We are living, as the old Chinese curse has it, in interesting times. Greece is on the verge of exiting the Euro, in Spain, Bankia has to deny rumours of a run, the News International debacle just keeps on going. Short of Rebecca’s horses eating each other, the signs that the old certainties no longer apply couldn’t get much worse.

The Tories are playing directly into this narrative of unease with their programme of cuts, cuts and more cuts. And this week they have further identified themselves with the sense of national uncertainty and fear with their plans to make sacking employees easer.

This close identification between the Tories and personal insecurity for so many people provides Labour with an opportunity to offer something different.

Leaving it to finer minds to identify the policies that might take the country through this traumatic period and into happier times, there are a range of things we can do in terms of messaging and presentation to maximise the attractiveness of the party during a period like this.

It is a widely-agreed truth in marketing that in times of hardship or recession, nostalgia becomes a powerful ally.

As Martin Lindstrom says in his book, Brandwashing, “In the face of insecurity or uncertainty about the future, we want nothing more than to revert to a more stable time.”

Marketers have been acting on this for some time already. Back in 2009 the New York Times reported that, “As the recession continues taking its toll, marketers are trying to tap into fond memories to help sell what few products shoppers are still buying.”

Certainly things have not got any better since then.

Knowing this, what could Labour do?

First and foremost, it can stop reinventing itself, having ‘conversations’ in which nobody is really listening and obsessing about exactly what shade of what colour the Labour party might be today.

Secondly, it can start remembering, celebrating and reminding people of the substantial achievements of the Labour party, locating today’s party as the evolution of the party for people who stand up for the less fortunate.

The NHS. The sacrosanct-to-all-voters NHS that Labour built is the easiest example to point to, but there is much, much more.  The post-war social housing revolution, equalities legislation and most recently, rebuilding this country’s schools and hospitals after generations of neglect.

Practically, this can be achieved without mechanical repetition in speeches. Labour doesn’t have to trap itself in a retelling of the past to make its point.

What is required is some retro show don’t tell.

Party literature can carry reprints of ‘classic’ Labour material of times gone by, or archive photos of the people who saw a country economically divided and said ‘no’.

To chime with the comfort of nostalgia, harking back to the early 2000s is probably a little too recent. The fondest memories are always rooted in childhood. For the generation now reaching its social prime, in their 40s, the safest, most stable place is their childhood in the late 1960s and 1970s.

It might seem paradoxical for a decade like the 1970s to be cast in such a positive light. It has been much maligned for many years, but a quick glance through the TV schedules demonstrates the power of this time.

There’s a full-blown reappraisal of the decade in Dominic Sandbrook’s BBC retrospective, the 1970s, ably supported by Sounds of the Seventies and ever-running rotations of the exploits of Rigsby, Fletcher and the Ronnies.

For all the political turmoil in this decade, it was also a time when the promise of the 1960s was fulfilled for many: their first home, colour TVs and consumer luxuries like washing machines, all became common place.

Labour did much it can be proud of in these years, from the  Equal Pay act of 1976 to the expansion of the Open University to shepherding the economy through some of its most parlous years back into growth.

Despite the conventional wisdom of those who remain trapped in denial about the 1970s, nostalgia for this time brings a deep and abiding connection. Tapping into it would give Labour an emotional heart it seems to lack at the moment.

This doesn’t require Ed Milliband to grow a moustache and smoke a pipe, interesting though that might be. In fact as an approach, it needn’t conflict with the modern world. Facebook pages, websites and YouTube are perfect for showcasing old party political broadcasts, campaigns and commitments.

Yes, they will be fun and funny. Yes, they will be laughed at as it is highly unlikely they have aged well. But they will be shared and the effect of harnessing that nostalgia and identification with a tradition of combating unearned privilege, will be felt.

One example: seeing footage of Jack Dromey’s efforts standing with the Asian women on the Grunwick picket line in 1977 bestows a depth and honesty on Labour’s shadow housing minister that many of his younger colleagues conspicuously lack.

Of course, these proposals are essentially window dressing and likely to have little more than a marginal effect when practiced in isolation.

In an ideal world, this approach to messaging will be the wrapping for a set of policies in the same vein, promised and delivered by a party genuinely committed to a return to Labour values.

But in the meantime, when it comes to communicating Labour’s message, it is time to abandon New Labour’s allergy to the past and re-discover the best of our recent history.

In these troubled times, it’s what voters are already doing.

Peter Goddard is a sales and marketing consultant

Since the Queen’s Speech, the House of Commons chamber has become a very different place. As a dutiful whip I spend most of my time in and around the chamber and although too many dismiss what goes in there as irrelevant, I still agree with Tony Blair’s valedictory description of it as the arena that sets the heart beating a little faster and is often the place for the pursuit of noble causes.

