Is a pious attitude to the UN now an obstacle to progressive internationalism and a dangerous gift to the emerging league of autocracies?

The UN's signature failures are well known and range from the comedic, such as Zimbabwe chairing the Human Rights Council, to the tragic. In Rwanda the UN's response to the genocide was to pull out the troops. In Bosnia in 1995 UN peacekeepers handed over 7,000 men and boys to Serb fascists, its 'safe areas' revealed as a mere paper commitment unsupported by force. In East Timor in 1999, UN staff, 'abandoned civilians to murdering pro-Indonesian militias' in the words of the left-wing sociologist of war Martin Shaw.

We can turn things around for Labour but there is no magic solution that will somehow make things better. It is not a matter of looking for the right electoral buttons to press or grasping at the first populist policy that comes along.

Much is being said and written about the direction Labour should take. One school of thought argues we should focus on our core vote. Others suggest we adopt ‘authentic' policies that are clearly Labour, even at the expense of losing the next election: we should go out in a blaze of glory they say. This view is firmly rejected by those who believe we should concentrate on providing policies that appeal to voters in the south, for example on immigration.

Ouch. That hurt quite a bit. After several years of some pretty bad local election results for Labour across the country, we got well and truly clobbered. Results in the north, best described as very bad but not catastrophic, were perhaps more significant in that they showed the regional divide to the ‘Cameron effect' may be diminishing. Northern voters have long seemed more resistant to the new Tories, with cultural anti-Conservatism more deeply ingrained up here, but that appears to be changing. Northern voters may still not like Cameron, but their disenchantment with the Brown government is such that they are starting to overcome it.

In most parts of northern England, whichever party was available to be a grateful recipient of the anti-Labour backlash gained. However, there was no question that the Tories did particularly well. The only places where they struggled were areas in which they are still to re-establish themselves in any meaningful form, such as on Merseyside and central Manchester.

Lord Carter recommended that ‘local' community prisons should be built, so that families can visit offenders; a vital part of rehabilitation. Yet the government instead opted for economy of scale; the building of ‘titan' prisons is now the policy. However, there is a third way that could allow localism to happily exist side by side with titan prisons. This third way already exists right under their noses. The disused police station custody suites, up and down the country, that are currently housing convicts, have proved to be perfectly effective. Rather than using these cells as overflow from the prisons, we should use them as community prisons.

The main frustration that judges have with their sentencing options is the disparity between community sentences and jail sentences. As a legal executive who defends people arrested by the police, I'm often asked, ‘What do you think I'm going to get?' I always tell them whether they are looking at jail or not. It doesn't matter how serious the community punishment is likely to be, the avoidance of jail is the overwhelming concern of a person who is facing a punishment.

Stepping back from the day-to-day headlines, there are six signposts to a progressive internationalism that emerged from the conversations reproduced in my recent book for the Foreign Policy Centre, Global Politics After 9/11. Each is a response to a new terrain of foreign policy. That terrain was mapped in the book by Anne-Marie Slaughter, of Princeton and co-convenor of The Princeton Project - a three-year effort to develop a bipartisan security strategy for the USA.

Anne-Marie told me that when the Princeton Project began they hoped to write a new ‘X' article. This was the ‘long telegram', titled ‘X', sent by George Kennan, then acting head of the US embassy in Moscow, in 1946, back to his bosses in Washington. In it, Kennan made the case for the strategy of containment to be the cornerstone of the west's response to communist totalitarianism. It was probably the single most important State Department cable ever written.

I am not talking about missing computer discs, year-old tax rates, I am talking about what direction we should take after the devastating local election results. A year ago many would have said change leader, a few years ago we would have pinned it on Iraq. Now many are not sure what to pin current results on.

It is easy for many to say do this and do that when they have no responsibility. I admit I do not have all the answers, however I see a few things. The first is that we need to listen (this is as obvious as saying animals need to breathe). Secondly, and more importantly, we need to act. People are concerned about violent crime and we need to act upon this fear, just as we need to act to alleviate the effects of a global credit crisis.

 In the US, political strategists uncovered the significance of the soccer moms - a category of the electorate who chat about current affairs while ferrying around their kids to football and cheer them on from the sidelines. As someone with a recently turned four year-old I'm on the threshold of becoming the UK equivalent, a school-gate mum. The little lad hasn't started his full-time compulsory education yet but already I am being sucked into the exciting world of bonding with fellow parents in my locality with a common cause in public service delivery.

I'm writing this on 29 April, 48 hours before polling day, so I have no idea whether Ken Livingstone will beat Boris Johnson or not. That result is immensely important not just for the future of London and for Londoners, but also for Labour as London will be a critical electoral battleground in the next general election.

However, whatever the result, we already know that the electoral process itself has been good for Labour and good for democracy in London. Here's why:

The credit crunch hit the UK just over seven months ago now. The ramifications have been huge and they continue. The collapse of Northern Rock and customers queuing for hours outside branches will always symbolise the crisis in the UK.

Even though the origins of our current problems are in the US subprime mortgage market, there are lessons to be learnt from the affair. The government has made it clear that they want to legislate by the summer - to strengthen the financial sector, reduce the likelihood of bank failures in the future and to increase confidence among investors and consumers.

The Scottish Labour party is a queer beast. An organisation firmly rooted in tradition, our policies may have constantly urged progress and social innovation, but the infrastructure that has supported this constant call for change remains shaped by procedures developed at the birth of our movement.

We have much to be proud of in our heritage: huge social advances; the individual role of giants such as Keir Hardie; and the cultural legacy of the contribution we've made in international solidarity, for example during the Spanish Civil War, continues with us through our music and banners.