IT MAY be rash, or even foolhardy, to look through the political gloom that surrounds this Government for signs that something more positive is flourishing. But it seems that many people are actually doing just that. Even, if some analysis of this week’s reversal of what was to be Government policy on age discrimination is to be believed, Gordon Brown himself may have seen the light and is preparing to bend towards policies supported by his party and which might actually increase his chances of winning the next election. As one of those involved in the talks about the legislation said: “It’s no accident when the good guys win.”

Too much focus has been on whether or not the Government will win the next general election with too little on why it should. Whether it deserves to win the election depends on the policies it adopts. The media debate thus far has turned mainly on winning for the sake of winning; an empty ambition.

But the debate which will return the answer to why Labour needs to win the next election is now under way. Labour members in more than 200 constituencies have peered through the gloom and engaged in the process of deciding policies for the party’s next general election manifesto. That many of the amendments to the six policy documents under consideration are based on, or replicate, the “model” texts circulated by the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy does not detract from their significance. Party members have debated and decided and their conclusion, with still more to come in before the deadline, is that the Government requires a change in direction. Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell echoes that sentiment in calling for “more radical” policies to win a fourth term. His is the direction that will destroy the Labour Party’s purpose and guarantee a justified defeat if it is followed.

Mr Brown pushed through the changes in party democracy on the promise that it would end the stalemate between the leadership and the membership which conference clashes over policy have concluded in for 100 years. He, and the party machine, cannot now ignore the calls being made on a wide range of issues, including housing, care for the elderly, privatisation within the National Health Service, school selection, Trident, the environment, housing and workplace rights.

The trade unions, too, through the Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation, have decided to press the Government on bread-and-butter issues that will deliver “an agenda that can win the next election” and in doing so help the people that Labour was elected to champion. But progressive politics cannot wait until the next election and the pressure that is welling up now must persuade the Government to act now – as it did this week – to address the concerns of voters who have aspirations, as Jon Cruddas, wrote in Tribune last week, to a more decent, fairer society.

Pressure is also coming from other areas. Compass, perhaps now the best organised and largest centre-left grouping in Britain and loosely the best organised among MPs, is in the process of producing demands which can be expected to broadly chime with those of the constituencies and the unions.

The common denominator is opposition to the Government’s obsession with the needs of the market which, even without a full-blown economic recession, is causing a social recession throughout the country except for a rich elite at the top. The overall trend has been toward individualisation rather than the collective needs of society even though polling evidence points to support for policies that would create greater equality and collective strength. Nothing would more clearly distinguish Labour from the Tories than a move towards the “optimism and commitment to common values”, the loss of which was bemoaned by Labour MP Tom Harris last week.

If Mr Brown wants to be bold as he once said he did, he does not have to look far for a narrative: it is being hewn out of Labour values by the members he promised to listen to. And, if Mr Brown has a genuine aspiration to win the next election, he needs to begin the implementation of more progressive policies now.