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We can't go back to Blairism, neither can we march off the hallowed 'centre-ground' towards Neal Lawsonism: Labour are in a tricky place indeed. To win a fourth term we have to battle on, and Brown has to take on some of the interest groups that lie at the core of Compass. Statism is dead Lawson proclaims, but outlines no alternative. There is an alternative, one that rules almost all the transactions that govern our lives - the market. But for too long we've failed to make the market work for those at the bottom, because we've allowed vested interests in both the public and private sector to thwart radical change. Gordon Brown has the narrative to be a great anti-establishment politician - he just needs to begin to think and act bold.
Barack Obama's campaign has shown that there is an aspiration core to every country; that 'One Nation' politics can be voiced effectively by the most Liberal Senator in America, and that optimism triumphs fear every time in winning elections. Labour need to re-engage with their 'One Nation' principles; Wendy Alexander was right to challenge the Nationalists to a referendum so we can make the case once again for our multicultural Union, and Labour are right to begin rebuilding a presence in Northern Ireland to unite progressive Catholics and Protestants against the politics of sectarianism. The Tories are weak on 'One Nation', they speak for one class, and only one nation (England): even Cameron's old tutor Vernon Bogdanor thinks the Tories have got it wrong on our venerable constitution.
Blairism is dead and as a party we're finding its demise painful. We can't go back to triangulation, Gordon Brown is right about one thing, this is the period in government of 'tough choices'. But tough choices are choices that Compass doesn't want to make, on crime they're out of touch with ordinary people's concerns, there is no longer any liberal constituency to appeal to in regards to knife crime. People want long sentences and stop-and-search. People want more bobbies on the beat. What's the alternative, some mealy-mouthed impossible to disagree with platitudes about 'tackling inequality'? Labour also need to use private sector solutions that work - National Grid take on ex-offenders, train them and give them job opportunities (a scheme I'm proud to say my father founded) - it works, re-offending rates are 7% compared to a national average of 70%.
On schools, the arguments for statism are long lost. Teacher's unions get little public sympathy during strikes. Private sector workers on the minimum wage feel little 'class solidarity' for teachers when the usual starting wage for a new graduate teacher in inner London is £24,168 and 60% of all teachers in a typical inner London borough earn over £37,809 (excluding special responsibility allowances). Vouchers have been proven to raise educational standards for ethnic minority kids in Washington D.C. and allowed decent schools to expand. It's now time to have the debate about vouchers - and perhaps have another argument about capping public school fees so working-class kids can use their vouchers to get into Eton. I'd like to see David Cameron oppose that to the wrath of the aspiration many.
Labour have raised tax more than any other post-war government, the result is a society that is more equal than it would have been if families were placed at the mercy of the currents of globalisation. But we've reached the limit of acceptable taxation for most families - if we want the state to reduce poverty further we need to raise taxation on the most wealthy, whilst recognising the limits of doing this. Compass wish to tax large corporations more, but in a globalised economy, companies are foot-loose. If FTSE 100 businesses don't like London, Dublin awaits (and the Irish will halve your tax bill).
People, however, aren't so mobile. A small increase on the rate of taxation for those earning over £100,000 per annum could increase the tax free threshold further - whilst a decrease in the 40% tax threshold slightly would leave the tax change neutral for those earning up to £100k. More than anything it would incentivise work and show that Labour are on the side of the majority after the 10p tax debacle
There's a lot of talk at the moment about 'narrative'. From Ministers to Councillors and Branch Secretaries everyone in the party seems to have the view that Gordon doesn't have a convincing narrative to take us forward. It's complete rubbish. It's the politics of Lawson writ large; the politics of platitude and business-speak, the politics that lobbyists resort to against the hard concrete politics of decision. A narrative is merely a story - Brown has a story, look at his last conference speech. He spoke of being on the side of hard working families, taking tough decisions, his moral core. Everyone knows Brown's story, he's a passionate Scot who abhors poverty and celebrates hard work. Cameron is the leader without a narrative - does anyone know what he stands for?
Brown's problem isn't that he lacks a narrative, but that he has bottled serious decisions. He has made a number of serious U-turns (often in the right direction, but in politics that isn't the point) culminating in a picture of an indecisive if not pathologically neurotic man. Brown now needs some big policies that he will force through - hard reforms that put people ahead of the dead hand of bureaucracy - he could start by returning power from central government to local authorities (who the National Audit Office have shown spend money better), instituting schools vouchers and redistributing tax.