Whipping affords me the advantage of seeing our opposition on the Tory benches close up, indeed I can often see the whites of their eyes.

I’m fast becoming familiar with the various personalities on the Tory benches. There are the desperately ambitious types mustard-keen for George Osborne’s recognition (it’s always Osborne they want to impress not so much Cameron oddly), the eurosceptic rebels who bang on about nothing else, the thoughtful select committee parliamentarians and the patrician grandees who, I have to admit, are like nothing I have ever come across before in my life.

But this last week I’ve seen less of them. Labour MPs have totally dominated the debates on the gracious address. Our chief whip in the Lords has highlighted already the flimsiness of this Queens Speech. All quite extraordinary for a government’s second Queen’s speech considering this government is made up of a party out of office for thirteen years and another that has been out of office for ninety or so years.

On the day of the Queen’s Speech after the jokes and knockabout, David Cameron started explaining how the various measures sat together as coherent vision for where he wants to the take the country. Well that is what he is supposed to do but actually he didn’t do that at all. Instead he rattled through a list of odds and sods as if he was reading out Ukrainian tractor production statistics.

I reckon many of his Tory MPs thought the same as an unusual amount just got up and shuffled out before their prime minister had finished. I’ve never seen that before.

But what’s more worrying for my opposite numbers in the Tory whips office, not only did they shuffle, off not bothering to hear their leader finish, they didn’t bother to shuffle back in to make their own contribution to the debates.

On the Wednesday of the Queen’s Speech, 10 Tories spoke compared to 8 Labour MPs. Fair enough they have more than us that seems about right.

But look at how the Queen’s speech debates unfold over the next five days: in the home affairs debate 10 Labour MPs against 8 Tory MPs; foreign affairs 16 Labour MPs against 10 Tory and 1 Lib Dem MP; business debate 25 Labour MPs against 16 Tory MPs and 4 Lib MPs; cost of living debate 16 Labour MPs against 6 Tory MPs and 4 Lib Dem MPs; and the final economy debate 25 Labour MPs against 20 Tory MPs and 2 Lib Dem MPs.

In total over 6 days of debate about 40 per cent Labour MPs spoke from the backbenches against just 23 per cent of Tories. What’s more, on most days there were even more Labour MPs who wanted to speak who didn’t get called too.

It’s hardly surprising given how disappointing the Queen’s Speech turned about to be. The central issue facing Britain is a lack of a plan for growth. This Queen’s Speech should have been an opportunity to put a plan for jobs and growth centre stage. Instead we got more of the same and suggestions that employees’ protections at work will be eroded.

If true , what a depressing turnaround for Vince Cable who began his career co authoring  the red paper on Scotland before becoming a special advisor to John Smith and now in the twilight of his career set to become the Twickenham strangler of rights at work.

But despite the Tory red meat on dismantling employee protections, morale seems low on the Tory benches. I remember from my own time working at the tail-end of the last Labour government that when the chips are down and things start going wrong colleagues are reluctant to turn up in the chamber to make those speeches praising their frontbench.

To be fair, it happens to all governments over time, but if I was a Tory whip I would be deeply concerned it’s happening to David Cameron’s government after just two years.

Jon Ashworth is Labour MP for Leicester South and an opposition whip

Kelvin Blake was the first Labour campaigner for a ‘yes’ vote in the 3 May referendum to publicly declare his interest in standing for Bristol mayor.

A likeable character, Blake presses all the right Labour buttons: “My focus and energy will be on delivering a fairer more equitable city for everyone,” he tells me.

Offering a good balance, with both city council experience and having spent his career in the private sector, Blake proudly tells of working his way up from the bottom, as he puts it, having left school with few formal qualifications. Blake is an experienced senior programme director at BT, living in Knowle West, about two miles from the city centre.

A non-executive director of University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, Blake is a softly spoken Bristolian who speaks with infectious conviction and a real passion, not just for the city he’s always lived in, but also for the future of the Labour Party at a city level.

“We have the opportunity, between now and the election, to talk about an inclusive vision for our city and a programme of delivery, to tackle the key issues with a sense of urgency. That’s exciting.”

Of the election on 15 November, he points out: “This election is almost as important as a general election. It is about Bristol’s future but it will also be a judgement call on the terrible direction of this Tory led government and Labour’s response.

“In 2015, when Bristolians go to the polls in the general election, a Labour mayor needs to have delivered. That is why we need a strong candidate who can do the job, but also offer something new.

