But before we can do that, we need to be frank about the last few years. Every time a minister gets in front of a camera, he feels compelled to reel off a list of our achievements, the national minimum wage, devolution to Scotland and Wales, working tax credits, increase in capital spending in education and so on. The should, rightly so, be justifiably proud of those achievements, but I ask you frankly, What have we done since 2005? The answer, at least in my mind, is, bluntly, comparatively little.

I don't wish in any way to demean what Blair and Brown, while he was at the Treasury, did, far from it. We were a progressive government who came into power with a mandate from the people for change, reform, and decisive action. We were elected on a progressive agenda. However, since 2005, our politics has taken on a firmly reactionary  stance. We look not to the future, not to what we can do to change the country's destiny for the future, but how we can play partisan, parochial politics, react to problems as they arise, and unfortunately, come across to the public as sleazy, dishonest and incompetent..

We need to be the modernising left.

 
We must recognise that in these turbulent times that the electorate is as left-leaning as it has been in a while, but we sit to the electorate's right- not an acceptable situation. Now is the time to tackle inequality. Welfare benefits can and should be use as a method to redistribute wealth. We must increase for those who need the help. Using lie detectors to ensure those on incapacity benefits aren't cheating the sytem is not productive and just adds to our "nannying" image problem (Read on for more on that). Wealth creation must be placed on the backburner. Bridging the gap through rich and poor, widening as I write this piece, should be our main priority. Those earning over, let's say £125,000 a year should be prepared, through the taxation system to help assist those lower earners to an acceptable standard of living via an income tax of 50%. We need to rethink the tax credit system, rather than wasting time and money on taxing people and then giving it back, and getting bogged down in beauracracy- one of the major things the populace hates us for, and take them out of tax altogether. The personal allowance for income tax is currently around £5.5k, we should raise that to £10k. The minimum wage isn't a genuine living wage nowadays, not with food (my family's weekly shop went up by £9 over the space of two weeks) and fuel prices spiralling upwards. £8 seems like a good figure, and the grave inequality for young earners in this regard needs to go as well. Why does turning 18 or 25 or whatever age amke you worth more? Council tax, moreover is unjust and must be reformed to reflect ability to pay, pensioners (more on that later) and low earners should be totally exempt. The state pension also requires a firm augmentation. "Where do we raise all this cash?", you may ask. It's quite simple, by taxing the super-rich and attacking non-domiciles. We shouldn't burden ourselves with thoughts of raising the threshold on inheritance tax. I'm all for encouraging personal enterprise and endeavour, but when someone becomes rich through no skill of their own, I've no sympathy.

We also need to stop erroding individual liberties and ditch our love affair with beauracracy. These really get the back of the electorate up. They feel like they are being watched and that nothing gets done because everything so tied up in a paper chain, red tape and going from desk to desk of overpaid middle managers. I don't want to be accused of being soft on terror or the like, because that would be disingenuous, but there are more constructive methods of attacking problem. Locking up, without trial or charge, your own citizens is not a solution. If the police really wanted the new measures, I may have been more sympathetic but even they aren't in favour. We already have the disgusting piece of legislation in the Civil Contingencies Act, that permits almost draconian provisions to be enactied. Don't get me started on ID cards either, the pubic doesn't want them, and they would be an administrative nightmare. The last thing we should be doing right now, when the electorate sees us as incompetent, is piss a load of money up the wall by focusing on a project doomed to fail. On the issue of beauracracy, we are seen rightly or wrongly as the most over-centralised, overly-managed governemnt ever. People do not want our hospitals and schools encumbered with performance tragets and league tables handed down by a snotty-nosed middle manager who has no idea about education or health. A bit of good housekeeping wouldn't go amiss right now.

In education and in health, we need to stop the over-regulation. Our children are over-tested and the qualifications don't stand for that much anymore, I know this, I'm in the middle of my A-Levels right now. League tables achieve little. Rigour needs to be put back in our education system, challenging pupils that need to be challenged but providing assistance for those that require it. We should be world leaders in driving through new innovations in vocational and alternative learniong strategies. University and Academia aren't suited to all students and while I believe edcuation should be compulsory up until 18, we need to make sure the right education is delivered to the right people. Investment is fantastic  but it needs to properly targeted and come from the public sector exclusively. These new-fangled PFIs are potentially dangerous and should be curtailed. Let teachers teach. University tuition fees don't help matters either. Yes, universities should be properly funded but by the state through taxation- perhaps economies could be made in eliminating beauracracy. (For a start, the splitting up of the DfES was quite an expensive, and probably unescessary task as neither of the new departments can for example decide who's in charge of further education colleges). How can we expect people from all backgrounds to want to train to be doctors, nurses or whatever we might need if they are going to be crippled with debt. Where's the incentive for me, someone from a modest background? We have a reasonable income as a family, I'll get some help from the state and from the university but my parents can't afford to make up the difference, not when the cost of living si rising. I'm going to Oxford in October. God knows how I'm going to live. Our hospitals need to have greater autonomy too, managers straight out of university with a degree in media studies, coming out and telling doctors who have trained for years how to do their jobs is a ludicrous situation.

We need to start giving people what they want. It is imperative that we show them we are on their side, that we are there to make their lives better and easier. I've got a few ideas here. Stop trying to close post offices and protect them properly against privitisation. They are an essential service for a lot of people. Profit should not come before people. Renationalise those rail franchises that are underperforming and regualte fares on all rail services to keep them low and in the interests of passengers. When I ride a First Great Western train, for example, I'm tired of paying through the nose for shoddy performance, punctuality and reliability. It's only a little thing but I'd like to be a passenger again rather than a "customer". We need public services run for the good of the public. While we're at, we can look at some good old-fashioned municpal socilaist initatives. Give more things to people free. Like extending free bus travel for Under 16s from London to the rest of the country and increasing the age to 18. How about capping yearly increases on gas and domestic fuel bills, rather than allowing the utitlity companies to record record profits, year in, year out? How about increasing spending public expenditure through a cut in defence spending driven by the end of fighting stupid wars in the Middle East.

 On to the leadership, Gordon is stale, untrustworthy and incompentent. Or at least, that is the view of the electorate. The man is considered out of touch. He has no idea about people's hopes and fears. A former economic juggernaut has been reduced to a dithering wreck. Sad, yes, very sad. Regrettable, yes, very regrettable. But true, very true. This is a frank relisation of the present situation. Yes, the electorate are fickle but not, I'm afraid 26 percentage points fickle. A new leader, capable of launching himself upon a programme of radicla reform and change, who connects well with the electorate is required. I recently heralded, David Miliband as the man to do such a thing. However, it appears he's not prepared to step up and grow some balls. He doesn't want to strike yet and that's a shame. We could have Cruddas, a fine candidate but I am still firmly behind Miliband. He needs our support. We need to tell him that he has our confidence, that we have faith in him and that he can lead the country and party forwards. We need him.

I was criticised in my last piece for being a litle vague but here, I hope that I've set out a programme of proper radical action that can deliver us from the jaws of opposition into a fourth term. That is our dream but we must act, now, and act resolutely in order to achieve it, to realise it, to make it into reality. The alternative is bleak. No-one wants the Tories. We must, to safeguard our future, set out this new, progressive agenda.

Michael Brown