Finally, Labour need to start ignoring the press. Entirely. Full stop. We're going to face a barrage of headlines over the next 2 years, almost all will be negative. Running around like loyal hounds smelling the arses of press barons isn't going to win us any friends - staring down the media and using the new media to circulate our message can work. Hilary Clinton has faced unparalleled criticism from the traditional media in the United States - and almost won the Democratic nomination. White blue-collar workers voted for her as a vote against the liberal media establishment, Labour need to face down the constant criticism and get on with the job of governing. Labour won in 2005 after almost every single liberal commentator accused Prime Minister Blair of being a 'war criminal', a 'poodle', having Dr. David Kelly's blood on his hands, etc, etc.
Now George Monbiot of the Guardian argues that Labour preside over the most right-wing government in the post-War period (I think anyone sentenced in a diplock trial and interned with no judicial process in 1970s Northern Ireland, or trade unionists hassled by Thatcher, or gay men who suffered the social stigma of Section 28, would disagree strongly), this lunacy is expounded daily by the right-on commentariat.
We're Billy no Mates at the moment, so were the Tories mid-term under Thatcher. But people knew Thatcher could lead, whilst Labour and contorted itself to serve sectional interests. Putting people above interest groups, being bold, emerging once again as an anti-establishment political party can win Labour a fourth term. In the short-term we may move further behind in the polls, but if we remember politics is fluid now and the party recovers its nerve, we may quite enjoy these uncharted waters.
Rumours that Alan Milburn is contemplating putting his name forward as a challenger to Gordon Brown are rife across Westminster and the Labour blogosphere. If they are true then we will witness a contest that will not simply be about who should lead us, it will be struggle to about the heart and soul of our movement. In September 2006, writing in the Times, Alan Milburn argued:
'New Labour was formed as a modern centrist progressive party through a genuine process of debate and renewal — not just a new leader but a new constitution, new politics and new policies. After a decade in office it is time to debate and renew again. The priority now is to determine Labour’s post-Blair purpose and policy. '
The renewal that Milburn signposted is yet to happen. The next few weeks will not only determine Gordon Brown's future, it may well determine the long term future of our movement.
At the After May 1st event earlier this week, John Denham made an interesting point about personalities. In 1992, many people said that they wouldn't vote for Labour because "they didn't like Neil Kinnock". This, in Denham's view, was merely an excuse, and that there were more profound underlying reasons why people did not yet want to vote Labour.
It reminded me of a post on the Daily Dish last week, where Andrew Sullivan wrote: "Projecting his own clownish-left sensibility onto the first serious black contender for the presidency ... Wright has given white voters permission - and an alibi - not to vote for Obama on racial grounds."
Could it be that the recent economic stumble has given the voters "permission" not to vote for Labour? By framing the problems in this manner, the questions Labour must answer become: Why would the electorate be looking for an excuse to desert? And, what must we do to revoke that "permission".
Is this a helpful analysis? Since it assumes that the electorate is innately unsympathetic to Labour, it's certainly depressing.
It all started somewhat casually. An old comrade, Harry Barnes became an MP in 1987 and I became his researcher. I thought it would be a temporary job but has just turned into 20 years – you get less for
murder! But it's been an exhilarating time in the corridors of power, well, the adjacent ones. Ten years in opposition and ten in office. Five Labour Leaders. Five military interventions. The painful process of revisionism as history reshaped socialist visions. Household names coming and going.
The first big issue was the poll tax. We tried to persuade the party to lead the campaign. Despite David Blunkett and Robin Cook's help, the field was largely surrendered to hard-left groups. Popular anger put the skids under Thatcher but we missed a chance to renew the movement rather than just boost the "generals of gesture.
I then became involved in Northern Ireland. Many then thought that the Irish Question started and finished with unification. Parts of the British left were more fiercely nationalist than the Irish left. We opposed kneecapping. But the rot on the left was very deep. A senior left-winger told me that "the Army – he meant the Provos – had to deal with informers in wartime. We organised the Peace Train visit to London where Irish parliamentarians and IRA victims were picketed by Troops Out supporters. Those who accepted bullets in other people's knees shot themselves in the foot. Their day had come, and gone.
As the peace process began in the 90s, it was dangerous to allow republicans to think the best and loyalist extremists to think the worst from Labour. This undermined bipartisan support for John Major'sthen fledgling peace process. I proposed that Labour should be neutral on the border issue and focus on power-sharing with a Bill of Rights and improving north-south relations instead of unity by coercion.
