How many nations?

I believe the children are our future. People who need people are the luckiest people in the world. The world is just a great big onion.

Political slogans love to state the blindingly obvious. Whenever a politician says ‘forward together’ we should all looked surprised and say, “I really thought you were going to say ‘backwards, separately’.” A politician who says something that no one could possibly disagree with may as well be the rock band asking a festival audience, ‘Anyone here like sunshine?’

But sometimes the most seemingly unnecessary political statements are the most important. Our rock band were, probably, just trying to get the audience to cheer. But what if someone really was planning to abolish sunshine?

That is the problem that the slogan ‘One Nation Labour’ has encountered. It has been dismissed as a meaningless ‘motherhood and apple pie’ line, but naively so. ‘Who could possibly disagree with the idea of One Nation?’ you might ask. But what if the answer is ‘the government’?

‘One Nation’ is a phrase with a long history - a long Tory history until now. Disraeli gave one of his novels the subtitle ‘The Two Nations’ fearing that rich and poor were becoming permanently divided. Since then a ‘One Nation Tory’ has opposed the division between rich and poor. Tories disagreeing with this either feel that the separation of rich and poor is no bad thing, or that it is not the government’s job to prevent it. For these hard-hearted types, the description ‘Two Nation Tory’ has sadly never caught on.

In the early 1950s, several Tories wrote a pamphlet called ‘One Nation: a Tory Approach to Social Problems’ which brought the phrase back into general use. It then became a banner that most Tories were happy to sit under, until Thatcher came along. Thatcher than branded One Nation Tories as ‘wets’, because we all know compassion is a sign of weakness.

And now Ed Miliband has given his party the banner of ‘One Nation Labour’. It shouldn’t work. The Conservatives should be able to say, ‘Hey, don’t be silly. Everyone knows we’re the One Nation lot. It’s our phrase. Use one of your own.’ It should be as ridiculous as the Tories calling their manifesto ‘Workers of the world unite’.

But it does work, because the Tories have entirely abandoned their One Nation tradition. Thatcher may have hated One Nation Tories, but at least they were there to be mocked. Cameron hasn’t needed a belittling nickname for the opponents of his divisive policies in his cabinet, because there aren’t any.

‘One Nation’ describes just one strain - a practically extinct strain - in Tory thinking. But all of Labour can happily claim it. ‘One Nation’ amongst Conservatives is a description of disunity. For Labour it is uncontroversial, and it reminds people that the nice version of the Tories is no more.

It’s not just that Ken Clarke is gone - though that is harmful enough to the Tory brand’s humanity. It’s that they no longer look like a party cuddly Ken would ever join. Labour’s ‘One Nation’ policies taunt them, saying, ’If you were nice Tories, you’d be doing this yourselves.’

The idea of Two Nations runs deep in current Conservative thinking. So many of this government’s policies are about dividing people up into goodies and baddies, such as the deserving and undeserving poor. Every call to cut someone’s benefits comes from a desire to divide. And the Tories have never encountered a problem that couldn’t be solved by removing benefits from somebody.

Even their attitude towards prisoners - some actual baddies - starts from the principle that we are better than them. So anything they can be deprived of - comfort, reading, the vote - must be to the benefit of real people. And it doesn’t matter whether any of this makes the punishment ineffective.

Of course, the government’s attitude towards prisoners may be softening as an ever greater proportion of the prison population is known to the cabinet personally. I wonder if the thought of Andy Coulson voting makes David Cameron feel physically sick?

But most of the people the government demonises are not actually criminals - it’s more about making life difficult for people they disapprove of. Regardless of the morality of this, it’s bad tactics. You’re not running a business or a school - you can’t sack or expel people. If you cut someone’s benefits, they’re still there, and you’re still their government. You’ve not solved your problem, you’ve just made it hungry and cross.

This should be the real meaning of ‘One Nation Labour’. Every time the government addresses a problem by splitting the country into goodies and baddies, Labour must jump on them.

It will require some courage. The Tories may enjoy demonising people, but the press adore it. Every time the Tories outline their latest culprit, the press dust off the stocks with glee. As Labour attack, the press will accuse them of being soft, and not hating this week’s pariah as much as right-thinking people should. It’s not that Labour are in favour of murderers, benefit claimants, or the unmarried - they’ve just rather sensibly observed that tutting doesn’t make them disappear.

Maybe ‘One Nation Labour’ has struggled because of unlucky timing. At the moment, the biggest factor determining how many nations there are is the Scottish referendum. ‘One Nation Labour’ sounds more like an attack on Alex Salmond than on the rightwards drift of the Tory party. If the Scots say yes, the slogan is unusable.

But if they say no, it should do Labour some good. ’One Nation Labour’ is negative campaigning disguised as positive. It sounds like it is describing what Labour is, but it really highlights what the Tories aren’t. It is a bit like standing on a platform with your opponent and calling yourself ‘the non-sheep-shagging candidate’.

‘One Nation Labour’ crystallises something about the Conservatives that should create many ex-Tory voters. It tells everyone who calls themselves an ‘occasional Tory’ that next year’s election is a time to exercise their veto. There are enough people who believe in a unified society, and a party that sows divisions will be punished. Because people who need people are, after all, the luckiest people in the world.