“I will draw on my private sector experience to bang the table and not take ‘no’ for an answer when negotiating with central government for the betterment of Bristol.”

Blake spent six years on Bristol City Council, almost ten years ago. This comes across in his command of detail and strategic thinking. He has a great party campaigning pedigree, having run the city-wide campaign in 2001 local elections and co-ordinated Bristol East’s election in 2005 for Kerry McCarthy MP.

One local activist says: “Kelvin will offer something a little different to ‘business as usual’, having been away from the Council House for long enough, to take an overview rather than be in any clique.

“He’ll provide a useful antidote to a tainted, squabbling council, more interested in the rough and tumble of getting one up on each other than doing what’s best for Bristolians. His background combines the best of local politics and business worlds.”

With the ballot closing on Wednesday 13 June, why should Bristol Labour Party members vote for Kelvin Blake?

When asked, Blake is very clear: “I can unite the party and motivate party members, the unions and supporters to campaign right across the city. This is our opportunity to re-establish Labour as the party with the ideas, experience and ability to change Bristol for the better.

“Raising the aspirations of our city and our young people, that’s the key theme of my selection campaign.”

Given the opportunity of negotiating a city deal for Bristol as Manchester just has, the new mayor must be capable of getting the best package of investment and extended powers.

“My job involves making important decisions on direction, negotiating with suppliers, partners and customers and building a successful business,” all transferable skills, Blake argues. “BT is the second largest private sector employer in the south west and we have recently invested £110m in Bristol, deploying superfast broadband.

“I bring that knowledge and drive to my role on the board of University Hospitals Bristol, where we have recently decided to invest in the redevelopment of the Bristol Royal Infirmary and Children’s Hospitals, achieved not by using PFI, but from careful stewardship of public funds and investing savings made during Labour’s years of record investment.”

As mayor, Blake clearly sees the bigger picture, seeing the position beyond city boundaries: “I would explore extending the Enterprise Zone (LEP) terms for small businesses through-out the city, deliver a Bristol Transport Authority and reduce bus fares by encouraging competition and price controls.”

Blake makes a convincing case for his candidacy: “I grew up in Knowle West, a deprived council estate, a place no one visited unless you lived there. There were many challenges growing up in poverty, however, the benefits were that it built my character and taught me to work hard, face adversity head on and never give up or feel sorry for myself.

“I have an inner strength that is unwavering. It’s that approach that has helped me forge a successful career and cope with adversity with a cool head, inner steel and a smile.”

Amanda Ramsay is a former Labour councillor and cabinet member

Bristol Labour Party mayoral selection official hustings: Friday 8 June at the Greenway Centre, Doncaster Road, Southmead, Bristol BS10 5PY from 6.15pm to 8.30pm. Bristol Labour party members wishing to attend MUST email jo_colebrook@labour.org.uk or phone 0117 972 9447.

Follow @kelvinblake and the mayoral debate on @Mayor4Bristol1

For JS Mill, the Tories were famously the stupid party. By the 1980s they were definitely the ideological party. But under David Cameron are they are becoming something else: the home for political idealists?

We casually think of idealism as the preserve of the Left, but the lodestar of this government is to reshape the state in as profound a way as Attlee or Thatcher managed.

From the NHS reforms to free schools. From academies to police commissioners. From the big society to big city mayors. Austerity cuts through to the massive welfare shake-ups; there is an abundance of idealism. Or ‘tip-up-the-apple-cart-ism.’

Much of it is to be regretted of course; a lot of it feels impractical, even reckless, but idealism it most definitely is. As is George Osborne’s “faith based” economic policy. In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he presses on.

It’s like watching one of those old bits of film of a man flapping giant cardboard wings and jumping off a pier, expecting to fly. The chancellor is the ultimate expression of optimism over reason.

But what a comparison to the New Labour years. Remember the lobotomised backbenchers? The servile ministers? The groupthink that told us the third way was the apotheosis of progressive politics?

Labour was only ever “prudent with a purpose”. As for Robin Cook, well he never lived down his claim that there could be an “ethical dimension” to foreign policy; the poor deluded fool!

Labour is still coming out of a period of hard-edged pragmatic-minimailism. Many of us remain gimlet-eyed political ultra-realists. Idealism is positively frowned upon.

But idealism matters. In the immediate aftermath of Labour’s election defeat everyone seemed to concede that part of the last government’s problem was that its ministers had become too technocratic; and indeed they had. Politics is surely a destination, not a journey.

But back to the Tories. Their idealism is not confined to their ministerial class. The backbenches are febrile, with free-thinking popping up in a way that would be unimaginable during the New Labour years. Tory MPs dream of the politically desirable, not the mundanely practical.