But unionists also needed bringing in from the cold. I organised a conference fringe with the new unionist leader David Trimble. Bringing unionists into dialogue is now seen as a vital precursor to the Belfast Agreement. Political inertia must always be challenged or dangerous delusions linger. Apparently powerful networks and ideas are often weaker than apparent and can be overcome with political and organisational coherence.
After Ireland came Iraq. I helped form Labour Friends of Iraq to unite those who differed on the invasion but who supported the non-sectarian Iraqi labour movement which has soared from virtually nil to many hundreds of thousands, including myself and Harry Barnes as honorary members.
We have had some success but many are still sitting on their hands and make America the prime enemy at the expense of universal human rights and of socialists, feminists and reformers in the Middle East. They cannot see further than the end of Bush's nose.
Iraq seems intractable and Iraqi forces building a democratic and federal polity could fail. With or without foreign troops, the labour movement should be supporting non-sectarian forces like the trade
unions. It's tragic that many left-wingers talk about Iraq but don't engage with Iraqis and, for instance, ignore the success of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq.
We have witnessed the death of two key political factors: distance and deference. Thanks to the Internet, we know much more. And there's less respect for authority. An informed population that can influence policy-makers is a bonus. The downside is an often half-assed and belligerent political dialogue.
But we have done what seemed impossible twenty years ago. Then, a minimum wage, peace in Northern Ireland, the regeneration of the north and substantial redistribution and much more were utopian. There's still everything to play for.
The author is Chief of Staff to Sharon Hodgson MP and Director of Labour Friends of Iraq.
Many Labour activists breathe a sigh of relief when August comes around. The vast majority of Branches and GCs skip a month which leaves hard-working branch stalwarts to enjoy the sun rather than continue the often thankless task of drawing up the next agenda and trying to pull unseen members out of the woodwork to attend the next meeting.
These summer months also hold the promise of a real change in the party’s policy-making machinery and the way we communicate with the public following the launch of the Party’s consultation ‘Extending and renewing party democracy’ and the Fabian Society’s pamphlet ‘Facing Out: How party politics must change to build a progressive society’.
Some people with long memories will remember back to the 1999 21st Century Consultation party consultation which, with the exception of a few forward-thinking CLPs, resulted in very little change in the way local parties engaged their members and wider electorate. Now there looks like there might be a potential shift in the way the Party involves members in policy-making as well as ensuring local parties are more outward-looking.
Gordon Brown’s proposals include new rights for members to be consulted by the National Policy Forum (NPF) in policy discussions; a new contemporary issues process at Annual Conference; and making final NPF policy documents subject to a One Member One Vote ballot. This is a bold move to try and overcome the criticisms that submissions through the Partnership in Power process tend to disappear into a black hole and that little real debate takes place at the Party’s Annual Conference. Such a plan is not without its risks – while it’s important that the membership feels able to sign up to government policy, whole programmes of beneficial reform must not be stymied by implacable opposition to individual elements of the government’s yearly programme. A balance needs to be kept between ensuring that members’ views and ideas are used to shape future policy and the need to keep the fast pace of government business rolling.
The consultation also suggests that policy forums in every CLP would be given much better support and that there would be increased briefings for representatives on the NPF. This would be hugely welcome, but I wonder how this can happen without adequate resources. It would be a shame if members’ hopes were raised just to be dashed because of a lack of funding.
It’s the final proposal in the consultation which I find the most interesting. It suggests that there ought to be a duty on local parties, Local Groups and other party stakeholders to consult both their members and the communities in which they are based. The Fabian pamphlet focuses much of its attention in this area, arguing that political parties must change to engage more of the electorate or face inexorable decline. While maintaining the constitutional priority of membership, the report proposes creating a ‘variable model’ of participation in the party building on the principles behind the current Labour Supporters Network. Drawing heavily on lessons from successes in the NGO movement it suggests that the Labour Party needs to centrally support local activity which works with other organisations to build a progressive consensus behind Labour’s most compelling reforms such as Sure Start, tax credits and increased working rights.
All of this will require a lot more in depth thinking, and no doubt there are going to be some tough debates ahead with those in the party who feel this is a road to nowhere, or worse, a deliberate attempt by the centre to stifle debate on the left. It is neither of these things and a vibrant and frank debate about the future of the party could be another refreshing outcome of the new government, as long as this time we really make the change.
