Will New Labour survive a general election defeat?

Let’s assume that, as currently seems likely, the Labour party loses the next election by a fairly substantial margin. The question then is does Labour conclude that the best route back to power is trying to knock the Tories off the centre ground or tacking to the left.

As Matt notes, the temptation for a party after a heavy defeat is always to return to its ideological comfort zone—to imagine that a dose of the old religion will win back the public rather than just re-energising the faithful. Indeed, already the vast majority of prescriptions for how Brown can get back on track involve a significant shift leftward, a let Labour be Labour strategy. (Two honourable exceptions to this are Denis MacShane’s Telegraph piece urging the government to cut tax and spending and the article by Benjamin Wegg-Prosser, the former Mandelson and Blair staffer, in this week’s magazine.)

If Labour do decide to cast off the shackles of New Labour then that is good news for the Tories as I suspect that the public is not crying out for reheated socialism.