Labour’s future lies in our own hands. The question isn’t whether a few policies or a new face will get the voters listening but whether we really believe Labour is still the political party that Britain needs. Do we still hunger for the responsibility that goes with office? If we do, every effort must be shaping and winning our case. It’s hard to see that a summer of leadership speculation can possibly help.

The history of the past 11 years is pretty clear. On virtually every big argument that divided Britain in 1997 Labour has been proved right and the Tories wrong. We won so convincingly that David Cameron’s ambition is to sound like us. His stated NHS policy is closer to Labour’s 1997 policy than Tory policy at the last election. They compete with Labour on the same family-friendly policies Cameron so often voted against.

Labour’s victory of ideas was no accident. In government, we’ve been at our best when we trusted our values. Our core belief is that we all do better for ourselves and our families if we look after each other. We are confident that effective government has an important role in shaping our society to the good.

By putting those values into practice, schools and hospitals now receive sensible money and are better than before. Crime is down across the country. We’ve never had more people in work. Not everything went the way people wanted, of course. We got things wrong and some problems were more intractable than we imagined. But it’s fair to say we’ve been far better than the Tories would have been.

Labour should take a quiet pride in teaching the Tories why they kept losing. But that doesn’t mean we can trust the Conservatives for 2008. Their desire to reduce every social challenge to family responsibility and charitable effort shows deep suspicion of common effort and good government. Their priority for tax cuts for the wealthiest betrays their true instincts on fairness and the long-term corrosive effects of a Tory government. Most important, though, is that the next election will not be a simple rerun of the past three. It will be fought in a world where British families can’t buy or sell a home because US bankers lent money to impoverished Americans. Today a microwave costs less than a Premiership football ticket, but its Chinese maker wants to eat meat and drive cars as we do, so fuel bills and food prices are rising. These global forces produce great wealth but also push societies like ours towards greater insecurity, inequality and unfairness. The growing threat of climate change only adds to those pressures.

The countries that will emerge most successfully will be the ones with a strong common national purpose. They will be countries, like Labour Britain, determined to build energy independence through renewables and nuclear. In tougher times, the strongest societies require more fairness not less. They will challenge those who try to take what they don’t deserve as Labour is ensuring that families working their way out of poverty aren’t taxed to pay for those who won’t. Success, not failure, should be rewarded, and a strong country will be clear, too, about what it expects from those who have done best. The future needs as much personal ambition and success as the past but most of us will succeed only if we also take care of the common good.

Few of us don’t need all publicly funded schools to be good. Universities and apprenticeships must be there for all our children. We need a state that is a cushion and springboard against misfortune. The collective investment in education, research and infrastructure makes the success of entrepreneurs and businesses possible.

Tested against the new world, today’s “reformed” Tories clearly fail. The international economic challenges haven’t penetrated Cameron’s shallow world view. He’s stuck with his slick focus on highlighting problems without offering convincing solutions. The priorities we know about are wrong for Britain. Everything they say about “rainy days” tells us they believe Britain would be better off had we invested less in our schools, colleges and research. Their scepticism about the vital expansion of higher education is a result of the deep Tory belief that too many other people’s children now go to university. They insist that good government can be replaced by cheaper voluntary effort, ignoring Labour’s trebled spending on voluntary organisations and clear evidence that voluntarism works best with active government.

In 1997, when Britain’s problems were largely domestic and self-inflicted, Labour made the link between individual opportunity and social responsibility to pave the way for 10 good years. It’s the same Labour values and the same belief in the proper role of good government that Britain needs in today’s world where the most pressing problems often have international roots.

The triple whammy of credit, oil and food is transforming political debate beneath our feet. In Gordon Brown we’ve a prime minister who understands these issues better than anyone else in British politics. Those of us who are part of Labour’s team have a job to do to show why Labour values are as important today as they were 11 years ago. Nothing else helps or matters.

John Denham is secretary of state for innovation, universities and skills

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