Purnell takes an apparent swipe at Brown on child poverty and says Labour's backbench rebels are "entitled to do anything they want to"

There was a fascinating debate tonight, sponsored by the Evening Standard, about whether or not New Labour is doomed for defeat. James Purnell had drawn the short straw of being the Labour politician on the panel and in the circumstances he turned in a fine performance. But there were a couple of moments that caused the Kremlinologists in the room to draw breath. First he announced that the reason child poverty is not about to being eliminated is not, as the Tories argue, because big state solutions don’t work but because the money earmarked in recent Budgets for the task has been insufficient. Now, when you consider who has been Chancellor and then First Lord of the Treasury during this time one gets the impression that the Blairite Purnell was criticising Brown from the left. (This is the second time in a week that a leading Blairite has gone out of his way to demonstrate his belief in the powers of the state; Stephen Byers attacked Cameron in The Guardian on Thursday for not understanding that some progressive goals can only be achieved through state action. It is almost enough to make one wonder if there is a concerted effort by the Blairites to counter the depiction of them as crypto-Tories.)

Having had a seeming pop at Brown on child poverty, Purnell took a dig at Ed Balls on education policy. He sketched out a rather fine vision of the educational future in which academies are the norm. Within the Labour debate on education, this clearly lines Purnell up with Blair’s 2005 white paper which Balls was openly critical of. As education secretary, Balls has worked to put academies back under local authority control, going against the spirit of the Blair reforms.  

But the most interesting moment came when Anne McElvoy pressed him on whether those backbenchers who are calling for a leadership election should be criticised. Downing Street is reportedly encouraging ministers not to attack the rebels for fear of a backlash within the parliamentary party but Purnell’s response that they are “entitled to do anything they want to” verged on incitement.  Although to be fair, Purnell—perhaps realising what he had said—quickly stressed that he didn’t agree with what they were doing. 

Purnell’s troubles this evening showed how Labour has no hope of getting its message across until the leadership question is settled. At the moment everything else is obscured by it with the press trying to read between the lines of every utterance from a cabinet minister. This problem is compounded by the carefully chosen but ambiguous words of some ministers leaving the fourth estate with whole essays to read.