Like a troubled sleeper trapped in a recurring dream, I seem fated to return time and time again to the problem of Labour in the South. Every time I wake I slip back and the nightmare starts again.

In 1992 we published ‘Winning In the South’ – more or less contemporaneously with Giles Radice’s more famed Fabian ‘Southern Discomfort’. It was written by the 10 Labour MPs, including Anne Campbell, in the Southern and eastern regions. The same number we have today.

In 1992 though, we had received 19% of the vote in the South East – in 2010 17.2%. In the South West we got 17.2% of the vote; this time 15%. And in the Eastern region our vote has fallen from 26.4% in 1992 to 20% this time.

In 1992 we controlled many councils in those three regions, crucially those covering most of out target seats. Today we have overall control in just 5 councils (albeit up from a year ago), and over 78 local councils have no Labour representation at all. Our local council strength reflected the years of Tory Government. We might hope to increase local representation in the years ahead.

But for those wanting an early return to government, the Labour Party is in a much more parlous state in the South and East than it was before the 1997 election. And if Clegg and Cameron get away with their plans to gerrymander constituencies, the next election will be even more heavily tilted towards seats in the southerly regions.

It is striking how two parts of Giles Radice’s analysis still ring true today.

Firstly, he set out how Labour had failed to win key voters whose support was vital to the election of a Labour Government.

Secondly he argued that working out how to regain support in the South should be the starting point for Labour’s recovery. Success with southern voters would bring the support we needed across the country.

Both those observations are true today.

Draw confidence from history: once the party faced up to the challenge, we applied Labour values and built a wining coalition. History doesn’t repeat itself in a simple way. Some responses will need to be different. But it can be done.

‘Winning in the South’ highlighted how in the 1992 election, some of Labour’s priorities seemed out of touch with many voters concerns. The 1992 manifesto had two pages on homelessness – and just two paragraphs on home ownership.

In the recent election we all again met voters who told us we didn’t speak for them anymore; we didn’t understand how they experienced or understood their lives.

There is some consensus about who deserted us in the largest numbers. Mori suggest that our support amongst C2s fell from (over 40% to just over 20%).

Party activist are more familiar today with the Mosaic data, which divides voters in a more complex set of interest groups. They tell a similar story – it was the Mosaic groups B (so-called happy families – or pretty pissed off families as we found them) and C (suburban comfort – or suburban disgruntled) who turned against us most strongly.

(If by the way, you want a good illustration of the significance of the demographic groups, you need only look at my seat – where there was a swing against Labour of over 10% and Southampton Test, where the swing was a little over 6%. Two seats in the same city – so no regional or even sub-regional differences, two long serving MPs, and similar levels of voter contact over each of the past ten years. If you discount the obviously wrongheaded conclusion that Alan Whitehead is simply more popular than me, the clearest explanation is the far higher proportion of Mosaic Bs and Cs in may seat than in Test.)

And there is a strong agreement about the issues that were raised on the doorstep.

My take on this was set out in a note to Peter Mandelson sent at the end of the first week of the campaign based on my conversations with former Labour voters who were deeply resistant to voting for us again.

These are families who regard themselves as hardworking, aspirational, but not well-rewarded. They are usually both working, on average wages, so with a combined income which takes them above tax credits (total household income 40-60k).

They are likely to rely on their cars and may have to pay for their own car use at work.

They give us credit for improving public services – indeed they may work in them. But in their view they ‘get nothing’ from the government, while other people who work less hard, or don’t deserve help (including migrants) get help with housing, council tax, tax credits.

In the last year they may have lost work, or had hours cut. But because their partner works they got no help when they needed it’ unlike those who don’t work so hard.
They want their kids to get on (and they will) but child care is expensive, university is expensive and apprenticeships hard to come by.

They are not racist, but they can’t see why we give benefits and housing to Polish migrants (as we do) when families like theirs are struggling.

Our future offer does not include them. If they work in the public or private sector all they can see if wage cuts and job losses.

They may not like the Tories much, but it is hard to see how a change could be worse.

There is agreement about some common issues raised in the election, the results were strikingly complex. Of course, the election was not only lost in the South.

There were marked difference both regionally and nationally; and between apparently similar seats. BME voters were much more loyal to Labour. It is clear the Scotland experienced an almost entirely different election – described to me by one seasoned Labour campaigner as three parties competing to be most opposed to Thatcherism.

Observers have presented different grouping of key seats. The motorway man’ seats. The West Coast Mainline marginals. The free-standing smaller towns. The post-industrial heartlands.

All current post-election analyses,, including this one, need a health warning: for most sweeping conclusions we can find counter-arguments, or at least inconvenient facts which appear to challenge the assumptions we might make

But I think one conclusion stands out. The more we dig into the detail of the different voting patterns of different groups of voters, the more we can see the futility of attempting to respond by an equally divided and segmented appeal to each group.

In the 1990s New Labour rejected that approach. We adopted a different approach. A clear set of values that we promoted to all voters. A set of values that united our coalition around common interests. Not different message for different people.

