Patrick Diamond’s educational and political CV is impressive to say the least. After gaining a double first in SPS followed by an MPhil in Criminology, both from Cambridge, he was elected as the National Chair of Labour Students from May 1998- April 1998. In late 2000, he was made Special Advisor to the then Secretary of State for Ireland, Peter Mandelson. After Mandelson's second resignation, Diamond became the Head of Policy Planning in 10 Downing Street and Senior Policy Advisor to Tony Blair.

Diamond was one of the architects of Labour's 2005 Manifesto, and later became director of the influential international social democratic think-tank Policy Network. He is author or co-author of sixteen books, and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford. He is currently a Labour Councillor for the London Borough of Southwark, a position he has held since the elections in May 2010.

I went to listen to him speak ‘The Future of New Labour’ at his alma mater, Clare College, hosted by the Clare College Politics Society. Afterwards, in an exclusive for Varsity, I broached some of the bigger challenges that Labour faces today.

We begin with the gritty topic of the Iraq war, as I suggest that the Iraq legacy might hold back the new generation of Labour politicians. With the current Chilcot inquiry, this seems particularly topical. He agrees that the party “needs to accept that the Iraq legacy is a really serious one”, and that it “will take time for the anger associated with the war to dissipate.” Nonetheless, he asserts that voters are “less concerned about the past and more interested on what Labour has to say about the big foreign policy issues of the future, such as the events in Egypt and Tunisia.”

Valid, certainly, but I’m keen to hear what he felt back in 2003 as the actual decision to go to war in Iraq was being made. A member of No. 10 Policy Unit at the time, Diamond makes clear that he was “not centrally involved in any of the issues around Iraq”, although he can confirm that “everyone in Downing Street was very worried about the effect it was going to have”. He admits that it is “very easy to say with hindsight you were against it.”

Another legacy, I go on, that perhaps will be difficult to overcome, are accusations that the Labour party adopted an authoritarian approach during their time in office. Critics highlight the implementation of the 28-day detention without trial legislation, increase of CCTV, and the extension of the ‘nanny state’. Does he see a future Labour government moving away from such an approach? Diamond says he wishes to clear up “a bit of confusion between what the Labour party stands for” and “the reason why many of those policies were adopted”.

He explains, “Labour happened to be the party in government at the time…whatever party had been in power after 9/11, and after 7/7, would have to have taken what is perceived to be strong action to combat terrorism and to make Britain more secure as country”. He does give way, saying “clearly Labour does have to find a better balance between liberty and security in the future”. His argument, it seems to me, coheres with a running theme in modern politics: party ideology becomes less and less relevant once elected into office.

We switch to the topic of the NHS. Amid the massive restructuring that is currently taking place, with the dismantling of the Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and the placing of budget control into the hands of GP consortia, I ask the crucial question. Is there potential for a market economy and privatization within the health service?

“I think there is, yeah," he replies. "The NHS since it was founded has always had an element of market and competition. The question is how far it goes”. The problem with the Conservative changes, he says, is that “they want to impose a large scale market on the whole of the health sector” which he thinks could be “very destabilizing”.  

Then does he think a future Labour government should reverse the changes that are currently being made? The answer, it seems, is no. For a Labour government to “reverse everything the Tories implement” would be “great mistake”, as these “structural changes are quite difficult to disentangle”. The main thing for Diamond, it seems, is to “make the system as equitable as possible”, and to ensure the changes “don’t impact negatively on the poorest groups” in society. He doesn’t touch on the ‘passing the buck’ element the policy holds, where patients will now blame their GPs (who will be handling a massively reduced budget) if they are unable to get a treatment they need, rather than holding the government or PCTs to account.

Onto the future of the Labour party, I’m eager to hear what he thinks about Labour Leader Ed Miliband’s track record, six months after he narrowly beat his brother David in the leadership election. Diamond is careful with his words, “He’s the right leader because he’s been chosen. Yes he doesn’t have a necessarily huge mandate but he was chosen by the Electoral College”. He feels the country became “tired” and “bored” of the Brown/Blair administration, and is looking for a “new generation”, something “Ed Miliband has the potential to encapsulate”.

Diamond sees “economic management” as the central issue. The reason Labour lost the election,“was because it was perceived to have lost command of the public finances and of economic competence.” He hopes “Ed Miliband can draw a line under that, and present a new economic strategy.” On the issue of spending cuts to the public sector, Diamond seems to agree with the fundamental need for cuts in the current climate, but disagrees with the degree to which the coalition government is taking them. He believes a Labour government would be employing a policy of cut-backs if it were in power, but they would not be as “fast and deep”.  This is classic current Labour rhetoric, apart from the lone voice of Ed Balls, who remains adamant that we must “borrow to grow”.

I cheekily address the speculation that he himself might stand for parliament at the next election. He is yet to publicly confirm this. What key policy would he like to stand on, I ask, that represents the direction he would like to see British politics go? He is clear that he is currently focusing on his role as a councillor for Southwark, a job he was “very keen to do” and has “learnt a lot from”. Specifically, he revisits a topic he raised during his talk: the “really big issue” of “participatory democracy”. He wants to see “people have more of a voice in the political system” after meeting many that “feel that political system is somehow not for them”.

Diamond feels that a “top-down, government-knows-best” mindset is to blame for this, something that must change.  What does he think about Cameron’s Big Society then? “There is something important behind it” and it would be “a mistake for Labour to ignore it”. However, he is clear that he feels Cameron’s attempt to implement the Big Society has been undermined by the large cuts his government is applying to the public sector.

With a few minutes left, we turn to education. In his speech at Clare, he deemed £9000 tuition fees to be “extortionate”, but said it was perfectly reasonable to expect students to pay a small top-up fee of around £1000 or so. He “stands by” Labour’s policy of getting 50% of young people into higher education, saying that there has been some confusion “about what the policy meant; that it meant 50% of people going to these traditional universities” when actually it was about more people “getting higher level qualifications”. Overall, however, he is adamant that “the idea of having many more people go to university is absolutely right”, asserting that we as country are “better for it economically but also socially. More graduates are a good thing for Britain…we can afford it”.