‘We’re fighting back with progressive policies’,

[Big Daz]

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‘We’re fighting back with progressive policies’, ministers tell Tribune/Compass rally'
October 2, 2009 12:00 am Tribune web editor frontpage, news

by Cary Gee and René Lavanchy

At a packed Labour conference rally, co-sponsored by Tribune and the Compass think-tank, Communities Secretary John Denham mounted a vigorous defence of the Government’s record: He said: “In 1978, we lost the hunger to be in government…The test for us now is, have we lost the hunger? If you have, we can give up. They say: ‘Can’t you come up with something new?’ And if we come up with something new, then they say: ‘You’ve had 12 years to think of that’.”

Mr Denham was bitterly critical of Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee and other centre-left critics for “the insidious belief that the Tories would be no different”.

However, neither Mr Denham nor other Government speakers would discuss whether ministers were prepared to consider more left-wing policies.

Dagenham MP Jon Cruddas, still seen by many party activists as a possible deputy leadership contender, said he thought that Labour was being energised during conference week. He took a loyalist line, warning of the example of Tory councils in Barnet and elsewhere “ending secure tenancies, time-limiting benefits, privatising public services”.

Also determined that the 2009 conference should mark a revival in Labour’s fortunes was skills minister David Lammy, Along with International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander, he derided suggestions that the party had been “undone by a fear” of making enemies. Mr Lammy insisted that this was “no time for turning back” and certainly not the time “for business as usual”.

Mr Lammy added that only Labour has the policies necessary to maintain the country’s recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s and dismissed the notion that “Labour was on its knees”, leaving the electorate “anxious, exhausted and wanting something more”. He stressed that the Government would continue to pursue the progressive policies the country needs.

A surprise addition to the panel of speakers was Green Party leader Caroline Lucas, whose insistence that a transformation was needed in the financial markets was applauded, as was her call for increased taxation on land and more “qualitative development”.

Ms Lucas, whose very presence was greeted with scepticism in some quarters, indicated that her party now had more in common with Labour than with the Liberal Democrats following what she termed “Nick Clegg’s lurch to the right”. Certainly, her scathing attack on fuel poverty struck a chord with many at the rally.

[IWW Fellow Worker]

Lammy is responsible for the huge cock up with student loans.