According to Labour members polled by You.Gov on behalf of Jon Cruddas, affordable housing should be at the top of the party's new agenda.
An overwhelming 82% believe "funding should be available to local councils to build low-cost council housing on the same basis as housing associations". The Treasury has opposed this on the basis that it will breach government borrowing rules, since arm's length bodies need not count against government borrowing. Will we some movement on this in the first few months of a Brown led government? I certainly hope so.
Some time ago I filled in a questionnaire for Compass as part of the input for their excellent, if controversial, publication, The Good Society (a review of which can be accessed on the Progress home page).The questionnaire covered all aspects of the kind of society we should be aiming for and in the belief that my answers might be of interest to a wider audience I am reproducing them here, with the kind permission of Compass. My overall stance is what I call "pragmatic idealism", which inevitably means that some will see my responses as too pragmatic whilst others will regard them as too idealistic. What do YOU think?
1 What do you think are (or will be) the five or six principles that a good social democrat government should use to guide it?
1Sustainability.
2 Promoting individual and social well-being (encompassing a better work-life balance and harmonious human relationships).
3 More democracy and a greater distribution of power.
4 Equipping people to use the aforesaid in a responsible manner.
5 Greater equality
2 What do you think are (or will be) the key issues the democratic left needs to deal with in the next 20 or 30 years?
1 Effectively addressing global warming by reining back rampant consumerism.
2 Securing and holding on to power in an increasingly selfish, acquisitive and competitive society.
3 Achieving the right balance between personal liberty and protection from anti-social behaviour and terrorism.
4 Raising public consciousness on the major issues in a materialistic society dominated by trivial distractions.
5 Getting the media to act in a more responsible way (to enable democracy to work properly).
3 If you could enact three policies what would they be?
1 A properly formulated 35 hour week.
2 The compulsory introduction of logical thinking, emotional intelligence, and life skills into the school curriculum.
3 Stringent controls on advertising.
4 How should we approach the issue of immigration?
By thinking it through in an ideologically -free manner in terms of the ability of the indigenous population to accomodate greater numbers and different cultures at any one time (taking account of the local "carrying" capacities and prevailing levels of consciousness).
5 How should we govern our public services? What should be the role of the private providers?
Public/private provision should be determined by what works best to achieve the desired outcome and by what people are prepared to pay in taxes. Thus if people are not prepared to pay the higher taxes required for having an excellent school or hospital in every neighbourhood then the government has to be more discriminating about how limited public funds are to be used, bringing in the private sector to supplement them if necessary. PFI's are acceptable if the end result is an affordable, better service even if someone is making a profit in the process.
6 What are the key implications of environmental sustainability for policy? In particular what can we do as a country unilaterally?
The main implication is that we shall all have to learn to live with less than what profit-hungry Big Business is trying to foist upon us.. As a country we can set an example by aiming for a higher all round quality of life even if this makes us slightly less competitive and produces a slightly lower material standard of living than would have otherwise been the case.
7 How should we pay for what we want to do? What can we tax and in what way?
By ceasing to refer to the tax burden and recognising that taxes are the price we pay for civilisation. We should tax the "bads" in society whilst ensuring that this does not adversely affect the worst off.
8 How should Labour reform itself in order to take social democratic politics forward?
The Labour Party should continue reforms designed to ensure that it will not be hi-jacked by ideologically -pure zealots who seem to prefer the freedom of opposition to the responsibilities of power. We should identify with progressive causes but resist utopian demands. Always rember that politics is the art of the possible and that the search for perfection is the enemy of the possible.
The Times' Peter Riddell calls for a leadership contest. The Guardian is breathless about a meeting today to discuss future policy. Yes, it's just another day of the press offering the Labour party advice on leadership and how to renew in office. Well, what will happen will happen. But I would caution that taking political advice from the press is like getting tips on healthy eating from your local undertaker. The press want conflict and drama above all else. They are longing for a closely fought leadership contest, when the time comes, so they can cover it and so they can influence it.
This valet wrote about how the press actually covers leadership contests last year. Right now, the press are saying it will be a battle of ideas. I confidently predict that if a contest arises it will all be about hairlines, not ideological dividing lines. The Observer, which has the distinction of the most febrile and callow comment pages of any paper, will support whichever candidate is youngest. The Telegraph will support a candidate who isn't running. Candidates will spend their time wooing newspapers, looking to generate the 'big mo'.