It was only in government that we moved away from this approach and made the fatal choice:

To have different messages for different media and different audiences based on a perception of narrow sectional concerns. It ultimately undermined our coalition; encouraging each to look only at their own self-interest.

Our response today must avoid that mistake. We need a case for Labour based on our values. It must, of course, meet the needs of those who rejected us. But it must not be a narrow or sectional appeal.

I will look at the election from a southern perspective. The geographical south – as a place – and the political south – those constituencies, communities and voters whose experience of the past 13 years may have more in common with southern constituencies than they do with other constituencies in their own region.

Did Labour fail the South? No we did not.

I told the Fabian two years ago, that there is not a single constituency in the south – however meagre its Labour vote – which did not do better over the past 13 years than it would have done under either of the Coalition partners. And there is not a single constituency that would not have done better in the future had Labour won the election and remained in power.

We don’t need to trash our own achievements or history to have a level headed assessment of what we might have done differently or done better.

Does the South need Labour and its social democratic ideals and values?

After all, if you take that broad swathe of England to the south and east of the Severn-Wash line – it would – as an independent country – be one of the wealthiest economies in the world. Do countries get to a point where the level of incomes, the standards of living simply take them beyond the need for social democracy?

Does Labour’s core value – that we all do better for ourselves and our families in a society where we look out for each other – lose its appeal and lose its resonance?

The answer must be no.

For the south is still an unequal society. The gap between rich and poor is greater in the south than in the rest of the UK and as great as the inequalities which exist between regions. For the vast majority, the need for health and social care, for good schools, for good policing and strong communities, for a sustainable environment, remain needs that can only be satisfied, for the great majority, by collective provision.

Don’t let us believe that we do not belong here, or that we have nothing to say.

Even more important – we must challenge anyone in our party who thinks even subconsciously that the South is peripheral to Labour’s real concerns and interests.

Perhaps the greatest danger to the Party in opposition is that the centre of gravity of party thinking settles on the concerns of the areas where we did win; and not in those where we lost.

Let’s do the opposite; let’s imagine we did live in Southland; let’s ask how we would win a Labour majority of the 200+ seats in Southland, instead of the 10 we have today. And then we would start to win.

Because the case for Labour’s social democratic approach in the south will grow even stronger in the uncertain and difficult times ahead. Only our values can offer some security and certainty, enable aspirations to be met and good services delivered.

Most of our problems have arisen when we have not pursued our values as resolutely and clearly as we might have done.

There’s a certain weary and part justified cynicism when ex-Cabinet ministers make arguments now that were not so clearly heard in office.

But there was a developing critique of where we were going a long time before the election.

In 2006 I was one of a group of Labour MPs who published a pamphlet called re-building the coalition. It included other southern MPs like Alan Whitehead and Martin Salter.

It made little impact at the time.

But its core analysis bears repeating today.

‘Britain faces powerful economic and social forces at home and abroad. Unchallenged each will make our society less fair, more unequal and more divided; their power will feed out sense of insecurity. In a vicious circle, the more divided we become the less able we will be to manage those forces and regain a sense of security. Labour’s core value – that only by working together can we all do better as individuals and families – still provides the best answer.

Does that not ring true? Post banking crisis and credit crunch people are perhaps more prepared to day to accept that personal, family, community and national insecurity are inherent in the globalised world in which we now live.

And, if we make our case well, the recovery from defeat will be based around the strength of Labour’s values providing security in an uncertain world.

What did the impact of those powerful global forces mean for the lives of the people we asked to vote for us? And how did Labour’s response match up?

In Government, Labour set out to tackle poverty and unfairness in the workplace through the minimum wage and tax credits. It had a huge impact on the incomes of many individuals and families.

As a Government, we argued that poverty was relative not just absolute.

But a national minimum wage and national tax credits mean that the relative impact of these measures is weaker in the south – where average wages and living costs are higher - than in other parts of the country. Family tax credit is worth 27% of gross median earnings in the South East; 33.5% in the North West.

It also meant that a smaller proportion of the workforce gained from these measures (and had a vested interest in keeping them). 43 families in every 1000 working families claim family tax credit in the South East but 70 do in the North East and North West.

In the South there’s a larger pool of people who don’t feel well off, but who don’t qualify; who are more likely to look over their shoulders at those getting benefits and asking why. Let’s remember that, outside of London, it is London commuters – key to many southern marginals – who have living costs 17% higher than the national average. And that it is the south east, south west and east anglia that have the next highest living costs.

In one of the most powerful post election analyses, Liam Byrne has highlighted how about 8 million workers have seen stagnating living standards, not just in the recession, but for about four years. Disposable income grew by an average of 22% in the 12 years to 2008, but as the FT reported ‘more recently incomes have grown a paltry 1.2% between 2005 and 2008; and of course private sector earnings fell in the recession with higher than average inflation. About a third of workers are in the slow wage growth sectors of the economy who face falling progressively behind then rest even in good times.

