Spring is in the air but Labour remains in darkness

Whether you are secular

or Christian, Easter

is a time for renewal. The coming of spring after a long winter, the blossoming of daffodils are as poignant for the non-religious as is the end of Lent and the celebration of the resurrection of Christ for His followers.

This Easter, no area of our public life, with the possible exception of the police, is more urgently in need of renewal than our politics. Behind the relentless and dispiriting allegations and denials over MPs’ expenses, one consequence is clear: voter turnout at the next election will be so low as to be embarrassing. People have never seemed so alienated from mainstream party politics as they are at this time of profound recession. As MPs leave Westminster for the recess, the standing of the House of Commons has rarely, if ever, been lower.

It is not just a question of removing the likes of Geoff Hoon, an unpassionate, technocratic politician, or Jacqui Smith, so assiduous in claiming every penny in expenses for her bathroom fittings, in the inevitable summer cabinet reshuffle, though both should be replaced at the earliest possible opportunity. It is more a question of whether, as Martin Jacques writes on page 13, Labour is even capable of renewing itself as a reforming, progressive party of government from within government.

So complete was New Labour’s embrace of market fundamentalism that what now should have been a moment of opportunity for the party and for progressive politicians is nothing of the kind. The inescapable truth is this: Mr Brown was chancellor during the years of boom, the years of the debt bubble, of a recklessly inflated housing market, of easily available, too-cheap credit, of reckless, greed-propelled banking, of a financial system – with its derivatives and credit-default swaps, its frenzied speculation and its sub-prime mortgages – that was as unfathomable as it was out of control. A legacy of toxic debt indeed.

That Gordon Brown is tormented over when he should call a general election is

not in doubt: he does not want to hang on to the bitter end, as James Callaghan did in 1979, when he lost to Margaret Thatcher, and he wants to act at the moment of greatest advantage if Labour is to avoid major defeat.

As a result, there is once again speculation whether an election will be called this year after all, as Steve Richards writes on page 10. The Prime Minister knows there is no great mood of optimism about the Conservative Party in the country at large. The Tories are ahead in the polls by virtue of not being Labour. David Cameron is a plausible and articulate leader but he and his shadow chancellor have had virtually nothing of substance to say about the crisis of capitalism, unlike, say, Vincent Cable, whose candour and critique have made him the most popular politician in Britain.

We know the Tories would cut public spending and reduce inheritance tax for the rich if they won the election, but what else would they do? What do they really stand for? What do they want, beyond wanting to rule? What truly motivates Cameron and his cohorts? Is it a vision of the good society? Is it a form of one-nation paternalism?

None of these questions has been answered. Nor will they before the election.

However, the Prime Minister knows that simply addressing the process of politics with parliamentary reform and reshuffles will not be enough for Labour to revive the sort of belief in the potential of politics that makes Barack Obama such a universally exciting figure. But as elements of the social-democratic left have been arguing in recent weeks – boldly led by Neal Lawson at Compass, among others – the government still has an enviable opportunity to redraw the contours of political debate.

The Labour leadership must use the crisis of capitalism – for that is what it is – to herald an interventionist and, above all, ethical approach to economics and politics.

Inside Downing Street, Mr Brown is said to be clearer in private than he is in public about the need for a fresh settlement with capitalism. This Easter, he must ask himself a simple question: what is Labour for? And when he has found the answer from within, if indeed he can find it, he should voice it loudly and clearly to the public.

Politics must renew; Labour must renew; Mr Brown must renew. If he fails, Labour will fall into opposition while our debt-ravaged country, for so long overreliant on financial services to generate growth, suffers even more.