What would Lord Kilmuir think? The Tory grandee sagely recorded that “loyalty is the Conservative party’s secret weapon”. It seems a sentiment from a bygone age.

So by ‘idealism’ do I simply mean ‘indiscipline?’ No, although rebellion and idealism are symbiotic. The former usually a manifestation of the latter. Refusing to be hemmed in by received opinion – even when it casts a shadow as large as the government’s burly chief whip, the no-nonsense Patrick McLaughlin – requires genuine idealism.

This is, of course, then usually inimical to a vertically-upward political career.

Still, it didn’t stop David Davis from resigning from Cameron’s shadow cabinet – and from parliament itself – to mount a one-man referendum over the erosion of our civil liberties in 2008. Davis’ is now the most impressive voice in parliament when it comes to defending liberty and due process. A former Tory home affairs spokesman. How the gods mock the left.

Meanwhile the equally impressive Douglas Carswell gets slapped down by his own leader at Prime Minister’s Questions for showing his independent streak. While his skewering of the MoD over its monumental waste makes him a one-man public service.

But idealism of the truest kind strikes Cameron closer to home. His departing chief strategist, Steve Hilton, is a quintessential idealist. His run-ins with Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood about whether it is permissible to ignore EU legislation are a joy to behold.

‘No we can’t’, finds Heywood, ‘it’s the law.’

‘Ah’, says Steve, ‘but who made it?’ Apparently Tony Benn’s Arguments for Democracy is book of the week in the Number Ten inner sanctum.

However deleterious the government’s programme may be (in parts), the brio with which David Cameron embarks on wholesale reform is a lesson in governing with idealism.

He will not get everything through (thank god), but a lot of his programme will stick and leave an indelible imprint on Britain – and surely that is the purpose of winning elections and governing?

Kevin Meagher is associate editor of Labour Uncut

Much commentary has already been made about the government’s wafer thin agenda for the 2012-13 parliamentary session. The thing is, it is actually far worse than most observers have noticed, not least because of the uncertainty created by putting Lords reform at the heart of the programme.

The recent Queen’s Speech identified just 15 bills in a programme designed to accommodate the LibDems’ pet obsession. Yet ministers are likely to press through even less legislation, as 5 of these bills have already been identified for carry over until the next session. We are not talking minor matters here, but big issues such as energy, banking reform, children and families, and pensions, as well as an EU Accession Bill for Croatia.

This amounts to third of the government’s new legislative programme to be subject to carry over motions. None of these bills will have been drafted yet, and some may even need a white paper to launch them.

We also know that despite the best efforts of the joint committees on Lords reform, that bill is currently being re-drafted to try and make it more acceptable – the question is for whom?

So, for much of the rest of this calendar year we, we will have just 9 bills in play in the Lords. At this stage in most parliaments, governments are just getting into their stride.

Our analysis of the period since the late 1970s suggests a government in its third year of power can expect to push up to 40 to 45 bills, 30 of which will be part of a core programme.

What is clear from looking at the list detailed in the Queen’s Speech is that despite the accompanying ministerial rhetoric, this is not a radical or reforming government, with either a vision or a narrative to lead our country. Rather it is a make it up as you go along government, without a guiding theme other than deficit reduction.

The Crime and Courts and the Justice and Security bills could have emanated from either major party, except that while in opposition, the Tories – like the LibDems – said they wouldn’t do snooping or big brother stuff. The Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill, which gets its second reading in the Lords tomorrow looks like something Labour had in mind, as do some of the measures in the bill on electoral registration. And the bill on defamation is again something all parties consider long overdue.

Some of the bills will rightly provoke indignation and intelligent opposition from peers. Indeed, I can’t believe it was wise to start two law and order bills in the Lords, where they risk being emasculated by those who only recently inflicted 14 defeats on the government’s legal aid bill. Still, in the two years of this government, I have learnt not to be too surprised at their ability to mismanage parliamentary business. For much of the last session, one or both Houses were pretty much redundant. The Commons could have taken 6 months off after last October, while the Lords was periodically given extended holidays and were then forced back when time was running short.

Legislation doesn’t fix every problem, and we often have too much of it. But people in Britain expect their politicians to come up with answers to the big issues of the day. Polls show they want economic growth, know that we have a housing problem, recognise the risk of growing educational inequality, and want health and local services for the elderly protected and provided.

None of these concerns have found their way into the government’s plans for this new parliamentary session. Perhaps we should be thankful, given how David Cameron and Nick Clegg have so far managed to get the mood and the measures spectacularly wrong. Their parliamentary agenda for 2012-13 is all of a piece with the budget – incompetent, ill-conceived and for most of us irrelevant to the nation’s needs.

