Last year’s Labour conference speech in Manchester had rather mixed reviews, but as John Denham MP pointed out at the policy discussion of the Fabian Society the concept of ‘responsible capitalism’ did not mysteriously appear from outer space. ‘Responsible capitalism’ is based on a popular trending business idea from Prof Michael Porter at Harvard, articulating an argument of business strategy in the context of being a responsible corporate citizen in society.
This week’s conference in Manchester commenced with an inspiring speech by Prof Michael Sandel, a political philosopher from Harvard, providing intelligent capital in a dialogue with his audience about ‘the public good’. On the day before Eric Hobsbawn, valued for his histories discussing the tension between marxism and capitalism, sadly died at the age of 95, the debate has temporarily turned to whether intellectuals have any useful rôle in public life. Ed Miliband, in his limited time as leader since the 2010 conference also held at Manchester, has made his views on the ‘inclusive economy’ known, rejecting division and artificial distinction between the private and public sector.
The challenge for Ed Miliband is not to become as a the man who ‘released the inner geek within you’, and who can communicate with, and more significantly, represent the strong anxieties and concerns of ordinary potential Labour voters. Angela Eagle MP last night referred to a ‘tsunami resulting from a failed austerity programme’, and there is a growing realisation that there is a genuine disconnect between Labour and millions of non-voters who cannot even remember why they did not vote for any political party (according to Peter Kellner and YouGov).
I spoke with Lord Adonis yesterday evening after the policy panel discussion of the Fabians. His views are entirely consistent with the three planks of the intensive policy review under Jon Cruddas, focusing on the economy, society, and political process. I found Lord Adonis extremely pleasant to talk with, as he is intensively positive about a ‘skills economy’. Individuals can no longer take jobs ‘for granted’, and even government departments have been reluctant to take on apprentices. It is a narrative, which I strongly believe in. The shift in gear from university towards apprentices, as Adonis freely admits, has the characteristics of a ‘push-pull’ phenomenon, with a push away from the horrors created by the hike in tuition fees, and pull away towards ‘relevant skills’. Whilst Tony Blair was keen to promote ‘education, education, education’ (indeed the title of Adonis’ new book), a more relevant mantra might be ‘skills, skills, skills’.
This year, I was struck with the official statistics from the Office for National Statistics regarding employment. These statistics show a strong economy in London, but a workforce showing characteristics of being increasingly part-time and consisting of ‘independent contractors’. There is now a challenge for the left to think about how employment rights of freelancers can be vigorously protected, and the Fabians have produced an interesting policy document called ‘New forms of work’ discussing this. There is a perpetual battle for Unions not to appear nor to be irrelevant in the new modern, flexible workforce, and as Prof. Patricia Leighton describes in this policy document such workers can become separated from employment and social security rights. Degrees can indeed seem irrelevant in the ‘job hunt’, with many people competing even just to get an interview, with a II.1 from a good university. Graduates wish their qualifications to be relevant, and Ed Miliband’s desire for people to have access to vocational qualifications is a marked antithesis to the approach taken by Michael Gove. Ed Miliband’s drive here is reminiscent of the ‘equality of opportunity’, a theme which Sandel often goes back to, and certainly a more skilled workforce earning a salary ultimately in a full-top salaried job ultimately benefits the economy. This again is consistent with the ‘predistribution’ doctrine of Prof Jacob Hacker from Yale. It also chimes with the work of young campaigners within grassroots Labour, like Sam Tarry, who have often mourned the lack of an infrastructure for apprenticeships in an era still of troubling levels of youth (un)employment.
In the same way that the economy most blatantly needs to be rebalanced, with some individuals earning vastly inflated salaries as CEO (and who might be targets for the redistribution debate so beloved of Labour strategists), there is a growing appreciation that the education discussion needs to be reframed. In particular, an unresolved issue from the last few decades has been the erroneous perception of vocational qualifications as being seen as ‘inferior’. I perceive that there is much profitability in sectors such as IT/programming, as there never seems to be a shortage of people wanting websites (different from the age of where we needed a lot of people with skills such as mechanical welding). I not only think that vocational training such as nursing (and indeed in paralegal or legal support work) can be rewarding in all senses for all those concerned, but may indeed be valuable export industries for the UK. The explosive growth of the services industry was discussed in Evan Davis’ “Made in Britain” episode 3 in November 2011, and indeed law and medicine, which bridge both professional academic and vocational skills-based practitioner disciplines, could indeed become the ‘wealth creation’ industries so beloved of the right wing.
Rachel Reeves MP, this week, in two separate sessions for the Fabian Society, remarked on the relative success of Dizzy Rascal. Dizzee Rascal has been promoting ‘Futureversity’, which hosts an annual programme for youngsters aged 11 to 25 includes free ‘taster’ courses and activities combining academic and vocational study, personal development and volunteering. The aim is to help reduce street crime by raising youngsters’ aspirations, improving their confidence and self-esteem and breaking down social, racial and religious tensions in an area with the country’s highest youth unemployment at 25 per cent.
In this way, one can understand how Ed Miliband appears to be genuinely motivated by ‘aspiration’. This is not aspiration in the narrowed definition of individualistic empowerment by Margaret Thatcher, but an idea of aspiration building a stronger community with strong values of solidarity. Of course, it would be utterly useless if Miliband’s aspirations were simply aspirational. It is reported that, this afternoon, Ed Miliband will propose a German style shakeup of post-18 apprenticeships, in which companies, on an industry or regional basis, can sign legally enforceable agreements requiring all participating firms to pay a levy to cover the cost of training, so – ending the scourge of freeloading companies refusing to pay the costs of apprenticeships, but stealing skilled staff from firms that do train. Miliband will also give businesses control of the £1bn budget of the Skills Agency.
Whether you believe it is the correct strategy, or indeed tactic, for Ed Miliband to go on a journey of ‘self discovery’ through personal branding, acquiring a different market strategic position to David Cameron, whose narrative could be motivating to those who seek to get top First class honours degrees in Oxford only ‘to make a difference’, you can see that the discussion is already upsetting parts of the media. I suspect that the general reporting of this, compared to ‘responsible capitalism’, will be less of a problem in the long run, but I am in fact supremely confident that Ed Miliband’s conference speech this afternoon, emphasising a skilled economy, will in fact be seminal.