There will be a contest, or there won't be a contest. If there isn't naturally one, it is not the duty of the party, let alone the leading contender, to magic one up. Whether or not there is one has absolutely nothing to do with Labour 'renewing in office'.
The key word in that phrase is 'office'. This valet has warned before of the dangers of Labour pulling over and popping the hood to have a play with its engine. Labour is in government. People like governments to be strong and purposeful. The way to renew in office is with policies delivered and communicated, not with abstract debates. The greatest danger for the party in power is that it grows used to government. Every day of governing is privilege and a chance to improve the country.
I couldn't go to see John Reid's speech yesterday morning as I had a work meeting that clashed with it, but a friend from Hackney who did go rang me to tell me how good it had been and was highly impressed that Reid hung about for an hour talking to the party members in the audience.
The good Doctor himself was telling members he spoke to that he now meets Gordon Brown on a weekly basis to ensure lines of communication are open and that they are singing from the same hymn sheet. We can therefore assume that Brown gave some kind of general OK to the content of yesterday's speech.
I thought George Mudie's rather intemperate reaction, reported here, was about four months out of date - made in October, Reid's speech could have been interpreted as a positioning move for a leadership bid, but things moved on from the pre-conference infighting remarkably fast, and I assume from the mood music that all the deals have been done to secure Reid a decent job in a Brown Cabinet... do keep up Mr Mudie! Our most senior politicians are not fools - they looked over the precipice in September, saw the public didn't like infighting, and have stepped back.
I prefer the interpretation put here by journalist Paul Linford - "On one level, it could be seen as almost an endorsement of Gordon Brown. He says that "personal attacks" on the Chancellor by the Tories will "rebound" and makes clear his view that Brown's achievements "tower above anything anyone in the Tory Party has ever aspired to or could ever aspire to."If you take this comment at face value, he appears to be saying not only that Gordon is New Labour to the core, but that attempts by the Conservatives to portray him otherwise are doomed to failure."
My personal take on both Reid's comments about staying New Labour and the similar stuff from Blair at the New Year:
- It's a bit of a no-brainer - obviously if an incoming leader announced they were a) Old Labour and b) didn't give a monkeys about the middle classes, they would be on a fast ticket to another 18 years in opposition.
BUT
- We can't carry on using the "New Labour" brand for ever. As a way of emphasising continuity between Blair and Brown and reassuring key segments of the electorate it just about has some value and resonance through to the next General Election, but beyond that you are getting into territory where very few electors can remember any other kind of Labour, and it starts to beg the question "new as compared to what? You've been in government for 10+ years" - already you have to be well into your 30s to have voted for Kinnock in '92 and in your 40s to have any adult memory of Michael Foot as leader. There soon won't be many electors who have much memory of what "Old Labour" was...
- It depends exactly what is meant by "New Labour" - if it means ultra-modernisation for its own sake, disdain for the party grassroots, hostility to the unions and an obsession with market solutions to public services then even I'm not New Labour and its support is confined to a tiny handful of people. If you are going to divide people up in politics it's a good idea to divide them with the majority on the same side of the fence as you.
- If however it means wanting an efficient party that campaigns and communicates in a modern way, is in touch with voters' aspirations, has broad appeal across society, and ain't going back to being loopy on defence, tax or crime, then I think New Labour is still the dominant ideological force in the party - and encompasses both Brownites and Blairites.
- I think Gordon has to have some wriggle room to redefine the government to reflect his own thinking - I genuinely don't fear that he will chuck the baby out with the bath water and expecting him to change nothing is unrealistic and would not necessarily help us electorally, as people want some evidence that their discontent with the government is being addressed.
I don't subscribe to a Year Zero approach to Labour history that says everything was crap before 1994 and suddenly the Messiah appeared in the form of Tony Blair and led us into the land of milk and honey. I think New Labour isn't as new as that on two levels:
- First off there was immediate continuity with the previous 9 years of reform under Kinnock and Smith - the same people at national and constituency level who fought against Militant, to drop unilateralism and nationalisation, and for OMOV, were the people who fought to elect Blair, change Clause IV and win the '97 General Election.
- Secondly there is longer range continuity with the revisionist tradition in the Party going back to Bevin, Morrison, Gaitskell, Healey, Crosland et al - as former No10 advisor Patrick Diamond wrote a whole book about this (New Labour's Old Roots (Polity, 2004)) whilst working for the PM I assume it is a view Blair shares.