So expect their Lordships to be on top form of grumpiness over the next 12 months or so, as we work over a mismatched Queen’s Speech that has left us far from speechless.

Lord Steve Bassam of Brighton is Labour’s Chief Whip in the House of Lords

To keep up to date with Labour’s activities in the Lords, visit www.labourlords.org.uk or follow @LabourLordsUK

With an election on 15 November for Bristol to have an elected mayor, Labour South West announced a short-list of candidates yesterday for the Bristol mayoral selection: former city councillor Kelvin Blake, current Labour group leader Cllr Peter Hammond, former council leader Cllr Helen Holland, former Bristol City Councillor and MP for Wansdyke in Somerset Dan Norris and party activist Marvin Rees.

First off the blocks for Labour, the weekend after Bristol voted yes, was Marvin Rees, who had actively campaigned for a yes vote in the 3 May referendum. He appeared on the BBC Sunday Politics show and cuts an impressive figure.

Rees is a manager for race equality in mental health with NHS Bristol and a former journalist and BBC Radio presenter. Hailing from the Yale Global Leaders Programme, he has an intriguing CV and was apparently once the executive assistant to President Clinton’s Spiritual Advisor. Rees stood unsuccessfully for the Bristol West selection in 2010.

Rees speaks with authority about life in Bristol’s inner city, coming from a poor background and says: “I was one of two brown-skinned children of a single white woman.”

Despite the poverty in some parts, during the referendum campaign the prime minister pointed to Bristol being the second richest UK city outside London, but local people feel the city could do much more.

“Bristol is a premiership city performing at championship level,” explains Rees, who blames poor leadership at a council level.

“Core to that underperformance has been a vacuum of leadership, the lack of an aspirational long term vision for where Bristol wants to be and how it will get there and the absence of a coherent city narrative, that genuinely results from and reflects the lives of all Bristol residents.

“There is an on-going challenge in making best use of the council officer-elected member relationship particularly around the charge that it is officers not politicians who lead or manage the city.”

One remedy to this is full elections every four years for Bristol City Council, with a consultation currently underway. Rees supports this change: “The electoral cycle sees one third of the council being elected every year which a number of officers testify to leading to constant campaigning and the effective close down in March as they wait to see what a new administration might want done differently.”

Why should Bristol Labour party members vote Marvin Rees? “I believe I am able to advocate for Labour values in the usual political contest. But my life story and relative newness gives me a platform to be able to reach voters we will need to reach who sit beyond ‘politics as usual’.

“We need a jobs plan that provides job not only for tomorrow but plans for Bristol’s global positioning over the coming 30-40 years and prepares our city workforce expertise accordingly,” says Rees looking to the future.

Transport is a burning issue in the city, especially around bus services, which Rees acknowledges: “We need it integrated, cheaper, more reliable, more pleasant; we need a regional transport plan developed and delivered by a regional transport authority.”

The issue of school places not keeping-up with population increase is never far from the news in Bristol. “We need Bristol schools to be institutions of choice rather than parents looking to send their children out of the city or to private schools. We need to ensure students who have lost the educational maintenance allowance receive the financial support they need to be able to pursue further education.”

With only about a quarter of the electorate engaging with the referendum, Rees is vocal about how to tackle low voter turnout: “engagement starts now with the contest to become Mayor. Operation Black Vote style shadow schemes need to be at the forefront of our thinking.

“However, low voter turnout is not only about elected politicians. It’s about broader socio-economic inequalities and social immobility. It’s about the media and how they present and tell the story of politics.”

The selection will be a postal vote with ballot papers going out next Friday 25 May and the ballot closing on 13 June. The result is expected on 15 June via postal ballots. Watch this space for more news on Bristol mayoral elections and who Labour choose.

Amanda Ramsay is a former Labour councillor and cabinet member

Bristol Labour Party Mayoral Selection Official Hustings: Friday 8 June at the Greenway Centre, Doncaster Road, Southmead, Bristol BS10 5PY from 6.15pm to 8.30pm. Bristol Labour Party members wishing to attend MUST email jo_colebrook@labour.org.uk or phone 0117 972 9447.

Follow @marvinrees and the mayoral debate on @Mayor4Bristol1

“There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of a society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.” John Maynard Keynes The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919)

And so the Eurozone crisis lurches on. Of course it has been a long time since we wondered whether anybody at the European Central Bank has read any Keynes.  If little else we can be certain of that. But as the crisis moves into a new and potentially decisive phase, with the possibility of ‘Grexit’ openly discussed, it is time to ask: what are the political implications for Labour’s policy on Europe?

