Polly Toynbee is right to argue that Labour, and the centre-left more broadly, need the genuine debate about ideas they unwisely avoided before the last general election (British politics is fractured and chaotic – but at last it’s brimming with ideas for the future, 2 June). They must have the courage to think anew. The issue is not merely how to face up to the immensely difficult challenges Toynbee cites, of soaring wealth inequality and an inadequate tax base coupled with rising pressures on public services, but how Labour understands its core purpose and ideological mission.
In the 1950s and the 1980s, successive defeats compelled the Labour party to reappraise its core principles in the light of the changing nature of capitalism and the role of government and markets. It should be just as thoroughgoing today.
