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I want to begin by quoting from 1961 the then One Nation Conservative Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, who said:

“We seek a balanced society, in which our prosperity as individuals is reflected in the standard of the things we do together, and in which public effort is conjoined with private purpose in a common endeavour to increase our wealth.”

Fast forward to 2012, when Ed Miliband told the Labour party conference in Manchester that he wanted to see:

“a country where everyone has a stake…a country where prosperity is fairly shared… where we have a shared destiny, a sense of shared endeavour and a common life that we lead together. That is my vision of One Nation”.

David Cameron once sought this One Nation mantle, describing his plans for economic policy in 2011 as “a One Nation deficit reduction plan – from a One Nation party”.

Since then, David Cameron has given up even talking about One Nation. But it is interesting to compare his approach and outlook to that of Harold Macmillan.

Like Cameron, Macmillan also went to Eton. But Macmillan’s political outlook was shaped by his experiences after leaving his privileged public school. Macmillan served in the First World War, a misery he shared with men from all backgrounds and from every part of the country.

After the war, Macmillan was Member of Parliament for the northern industrial constituency of Stockton-on-Tees. He saw at first-hand the impact of poverty, deprivation and worklessness that characterised the austerity and depression of those inter-war years. It gave him a genuine understanding of what the founding father of One Nation politics, Benjamin Disraeli, called “the condition of the people”.

In his landmark book ‘The Middle Way’ in 1938, Macmillan advocated a mixed economy and a politics rooted in the centre ground. Throughout the thirties, Macmillan stood out against the narrow orthodoxies of the time in both domestic and international affairs. He rejected, for example, the dominant view inside the Conservative party at the time that nothing could be done about prolonged mass unemployment, that this was somehow an inevitable product of a free market economy that must be left well alone.

Although Macmillan was a lonely voice in the Conservative Party 1930s, he went on to change his party before going onto change the country.

David Cameron got elected leader of the Conservatives by presenting himself as the ‘change’ candidate.

But looking today at the leadership of the Conservative Party, I was struck by the remarks of Michael Gove who said that the number of old Etonians sitting around the cabinet table and working on the next Conservative manifesto was “ridiculous” and “preposterous”. The significant thing here is not that so many prominent Conservatives all went to the same school; the issue about the way in which David Cameron chooses to govern.

David Cameron stands up for a privileged few not because he went to Eton, but because - unlike Macmillan - he has never really been exposed to a world beyond his own privileged background.

And this is why the early promise of Conservative modernisation under David Cameron has been abandoned – because its superficiality has been exposed.

As Ed Miliband will also set out later today, my argument here is that only Labour’s One Nation vision can deliver the jobs, growth, prosperity and opportunity we need to see across every part of the country.

Myth of Cameron’s Modernisation

But in order to understand the necessity of, and opportunity for, a Labour victory in 2015, it is firstly important to revisit the recent collapse of One Nation Conservatism and its impact on the country.

It is a cliché, but nonetheless true, to say that political parties must change themselves in order to have the opportunity to change the country.

David Cameron once gave the impression of understanding this.

He wanted to be seen as a “compassionate Conservative”, desperate to change the Tories’ image from the “nasty party”.

He openly acknowledged his party’s presentational and ideological flaws. He said that the Tories had to stop “banging on about Europe” and that “there is such a thing as society”. The new young leader even offered praise to the Guardian’s Polly Toynbee.

He was quick to embrace progressive causes and the Big Society was to be his “guiding philosophy”.

He sought to present himself as a figure in the Conservatives’ One Nation tradition.

Giving the impression that he would govern for the whole country, not just for a privileged few, he stated that “the poorest in our society should not pay an unfair price for mistakes made by some of the richest”.

Through a grand PR offensive which stretched from exploring the impact of global warming with Nordic huskies to loading the family dishwasher in his apparently modest suburban home, in soft-focus interviews Cameron carefully cultivated an image of a modern man in touch with modern Britain.

There is no denying that at the time the Conservatives looked new and felt different.

The Cameroons had watched the rise of new labour and sought to emulate its success – but they fundamentally misunderstood the depth of Labour’s modernisation and the heavy lifting which had brought it to power. Years in the making, Labour underwent a communications revolution in the 1980s, a policy revolution in the 1990s.

True modernisation requires the leadership to have the courage to take on vested interests. That is why Ed Miliband is today addressing, with far-reaching reforms, the domestic and global long-term trends causing the cost-of-living crisis here in Britain.

