LABOUR is to start conducting weekend “academies” to win wavering supporters back to the moral values upon which the party was founded.

The idea is pioneered by Hazel Blears, the Home Office Minister of State, who said that they would run along similar lines to the Alpha courses, the popular beginners’ guide to Christianity.

Ms Blears, one of the rising stars of the Labour Government, said that she had already run two Labour academies.

Groups of 25 people will commit themselves to two full Saturdays, as well as homework in the form of reading key texts on Labour’s history — including works by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown — to serve as the basis for discussions of personal morality.

She felt that they were necessary to restore idealism in the party after the Iraq war, two terms in government, and the Conservative Party moving on to Labour’s ground.

“There is a lot of talk at the moment about the disaffection of party members, how they all want to walk away, since Iraq they’re all fed up with us, all that kind of thing,” she said.

“We thought, instead of talking about policy, let’s try and talk about why we are here, why do we put that leaflet through the door, what motivates us,” she said.

When the group discussion moves on to policy, the “facilitator” steps in and guides the discussion back to deeper and more philosophical themes, she said.

“We talk policy, but sometimes we talk with political ignorance, so we come at things with a knee-jerk reaction, not knowing if it fits with our values or not,” she said.

“This re-energises people’s political idealism — they do care. Everyone who’s done it says it’s the best thing they’ve ever done.”

She is now trying to organise more funds so that the programme can be spread nationally. “I think every single party member should at least be given the option of doing this,” she said.

Ms Blears’s own political roots were caught on camera. Watch the classic 1960s film A Taste Of Honey carefully and you can spot a dirty, red-headed, five-year-old who plays an “urchin” outside her childhood home in Salford.

Many in her street were proud that the director selected it, but he did so because of its poverty. Being of a good working-class family, said Ms Blears, her mother sent her for filming in her best clothes, only for the director to return her home asking for dirt to be put on her face and to wear ragged clothes.

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