This suggests – though it needs more analysis – that in the south there were a larger group of voters who felt their own lives were not going forward but who resented the support given to those who they saw as not working as hard.

Although our response to the recession hastened the speed people got back into work, and kept unemployment lower than in previous recessions, for many the experience simply increased their resentment against those who lived on benefit. And remember, more people experienced a period on JSA during the depths of the recession in the South East than in Scotland, Yorkshire or the north East.

Liam’s work also stresses that we will not get these voters back by simply understanding them better, or by talking to them more sympathetically. Something real has happened to their lives; their dissatisfaction was justified, and we will only regain their support if we respond with real solutions.

Let me highlight three areas where we need to respond.

Firstly, the approach to economic policy which saw us successfully through out first years in government is no longer up the demands of an insecure global world.

For a long time it was possible to produce jobs, and the wealth for redistribution, by running a pretty liberal free market economy and spending the proceeds.

That strategy is no longer available. In the end it produced an unbalanced economy. The very flexible labour markets which generated jobs, and which were often integral to public service reform, also created the labour market in which Liam’s millions find working life more insure and less rewarding. And for some time to come, the resources for either services or redistribution will be hard to come by.

To meet the needs of southern voters – and those in other parts of the country – we will need more radical action. We will need a more active state, to restructure and support a successful economy, not less. We will need to look again at how labour markets can combine flexibility with greater fairness; and we will need to take a fresh look at how collectively owned institutions – from pension funds to mutuals – have a value measure in more than sheer economic efficiency; a value measures in the security and in depends they give to their owners.

The southern economy, in particular, has benefited from, and continues to need that active state. It has a higher skilled, higher valued added economy, it is, increasingly the manufacturing centre and has many of the countries strongest innovation clusters.

The idea, promoted by the Cameron and Cable that investment in higher education, in R and D tax credits, and the rest of the innovation system is harmful is one of the damaging, anti-south policies we could imagine.

The active state that is essential to support successful market companies must also look again at fairness in the workplace. For, as we’ve seen in the south as elsewhere, overall economic growth and even job creation mean little if the rewards of work are limited and unfair and the jobs can only be filled by migration.

The second area where we need to respond is the structure of the welfare state.

I believe passionately that our society is too unequal. The evidence is pretty clear that we can only achieve the type of healthy, well educated, secure and happy society we want if our society also becomes less unequal.

But not everything which makes us more equal is necessarily seen as fair.

In the last year, the Fabian/Rowntree research established beyond doubt that British people have a strong and deep sense of fairness. But it is a robust, common sense view of fairness; one that says that responsibility and hard work should be rewarded; that what you put in should be reflected in what you get out. Yes, we should always look after those who need most help, but effort and responsibility should be clearly recognised.

This is a reciprocal view of fairness. It is a long way from the distributional – give more to those who need it most – deeply embedded in Labour thinking.
In the past few months the IPPR has proposed taxing child benefit for those who did not vote for us in the election. Demos proposed sharpening the taper on tax credits for the same people. Both organisations wanted to deliver more help to the poorest. But both approaches simply sharp the cliff edge between those who get help and those who feel they get nothing.

How many times on the doorstep did we hear; it seems so unfair; we work so hard yet people who don’t seem to get everything?

Again, this argument was not something we only heard in the past year. I set out much of it for Prospect in the Fairness Code in 2004. But the truth is while we increasingly to talked the language of fairness we never really considered the changes to policy that would have reflected a common sense, reciprocal sense of fairness.

This failure to entrench a popular sense of fair play compounded our problems with migration. For all the tightening we did on migration from outside the EU, the main issue – as Mrs Duffy pointed out – was EU migration. And we never did explain why child benefit or tax credits could be paid on children who had and never would live here and whose parents had made only the most marginal contribution in the way our taxes. Or why homelessness rules designed for those in real housing need could be used by people who had left their own secure homes for purely economic reasons.

We had of course made the benefits system for those out of work both more demanding and more supportive than we inherited 13 years ago. Our manifesto commitments on requiring people to work were essentially the same as the Tories. But it was symptomatic of our fatal lack of confidence in this agenda that we barely mentioned it in the campaign.

So we need to address four issues.

Firstly, to ensure that what we do provide is as generous in the south as elsewhere; which means exploring how the relative value of tax credits and the minimum wage can be as great in the south as elsewhere.

Secondly, we need to recognise that human beings to respond to the incentives in the system. We must be hard headed about reviewing rules – like those on homelessness or family support – which encourage gaining of the system or which seem to give greater reward to those who have built up few entitlement.

Third, we must acknowledge how unfair are seen arbitrary limits on who gets extra support, whether with our trust funds, EMA or free computers. But there are limits to the politics and morality of making the existing system tougher; of creating more losers rather than more gainers. If such a heavy dependence on means-testing inevitably fuels the resentment of those excluded we must create something different. And however hard it may seem in the current economic climate, I believe we have no alternative but to set out on the long-term journey to create once again a system of wide social insurance, on which security and support reflect the contribution made.

