Group of Blairite MPs urge Brown to cuts taxes and be bolder

The Blairites are on the march. In a series of written statements being released tonight, 10 Labour MPs who belong to Progress - the Blairite networking outfit - are calling on Gordon Brown to embrace more modernisation, including tax cuts and even Proportional Representation.

It could be seen as a knee-jerk reaction to the howls from the Labour awkward squad, led by John McDonnell, chair of the Campaign Group, who argue that Labour lost the Crewe and Nantwich by-election to the Tories because Brown was not Labour enough.

Those in the Blairite camp argue that such Bennite views would steer Labour back to the wilderness years of the early 1980s. The MPs writing for Progress include five former ministers and three Parliamentary Private Secretaries, many of whom are hanging on to constituencies with knife-edge majorities.

Fiona Mactaggart, MP for Slough, writes: "We must look like a party with our finger on the electoral pulse to protect ourselves from the Tory charges that it's 'time for a change'. Because times are changing, and we must change with them."

Sally Keeble, MP for Northampton North, warns Brown that "middle income Middle England has moved on since 1997, and needs to know that we have moved too. The tax system provides the most powerful means of convincing this new electorate that we're on their side".

She suggests that the government should cut taxes on the most sensitive goods and services, including fuel; support mortgage repayments for homeowners who get into financial difficulties; and radically overhaul the tax credit system to provide simpler, more flat-rate bands of support based on clear and simple criteria.

Stephen Ladyman, former Transport Minister, argues that Labour is losing the support of motorists and that if it is to remain in power it must "strike a 'new deal' with the motoring public". He proposes the government should scrap the fuel duty escalator and replace it with a duty moderator that recognises that when the price of fuel goes up the exchequer's VAT take increases and the rate of fuel duty can go down

Martin Linton, MP for Battersea, wants a referendum on Proportional Representation. He complains that Labour hasn't fulfilled its promises on constitutional reform and suggests that if the Labour party wants to recapture the "spirit of that blissful dawn in 1997" then it needs to be "far bolder". He counsels the party not to forget that it was elected on a promise to "sweep away the sleaze of millionaire funding, to end the hereditary and undemocratic nature of the House of Lords".

The other Labour MPs who have prepared statements for Progress are Alan Whitehead, Anne Snelgrove, Eric Joyce, Shona McIsaac, Jamie Reed and Margaret Moran.

Meanwhile Peter Mandelson's old friend Ben Wegg-Prosser, former director of strategic communications for Tony Blair, has called for Gordon Brown to announce he is ready to go. It's nice to see David Miliband's cheerleaders have not lost their enthusiasm for New Labour.

THE MOLE: PM UNDER PRESSURE

FIRST POSTED MAY 29, 2008