I’m not sure the DfES should be hosting this speech but that doesn’t detract from the points that Alan Johnson makes, starting with an obvious point:

The Labour Party is hardly a dispute-free zone, as the last week has demonstrated perhaps too vividly. But our determination to eradicate poverty is the glue which holds us together: connecting our past with our future; linking our ideological and pragmatic wings; distilling old labour and new labour into real Labour.

The eighties, heralded as a time of great prosperity for some, were a social disaster: with millions on the dole, tens of thousands sleeping on the streets and millions of children and pensioners plunged into desperate poverty.

The Tories’ brutality in this area contrasted with our determination to slay the dragon when we came to power.

We recognised how unfairly the scales of justice and opportunity were tipped against the poor and disadvantaged; but, more importantly, we had developed policies to redress the imbalance.

Practically the entire apparatus of the systems and structures which we inherited, governing work, welfare and public services, were fundamentally flawed. They needed to be overhauled at several levels: improving opportunities to work, creating not just more jobs, but better jobs; and reforming a welfare system which actively encouraged the disabled to hide away as the passive recipients of benefits for the rest of their lives.

Nice to see some eyes are on the light on the hill.