James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brown needs to serve up some policy beef to the electorate

One of the big puzzles of the Brown premiership is the complete absence of policy innovation. There was a belief among both Brown’s critics and supporters that he would wheel out a whole set of big ideas in his fist year in office. But now I doubt that most people could name off the top of their heads a genuinely innovative policy that he has championed as PM.

Rachel Sylvester, essential reading as always, turns her attention to this subject in her column today.  Having gone through the leadership’s policy submission to the Labour National Policy Forum, Sylvester writes that: “The only new policy that I could spot in more than a hundred pages was the suggestion that all schools should be sent a copy of Al Gore’s film on the environment, An Inconvenient Truth.”

Without new ideas, Brown is not going to be able to regain the initiative and Labour will drift to defeat.

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