This includes action to make work pay; making markets work for consumers; creating high quality, middle income jobs; and greater power devolved from Whitehall to enable our towns and cities to build their own economic prosperity.

In recognition of the scale of change our country needs, Ed Miliband’s One Nation Labour Party will not just be different from this Conservative-led government, but different also from the last Labour Government – in particular on banking, energy and immigration.

In contrast, any examination of Cameron’s leadership reveals a story of equivocation and capitulation - a retreat to a more right wing Tory prospectus.

David Cameron has failed to convince his party, because he preferred instead to compromise with his party.

The truth is: Cameron’s compassionate One Nation Conservatism quickly gave way to the re-emergence of old school, divide and rule, core-vote Conservatism.

David Cameron failed to cross the line in 2010 because, in the words of Lord Ashcroft, of “the gap between the change people wanted and the change they thought [the Conservatives] were offering.” There were too many nagging doubts, too many persistent anxieties. Too many suspected that Conservative modernisation was shallow and inauthentic – a photo-opp, a con-trick – and they were right.

This was perhaps best summed up by the image of David Cameron cycling to work with the chauffer following behind with the suit and the briefcase.

And these anxieties have been amplified by how Cameron has chosen to govern.

He gave in to anti-europeanism within his own party – a beast that never gets full – and withdrew the Tories from the European People’s Party.

He tried to make his party look more representative, but just 35 female Conservative MPs were elected in 2010, and already one in ten Tory women in the House have either left parliament, announced they are standing down or have been deselected.

Under David Cameron, Conservative Party membership has halved and the average age is now 69, making the Conservative Party more of a sectional interest group than a genuine political movement.

“Vote blue go green” has become “get rid of the green crap”.

“I’ll protect the NHS” gave way to a host of broken promises.

George Osborne once said we were “all in it together”, but gave a tax cut for millionaires while millions are worse off.

The Big Society gave way to huge cuts to the third sector.

And everything this Government does is predicated on their failure to meet their own economic tests. They promised strong growth, rising living standards and the budget deficit gone by 2015. But in 2015, George Osborne will leave the country with weak and stalled growth, a deficit close to £80 billion, the national debt still rising, public spending cuts extended well in to the next Parliament and living standards nowhere near pre-crash levels.

Outdated ideology / trickle down

Today David Cameron clings to the outdated ideology of ‘trickle-down’ economics - a model whereby growing prosperity of a few at the top eventually benefits others, in spite of growing inequalities between different classes, ages, genders and the regions of the country.

Tied to austerity, and a prisoner of his own party, he cannot build the homes we need to tackle the housing crisis and boost our economy.

Deferential to the City, he refuses to take on excessive rewards at the top.

Wedded to powerful vested interests, he won’t repeat the tax on bank bonuses to fund a compulsory jobs guarantee for young people or stand up to the energy firms by having a price freeze and fixing the broken market. He won’t reform our banks to get them lending to the real economy again.

Unwilling to rebalance the economy, he is happy to rely on growth fuelled by house prices in London and the South East.

And unable to look beyond the next set of UKIP polling numbers, he clings to divisive rhetoric and broken promises on immigration, but will not take action to prevent exploitation, foreign-only recruitment agencies or the undercutting of local workers’ wages.

Britain going backwards

The result is not just that David Cameron’s Government now occupies the political territory against which he once defined his modernisation project. Far worse, the aspirational majority who work hard, pay their taxes, who want to get on and do well, are now working harder for less.

That link between the wealth of the country as a whole and that of family finances is now broken.

Labour proposition: One Nation Labour

So the task of the next Government will be delivering a One Nation agenda where Cameron has failed. For Labour, this means stimulating growth in every region. Our guiding policy principles will be:
• Redesigning the relationship between central and local government to spread power out to our cities and regions – something Ed Miliband will talk about later.
• Reforming our economy to support all wealth creators, promoting entrepreneurship and small business, and, as Jon Cruddas has said, “supporting a fair reward for workers’ labour”.
• Investing in science and R&D, with strengthened collaboration between universities and businesses to support innovation and nurture new ideas and new companies.
• And spreading opportunity for all by boosting skills, including for the forgotten 50%, through more apprenticeships and vocational excellence.

