Labour’s best chance for re-election lies in expressing support for an active state with social democratic values and avoiding the ideological vacuum of the Blue Labour movement and the Purple Book

Ed Miliband’s election as leader of the Labour party could be seen as a break from the technocratic New Labour project which disillusioned much of the party’s traditional support and took it away from its traditional values. In the first instalment of a three part series from across the political spectrum, Pete Redford argues that the party must embrace its social democratic roots and resist populist ‘Blue Labour’ ideology which threatens to roll back the state when it is needed most