WITH each passing opinion poll, the famous Ming vase Keir Starmer metaphorically clings to on his way electoral victory, has been transformed into a material so unbreakable, through the political alchemy of the Tory collapse, that it could be bounced off the brass neck of Tony Blair without any damage. 

The certainty of a Labour government means that the left needs to grasp not just the neoliberal general direction of the next Labour government, but the specific policies that it intends to introduce, the better to address this new period, for good, or more likely, for ill.

This is no easy task, for as frustrated media presenters tell Labour spokespeople on an almost daily basis on our screens and radios, the detailed policies of the next Labour government remain veiled in secrecy. All the more reason then, why we should pay attention to those aspects of their programme that Labour have chosen to reveal.

Early last month, almost lost in the furore around the Budget it preceded, Liz Kendall, shadow secretary of state for work and pensions, gave a speech to the think tank Demos where we were “treated” to a glimpse of a Labour future. Or perhaps glimpse of a Labour past might be more appropriate. Kendall sought to expose Tory failures in the run-up to the Budget. In particular, she focused on the failure of the employment rate to recover: “The reality is, increasing numbers of people are leaving the labour market and no longer even looking for work. This Parliament has seen the highest increase in economic inactivity for 40 years.”

Labour would deal with this by “…creating more well-paid jobs, supporting more people into employment and improving the quality of work too.”

As to how Labour is going to create more well-paid jobs remains a mystery, since they have infamously dropped their green investment plans, and other possible sources of investment, have either been appropriated by the Tories or subject to Labour’s own self-imposed “fiscal rectitude.” 

She moved on, nevertheless, to an important and revealing section of the speech, which was aimed at those not in education, employment or training (Neets): “Last month, we learnt over 850,000 young people aged 24 and under are not in education, employment or training. That’s one in eight of all our young people.”

This, Kendall told us, Labour would address by, among other things, providing specialist mental health support, an influx of new careers advisers in schools, new technical excellence colleges, a reformed apprentice levy and new employment advisers for young people. Leaving aside the scope, scale and mechanics of such initiatives there could be no complaints here until the old, New Labour sting in tail: “We will invest in you and help you build a better future, with all the chances and choices this brings. But in return for these new opportunities, you will have a responsibility to take up the work or training that’s on offer. Under our changed Labour Party, if you can work there will be no option of a life on benefits.”

Sound familiar? Here’s Gordon brown in January 2008: “We will combine tough sanctions for those who refuse to work or train with better and more targeted support for those most in need to give them the skills and advice they need to get back on to the jobs ladder…”

The so-called “supply side” approach of New Labour — skilling up the workforce to be ready to take the jobs entrepreneurs would create for them — emphasised the importance of “employability.” They pushed the notion that the individual is responsible for acquiring the necessary skills to get employment, with appropriate support from the state. So, if you’re not working or training, it’s your fault. It did not work. 

When New Labour took office in 1997 youth unemployment stood at 6.9 per cent. When Labour left office in 2010, it stood at 7.6 per cent. 

This was of course largely due to the global financial crisis which began in 2007, but it was a crisis that New Labour had made uniquely difficult for Britain to defend itself from and had even helped initiate.

Under New Labour private debt grew, a property bubble inflated, the decline of the manufacturing sector continued apace, the labour market became “flexible,” helping employers to dump staff, financialisation of the economy expanded enormously and, catastrophically, Brown ensured “light” regulation of the finance sector. This had a global impact because it put pressure on the financial sectors of competitor countries to adopt a similar strategy.   

Young people in those economic conditions were “shirking” from neither work nor training. As the sociologists Allen & Ainley point out in the 2010s, most young people were overqualified and underemployed for the opportunities available to them.

Despite this, in relation to working-age welfare, according to polling guru John Curtice, Tony Blair was more successful than Thatcher: “One of the myths about Tony Blair is that he simply took the Labour Party to where the electorate was — no, no, no — Tony Blair achieved what Margaret Thatcher set out to achieve and failed, which was to move the actual dial of public opinion.”

According to Rob Strathdee, who writes on vocational education, there are three approaches available to governments get young people to take up the kind of schemes being advocated by Kendall — motivational, bridging and forcing strategies. Bridging is about linking up with employers. The other two speak for themselves. 

In the world of austerity that Keir Starmer is leading us into, there will be few opportunities for motivational or bridging strategies in many parts of Britain, so we need to begin now in devising ways of engaging with those youngsters who will undoubtedly resist being compelled into meaningless training or soul destroying, poorly paid work. 

It is therefore vital that unions begin to think now about how to engage with young people in this situation, perhaps by targeting the places where young people will receive their “off the job” training, using the tactics deployed in union organising strategies. 

And in the meantime, the leaderships of unions affiliated to the Labour Party might want to collar Liz Kendall and ask her if she believes that going back to New Labour’s failed future is a sustainable strategy beyond the carcass of current, Tory self-immolation.