The economics themselves remain as intractable as ever. Indeed, in a startling interview on Tuesday’s Today programme, Dr Michael Fuchs, vice-chairman of Angela Merkel’s CDU, practically admitted as much, suggesting that restoring Greek competitiveness through lowering their cost base was “impossible” but that Greece “must follow the rules” set out by the so called ‘troika’ of the IMF, ECB and EU.

But aside from shouting from the sidelines, Labour can do little to affect any of this. If the next election comes in 2015 then this crisis, for better, or more likely for worse, will have been resolved. What we might have done differently will be largely irrelevant. Of course it helps to associate the government with a reputation for austerity’s failings – but we need little impetus from Europe to do that.

And yet the sheer volatility of the crisis means we should not take anything for granted, particularly when it comes to Europe. It has long been conventional political wisdom that Europe represents promising terrain for Labour. This is based on two assumptions.

First, that whilst basic polling data might indicate that public opinion on Europe is, at best, divided, the Tories repeatedly fall into the trap of over-exaggerating its importance.

Second, that it can be used as a ‘wedge issue’ with which we can drive our opponents into a factional, frothy-mouthed frenzy, as we look on with united, pragmatic glee.

In the current context, both of these assumptions are complacent. The crisis will inevitably make Europe a more prominent issue at the next election, its connection to the economic bread and butter issues, jobs and growth, strengthened in voters’ minds.  And it is not hard to imagine how a desperate coalition might try to harness hardening attitudes to leave Labour dealing with a very different sort of ‘squeezed middle’.

But perhaps most importantly it overestimates our own unity. Because attitudes to Europe expose an infrequently discussed divide within the Labour movement, between those of cosmopolitan, progressive or anti-jingoistic persuasions and those who see the common market as an economically conservative club formed to export elite capitalism. Indeed it was arguably this more than any other rift that finally led Roy Jenkins to create the SDP in 1981, thus dividing the left for a generation.

Largely subsumed in the New Labour era, the sceptical position is gaining more traction. Existing EU legislation, on state aid for example, is increasingly found to be intellectually out of step with a new era of interventionism.  And then there is Angela Merkel’s hardwiring of austerity into the EU’s DNA.  So, the sceptical argument continues, why bother? After all, if the modern EU was supposed to do two things – spread prosperity and prevent far right nationalism – then by any measurement it is currently failing.

Such thinking is short-sighted. Even before cuts (to the BBC world service in particular) weakened our soft power reach, the government’s dream of a Salisbury-lite ‘splendid isolationism’ combined with an aggressively mercantilist foreign office open for bilaterals with any country prepared to throw us a dime, was just that – a dream. Outside of the EU trading block we offer little of interest to the BRIC countries. We still need a Europe that works.

Making the pro-European case in an era where Europe has unleashed Keynes’s forces of destruction will not be easy. We should not underestimate the extent to which an anti-European sentiment might grow, in the country and in our party. Nevertheless it is a case we must make. Our starting point must be an acknowledgement that the current European model is broken and needs reform. With Labour the only party sensible enough to carry out such reform this represents our best chance to reclaim the hard-headed middle ground.

It was this argument that Peter Mandelson and Ed Balls, undeniably two of our best strategists, began to flesh out in Monday’s blockbuster Guardian article. They were right to do so.  Because if we allow the pragmatic horse to bolt from the European stable, it will take a truly herculean effort to clean up the mess.

Alan Lockey is a Labour campaigner and works at the House of Commons

A major challenge for Labour’s 824 newly elected councillors is to prove to their electorate that the right choice has been made.  In local politics this is easier said than done.  Even the hardest working councillor can be made to look like a one-trick-pony come election time. Avoiding this depends largely on how work done and successes achieved are perceived by the electorate.

Most councillor accomplishments will be small.  Road signs cleaned.  Bulky waste collections increased.  Alleyways cleared.  Double yellow lines painted.  Police patrols rerouted.  And, while there is much more to council politics than this, this is what the majority of the electorate will see the majority of the time.  The little things.  The challenge for local councillors is to present their successes to the local electorate in a way so as to maximise results at the ballot box.

The traditional way of presenting successes is that as double yellow lines are painted we rush out leaflets to the surrounding roads claiming credit.  As potholes are resurfaced, pictures are circulated of the candidate standing by the newly smoothed piece of road.  Night-time door knocks in areas where new street lights have been installed.  The usual.

This traditional way presents success as one-off individual accomplishments.  The problem is that residents do not and will not vote for a councillor simply because there are new street lights on their road.  This is a naïve and commonly held misconception.  Residents want more than this.  Therefore we need a new way of promoting Labour councillor success.  This should present individual accomplishments as part of a larger body of work, maybe even as part of a vision for the local area.

