BY ANABEL INGE

NEW LABOUR risks being abandoned by its supporters in the forthcoming local elections if it does not revive its traditional "moral purpose", a Catholic MP in the race for the deputy leadership has said.
Jon Cruddas told the Daily Telegraph that, thanks to "ultraNew Labour forces", there is now a frequent perception of the Party as one that supports "unbridled materialism".
He listed the "cash for honours" controversy and the tendency of the Party to give voters the impression of being "dedicated to promoting consumer interests more than the community good" as factors that contribute to the sense that Prime Minister Tony Blair's Party is losing its moral PurPose.
In another interview, with the Tablet, the MP for Dagenham recalled the well-known pronouncement of Harold Wilson that Labour is a moral crusade or nothing at all.
Mr Cruddas said: "The Labour Patty in my mind was part of that crusade on behalf of the dispossessed, the poor and now I really worry that — and this is part of the reason I put my hat in the ring — that we are emptying out that tradition in the Labour Party and simply becoming an exercise in retaining power by pandering to the preferences and prejudices of swing voters."
The MP was asked about the public announcement of a Scottish bishop last month that he would not vote Labour as a result of its pursuit of policies at odds with Christian teaching, such as the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs) and civil partnership legislation.
Mr Cruddas, who abstained in the Commons vote on the SORs last month, responded: "I think that signals what I pick up, that it's not one piece of legislation but a growing sense of the lack of respect for that tradition within the Labour Party actually and among the Labour supporters because you see an aggressive liberal secularism becoming dominant in some public policy."
In March, Bishop Joseph Devine of Motherwell accused the Government of creating "a morality devoid of any Christian principle" and of testing the allegiance of Catholics "to the point, I think, of being broken" with many of its policies.
In the interview, Mr Cruddas, a contender for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party since October, also criticised the preoccupation of the Party with the so-called "Middle England" voters. "What we're doing at the moment is pandering to this whole celebrity and shopping agenda and ratcheting up people's aspirations to buy more commodities," he said.
"Now I think people have actually got a very different view of aspiration, which is about security for them and their families."