I also don't subscribe to the view that the Leader defines the nature of the party. Of course it has been tremendously important to Labour's recovery as an electoral force in a presidentialised political system that we had three very charismatic reforming leaders (Kinnock, Smith, Blair) in a row, but they weren't exclusively personally responsible for the change and neither will Blair's departure suddenly change the nature of the Labour Party. I was active in the Party from 1988 onwards and I don't just remember a series of changes at a national level - I remember years and years of slow, steady organisational work by the right of the party (and to be fair the soft left on some issues and in some places) to take control of affiliates, wards, CLPs, district parties, council Labour groups - some of it vaguely directed from on high but a lot of it spontaneous and locally organised by people who had just had enough of losing elections, had had enough of the fruitcakes and entryists ruining their local parties and knew it had to change. These people haven't gone away and whilst the tide has turned in a few places the vast bulk of the structure of the party down to a ward level is organically controlled by people who whilst they might not call themselves Blairite, Brownite or New Labour, are when push-comes-to-shove moderates.
Finally, there is the question of which groups of voters New Labour was designed to appeal to. The use of the phrase "middle classes" by Reid and Blair has confused a few people because it means different things inside and outside Labour - for the Hard Left it means "plutocrats", to some people like me it can be a pejorative term for muesli-eating Guardian/Indie reading lefties, but to the vast bulk of the public the "middle classes" mean "me" - the huge majority of the British population self-define as middle class - and it's in that sense that Reid and Blair used the term.
We need to remember the context in which New Labour was created. It wasn't designed to win a landslide - the scale of the 1997 victory was unexpected and a fantastic piece of collateral benefit. It was actually designed with a more narrow objective of getting from the 271 MPs Labour had in 1992 to a small working majority - hence only about 70 key seats were targeted. These were not what sociologists would define as "middle class" areas - the lusher suburban gains and places like Hove were accidental gains that were not targeted. They were New Town seats like Harlow, Basildon, Crawley in the South East, owner occupied seats in the Pennines like Batley & Spen, Colne Valley and Calder Valley, and gritty bits of "middle London" like Eltham, Ilford South, Edmonton and Mitcham & Morden.
In terms of segments of voters in 1992 Labour's coalition of support was limited to the Guardianista intelligensia, the Celtic fringe, ethnic minorities, areas of declining "rust-belt" heavy industry, council tenants and the public sector pay-roll vote of people working in health, education or local government. In '83 and '87 we didn't even hold on to all of this vote.
The objective of New Labour was to add to these segments some of whom would self-define as middle class but who were largely in marketing-speak C1s and C2s - lower middle class and skilled working class voters e.g. owner-occupiers (critical in the Pennine belt of seats), people who had done right-to-buy on their council properties, people in the kind of skilled blue collar or white collar jobs that would now be Amicus members but were then in the AEEU or MSF, Sun readers etc. These were people whose families had voted Labour until 1979 but had then or in '83 switched to Thatcher because of the Winter of Discontent, concern that Labour was dangerously leftwing on crime, defence and Europe, and straightforward self-interest on tax and right-to-buy.
I would hope that all the key players in the party agree that these are the kind of people we need to keep as part of Labour's coalition of support, whether we choose to call that New Labour or not.
The harsh and obvious truth is that as a party we under-polled our full support in 2005. If we are to win a fourth term in 2009 then we will need to mobilise and motivate every single Labour party member and supporter and this will undoubtedly place a huge imperative on internal party reform. Why? Because local campaigns and local candidates matter. A detailed, seat-by-seat analysis of the 2005 election result shows just how much local campaigns made a difference. For example in seats where MPs were being replaced by new candidates the overall performance of the defending party was demonstrably and significantly worse than average - I should know, I was a Labour PPC in such a seat (Shrewsbury). So just as important as Labour renewing its electoral coalition is the issue of how we renew and rebuild the party itself.
But, as Liam Byrne has pointed out (Fabian pamphlet - Why Labour Won: Lessons from 2005), we must also accept the truth that we will never communicate the full measure of our radical, progressive ambition – epitomised by our commitment to end child poverty in a generation – through a media distorted by cynicism, and twisted in its search for bad news. Just as, nationally, Labour must hold the radical centre, so must local parties become centres of radicalism in their communities, at once becoming the first port of call for those who are ambitious to change where they live, and a network through which we engage progressives in every corner of these islands in our national – and international – campaign for social justice.
