Last week was a depressing one for everyone in the Labour party and all who believe in a fairer Britain.
The Labour party needs to face uncomfortable truths. The party can't explain away the electoral defeat on the basis of one person or one moment in a campaign. The reasons for defeat are much more fundamental than that.
Now is the time to make use of the only advantage, frankly, that Labour gets in opposition: the chance to have the far-reaching debate that it did not have in government. I am convinced that if it asks the hard questions as new Labour did in 1994 and the Conservative party did not do after 2005, then it can make sure this is a one-term government.
I will always defend the record of the Labour government because it made this country more prosperous, fairer, greener, more democratic, and Britons should all be proud of what has been achieved. But there is deep thinking that Labour needs to do about what went wrong.
For me, there is one central lesson: as government wore on, Labour lost that sense of progressive mission and of being in touch with people's concerns.
Labour came to be seen more as caretakers than idealists, more technocratic than transformative.
Take the economy. Labour did great things after 1997, but while the New Labour combination of free markets plus redistribution got it a long way, it reached its limits some years ago. And I saw that during this campaign.
Canvassing in my constituency, I met a classroom assistant. She told me she was taking home about $13,076 (Dh47,988) a year, but wasn't eligible for tax credits because she was working 27.5 (not 30) hours a week. She couldn't afford anything but the necessities of life, and felt the government had nothing to say to her. For her, and millions like her on modest incomes, Labour needs to rediscover its sense of progressive mission.
Another constituent told me he was voting for the British Nationalist Party because his friends' wages were being undercut by immigration from eastern Europe. Britain's diversity is an enormous strength: economically, culturally, socially, and we should say it more often. But the truth is that immigration is a class issue.
If you want to employ a builder, it's good to have people you can take on at lower cost, but if you are a builder it feels like a threat to your livelihood. And Labour never had an answer for the people who were worried about it.
The party needs to rethink what it means to make Britain a fairer country. Over time, the connection between its sense of fairness and people's sense of fairness frayed — it needs to acknowledge that. It frayed over excesses at the top.
Losing steam
Labour showed great radicalism when it came to preventing a rerun of the Depression. But it didn't have that radicalism when it came to dealing with the banks. Fundamentally, it feared the idea of government taking on the power of the markets.
Labour needs to recognise also what people feel about the state, and their daily frustrations with it. It left too many members of the public feeling the state is indifferent to them and public servants who felt that the state didn't value what they do and micro-managed too much.
In all these areas, Labour lost sight of its values and people's expectations from the government.
So first, Labour needs a new way of thinking about markets. It must think anew about how to rebuild economic security in the 21st century.
Second, Labour needs a new way of thinking about the state. Prime Minister David Cameron's "big society" is not a way of solving this problem — it is a recipe for abandonment. Labour needs to show it can reform the state to make it more accountable and give power away.
Third, Labour needs to show that it gets what really matters in life, beyond economics: climate change and the environment need to be central, not an add-on, to its political vision. But family, neighbourhood, community, quality of life, time, love and compassion — all these need to be central to the way it thinks about politics.
Fourth, Labour needs a new way of doing politics itself. The fact that there is a Conservative-Liberal coalition government should not make it retreat from pluralism and political reform. The old ways of doing politics are a complete turn-off for the public. And the party needs to face the truth that it suffered a catastrophic loss of trust over Iraq.
I joined the Labour party at the age of 17. I joined because I thought it was the best vehicle for the hopes and aspirations of the British people. I believed it then, and I believe it now.
In recent days, several people have talked to me about the contribution I should make in the future. I am putting my name forward to be leader of the Labour party.
Let's move on from the politics of Blairites and Brownites and unite around a new set of ideas. This leadership election cannot just be about leadership candidates. It has to be about voters as well.
- Ed Miliband is a former UK minister and a declared candidate for Labour leadership.
