by John Denham
Over the last few months, Ed Miliband has set out three key challenges facing the country:
The problems faced by the “squeezed middle”, on low and middle incomes, who feel that the rewards of working hard are too little compared to those whose stellar salaries are not matched by results.
The threat to the British promise; our expectation that our children will enjoy better lives than we have done, because we cannot now pay our way in the world and create opportunities for them.
And the need to strengthen our communities, recognising that in myriad ways, not least in the way workplaces and working lives have changed, our confidence in a society of strong social institutions is being eroded.
We cannot deliver for the squeezed middle, revive the British promise or deliver strong communities without building an economy which looks and feels very different, with more opportunities to get better jobs.
We have developed an economy that is dangerously dependent on too many low skilled jobs. We cannot promise a better future for the next generation unless we can pay our way and create the skilled, well paid jobs which make the most of, and properly reward, their skills and abilities.
In building a different and stronger economy, the growth and jobs we need will be private sector growth and private sector jobs. The next Labour government will need to have a relentless, single-minded focus in creating the conditions for private sector growth. That means creating the conditions in which companies compete within fair markets and make profit by being the best in those competitive markets.
The Tory-Lib Dem notion is that support for market-led growth means that the ideal state is one in which government does as little as possible. In truth, markets are inevitably and unavoidably shaped by what governments do, and by what government doesn’t do.
