Labour Could Risk Repeating Mistakes Of 2010 Tory Government

Senior political figures have warned that a potential new Labour government could risk making similar mistakes to the Conservatives when they made the transition to power in 2010, as a new report has highlighted lessons that Labour should take forward.

With Labour still way ahead in the polls and a general election expected by the end of this year, a new report by the Future Governance Forum (FGF) think tank is just one of many external pieces of work which aim to advise Labour on entering government again for the first time in more than 27 years. With only two changes in government in the last 40 years, the report warned there is only limited institutional knowledge of how to transition effectively. 

Labour has already begun to engage in access talks with civil servants, and the civil service has also invited left-wing think tanks such as the Fabian Society to discuss how the Labour Party would implement its key policies if it gets into government. 

Speaking at the report’s online launch event, senior figures who were involved in the change in government in 2010 said they believed Labour’s preparedness was currently a “mixed picture” and that more needed to be done to outline its overall purpose for government, so that it can start implementing policy straight away.

The FGF report, written by policy associate, author and journalist Phil Tinline, collated information on the Tory 2010 transition to government through interviews with politicians, civil servants, and advisers and concluded that it was very important for a new government to agree on an overriding purpose and not have competing priorities. The report argued that the incoming 2010 Tory government had an "uncertain overall purpose", highlighting divisions in the