Labour must not fall in to the Conservative trap of allowing itself to be seen as the party of public spending, one of its leading ministers said on Thursday.
Writing for the Policy Network think-tank, Gregg McClymont said the Labour leader Ed Miliband must avoid the "tax and spend" trap.
The shadow pensions minister warned that failing to do so, and only looking to appeal to core voters in the public sector, could lead to Mr Miliband suffering the same fate as former leaders Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock.
He writes: "Labour can sidestep the electoral trap being sprung by the Conservatives by refusing to be driven back to its core support.
"A patriotic appeal to the nation to improve growth and living standards, not a simple defence of the public sector and public spending, is crucial to foiling Conservative attempts to render Labour the party of a sectional minority."
In the pamphlet, Cameron's Trap, Lessons for Labour from the 1930s and 1980s, McClymont and his co-author Oxford historian Ben Jackson, say that the Conservatives will find it hard to repeat the election successes of Margaret Thatcher.
He says: "The Conservatives won elections in the 1930s and 1980s by claiming relative rather than absolute governing competence: under Labour, they argued, things would be much worse.
"This line of attack need not depend on objective economic success - as the 1992 election showed."
McClymont added: "If the key political challenge facing the country over the long term becomes defined as cutting public spending, then the Conservatives are more likely to prosper. Prolonged austerity reinforces this perception, rather than undermining it.
"The Conservatives could potentially be in a win-win situation. If growth does ultimately return and an end to austerity heaves into view, then they can pledge tax cuts rather than a return to pre-crisis levels of spending."