Labour minister: The market has limits

David Lammy, skills minister

Friday, 29, Aug 2008 02:35

Labour needs to stop being so deferential to the market and understand the limits of competition, the Labour skills minister has said.

In a wide ranging article in this months edition of Progress, a Blairite magazine, David Lammy also admits David Cameron has "touched a nerve" with the British people.

Commenting on what Labour must do to retain power, Mr Lammy makes a clear appeal for a left-ward drift.

"The next agenda must be forged through starting with the pressures and the struggles that people face in their own lives," he writes.

"At its most basic, this means a clearer story about two things: the limits of the market and the new frontiers of the welfare state. Old Labour was hostile to the market; New Labour has arguably been too deferential to it."

Labour needs to "refresh our core story" so that Tory weaknesses can be exposed.

"The truth is that the Tories' change in language has touched a nerve, reflecting a big gap in our own political narrative," he continued.

"Yet beneath Cameron's rhetoric lies the basic philosophy that failed Britain in the past.

"The Tories demand responsibility without offering support; they appeal for fraternity without any real belief in equality; they have finally noticed 'society,' but remain implacably hostile to the state."

Mr Lammy has been quietly developing a cogent analysis of Labour's woes during his time as skills minister. Touted by some as a potential British Obama, his speeches and meetings before the summer concentrated on better communicating Labour's core values.

He courted controversy during the 2005 general election by describing Respect MP George Galloway as a "carpetbagger".