The events of the past week seem to demonstrate that all of those old cliches are true: a week is a long time in politics, all political careers end in tears and the Harold Macmillan maxim that it is "events dear boy events" that are the driver of politics. As Robert Philpot pointed out in his earlier post these are turbulent times indeed to be holding a conference on anything Labour-flavoured.
It was with this backdrop then and with two days to reflect after seeing the PM for real at Progress on Saturday that we held our own symposium at Kingston University where I teach, entitled 'New Labour in Power - 10 Years On' gathering together a group of academics, journalists, practitioners and people who happily straddle divides.
The brief was to reflect on our anticipations of a decade ago and see how far we had been proved right and wrong. If we rewind to "1996 and all that" the event was a re-run of a conference organised by Kingston people back then which culminated in a well known and well received book
The day covered lots of the areas that tend to slip off the agenda when considering big P politics -we had contributions on the moral imperatives of Blairism, the feminisation of politics and on ethnic minority issues as well as more straightforward policy areas. We finished up with Clare Short MP and Fiona MacTaggart MP both resopnding to the day and providing their own projections for the next ten years. Clare's short sharp shock concentrated on the critique that she has honed in recent times. Fiona also spoke passionately - about the need to renew 'politics'.
The world has become an unpredictable place. I have no crystal ball for what comes next but if we're answering the question 'how was it for you?' this was always going to be about walking the tightrope of expectations management. After all New Labour was always an alternative to itself and as Fiona MacTaggart pointed out the left are never satisfied. As conference co-organiser Brian Brivati has remarked history will be kinder to Blair than the crazed atmosphere of the moment where naysayers seem to dominate the news agenda.
Universal, egalitarian socialism: not quite (admittedly) but I'd say Labour's record as the party of progressive social transformation is pretty much intact. Yes 'could do better' is an obvious thing for the school report but much has been done. It is regrettable that Iraq will be what this governement will be remembered for. As part of my presentation I flashed up a slide of a poster with Labour's last 'Forward not back' election slogan that had been defaced to read 'For war not back'. It would be foolish to reduce 10 years of acheivements at home with this reminder. Indeed other New Labour actions abroad have been laudable. Surely a government department established with a mission statement to accomplish worldwide poverty allieviation is a historical landmark. Clare Short's comments on Monday testify to the fact that, backed by significant money, DFID has become in relatively a short space of time an important player on the world stage. Bono and Chris Martin would have to agree that it's all steps in the right ... sorry, correct ... direction.
The domestic implications of foreign policy will be crucial in the next 10 years. They already are - witness all the European directives that this government has trumpeted as its own such as increased maternity and paternity leave. Look also at the disturbing rise of Muslim extremism - a multi-faceted phenomenon. For voters it will be quality of life issues that determine where they put their cross which in large degree ammounts to the economy (stupid). Anyway I began with a load of well-worn sayings so I'll end with another. I think it was Disraeli who said that 'politics' is an inexact science. As is the way with all cliches the saying is not entirely without foundation.
Fiona's point was on re-connecting was crucial though. This presents all the mainstream political parties with a central challenge. We need to reverse the pervasive tide of apathy that seems to be engulfing voters - the 'don't cares'. The people who believe that political class is all the same and different from themselves may fall into the hands of the political extremes if they percieve that the established political parties are failing to listen to there concerns. Chettering class types concerned about the environment could go green or even blue. The white working class in east london is showing a worrying propensity to vote for the BNP but the dissatisfaction that they are playing on represents a serious opportunity for UKIP or other english nationalist parties to try to plug that gap. It could be said extremism breeds extremism and at a Progress event on the BNP Bath University's Roger Eatwell made an intersting connection between The BNP and Muslim extremists. The recruiting arguments of both are sometimes not dissimilar.
For more blogging background to the meeting see
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brian_brivati/2006/08/new_labour_ten_yeas.htm
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