Not being the Tories is no longer good enough for Labour

A couple of days ago, I received an email mailshot from Margaret Curran - Labour's Parliamentary Candidate in the Glasgow East by-election.

The email implored me to give my hard earned cash to the Labour party so that she could buy leaflets bashing the SNP. The particular hook for the leaflet? - An interview given by John Mason, the SNP candidate in the by-election, to BBC's Newsnight Scotland, in which he suggested that there would be "little difference" between a Conservative or Labour administration in Westminster.

Leaving aside the substantive point about whether or not his analysis is correct, I wanted to address another point - the inability of the Labour party to move on from the 1980s.

After 11 years in Government, and despite the fact Thatcher hasn't been Prime Minister for almost two decades, the Labour party seem to believe that they can win election after election simply by invoking how difficult things were after ERM and during the Thatcher government.

They can't. The electorate wants to know what the Government will do for them now and in the future. Not how they differ from the past. Whilst Labour may be right to boast of certain achievements since 1997, they need to better address the concerns of the electorate in today's uncertain economic climate as well as offering a vision for where Britain will be in twenty years time.

David Cameron has successfully decontaminated the Tory brand. The recent by-election victory in Crewe and Nantwich suggests that the electorate are not scared of punishing Labour.

The party will have to do better than simply reminding people how tough things were twenty years ago - both in Glasgow East, as well as further afield.

• I'm in the US at the minute on 'vacation' and hope to bring some insights on the US election whilst I'm here.