In his pamphlet Byrne argues - and I totally agree - that this adds up to a clear message; a sharp swing to the left won’t take us back to the glory days of 1997. Nor will binning the reform manifesto on which we’ve just stood and won. But it’s equally true that we didn’t poll our full support. Radical party reform is vital if we want to mobilise every single Labour sympathiser in 2009.
According to the newly formed and Democrat sponsored strategy think tank, Common Good Strategies (CSG) much of what passes for debate and argument in today’s world revolves around the politics of division and personal destruction. The American columnist, EJ Dionne in his book Why Americans Hate Politics argues that one of the main reasons for people being turned off politics is because it (political debate) seems irrelevant to them, they feel that they are being manipulated because they are always being asked to make false choices: you’re either staunchly religious or vehemently secular, pro-business or pro-unions, pro-growth or pro-environment, for civil liberties or against them, a progressive or a dinosaur. The truth is, of course, that most people don’t think like this, most people don’t live their lives in this way, and most people long for a politics where we have genuine arguments, vigorous disagreements, where we don’t claim to have a monopoly on what is right or wrong, where we don’t demonise our political opponents. Most people want their politicians to engage in what US Senator Barack Obama has called a ‘fair-minded’ approach to politics; politics that understands that truth and certainty are not the same thing.
Being ‘fair-minded’ is, it could be argued, a philosophical approach to politics. It is a philosophical approach that ultimately has as its goal the pursuit of the common good. Common good politics is the politics of empowerment; it is the politics that espouses cooperation not competition, the hand up and not just the hand out. The uncomfortable truth is however, that rather than some broad common good philosophy it has been what might be called an ‘uncommon-good’, a rigid ideological approach to politics that has dominated the political landscape in the US and Europe over the past fifty years. Ideologues like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher believed that nations were best served by ensuring that the maximum concentration of wealth and power was in the hands of the right people. Whilst those that argued for the common good promoted the need for mutual responsibility they were opposed by those that believed that in large measure people made their own luck, that there was no such thing as society. The belief that collective endeavour is both a strength and a virtue, that a problem shared is a problem partly solved was countered by often unilateral and isolationist policies – particularly in terms of trade and immigration.
Those that adopt the ‘fair-minded’ and common good approach to politics tend to believe that debate should be dominated by evidence and argument; that it is political philosophers that we need to embrace and political ideologues that we need to be wary of. In a recent speech at Washington’s Georgetown University, Bill Clinton said that “if you have a philosophy, it generally pushes you in a certain direction or another, but like all philosophers, you want to engage in discussion and argument. You are open to evidence, to new learning, and you are certainly open to debate the practical applications of your philosophy. Therefore, you might end up making a principled agreement with someone with a different philosophy.”
However, Clinton went on to argue, if you have adapted a particular ideology then you already have your mind made up. You know all the answers, and that makes evidence irrelevant and argument a waste of time, so you tend to resort to assertions and attacks - as the so called ‘attack’ TV ads used by many US Republican candidates in this year’s mid-term elections are testimony to.
Is Clinton right to argue that what we need are more philosopher politicians who will devise policies that promote equal opportunity, shared responsibility, and inclusive communities? Is it not obvious that in increasingly multi-cultural, multi-faith societies we need an approach to politics that celebrates partisan differences but is humble enough to recognise that adherence to a particular ideology can be both debilitating and divisive?
Are we entering the age of ‘common good’ politics?
David Miliband has an interesting post up at the Social Democratic Futures pages of The Euston Manifesto. The Labour Conference in Manchester clarified two things for many people.
First, that we need to do a better job at understanding and explaining the changes that have taken place in Britain over the last 10 years. Second, we need to engage positively and actively with the development of a new agenda for the future.
On the first count, the departure of the Prime Minister at some point in the next six to nine months, along with the 10 year anniversary of Labour's election in 1997, provides the basis for a sustained "reckoning" on the Blair years. (…)
The Reckoning is important; it provides the foundation for the second task, developing a new agenda for the future. My starting point for that task is the belief that Britain has changed a lot in the last twenty years, but will change more in the next twenty. That change can be reactionary or progressive. Our job is to understand the new world better than the Right, and respond better.
I believe successful countries in 2025 will be egalitarian in their ethos and structure, pluralistic in their systems of power, and globally linked at the level of the individual and the community (think cities) as well as the nation. I have called these 'empowered societies'. Those of us concerned with the success of this country need to engage with the demands of these requirements - demands that will require us to go far beyond the agenda set in 1997 and followed since then. (…)
Read the whole thing. Join the debate (send responses to Alanjohnsonsdf@aol.com). What is your vision of social democracy 2025?