In my professional life I work as a qualitative researcher, which essentially means I make sense of what people say on a given subject; in my case the subject is health and health care.  Stay with me here, I am coming back to politics.  To make sense of what people say you need a structure.  You build this structure by initially pulling out broad themes within what people say, and then attaching or attributing people’s individual statements and opinions to the broad themes.  The structure allows you to make sense of a huge amount of opinions and present a coherent case or argument.  A similar method can be used in presenting local political success.

Firstly, we need to listen.  Through direct mails with reply mechanisms, community meetings and local issues surveys on the doorstep a clear understanding of the broad concerns of the residents can be gained.  This can, and should, be done in conjunction with Voter ID.  For example, in the Birmingham ward of Harborne which I have organised over the last two years, in each doorstep and phone conversation, Voter ID came after a local issues survey, a crime and policing survey, a parking survey or a survey on any number of other topics.  It slows contact rate by about 25%, but notably increases the quality of conversation

From this listening and consulting the broad concerns of the electorate can be understood.  These concerns need to be selected carefully as they are to become the focus of future work and the themes through which this work will be presented.

They have to be the real concerns of residents, and not what we want them to be.  They also need to be concerns that councillors can address, so constitutional reform is probably beyond the scope.  We may, for example, select three broad themes: safer roads and streets; liveable communities and community cohesion.

These themes are then used to categorise and present success to the electorate.  New speeding signs and pedestrian crossings are now examples of the “safer roads and streets initiative”.  As potholes are filled, alleyways cleared and bus shelters repaired that is part of the “liveable communities project”.

Actions taken, and individual successes achieved, are presented as part of something bigger.  Presenting successes to the electorate in this way is infinitely more effective than either a list of individual successes or simply informing residents of one-off successes on their street in isolation.  It rightfully presents each individual success as part of something bigger, something more important.  It gives the perception of action and momentum across the ward.  The resident that is unmoved by the new street lights, may take a different view if those lights are an example of a larger project or vision.

A comparison between potential leaflet headlines and top lines makes the point.  “Labour councillor installs Gordon Road street lights” – versus – “Labour safer roads initiative secures Gordon Road street lights”.

“Local councillor Jones is pleased to announce that street lights will be installed on Gordon Road over the next month” – versus – “As part of her ongoing Harborne ‘safer roads initiative’, councillor Jones has secured funding for new street lighting on Gordon Road”.

Some key points to remember when using this model:  1) We have to consult meaningfully.  The consultation allows us to understand concerns and form broad themes that will resonate with the electorate.  If we make these themes up they will likely not resonate.  2) Select 2 to 4 themes.  These are themes we want to come back to time and time again.  Repetition is key.  3) This model should also not be mistaken as a substitute for hard work.  If work isn’t done and successes are not achieved then this model doesn’t provide salvation.  Nothing does.

Some might view this as spin on a local level.  Maybe it is.  However, in the absence of a strong local media (which is missing or declining in almost all areas of the country) it is up to local councillors to ensure that they are credited for their hard work and success.  If this is not done consistently well, all year round, we leave our councillors very vulnerable at election time.

Tom Keeley is a qualitative researcher and Labour party campaigner. He is responsible for organising in Harborne ward in Edgbaston CLP.

Over the years, you always knew when there was a real crisis on, when you heard there was a meeting in COBRA.  Whenever a news reader announced that the prime minister had chaired a meeting of COBRA it was generally pretty serious stuff.  Apparently, in the interests of accuracy, the meetings are actually called COBR meetings – room A refers to just one of the secret command and control centres in and under Whitehall.

Wikipedia describes COBRA as:

“A term used to describe the formation of a crisis response committee, coordinating the actions of bodies within the government of the United Kingdom in response to instances of national or regional crisis, or during events abroad with major implications for the UK. The constitution of a COBR will depend on the nature of the incident but it is usually chaired by the Prime Minister or another senior minister, with other key ministers as appropriate, and representatives of relevant external organizations such as the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Local Government Association.”

These meetings and their venues were once so secret, it was only in 2010 that a single photograph of “room A” was released.

In recent years, and I may be wrong about this, it seems that COBRA has convened more often:  summer riots, foot and mouth, terrorism, contingency planning for fuel strikes and volcanic ash clouds have all prompted the COBRA to raise its head. It is all perfectly sensible that the government has the ability to bring the right people together with the information they need to make effective decisions quickly. Not a panic move, but a good example of our government working to maintain essential services and keep us safe.