To help realise this Ed Miliband will today outline plans for radical devolution of power over funding for skills, infrastructure and economic development to a local level.

We have also advocated a network of regional banks to support our regional economies and soon Lord Adonis will publish his strategy for regional jobs and growth.

A key stimulant of regional growth will be generating partnerships between local government and businesses, which is why we would seek to revamp Local Enterprise Partnerships and support City Deals.

Architecture of government: regional ministers

In central government, the work to disperse power downwards will need to be co-ordinated and monitored to ensure effective implementation. This will mean strong, new regional voices to help shape central government decision-making.

After the General Election in 2010, David Cameron scrapped Regional Ministers. Wales and Scotland have retained their Ministerial representation, but there is now no regional Ministerial representation for the English regions. We only have a ‘Minister for Cities’ and a ‘Minister for Portsmouth’.

The Government axed the Regional Development Agencies, and, while we support their more localised replacements, they are not yet meeting their potential. The Regional Growth Fund, for example, is failing to allocate its funds, as are other government lending schemes.

Our belief is that regional growth demands sub-regional initiatives, but can be helped by co-ordinated action at a regional level.

That is why Labour is today pledging to introduce Regional Ministers to put the voice of the English regions at the heart of government decision-making. They will help to shape government policy around regional interests with a view to correcting the regional inequalities that have arisen in recent years.

As before, these would be senior Ministers in existing Departments taking additional responsibilities. But Regional Ministers would not be a replica of the previous arrangements. They would be a complementary arm in our determination to devolve more power to city-regions and to supporting them from the centre.

Regional Ministers would help to:
• facilitate relationships between the LEPs, local authorities and central government;
• they would advise the centre of government on the impact of government policy in the regions;
• they would monitor regional economic performance;
• they would bring existing structures and the private sector together to encourage and promote inward investment;
• and they would act as high-profile champions for their region in the corridors of power.
To drive and facilitate their work, Labour would set up a Regional Committee, sitting in the Cabinet Office, made up of regional Ministers, to put regional economic development at the heart central government structures and strategy.

Civil service

In the same way that Labour has bold plans to push power downwards away from Whitehall, we also want to reform Whitehall itself.

Too often the civil service is not open enough to the civil society it exists to serve.

Today, ethnic minority employees are under-represented across the civil service. Over the 3 years before last the election, Labour increased ethnic minority civil service representation by 11 per cent; since 2010 the numbers have fallen by almost 10 per cent.

In 2010, 43 per cent of Cabinet Office senior civil service staff were women; this dropped to 39 per cent last year. Two thirds of the lowest paid jobs, but only a quarter of the highest paid, go to women.

Only 7 per cent of all civil servants are based in the North East and only 12 per cent in the North West.

This shows that the civil service is a ‘closed shop’ to many who already feel that government is distant and remote from their lives.

In response Labour wants the Fast Stream, the programme for developing future civil service leaders, to give those from ordinary backgrounds but with exceptional talents the opportunity to help be part of government.

There is a significantly lower proportion of successful Fast Stream applicants from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds compared to the eligible graduate pool, and it is a similar picture in relation to socio-economic status, with low numbers of working class young people successfully completing the Fast Stream.

Most worryingly, those from lower social classes are less likely to apply to the Fast Stream, whilst the numbers of Oxbridge candidates recommended for appointment is on the rise.

Labour wants to see the following changes:
• new targets for the number of successful BME and working class candidates entering the fast stream programme, reflective of the proportion of national graduates from those backgrounds
• an expansion of the existing Diversity Fast Stream Summer Internship programme

• a fast-track on to the Fast Stream for those who have completed an internship programme

And of course reforms designed to increase the representativeness and effectiveness of the civil service must sit as part of a wider agenda about social mobility.

So, Labour has a plan for long-term economic development which extends to all regions of the country. The dual reform outlined today – pushing power down to a local level while opening up the structures at the very top – would help to make a Labour government One Nation in outlook as well as make-up.

To finish where I began, 52 years ago Harold Macmillan warned that Britain needed to:

“prevent two nations developing geographically, a poor north and a rich and overcrowded south”.

The next election will be all about the future. Labour, under Ed Miliband, is determined to restore that link between the wealth of the country as a whole and people’s family finances. And we are equally determined that growth, prosperity and opportunity are felt in every corner of the country.

Where David Cameron and the Conservatives have failed, One Nation Labour will deliver.