We may not have the chance even to start this for several years. But this is where the energies of some of our best think tanks should be deployed.

The third area we need to look at examine is the deal that the south itself gets.

It is, of course, not true that Labour rigged the system to transfer money from Conservative southern public services to Labour heartlands of the north. The system for allocating resources was objective, prioritised need and deprivation.

But is it a coincidence that the surprisingly good Labour results in London came in the city region which has the highest public spending per head – around £9500 per head - of any part of the UK other than Northern Ireland. Or that Labour’s poorest results were in the regions with the lowest public spending per head – in the South, East, East, East Midlands and South West, spending per head is between £7,000 and £7,500 per head.

According to Oxford Economics, only three regions of the UK produce more tax revenue than is spent in them: London, the South East and the Eastern Region.

In short, in terms of tax paid and tax spend received, the northern regions, Wales and Scotland feel a lot more like Scandinavia than do the southerly regions.

This is a difficult issue to raise. Not least when we know that the right wing coalition is planning to make the northern regions and the devolved nations pay the brunt of their plans to cut the deficit too early and unfairly.

I will have no part on endorsing, legitimising or condoning that policy. Both the inherent needs of those regions and nations, and the state of their regional economies mean that such a short term policy will have disastrous social and economic consequences.

But, in time, when the deficit is reduced, and growth is firmly established – and it may take another Labour Government to do both – I will argue that the south needs to keep enough of its tax revenues to ensure that we have the resources to tackle the inequality, absolute and relative, within the South. And that the south needs to retain sufficient of its tax revenues to secure the active government support for R and D, innovation and a high value added economy on which the wealth of the whole nation depends.

And given that the drive for additional funding to the most deprived regions is to close the gaps in health, child poverty and economic performance we need to find ways of ensuring that the additional investment doe narrow those gaps and not simply cushion the running of revenue based services.

For much of the next few years, we will be pre-occupied in challenging the way the Tories will use the deficit as an excuse for an ideologically inspired demolition of support for public services and taking away the vital support of active government for a stronger economy. But as we prepare for Government again we will need to ask what a new fair deal for the southern regions will look like.

As part of our commitment to localism and accountable local leadership of public service reform – which we deepened considerably over the past year – we must also let the south take its own choices. Housing was often raised in the election. We actually spent over £40bn on social housing; but the great bulk was spent renewing the social housing stock. While this brought huge benefits, including to my own constituents, few southern councils ten years ago would have set the same balance between stock renewable and new build. It was national programme based on a regional understanding of the problem.

Though the issues I’ve discussed have been primarily economic in focus, both my analysis and my prescriptions have been based strongly on values: on Labour’s values and on the value – of fairness in particular – strongly held in popular culture.

Labour’s fight back must not neglect the cultural issues either. Our main problem is an English problem. We lost seats in the south and in other English regions too.

But we’ve been very reluctant to talk about England, or to recognise the real and growing interest in English identity.

As candidates we could download PDFs for our campaign material. You could download material for Scottish Labour, and for Welsh Labour. But if you were English you could only download Labour, or British Labour material.

At CLG I developed a modest proposal for the Government to support, nationally, the growing trend to hold local, inclusive, celebrations of St George’s Day. I wanted to reflect this popular movement; but also to ensure that the English identity did not slip back – faced with the thugs of the EDL – into a narrow and racist identity.

The proposals went right across Government; but was vetoed just before its launch by Downing Street who were concerned it would cause problems north of the border.

It may seem a small point; but to meet the inability to hear conversations going on in our constituencies was all to redolent of the bigger problems of being out of touch that the election was to reveal.

National identity – both English and British will be essential to a progressive future.

The challenge of reshaping our economy, rebuilding the welfare state, and the many other challenges I haven’t raised tonight, requires more than offering the best deal to each individual family. It will require a common sense of purpose, a progressive, national and patriotic story in which the English have a full part to play.

We cannot rebuild Labour in the south without the values based approach to policy I’ve tried to outline. But we will need to do more, and let me end on some of our immediate priorities.

The first is to create the type of campaigning party, and social and labour movement which is campaigning effectively both against the right wing coalition and for positive change that Ed Miliband has set out in his campaign.

But given the state of Labour in the south, we also need to give purpose to Labour supporters everywhere.

As a lifelong electoral reformer, I’ve always cautioned against seeing electoral reform as a simple solution to our southern problems. But there is no doubt that we will gain hugely from a change in the electoral system for the Commons and a House of Lords elected, proportionately, on a regional basis.

We need to back and win any referendum on AV and a democratic House of Lords to give purpose to voting Labour everywhere.

And we need to respond to the coalition by denying the claim of the liberal Democrats to be a progressive alternative to the Tories. We know, most of us, that there are plenty of progressives in the Liberal Democrats. But so long as they sustain the coalition Labour must campaign, without quarter, to destroy the progressive mandate. There must be no hiding place for those who campaigned against the Tories and who now sustain them in power.