But at this very moment, while we teeter on the brink of a disaster, we do not seem very prepared and I am pretty sure that COBRA hasn’t met. Frankly I am beginning to get nervous and I am sure I am not the only one.  If, as looks increasingly likely, Greece defaults and exits the Euro; let’s be honest, no one quite knows what the hell will happen next.

How much are the banks set to lose and will any go under?  If my bank is over-exposed could I face ATM’s that stop giving me my money?  Will there be civil disorder or a military coup in Greece?  What will be the impact on the wider economy?  How many more jobs will be lost?  Will the contagion spread to Spain, Portugal, Ireland or Italy?  At what point does social disorder spread?  Could UK citizens become trapped in Europe as transport grinds to a halt when airlines and holiday companies collapse?  Europe is our major export market so what will happen to our economy?  Who will protect the most vulnerable, in an economy where the only discernable growth comes from the soup kitchen, when the proverbial really hits the fan?

If this was any other sort of crisis, we would be contingency planning morning, noon and night.  Our preparations would dominate political discourse, and rightly so.  But instead, the body politic is obsessed with hackgate; the machinations of the 1922 committee and voter registration.

All these issues may well be important; but we are also facing an enormous crisis, with substantial implications for each and every one of us, that has slowly gathered pace for months now.  Day-by-day the potential catastrophe seems more and more likely.  And yet according to George Osborne this week, we shouldn’t even be talking about it as it makes the situation worse:

“It is the uncertainty that is causing the damage, of course countries have got to make difficult decisions about their own public finances… but it’s the open speculation from some members in the eurozone about the future of some countries in the eurozone which I think is doing real damage across the whole European economy. The British recovery has been damaged over the last two years by uncertainty in the euro and that uncertainty would be magnified were a country to leave. It is that uncertainty and not austerity that is doing real damage to the European recovery and indeed the British recovery.”

He is right in one way; we shouldn’t talk ourselves into disaster. But for pity’s sake, the bloody Greeks are talking about the possibility of leaving the Euro; every newspaper is speculating about it; financial institutions are busy attempting to price in the implications into their forecasts and President Hollande told Chancellor Merkel that, “everything has to be on the table”.

George – the cat is out of the bag. Working to contain the situation is not the same thing as preparing for the worst.  Presumably that is why COBRA met to discuss “potential” fuel strikes for instance?

The handling of any crisis is always part reality and part perception.  It seems, however, that our Government is incapable of exerting any influence over events and therefore just waits for events to happen. The Government being seen to have at least some sort of control, or preparedness, is vital if people are to retain what little confidence in the economy they still have; but from where I am sitting, I do not feel very confident about the future, and neither do consumers or businesses.

And so, any minute now, I am hoping desperately to hear that “the prime minister has today chaired a meeting of COBRA, to discuss the potentially significant economic disruption that could result from ongoing Eurozone instability.”

At least then I’d know the whole mess was being taken seriously.

Peter Watt was general secretary of the Labour party

The news that unemployment fell by 45,000 in the first three months of this year, compared to the last three months of 2011, is very welcome. It suggests the current recession in the UK – if it is not revised away when the next set of GDP data are released – is likely to be a very mild one. The drop in youth unemployment – by 18,000 in the latest three months – is further good news.

But there is reason to be cautious.

The labour market is not improving because firms are recruiting more full-time employees. It is improving because more people are taking part-time work, reluctantly, and because more people are setting themselves up in self-employment, possibly also reluctantly.

The 105,000 increase in employment in the latest quarter was more than accounted for by part-time workers. The number in full-time employment fell by 13,000. We know many of these part-time workers are unhappy because the Office for National Statistics asks part-time workers if they would prefer to be working full-time and 1,418,000 said ‘yes’ in the latest three months – the highest number since comparable records began in 1992.

Looking at the numbers differently, 90,000 of the 105,000 increase in employment in the last quarter is due to an increase in self-employment. Unfortunately, the ONS does not ask the self-employed if they would rather be working as an employee – but it is a fair bet that some of the recent increase reflects people who would rather not be self-employed but cannot find a company to employ them.

These are not new trends. The following table shows the change in employment over the last four years (i.e. comparing the first quarter of 2008, just before the recession, with the first quarter of 2012).

The big picture over this period is that total employment in the UK has fallen by just under 300,000. But the number of full-time employees is down by 800,000, while the number of part-time employees and the number of part-time self-employed people are both up by about 250,000. There has also been an increase over this period of over 700,000 in the number of people working part-time who say they are doing so because they want a full-time job.

The continuing legacy of the recession, therefore, is a labour market characterised by companies that are reluctant to take on more full-time employees and workers who are reluctantly working part-time – either for companies or for themselves.

Tony Dolphin is Chief Economist at IPPR