by Keith Richmond
THE Progress rally was where it was all meant to kick off. But it was, in the end, less about the future of the Prime Minister – should he stay or should he go? – and more about the policies to put Labour in a position to win a historic fourth term in May 2010.
Three über-Blairites – Peter Mandelson, John Hutton and Alan Milburn – cried off just before the big match began in the banqueting room of Manchester Town Hall on Sunday. After Charles Clarke raised the rebel standard in the New Statesman but no one rallied to the banner – and when the drip drip drip of discontent in the days before conference led only to the resignation of the junior minister who managed to mess up Glasgow East – the Blairites did the arithmetic and decided Manchester was not the place for a palace putsch against Gordon Brown.
James Purnell made a coded attack on Mr Brown, without ever mentioning him by name, saying it was time for the party to make “the tough choice rather than the easy choice”, but David Miliband, Caroline Flint, Andy Burnham, Hazel Blears and Tessa Jowell all simply asserted that the way forward was to go back to the future and reinvent the policies of the past – the platform for victory in 1997 and the triangulation of the Tony Blair years. The discredited ideas and the language of the past – “privatisation”, “partnership” and “new Labour project” were trotted out without embarrassment.
Only Ed Miliband, Yvette Cooper and John Denham on the platform had the sense to realise – and the courage to say – that the global economic crisis has changed the game and shown that the market does not have all the answers and governments do need to intervene.
Progress described its rally as “the traditional Sunday night curtain raiser to kick off conference” which, like the speakers, was a blast from the past. The conference began on Saturday and the curtain raisers were held on Friday evening. But then it was that sort of night – and that sort of conference – for the Blairites this year.
