From Tribune, 17 August 2007

JON CRUDDAS is in reflective mood. Following his defeat in the Labour deputy leadership election – where he polled the largest number of votes – you might expect the member for Dagenham, energised by the “Brown bounce”, the housing green paper and the party reform agenda, to be shouting from the roof of Portcullis House. Far from it. When I meet him, the bold pronouncements and rhetoric of the deputy leadership campaign have gone, and in their place seems to be a calm observation. He is waiting for the party conference.

“We have to see what comes out. Let’s see what is put before the conference. It’s a critical moment, this, in terms of how Gordon Brown is going to treat and respect his own party. And, hopefully, he’s thinking hard and quite systematically about this over the summer.”

Thinking hard is what Brown will have to do if he is to head off hostility to his paper on party reform, which proposes the abolition of contemporary motions at conference and a one-member-one-vote ballot for the manifesto. As Tribune reported last week, opponents who see it as a means of stifling dissent are gaining ground. For Cruddas, it is an emotive topic. During the campaign in April, he pronounced conference “dead”. What does he make of Brown’s proposals?

“It’s a consultation, this. There’s more to it, and we’ll have to see what outcomes come out of it. But if this is simply an exercise in abolishing contemporary motions at conference, and circumventing the representative democracy of the party, then I don’t think it’s going to go down too well in the party, because it’ll be more of the same, which is about authoritarian rule of the party. So the jury’s out in terms of where this is going to go.”

“What I think the deputy leadership contest showed was there was a real desire for a more pluralist democratic engagement within the party, and I think the Prime Minister’s specific proposals to conference should go with the grain of that pluralism rather than define himself against it.”

If it sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Cruddas made the same argument last year in his Compass paper Fit for purpose: A programme for Labour Party renewal (published soon after he announced he was standing for the deputy leadership). But the campaign, he argues, made the case for strengthening party democracy.  

“I think one of the enduring elements that came out of it is if you can construct a proper discussion within the party, you have a more active, engaged, enthusiastic membership which is prepared to work harder, and at the same time can learn from tapping into some of the latent knowledge and experience in the party in terms of policy formation.”

So Brown should listen to the party. After all, it voted for Cruddas in large numbers so it must be a good thing. But he is not keen to dwell on the fact that, on the basis of the popular vote, he won the deputy leadership by a comfortable majority.

“I think [the results] reflect the pluralist architecture of the party, where you have different elements within it. I think it’s pretty good, given that we had a candidate who no one knew at the start, we were up against five members of the Cabinet and we managed to get in ahead of three of them and very close to the other two.”

Cruddas’ opponents are now all in policy-making positions. Surely he, too, would like to be a minister. If the phone rang tomorrow from Downing Street… “Well, never say never. But it doesn’t interest me, I’ve got other priorities. I had some discussions with Gordon Brown afterwards I think it’s courteous not to reveal [it was reported that Cruddas rejected a ministerial job], but it wasn’t for me, because I wasn’t in it for a job, right? It was an exercise in party democracy and we achieved what we wanted to set out.”

He is pleased that the position of Deputy Prime Minister was cut off from the deputy leadership position and then abolished. “So I’m quite happy with the outcomes we scored, and I’ve got other concerns rather than trying to position myself for positions in the government, which doesn’t really interest me.”

Cruddas is also happy with Brown’s premiership so far. As a fervent campaigner for council housing and a public NHS, how does he see it? “As far as I see it, after five weeks, he’s doing a really good job. We’ve had the green paper, even though we need to see more details of what’s going to come out of that… and they’re putting social housing centre stage politically. That’s got to be welcome. If you look at Alan Johnson’s review of where we’re going in terms of the role of the private sector in delivering NHS services and a review of the NHS strategy, I think that’s got to be welcome.”

But the brake on NHS privatisation may be only temporary. And the housing green paper calls for the overwhelming majority of new housing to be privately built and distinctly un-affordable. During one campaign speech, Cruddas said talking about housing with Yvette Cooper was “a dialogue of the deaf.”

But now he is prepared to let her listen. “A lot has got to be worked out in the detail in these next few months, whether we can provide more council units. I don’t know at the moment. All roads lead back to our failure to change the approach of the private sector.” When pressed, he admits the green paper suggests private housebuilders are still in charge. “Compared to 50 years ago, when you had a much smaller demand side, you still had a supply side that included 250,000 public sector units a year. Some of the signposts down the road are positive, but we’ve got to see the shakedown in terms of the final details.”

Such changes will not just keep the party healthy, Cruddas says: they are needed to win the next election. David Cameron, whom he calls “quite appealing”, is likely to bounce back. “If the public don’t think we are changing enough, and Cameron’s offering greater change, he could be able to pull off a sort of powerful political message. It’s all to play for.”

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