There have been several gatherings of the social democratic left in the last week or so. Today saw a Fabian Society conference on Climate Change and the road to Copenhagen (you can read about it on Next Left) coincide with a Soundings event on politics after the crash, which followed on nicely from the Compass conference I attended last week. I caught the last plenary at Soundings which was a group discussion with Plaid Cymru AM Leanne Wood and Mike Kenny of the ippr.
Kenny had some of the most convincing analysis of the failures of New Labour that I heard at either of the two conferences. The current malaise on the left, he said, can be traced back to two historically traumatic events which it has yet to come to terms with: the advent of Thatcherism and the demise of state socialism. New Labour (which Kenny recognises to be a dead project) simply obscured these two crises, delaying a proper response. The coming audit of New Labour's time in power must identify and reject two of its principal and most damaging failings: its centralist statism and its flawed model of economic growth.
In many ways, he said, this will involve re-discovering the reformist side of early New Labour which addressed imbalances of power and introduced devolution before this side of the party, never strong, was surpassed by an ideology which rejected pluralism in favour of capturing and deploying the power of the central state. A progressive conception of power - where it manifests itself, how it should be distributed - has been totally lost during the New Labour years, he said.
Kenny spoke of the need for "progressive" parties to connect with activist groups and social movements outside Westminster in ways which echoed Stuart White's interesting remarks at the session on democratic imagination which I chaired at Compass last week. There are, however, two "siren calls" which the Labour party should avoid as it heads for a prolonged period in the wilderness: the call for it to abandon its social heritage and become a liberal party; and a "return to fundamentalism" and the absolute truths of its past.
Instead Labour should show a strong commitment to individual flourishing based on the understanding that this depends on a social culture of support and reciprocity underpinned by some notion of common citizenship. Here, I think, was a more developed conception of what Jon Cruddas MP had been getting at last week in his closing speech to Compass in which he invoked the communitarian philosophy of Charles Taylor on the need for a society which supports each individual in the pursuit of their own good.
Is the collectivist Aristotelianism of Cruddas and Kenny the first gropings towards a philosophy of the 21st century centre-left that might bring Labour some unity and purpose in opposition? If so it will involve a radical re-invention of the party and the trashing of its illiberal and centralist legacy of the last twelve years. This looks unlikely to happen any time soon and probably won't even happen in the first few years of opposition, especially if a Cameron government is unpopular and in disarray in the face of recession.
It was pointed out in the questions that followed that however much its opponents, including many on the left, might wish it to disappear after the next general election, Labour will continue to be a force simply because of the massive base of social support it enjoys with the unions. This may be true but there will have to be a reckoning sooner or later if the party is to grasp just why it has become so toxic to so much of the population.
When this does happen Labour will need to listen to the ideas of Kenny and White (thinkers with one foot inside the party) and re-build on the understanding that liberty, democracy and pluralism are non-negotiable cornerstones of any genuinely progressive ideology. As I say, there are few signs from inside Westminster that this is on the agenda any time soon.
