New Labour’s community development work was all private-sector driven, consultation-tinged regeneration that was done to poor people rather than being controlled by them. I found it, on the whole, a massive waste of money.
We've got to reinterrogate our relationship with the EU on the movement of labour. The EU has gone from being a sort of pig farm subsidised bloc to the free movement of labour and capital. Britain is not an outpost of the UN. We have to put the people in this country first.
What I've learnt is when you walk into a family argument and people tell you it's about principle don't get involved. There is more to life than principles.
One of the crucial problems we have as a party is that we have brought our leadership in from much too narrow a group. Basically Oxbridge graduates, in particular economics graduates, politics graduates, social scientists and lawyers. We need to reconnect to working-class communities, we have to reconnect to ethnic minority communities and bring up real leaders from within the people we represent.
This conference has a very weird atmosphere – it’s a different atmosphere. It’s an atmosphere of a superannuated student union. They’ve just stayed in the student union through a lifetime. Until we have the maturity and generosity to have a genuine understanding of New Labour our growth will be stunted. The present criminalisation and demonisation of Blair doesn’t help us get to that place.