That’s my case.

Labour’s values are as relevant to the South as anywhere else and needed more urgently...

We need to change and develop our economic and social policies to meet the needs of the South and the deep sense of fairness and security people want.

We need to reflect a strong national and progressive case for England as well as for Britain.

We need to be at the forefront of democratic change.

And we need to win the right to be regarded as the progressive party in every corner of the South.

Speech to the Fabian Society by Rt Hon John Denham MP, Tuesday 8th June 2010

Thank you for your email about the levels of spending in Scotland and Wales compared to England. As you may know, the distribution of central government funds to different parts of the United Kingdom is based on the Barnett formula which was established in the 1970s. The idea behind the formula was to reflect the underlying needs of the different countries (factors including the sparseness of the population in remote Highland areas which is experience to service). Within a formula there would be a gradual reduction of difference in spending between England and the other countries. The formula has been in operation for nearly 30 years now and does have the effect that increases in spending in England are not fully reflected in Scotland and Wales.

It can be argued that the formula is no longer appropriate, given the way that different regions in England and parts of Wales and Scotland have developed but no one has yet come up with a satisfactory alternative approach.

With regard to the Westminster Parliament, it is certainly true that Scottish MPs are able to vote on matters which purely affect England. Of course for a long period of time English MPs voted on matters which purely affected Scotland. At least in the current parliament the vast majority of MPs voting on English matters are elected from English constituencies.

The justification for the current situation is that the Westminster Parliament reached a decision to distribute powers between Westminster, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly in the way that currently exists.

My personal view is that this will not last long as a long term constitutional settlement because there are bound to be some issues on which the anomaly appears to be a significant problem.

I am not persuaded that the answer is an English Parliament. It may be that the greater devolution of powers to major city regions would be a more acceptable alternative. However this is all very unclear and with the rejection of an elected regional assembly in the North East, I have to admit that the constitutional way forward is not entirely clear.

On St Patrick's Day the Prime Minister addressed a St Patrick's Day recption at the House of Lords and spoke warmly of Ireland's positive contribution to both the United Kingdom and the World.

I am so grateful to all of you here today for your contribution to the life of our country, the contribution in sports, in arts, in entertainment, in culture, in business, in literature, in education and in politics. I thank you all for what you do for our country and thank you all for the contribution you make to our culture.

Previously Gordon Brown has marked St Andrew's Day in a similar fashion:

In arts, business, sport, charity, literature, media, public life and public services, the Scottish presence is felt at every level. Scots at home and abroad can be justly proud of the poet's boast: "Wha's like us?" It is precisely because the Scottish people have a distinctive identity that I am such a fierce supporter of devolution.

And Gordon Brown was fulsome in his praise for Wales on St David's Day:

In the arts, you continue to punch above your weight, not least as home to some of our most successful television programmes -’Doctor Who’ and the outstanding ‘Gavin and Stacey’. Today we pay tribute to all those in film, music, television and the arts who fly the flag for Wales.

So too do we recognise the achievements of your sportsmen and women, especially your rugby heroes and the UK’s Sports Personality of the Year, Ryan Giggs. Wales shone as host to the Ashes last summer, and I know it will once again when the eyes of the sporting world focus on the Ryder Cup in Newport this October.

In this election year St George's Day will fall two weeks before the likely general election date. Do you think Gordon Brown will make some form of St George's Day address?

Or, instead, will one of his English ministers like John Denham or Ben Bradshaw say something to mark St George's Day (John Denham recently revealed that he and Ben Bradshaw had been talking about the possibility of a 'cultural festival celebrating Englishness')?

Tonight I want to discuss England and Englishness.

And how we develop and celebrate a modern English identity.

And I want to do this from a particular point of view: from a political centre-left perspective.

It’s quite a long time, thank goodness, since it was the discussion of identity was outside polite political debate on the left.

But still important to set the context in which we look at identity.

Because I do think that the centre left should have a particular view on the nature and importance of identity; and I do think there are particular reasons why the centre left should take the issue seriously.

Politics is very much about who we are – as individuals, families and a society.

For all the effort poured into dividing lines about this or that piece of detailed or technical policy, the next election will be determined by which party has the most convincing story about our society and our country.

Who has the most convincing tale about where we have come from: and the most positive and optimistic story about where we go next.

These stories work because we have a sense of who we are; what our society represents.

Put a different way, people ask politicians to pass the ‘people like us’ test. Would this person, in power, and faced with an unexpected decision do what I would want them to do.

Again, in part the answer will be determined by voter’s sense of their character, and their policy instincts. But in part by their sense of identity. Is this someone I can identify with?

So the politics of identity is central to politics itself.

Any politics which does not concern itself with who we think we are is not likely to be as successful as it could be.

