Gordon Brown will lead Labour into the next election. We can win – but only by offering a radically different vision of society. That isn't hard to find. We only need to go back to the values of the early Labour movement.

As I argue in today’s Guardian, the next manifesto needs to be full of passion, of confidence, a movement for change. We may be battle-weary but renewal is possible and can come from Labour's traditions. The Labour movement was built upon organisation, the practices of reciprocity and mutuality that, if successful, led to a shared responsibility for one another's fate. Under the harshest conditions our forebears buried, clothed and fed each other.

That was the Labour creed, what Tawney called the "common view of the life proper to a human being". For Labour, this not only means people earning enough to live and achieve some respite from debt and usury but also a society where people build a common life in the places where they live and work.

The state cannot do this. It can regulate the market. It can and should redistribute resources. It can help make individuals powerful. But it cannot replace society. Britain has many strengths, but both its markets and its state are too strong. To balance them, we need more powerful individuals, and a more reciprocal society.

The Tories have remembered there is such a thing as society – great. We never forgot. They agree with us that people should be powerful. Great, we welcome the compliment of plagiarism.

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