What's the point of Labour's right?

Richard Murphy asks a good question: what���s the point of Labour���s right-wing?

Let���s face it: Corbyn did not become Labour leader because he���s a political genius ��� he���s not ��� but because his rivals were offering so pitifully little; apart from Liz Kendall���s talk of empowerment, they were bereft of ideas. Jolyon has a point when he says that candidates shouldn���t have fully-formed ideas and that leaders should develop policy later. But Burnham and Cooper didn���t seem even to be asking good questions ��� of the sort which Jolyon himself poses.  Jonathan Todd is right: ���something must have gone awry with centrist thinking for Corbynism to be ascendant.���

As Brendan O���Neill has said, Corbyn���s opponents have been offering only ���technocratic, principle-free blather about electability.��� This wouldn���t be so bad if they actually knew how to get elected, but the loss of two general elections and their abject showing in the Labour leadership contest suggests that the anti-Corbynites don���t even know this. The problem isn���t that they are technocrats: it���s that they are bad technocrats.  They use the word ���electable��� not as a way of describing how to be actually elected, but as the whine of over-entitled narcissists upset that Corbyintes have taken away their toys.

The problem, here, however, is an old one: Gordon Brown spent years plotting to be prime minister, only for us to discover that he didn���t know what to do when he got there. And given that so many Labour MPs��� path to the Cabinet consisted in impressing a mentor rather than in developing outside support or independent thought, it���s small wonder that they should have lost contact with those outside the Westminster Bubble, or even with the ability to think for themselves.  

Herein, though, lies something I find regrettable. There are many ideas in politics which aren���t heard as much as I���d like,such as free market pessimism. Left Hayekianism or small-state Keynesianism.  Centre-leftism is one such. If I were them, I���d be arguing for some of the following:

 - ���Make work pay���. Shift taxes from labour to land and inheritances, and defend tax credits as a better way of topping up low pay than minimum wages.

 - Openness. Leaving the EU, or controlling immigration, are no solutions at all, but simply mean-spirited little Englanderism.

 - Empowerment. It���s possible��� with careful institutional design - that giving people more choice (pdf) in public services will improve outcomes.

 - Public sector investment. As Simon says, you can combine this with ���fiscal responsibility��� in the sense of wanting governments to run a balance on the current budget.

 - Improve productivity. UK productivity lags well behind that of other countries. Policies to tackle this might include investment in early years education and freer migration (pdf).

Personally, I don���t think these policies are sufficient. But they are coherent, useful and substantive. There could, and should, be more to anti-Corbynism than mere whining about "electability".