At its worst, though, the politics of identity can be collapsed into crude flag wrapping. Politician cloaking themselves in a national banner. Or to identify themselves as representing the national interest. We saw a particularly uncomfortable and unsettling version of that in Brighton on Sunday,

For the left, this can never do. A deep sense of patriotism and national allegiance does not and cannot blind us to the ambiguities we find in many national stories. A sense of Britishness derived solely from attitudes which were widely held in the British past would make uncomfortable reading today. National pride was intertwined with a sense of racial superiority which no decent person would contemplate today.

This recognition tends to divide left from right. The right tends to see national identity as a historical given; something to be discovered in our history.

The left, by contrast, prefers a sense of national identity which is constantly being told and re-told for changing times. One in which each generation can make its own new contribution.

That process, for us, is not only inevitable; it is desirable and necessary.

It does not reject history, Indeed it draws heavily on it. But it is inclusive, bringing in the history of all of those who now wish to share this identity. It understand that common identity is best developed through shared experience. It strengthens and brings cohesion to our society. Allowing us to enjoy the strength which comes from sharing a common story.

Two of the most potent stories in our history are of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain. They speak deeply of two traits in both the British and the English national stories – the heroic national defeat; and standing alone against the world.

They are not, in my view, undermined by the more recent recognition that 2 and half million volunteers from the Indian Sub-Continent fought and were prepared to die in the Imperial armed forces in the Second World War. Rather, they are a new addition to the story of how our current freedom was won. It makes the family history many of today’s British Asian population a personal part of the national history in a new and richer way that many had realised before.

So for the left, the process of developing and celebrating a national identity is not passive; it is not one of research and discovery. But a living process; one which can be consciously shaped. One in which there are choices to be made.

As I shall argue a little later, the English national identity is the most neglected of the national identities of these islands. Less developed, and having had less effort invested in it, not only that of the national stories – most recently of Wales and Scotland – but also in the nationally focussed or nationally derived identities many of Britain’s newer communities.

This neglect is increasingly becoming a point of contention. One which we need to address.

But before developing that point, there are a couple of other diversions I want to make on this rather discursive preamble to Englishness itself.

You may have noticed that in the last few paragraphs I have referred both to British and English stories, and to nationally focused stories – like say British Bangladeshis – enjoyed by newer minority communities.

What this emphasises, of course, is that most of us are comfortable with multiple identities. It is quite possible to be English and British, to be a British Bangladeshi, or, as with my colleague Shahid Malik, a British Pakistani whose primary identity is English.

For the centre-left, identity is not about forcing a choice between competing identities, but enabling and encouraging people to be comfortable with a number of different identities if that’s how we chose to identify ourselves.

Of equal importance for the centre-left is our insistence on recognising people’s right to enjoy the identity people chose for themselves. We do not impose a ‘cricket test’.

Is there a contradiction here? Between recognising, encouraging and allowing multiple identities and the idea of a conscious, activist programme of developing a national identity – whether English or British?

Some would argue that once you recognise multiple identities, you enter a world of identity relativism – where because all identities are allowed, none should in any way be promoted or implicitly or explicitly favoured.

I don’t agree. That identity relativism turned out to the Achilles heel of one of Britain’s great social innovations, a real achievement – multiculturalism - which we, nonetheless, now have to re-assess. The problem of multi-culturalism was not its insistence on respect for those of different cultures, or of their freedoms to express themselves as they wish: it was the neglect of the glue that binds us together; it was the failure to recognise a multi-cultural society can only work if there is equal engagement and activity in building and developing shared values and the framework of a shared identity which enables us to be multicultural within a cohesive society.

So being relaxed about multiple identities, and multiple national identities, does not mean that it is not important to invest energy in developing a shared story of Britishness; and for those within England, a shared English identity. Not required, not compulsory, but shared as widely as possible.

My final diversion is to consider the role that national identities play in progressive politics.

As Gordon Brown has frequently said ‘This is a progressive era’.

Not that our era is automatically progressive; that people will unquestionably turn to progressive politics.

But that the challenges we face today, with global economic instability, climate change, the impact on personal risk and insecurity, the need for personal opportunity – all these factors require the a progressive philosophy an progressive policies.

In particular recognition that pursing the common good, working with active government is the only was to achieve what we need.

The art of turning the need for progressive politics into popular politics depends in embedding the progressive case in a particular time and case.

In other words, the case for progressive politics means very little as an abstract argument about values. It takes roots- indeed it only comes to life – if rooted in a story about how people with a common identity understand their history and their future.

Labour’s case for progressive politics must be more than simply saying – we are progressive, we have the right answers, choose us.

Labour’s case for progressive politics must be a way of saying that we are a vehicle through which the people of this country choose to take their country in a progressive direction.

Seen like this the 1997 election victory was not about Labour winning but about the people of Britain choosing to put behind them the selfishness, the neglect of the public realm, the abandonment of the public good which had characterised the Tories: and the people of Britain choosing to prioritise public services, the common good, the idea that we and our families would all do better in a society in which we all looked out for each other.

Seen like this, the choice for the next election is not about choosing Labour against the Tories, but about whether the people of this country choose to again to defend and recreate the public realm.

