Jon Cruddas has emerged as one of New Labour’s most dogged but loyal critics. Writing in today’s Guardian he charges that the party has “lost the  language of generosity, kindness and community”. Now while it is undeniable that government ministers seem to speak a language that runs parallel to English there are other things that we can fault them on. Cruddas nails a few of them “, appalling housing cases with no hope of resolution, job losses, and people struggling daily to pay the bills”. True that.

The weird part is his proffered solution. It boils down to – and I am not making this up – a return to authentic Blairism. That would be the good old fashioned Blairism that was ruined by that wrecker, er Tony Blair. Read this paragraph and see what you make of it:

“Above all, the party needs a new language about our purpose. So try this, from 1995: “A nation for all the people, built by the people, where old divisions are cast out. A new spirit in the nation based on working together, unity, solidarity, partnership. That is the patriotism of the future. Where your child in distress is my child, your parent ill and in pain is my parent, your friend unemployed or homeless is my friend, your neighbour my neighbour. That is the true patriotism of a nation.” That was Tony Blair, who had it – but lost it. Now, before it’s too late, we need to rediscover that kind of Labour politics.”

Every major political choice made by New Labour since getting elected has been a rupture from its true spirit. The wars, the PFI, market deregulation, the surveillance society and everything else was some sort of weird accident that had nothing to with Blair, the rest of Labour’s leadership or parliamentary or their compliant union leader cronies. I don’t think that’s doing any serious violence to the fabric of his argument.

Cruddas is in no doubt that a faction fight is opening up inside New Labour. “Hardline market fundamentalists are regrouping, arguing for further dismantling of the state, more privatisation and suspending any equality agenda to placate business.” That was the whole point of bringing the widely admired and respected Peter Mandelson back into high office. This could have been another of those dizzy spells that Cruddas seems to think Labour’s leadership is so prone to or it could be a declaration of what Brown wants to do.

An article in the same issue of the paper notes that today is the 10th anniversary of Blair’s phony promise to eradicate child poverty by 2020. Has the target been met or exceeded? No. It’s been kicked into the long grass and 30% of children are now on or under the breadline, a statistic that will get worse with the recession.

One could try to make the case that using a decade old quote from Blair’s glory days is one way to reconnect with Labour’s mainstream. What is really required is a complete demolition job on everything New Labour has represented and Cruddas seems unwilling to do this. His major fear is that Labour’s continued evolution to the right combined with a recession is likely to cause a polarisation in British politics and flags up the growth of the far left and far right in Europe as evidence, as if there were no difference between the NPA and the Lega Nord.

And that of course is the point. The vision of Labourism that Cruddas is harking back to was a very historically limited phenomenon that lasted from the 1940s till about 1980. We can have a big row about start and end points but it has been dead for nearly as long as it was alive and even the most successful resurrectionist only waited four days before getting Lazarus out of his tomb. Maybe that is why those of us who are looking around for something outside of Labour need to start rising to the challenge.