So Downing Street wants the involvement of everyone in the drafting of ideas for the next manifesto. On cue a new grouping, Labour Future, including 7 ex-Ministers, has just come up with a fresh pamphlet, explicitly sanctioned by No.10, to breathe new life into what they call ‘exhausted’ Labour. We shouldn’t get too excited. The policies for the new dawn apparently include scrapping primary care trusts, setting a minimum price for alcohol, and cutting back the RAF and the Royal Navy. Not much resuscitation likely there. But what is really worrying about these latest manifestations of mainstream New Labour is not so much the minutiae of policy offerings as the bland unawareness of system breakdown. Not a word about the financial crisis that very nearly collapsed the entire global banking system, nor what should now be done to prevent a recurrence. Not a word about the neo-liberal capitalist model that was dominant for 30 years and was bust in 2008, nor what should replace it. Not a word about how the biggest slump since the 1930s should be tackled, nor why big public expenditure cuts in the near future (as are proposed by all the parties) are fundamentally the wrong policy, nor what the alternative is. Instead the impression is given that everything is hunky-dory, except that a few tweakings here and there would be desirable. What planet are they living in?

What is really needed of course is fresh thinking on the fundamentals where the economic system has broken down and where Government (and Opposition) policy is clearly failing to address the real causes of the collapse. There are at least 5 areas that cry out for fundamental change:
* The recession should be tackled, not by cuts in essential public expenditure, but by a massive public investment programme in job creation in housebuilding, infrastructure and manufacturing.
* The banks should be split up with their casino investment arms hived off to avert any future collapse, they should be forced to restore lending to businesses and homeowners to 2007 levels to maintain and increase employment, their pay and bonuses should be tightly regulated to discourage recklessness, and they should be required to repay the £60bn of taxpayers’ money used to bail them out.
* Recognising that the current economic-financial crisis has been caused by market fundamentalism, a clean break should be made with de-regulation and privatisation, and public provision should be expanded not only in health care and education, but also in housing, pensions, energy and transport.
* Since Britain is now more unequal even than under Thatcher, a big redistribution programme should swing resources away from the rich to provide sizeable increases in pensions, the minimum wage, the lowest benefit levels, and to fund job creation and improved public services.
* To achieve the 80% carbon emission reduction target by 2050, renewable sources of energy should be promoted on a far bigger scale, industry (including airlines) should be required to reduce its climate change emissions by at least 3% per year, household carbon allowances should be introduced, and the UK targets should be fully met by domestic action and not by carbon offsetting abroad.

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