As Progress outrider in Manchester, I have taken the opportunity to visit some non-Progress fringe events. Many of them, unsurprisingly and quite heathily, have shared the vocabulary of "renewal", "going forward" and "the future" used at our own Sunday rally.
Yesterday's Work Foundation event at Manchester City Hall, New New Labour, was in this mould, starring some of the putative stars of the party's next generation - Kitty Ussher, Sadiq Khan, Emily Thornberry, Meg Hillier and former Progress chair David Lammy. They had been asked to talk about their backgrounds, their reasons for joining the Labour party and their visions for Labour's future.
All the contributions were interesting and eloquent, and couldn't help but make one optimistic for the party's future, given the speakers' obvious idealism and the number of interesting policy ideas flying around.
Kitty Ussher spoke for many when she said that her commitment to centre-left politics sprang from the idea 'that society was fundamentally unfair' - that opportunity and good health 'depended on things beyond our control' - the town we live in, the social class we were born into, the colour of our skin. All the speakers had had formative experiences in the 1980s, when these maladies had apparently reached their apogee - indeed, Thatcher seemed to be actively denying so many a fair start in life as a 'price worth paying' for economic growth.
The panel agreed that although New Labour had made large strides for the disadvantaged of this country, there was much left to be done on social mobility, housing, poverty, as well as the environment and climate change. To name but a small minority of subjects.
However - trumpeting Labour's achievements was not enough, they agreed. And, as Sadiq Khan and Emily Thornberry said, the party was finding it increasingly hard to get its message across, because - after a decade in power - 'we are the establishment now'. This was how the party was now seen by many of their consituents.
So how to combat this? Tapping into grass-roots feeling, coming across as insurgents on the side of normal people against the system, as 'on your side', as a couple of successful local election campaigns proclaimed. But perhaps a more interesting point, touched on by Meg Hillier and David Lammy, was the question of political language.
This is something that has been troubling me for some time - that the New Labour lexicon has often descended into what Lammy called 'managerialism', when talking about public services for example. Although not expressly mentioned, phrases such as 'fit for purpose', 'rolling out' and 'contestability' simply is never going to engage normal people. New Labour should work hard on communicating its achievements better, for they are considerable in many areas. But the dry, frankly nauseating language of management consultancy is not the way to do this.
Over on the Huffington Post, George Lakoff, one of the leading Democrat sages of the day, puts up a very handy list of 12 traps for progressives in the US to avoid ahead of the mid-term elections. I think it is possible to oversubscribe to Lakoff’s political model, yet his work is hugely valuable as a challenge to the most sacred assumptions of modern politics. He depreciates the whole process of gauging what issues people care about most by polling and focus-grouping, then constructing and communicating policies that answer those concerns. What else, you might ask, is politics about?
Instead he argues that people have both progressive and conservative world views and values within them and either can be addressed and drawn out by the way in which a subject is framed. Enough précis! It’s a useful read at this time when there’s been a mass outbreak of public political cogitation from all parties.
And now Labour has wrapped a cold towel round its head and joined the Liberal Democrats and Cameron’s Conservatives in the speculation about today’s issues, tomorrow’s problems, modern values and the world-we-leave-out-children, it’s right to remember that parties in government have to ponder things in a different way than opposition parties.
Labour has to be very careful of the year zero approach. If, after 9 years of government, they sound like they are only just working out the right way to conduct business the voters are going to wonder, rightly, quite what they’ve been up to over the last decade. Renewal, that much discussed and little defined term, must connect to the work that has gone before. If the record of government is thrown away and new PM is pushed largely on their new ideas and personal background, that radically levels the playing field for opposition parties at the election and it squanders the incumbency advantage. When Al Gore threw away the record of the Clinton years he was vulnerable to Bush’s charge of ‘8 wasted years’ – see Cameron trying that here. Governments should never presume on a grateful electorate, but equally they can’t give the impression that they were on the wrong track until about last week, and have just now seen the light.
Finally the way governments should ‘think’ is by enacting policies and communicating them as part of a succession from previous policies and approaches. Not by stopping in the middle of the motorway and popping the hood to ponder the engine for a few years. The duty and the advantage of government over opposition is enacting ideas.
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