Labour would benefit from its own "Orange Book" debate, a leading think tank chief has said.

Interviewed by ePolitix.com, Fabian Society general secretary Sunder Katwala called for the party's Brighton conference next week to embrace conflicting ideas over the government's future direction.

He claimed the divisions which broke out at the Liberal Democrats' gathering in Bournemouth this week are a good thing.

"What strikes me is the Lib Dems are having a real debate, and they are prepared to have some divisions about ideas, around the Orange Book and there are different views on that," Katwala said.

"There are people in the Labour Party who are trying to make sure there is a debate and we are not just talking about the things that we have done but that we are trying to look ahead.

"What is striking perhaps in the Conservative Party is that debate is missing. They unveiled a new logo recently and their conference is going to be about what the leadership says.

"For the party in British politics that is probably in the most trouble there isn't the same level of free thinking and debate and wanting to have divisions there."

Renewal

Asked if Labour could benefit from a similar statement of intent such as that from the Lib Dem "young Turks", Katwala said it could.

"Yes, because we are not factionalised in the way that Labour was factionalised in the bad old days," he argued.

"The domination of politics in the last 10 years is partly about having set the weather and having the battle of ideas go you way.

"A party that doesn't keep trying to renew itself in office and open up space for debate will atrophy and get overtaken by someone else.

"It is very difficult. Labour has never done it in government before, it has never had a second term, still less a third term.

"But you can't just run on the rails of what you had. So I think creating the space for ideas while you are in power is incredibly difficult but if you don't do it you will last a lot less long."

He added that the return of Alan Milburn to the Cabinet as general election supremo and the Fabian's own in-house ideas would spur more contentious ideas.

"With our debate about where we will be in 10 years time, how would we rewrite Clause IV, we are trying to create that space in the Labour Party," he said.

"Alan Milburn will be putting forward ideas in terms of how far we should go in the localism agenda, other people from other bits of the party will feel wary about some of that.

"What we should be making sure we are doing is being prepared to have some more open policy debates within the party because it is actually a healthy thing for parties to do.

"We should have confidence in ourselves to have those debates as part of the process of political renewal."