Caroline Flint: We lost – but there's still a lot to play for

Criticisms aside, Gordon has been an immense figure in politics since 1983. Central to Labour's 1997 victory; arguably the most successful Chancellor of modern times and when the banking crisis struck, Brown and Alistair Darling made the right calls at a crucial time.

History should be more generous to Brown than the commentariat have been in recent years.

Now, Labour has a job to do. First, we should all support Harriet

Harman to provide strong, effective opposition to this Con-Dem Government in the coming months.

Then we need a good leadership contest with a wide field of candidates. The contest runs until our September conference. Anyone joining Labour before September 8 can take part. So... join, join, join.

Our leadership candidates need to show they want to listen; not least to our candidates. Every one, especially the 91 who lost, knew by the end of this gruelling campaign what issues persuaded fewer voters than anytime since 1929, to vote Labour.

So what are my impressions? First, Gordon Brown was not popular. Achievements aside, he probably never recovered from the 10 pence tax saga and "the election that never was". In recent years, the government stuttered and faltered. By the time of the election, a large section of the electorate had just stopped listening – no amount of pledges could have won them over.

Second, too many hardworking families felt squeezed between those with telephone number salaries and those they saw choosing welfare as a lifestyle. The "squeezed" resented that they play by the rules, while others live by different rules. We used to talk about "rights and responsibilities"; the rich have responsibilities to society and everyone else has a duty to work and contribute, if they are able. Labour never fought for people to have the right not to work.

Third, we didn't discover public concern about anti-social behaviour and immigration soon enough. The problem was we did not act on these concerns soon enough. An expanded EU may be good for Britain, but the points system, ID cards for foreign nationals, etc was probably too little too late. Did this address the doorstep stories of firms letting go of local men and women, while recruiting Polish workers? Obviously not.

Fourth, even when Labour got it right, we moved too slowly. We reformed welfare to some degree; got more lone parents working; created more jobs. But did we move fast enough? No. Did we reflect public anger at the bankers? No again. Were we bold enough on welfare reform? Not by half.

Fifth, we lost our way. We launched initiative upon initiative every week: laptops for poor children, national care service, post office banking, climate change, education guarantees, the NHS constitution, feed-in tariffs, council housing; a bewildering array of announcements. Much of it worthy, but as one of my activists called it, "too much white noise".

New initiative are always more palatable than facing uncomfortable truths. In so doing, we lost sight of the concerns of those working

people in the broad middle, who leave the house every day to do their bit for their family and keep the wheels turning.

If we only hear what we want to hear, can we wonder why the public stopped listening to us?

Facing a period of opposition, Labour must challenge the nonsense that the past week is the start of a "new politics". This parliament does not feel new. A Cabinet and government stuffed with aristocrats, the top private schools and millionaires. Five of the Cabinet are all from the same Oxford College. Imagine if five members of a Labour Cabinet had been from the same Doncaster comprehensive, or the same union branch? Women provide still less than a quarter of the Commons, and fewer state school educated MPs fill the benches. We've gone back in time. Labour's Waterloo was truly planned on the playing fields of Eton.

In the days following the election, the grubby speed dating brought credit to no one. Labour looked desperate trying to stitch together a rainbow that could never add up. The dreadful horse-trading leaves Conservative and Liberal voters confused that much that they voted for was lost in the cutting and stapling of two manifestos into one.

About 100 new Con-Dem peers will ensure the coalition is backed by 358 peers, more than enough to gets its measures through the Lords. Had Labour supplemented its 210 peers (of 707) there would be howls about elected dictatorships. More old fix than new politics.

Now to protect this civil partnership from an early divorce, they want a 55 per cent per cent rule to prevent MPs bringing down the government. A majority of one in our sovereign parliament is no longer enough. A single vote heralded the election that put Margaret Thatcher into power.

Labour has a few months to rediscover its self-belief and to set about testing the mettle of this coalition of the unwilling. This election has not really settled the country's future. There's a lot to play for.

Caroline Flint is the Labour MP for Don Valley. She is a former Cabinet minister.