Robin Cook argues today that Labour need to return to traditional European social-democratic values if they are to enthuse their voters.
I find little to dispute in much of what he writes about strengthening the NHS and fighting child poverty and improving on the best of what the government has achieved. But there are a couple of expressions he used that leapt out of the page with giant question marks over them.
First, we believe a collectivist solution is always preferable to individualism.
Always? Do we really?
Second, we are committed to democratic procedures. One of the most brazen crimes of our era has been the theft of freedom by the right as their buzzword. Democracy was our value first.
Well, if the right has indeed ‘stolen’ freedom as their buzzword, perhaps we might ask who left the door wide open and allowed them to waltz in and take it away from under our noses?