Anthony Painter

Labour needs a game-changing moment or at least game changing momentum and fast. Two more opportunities have come and gone. The debate last night and the latest growth figures remaining anaemic. Jonathan Freedland thinks that the game is up and James Crabtree is not much more hopeful in his fair analysis of the debate.

Never say die. While it is clear that a game-changing moment is not going to fall from the sky, there is still time to shift the narrative of this election but it’s going to require a radically different approach.

Don’t get me wrong. I thought Gordon Brown’s performance last night was a radical improvement on last week. He was more lively and combative. He seemed to want it more. There were more poorly delivered pre-packed one-liners and the overall message was too negative. But it was better.

Unfortunately, it was still nowhere near what is needed at this stage. In some senses, it was the performance that would have been ideal for the first debate. Now, there needs to be something more positive, more forward-looking, more connected, more visionary.

How about a campaign around a theme of something like, let’s see, how about a positive message about ‘brilliant Britain’? Why has no-one thought of doing something like that? Labour could articulate the vision of the country it wants to see. It could talk about the political and economic change that it is committed to secure. It could campaign with zest and energy and make it look like it really wanted it. That may begin to generate a bit of momentum. This is election is about change. Labour now has to move on to a future narrative and quick smart. Its chances of even finishing second could rely on how effectively it does that. Yes, Labour could well be in such scary territory.

And there’s a reason for all this. Britain wants change because Britain has changed. A few weeks ago I published a co-written pamphlet that discussed the changes in modern Britain. Our argument was that we need a new and pluralistic way of doing politics in a society that has the potential to shift very rapidly. We didn’t foresee the Liberal Democrat surge- but who on earth did other than apparently wildly optimistic Liberal Democrats? However, it really doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. Direct politics- and that is what the leaders’ debate is- can capture the public mood in unpredictable ways. That is what has happened.

This is a theme that was picked up eloquently by Newsnight’s Paul Mason yesterday. He probably takes the argument slightly too far but in essence he is right about the cultural conflict between Blackberry world and Iphone world. There is a large number of people- maybe even a fifth or so- who live lives that would have been unimaginable a decade ago. The whole way they work, interact, and inter-relate are different. Social bonds are different and more contingent for this cadre. They have found a political voice in Nick Clegg.

The problem though is who represents the voiceless third? That has increasingly been Labour’s difficulty as much of what might be viewed as its traditional base support has basically walked away from politics and is pretty disgruntled.

What this means in practice is that we are seeing the rise of the iphone generation in this election. But theirs is not a majority view- it’s a significant minority view and there are other significant minority views that are very different. And this is why we need a new politics. Britain is increasing socially and politically fragmented in my view. Majoritarian, two-party politics breaks down in that environment. Only pluralism makes a cohesive politics in a fragmented society possible.

But the problem is that Labour has to win in this system. And the real worry now is that Labour and the Liberal Democrats (plus Nats etc) combined in terms of seats won’t have a majority for fundamental political reform- and don’t forget there are some naysayers in Labour’s ranks too. The road to change won’t be easy. It may have to be become a popular movement for change. Get ready to march down Whitehall. Seriously.