Whether we the people choose to put our national effort into re-shaping our economy. To rebuild consciously and deliberately an economy for the 21st century that is better balanced than in the past.

Whether we the people want to ensure that fairness will govern hard choices.

And whether we the people want to be confident that the internationalisms which is essential in the modern world is rooted in our national interest.

Labour’s message will work to the extent to which it is seen as the expression of a progressive politics, yes. But of a progressive politics which is at the same time, national, progressive and patriotic. About us and about the sort of country we want to be.

So identity politics will be one part of that national progressive and patriotic message for the coming general election.

But if it is, who is the ‘we’ that is the focus of a national progressive and patriotic politics.

At the most obvious, it is the people of Britain, the British people.

That umbrella identity is key to Labour’s view of Britain’s future. And there are many ways in which Britain, the Britishness, British values, British history and Britain’s future are the best way of expressing a national, progressive and patriotic message.

But it is not enough.

Labour introduced the devolution settlement because we recognised that within our commitment to the union and our commitment to Britain, it was right, desirable and necessary, to give real constitutional expression to the people of Wales and Scotland. Not because we wanted to undermine the union but because we believed that the union would be strengthened if national identity and national autonomy were recognised within the union.

That has been shown to be the right judgement.

But it leaves the question of where England and Englishness sits within any progressive, national and patriotic politics.

The case for Scottish and Welsh devolution recognised the positing of smaller nations within a political system which through sheer size England dominates within the overall politics of an unresolved union. That size means that there is no constitutional imperative for similar constitutional change.

But it does leave unresolved whether and how Englishness can and should be expressed within our national politics

The 2008 British Social Attitudes report found that people in England are substantially less likely to define themselves as British and more likely to assert an English identity than 15 years ago.

The British Social Attitudes survey has also asked people how they feel about the cross of St George.

Four out of five of the English population say that they feel a strong sense of belonging to England.

A wide range of surveys have found that people in England are more likely to see themselves as English than British – with many identifying as both.

Indeed, in recent years, I think we can point to three main trends in the development of interest in – and in the meaning of – Englishness.

First, there has been the rise in interest in Englishness itself.

I think there are two drivers of this.

The first is undoubtedly the success of the devolution settlement. Having spent almost my entire live living within a mile or two of the south coast of England I have never sought to pontificate on matters Scottish – though I do welcome the signs of the powerful support in Scotland for Labour’s belief that the best settlement is strong devolution within a strong union, and a rejection of separatism.

But I do know how things seem south of the border, or east of Wales. There is, beyond doubt, some envy for those who are able to express both their British identity and their Welsh or Scottish identity. Those who feel English ask increasingly whether their dual identity has a similar legitimacy.

The second driver is the recognition that some members of ethnic minority communities also express confidence in their dual identity, British and an identity of their community, related to the country of origin of them or increasingly their parents and grandparents. Where they ask, does this leave those who want to say we are English?

But if these have been the drivers of interest in Englishness, there have also been other significant changes. Not least in the idea – politically and culturally – of what it means to be English.

This summer during the World Cup, many English people of all ethnic origins will fly the St George’s Cross with pride. It was not always the case.

As Morrissey sang in Irish Blood, English heart ‘I’ve been dreaming of a time when to be English is not to be baneful: to be standing by the flag not feeling shameful, racist or partial’.

In the 1970s and 1980s many English people did not want to fly the flag for fear of being identified as a white nationalist racist. It is generally agreed that it was during the Euro 96 football tournament that this changed. That the flag was regained for everyone. This did not just happen, there was a concerted effort to regain our national flag for all our support and value our nation.

Today, few people who support our national teams in football, rugby, cricket, hockey or numerous other sports either expect or want to support an all white team. Today, Englishness is no longer a statement of ethnic identity but a shared identity of all those who feel English, whatever their identity and want to express their support for it.

In truth, of course, this change in public attitude is no more than bringing sentiment into line with history. Throughout the centuries, the English have been a polyglot nation, forever refreshed and developed through new people and new influences. We love our history, but we know it is not pure. Of the millions in the West Midlands who proudly want the Mercian treasure hoard to stay there, how many could honestly claim a pure Mercian ancestry. It doesn’t really matter.

This is all good news for those who want Englishness to be a progressive national identity.

But there is a discernable third trend which we cannot dismiss or ignore. As Britishness has become established as a genuinely multi-ethnic identity, there are some who now seen an ethnic Englishness as the best way of resisting our diverse modern society.

In the last year we have seen the viciously anti Islamic English Defence League play to that idea. No one who has read my public statements about the EDL will be in any doubt about my rejection of their politics. It is though interesting that in their public statements – albeit entirely denied by their public actions – that they claim to represent a non-racist view of Englishness. A forced concession to the wider changes that have taken place.

The fear must be, however, that without positive action designed to promote a positive, modern and inclusive notion of Englishness, the idea of Englishness could once again slip back into a racist and ethnically defined view of what it is to be English.

Pride in Englishness is shared widely across English society, in all social classes. The story of English identity over the past 20 years has been predominantly positive and forward looking.

