Returning to default mode

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One of the characteristics of Labour’s leadership contest in Wales is that, in an attempt to differentiate between themselves, the candidates have all been busy coming up with proposed new policies.  It’s a bit presidential in style, implying that policy is decided by the leader rather than by the party, and the differences aren’t all that enormous.  And in general, they seem to be tinkering at the edges of what the Assembly might or might not be able to do.  Still, many of the policies seem worthwhile enough.

It does, though, raise some questions in my own mind.  If they’re so full of interesting ideas for things that they could be doing, and given that Labour has been in power continuously for the whole of the Assembly’s near 20-year existence, why aren’t they already doing these things?  Why does it take the resignation of a leader before they even start to come up with their proposals? 

Labour’s ‘policy’ at Assembly elections to date has boiled down to two main items:

a)    We’re not the Tories, and

b)    Voting for anyone else will let the Tories in.

Sadly, whoever wins the leadership race, I suspect that the discussion of alternative policies will cease, and they’ll return to their default mode of depending simply on a slowly disappearing hatred of the Tories in the population at large.