning the Labour party, and government, with the settled will of the British public. Make more of it. The “war party” have imposed their will for too long. You’ve seen Farage and Kemi Badenoch squirm as they realise that there is no public appetite for Britain joining another US war of aggression. So claim the credit – but give it out as well.
This is a turning point for Labour, and politicians outside the Westminster bubble led the way. The Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, and the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, were right to call early on for a ceasefire in Gaza. They saw the conflict as morally indefensible. It was also politically disastrous, alienating our core vote. Now, the distancing from Trump, together with the recognition of Palestinian statehood and a legal definition of “Islamophobia”, provide a solid platform for winning our own voters back. That starts with a concerted effort to bring back the councillors we foolishly suspended for calling for a ceasefire. Self-inflicted wounds are the hardest to heal because they start with an apology, and that fights with our pride. But Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s chief of staff, was right: you should never waste a crisis.
You have one, there’s no doubting that: but it can be an opportunity for real change.
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John McTernan is a political strategist. He was Tony Blair’s political secretary at 10 Downing Street
