Speaking to the Progress Annual Conference this morning, Liam Byrne declared that: “people turn from politics to anti-politics when they don’t see new ideas and old values”. In fact, judging by the reaction of the delegates in the hall, there is a pretty broad concensus that Labour needs some new ideas, and fast. Byrne’s fellow opening session speakers Peter Kellner of YouGov, Mary Riddell of the Daily Telegraph and Philip Collins of The Times all concurred, although they naturally disagreed over what the ideas should be.

It’s a good thing, then, that Byrne, the co-ordinator of Labour’s policy review, was on hand to furnish some details of these oh-so-essential new ideas. Except that if he knows what they are, he wasn’t in a particular hurry to share them. Instead, he preferred to devote a large chunk of his speech to celebrating Labour’s local election successes and deploring the ‘no’ vote in the elected mayor referendums. He was quite explicit about why this was, saying: “I was hoping to do this session on the phone from the doorstep in Birmingham, but the voters in Birmingham decided they didn’t want an elected mayor, so I’m here in person.” He was quite open about his desire to leave Westminster to contest the putative Birmingham mayoral position, but even now that isn't going to happen, he doesn't seem very sure what's next.

Patrick Wintour has clearly been briefed that Byrne’s shadow cabinet position is possibly up for grabs in a future reshuffle, and it’s well-known that Miliband is keen to get a grip on the policy review process, potentially with the aim of speeding it up. Today would have been the perfect moment for Byrne to make his pitch to stay at the helm, laying out to Progress delegates the ideas Labour will take forward to the next election. The fact that he chose not to do this suggests one of two things: either he believes himself to be secure in his position, or he knows he’s to be reshuffled, and doesn’t care.

Instead, it was Times columnist and former No 10 staffer Philip Collins, rather than Byrne, who stood out as the forward-looking element in the discussion. “If you stray too far in opposition from things you’re going to be doing in government, that’s dangerous,” he warned. It sounded much more practical than Byrne’s assertion that Labour must “move on decisively from the New Labour package, but remain on centre ground,” which came across a little bit like a suggestion that Labour must appear to move on, while actually continuing to tread the same water as 1997.

Tags: Liam Byrne, Philip collins, Policy Review, Progress Annual Conference 2012