Had it been up to me, I would have let Andy Burnham stand as Labour’s candidate for the Gorton and Denton by-election. It’s not because I’m a supporter of his, particularly, but because I am instinctively in favour of allowing people to put themselves forward in a democratic fashion. I didn’t sign the letter to Number 10 objecting to the decision, and you can understand the Prime Minister’s problem. After all, who would vote to spin out the machinations indefinitely?

Yet the episode still troubles me. Labour members and MPs dread the scale of the challenge facing the party, but we haven’t yet appreciated the true nature of the problem. The belief that the introduction of new personalities into the mix of government would ultimately resolve our country’s predicament is misplaced.

There are two things that personnel changes, in and of themselves, would not fix. The first is the fundamental challenge of governing itself. All future governments now face a set of trade-offs and deeply unpalatable choices. These arise out of long-term trends in the economy and society, and are made harder by an international order which is volatile, fragmented, and increasingly hostile. Growth is constrained, public services are brittle, and geopolitical shocks arrive faster than political systems can absorb them. A fresh face at the top is not the panacea some hope it will be.

The second problem is more self-inflicted. Labour has approached government as though it were primarily a matter of sensible decision-making and managerial stability. Those qualities count for something, but to govern without an overarching vision in a disorientating age is a profound mistake.

Ironically, pragmatism untethered from principle makes us look less, not more competent. If Labour now has a reputation for U-turns, it is because we have not clarified our convictions, nor decided which of them must take precedence when they come into conflict.

But it’s also about narrative. Our opponents are telling a clear story: Britain is broken; you have been shafted by a corrupt elite, the “uniparty”, or the 1%; the worst possible outcome is more of the same.  We are not fighting Reform or the Greens so much as we are fighting this story. And if we lose, it will not be because of who the people at the top are, but because the stories we offer don’t have the same power. That is why the most urgent questions are not personal but political: in a rapidly changing world, how does this government define and deliver a decent life for ordinary people?

Beyond “we need to do better”, I am struck by the dearth of thinking in politics. Successful movements have always found ways to counterbalance personality politics via the rich seam of ideas, most obviously with Thatcherism’s dependence on the work of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. There is no shortage of policy proposals circulating at any given moment, but what are they anchored to? There is a near-total absence of ideology, or even of deeper thinking, both about how to define the problems we face and how to judge which answers are the right ones.

Over decades, Britain’s economic model has concentrated wealth and decision-making in Westminster while weakening the institutions, such as local government and trade unions, that once gave people real agency over their lives. Growth on its own will not resolve this if it is delivered through the same extractive dynamics that produced stagnation and insecurity in the first place. A different approach would prioritise productive capacity over rent-seeking, reciprocity over atomisation, and contribution over consumption. It would rebuild domestic supply chains, devolve economic power, and re-embed markets within social obligation. One could call it a new socio-economic covenant.

Of course, Labour needs the right policies. But more than that, we need a story about dignity, belonging, and control — one capable of answering the claim that Britain is broken with something more substantial than managerial reassurance. Personnel change won’t cut it. This country requires a sense of direction, statecraft and a story that emerges from it. Until we develop that, the psychodrama will roll on.

---

David Smith is Labour MP for North Northumberland.

dsnorthnorth

---