But in my work at CLG I have highlighted in the past year the position of some of the established white working class communities who have seen great social and economic change, including in some areas the impact of significant migration, who do ask who speaks for us. Despite the demonstrable investment in public services, housing and neighbourhood improvement in ‘those areas, there is a still disconnect between what those of us in government believe we have delivered and the extent to which they feel they have a voice, or that their concerns are being addressed. The £20m a year connecting communities initiative is working with local authorities to ensure that these communities do not remain feeling that there are not listened to. But this is not a short term fix but something that needs to be sustained for years to come.

One thing that could undermine this work is a retreat into a narrow and defensive view of ‘the rights of the English.’

I said earlier, that the notion of Englishness is the least well-developed of our national identities. I think the pressing challenge is to promote actively a positive English cultural identity.

As Billy Bragg has written ‘what we lack is a confidence, not so much about who we are, more about whether it’s OK to celebrate being English. We need to stop being embarrassed about our home and find a way to celebrate the things about it we love – both to respect the locals and to build bridges with newcomers’.

To do this, we need to generate powerful new ways of bringing people together to celebrate their Englishness.

Ways which go beyond the purely historical. Too often, celebrations of Englishness are entirely rooted in history and focus wholly on the past.

This isn’t true of celebrations of St Andrew or St Patrick’s Day – they are about what it means to be Irish or Scottish in today’s world – and are celebrations that people around the world want to join in with.

I would suggest that the starting point should be to develop the festival of St Georges Day itself.

Actually bit by bit, this has been developing in cities, towns and villages across the country.

And nothing I’m saying today means that I think people need to be told to celebrate Englishness, let alone been given permission to do so. Patently y they don’t.

But there are ways in which government could work with the grain of what English people are already doing. Helping give a shape and focus to a national day of celebrations.

It would St George’s Day a celebration of a modern inclusive Englishness within the wider Britain.

This would give us an opportunity to mark key developments in our culture as well as our history and heritage, and to promote its international identity and contribution.

But more importantly it would give us the opportunity to promote a sense of unity and belonging – a sense of English identity which can be claimed by the majority who want to be welcoming, neighbourly and friendly.

A chance to celebrate what we can be proud of and what we have in common, enriched by our differences as well as shared values and shared experiences.

There are many aspects of Englishness which we should be proud of. The English language and our great writers. Our tradition of philanthropy and past and present campaigners for social change. Our role in inventing or codifying much of modern sport and our national sporting heroes who come from all communities and all parts of the world.

And the strand of radicalism in English thought – I will return to this later.

Above all, these celebrations will need to be inclusive. Inclusive in terms of age, interests and accessibility of course. But also inclusive in terms of ethnicity.

Take the Out of Many – One England Festival in Sparkbrook Birmingham, held to celebrate St Georges Day and which brought together people from across of minority ethnic and white British communities and from rural and urban England.

Leicester plans to run a three day festival over St Georges Day weekend which looks at England’s contribution to literature: in later years they may look at sport, science of politics.

I have not been able to identify another country in the world which does not have a day to celebrate its national identity. Some have a national holiday, others a body to run a national festival or celebration.

Some countries encourage schools to participate, or recognise the achievements of its citizens. All encourage the use of symbols – flag flying, the use of national colours or the wearing of national emblems.

Many have parades, national sporting or musical events, celebrations of national writers and literature and other cultural events.

I believe it is time to looks seriously at what we in England can learn and take from these international examples. Not all will be appropriate for our particular context, and local areas should be the ones to take decisions about how St George’s Day is celebrated.

I think we have the model. Last year we supported a highly successful Inter-Faith Week. Again, people of faith don’t need government to tell them to be faithful, nor to work together. But by supporting a national steering group and a couple of major national events, and by supporting similar approaches at regional level, we provided the framework for an astonishing and diverse range of local and national activities.

We could do the same for St George’s Day.

And we probably should not stop there. Ben Bradshaw and I have been talking about the World Cup and the possibility of a wider cultural festival celebrating Englishness at a time when the nation will focus on our football team. And perhaps we should look ahead – to other sporting events – like the Rugby World cup – and coming cultural events to se the opportunities to celebrate a diminish of Englishness.

And let me end on one last thought about why this should be a project for the centre-left.

Our English history is not all maypoles and Morris dancers. Nor is it simply the somewhat Eeyoorish observation of George Orwell that it is somehow bound up with solid breakfasts and gloomy Sundays.

It is the history of English radicalism too. The Making of the English Working Class shaped many a student radical of my generation. My part of the country gave birth to the Tolpuddle Martyrs and Captain Swing. It is the history of the cooperative movement. Our English history is the history of a people who embraced and defended and married migrants as often as we resisted them.

If we need a national progressive and patriotic politics today, we should not be shy of making our history an ally.

Smith Institute Election 2010 Lecture by John Denham MP, delivered 2nd March 2010 in Committee Room 8, at the House of Commons.