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The Tories have never had any ideology, so it's not surprising they've run out of steam



 

 

A lot of mileage can be made out of the ‘story’ that the Coalition has “run out of steam”, and this week two commentators, Martin Kettle and Allegra Stratton, branded the Queen’s Speech as ‘the beginning of the end’. There is a story that blank cigarette packaging and minimum alcohol pricing policies have disappeared due to corporate lobbying, and one suspects that we will never get to the truth of this. The narrative has moved onto ‘immigration’, where people are again nervous. This taps into an on-running theme of the Conservatives arguing that people are “getting something for nothing”, but the Conservatives are unable to hold a moral prerogative on this whilst multinational companies within the global race are still able to base their operations using a tax efficient (or avoiding) base. Like it or now, the Conservatives have become known for being in the pockets of the Corporates, but not in the same way that the Conservatives still argue that the Unions held ‘the country to ransom’. Except things have moved on. The modern Conservative Party is said to be more corporatilist than Margaret Thatcher had ever wanted it to be, it is alleged, and this feeds in a different problem over the State narrative. The discussion of the State is no longer about having a smaller, more cost-effective State, but a greater concern that ‘we are selling off our best China’ (as indeed the late Earl of Stockton felt about the Thatcherite policy of privatisation while that was still in its infancy). The public do not actually feel that an outsourced state is preferable to a state with shared responsibility, as the public do not feel in control of liabilities, and this is bound to have public trust in privatisation operations (for example, G4s bidding for the probation service, when operationally it underperformed during the Olympics).

 

It is possibly this notion of the country selling off its assets, and has been doing so under all administrations in the U.K., that is one particular chicken that is yet to come home to roost. For example, the story that the Coalition had wished to push with the pending privatisation of Royal Mail is that this industry, if loss making, would not ‘show up’ on the UK’s balance sheet. There is of course a big problem here: what if Royal Mail could actually be made to run at a profit under the right managers? Labour in its wish to become elected in 1997 lost sight of its fundamental principles. Whether it is a socialist party or not is effectively an issue which seems to be gathering no momentum, but even under the days of Nye Bevan the aspiration of Labour was to become a paper with real social democratic clout. One of the biggest successes was to engulf Britain in a sense of solidarity and shared responsibility, taking the UK away from the privatised fragmented interests of primary care prior to the introduction of the NHS. The criticism of course is that Bevan could not have predicted this ‘infinite demand’ (either in the ageing population or technological advances), but simply outsource the whole lot as has happened in the Conservative-led Health and Social Act (2012) is an expedient short-term measure which strikes at the heart of poverty of aspiration. It is a fallacy that Labour cannot be relevant to the ‘working man’ any more, as the working man now in 2013 as he did in 1946 stands to benefit from a well-run comprehensive National Health Service. Even Cameron, in introducing his great reforms of the public sector in 2010/1 argued that he thought the idea that the public sector was not ‘wealth creating’ was nonsense, which he rapidly, unfortunately forgot, in the great NHS ‘sell off’.

 

The Conservatives have an ideology, which is perhaps outsourcing or privatisation, but basically it comes down to making money. The fundamental error in the Conservative philosophy, if there is one, is that the sum of individual aspiration is not the same as the value of collective solidarity and sharing of resources. This strikes to the heart of having a NHS where there are winners and losers, for example where the NHS can run a £2.4 bn surplus but there are still A&E departments shutting in major cities. Or why should we tolerate a system of ‘league tables’ of schools which can all too easily become a ‘race to the bottom’? Individual freedom is as relevant to the voter of Labour as it is to the voter of the Conservative Party, but if there is one party that can uphold this it is not the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats. No-one on the Left can quite ignore why Baroness Williams chose to ignore the medical Royal Colleges, the RCN, the BMA or the legal advice/38 degrees so adamantly, although it does not take Brains of Britain to work out why certain other Peers voted as they did over the section 75 regulations as amended. But the reason that Labour is unable to lead convincingly on these issues, despite rehearsing well-exhausted mantra such as ‘we are the party of the NHS’, is that the general public received a lot of the same medicine from them as they did from the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats. Elements of the public feel there is not much to go further; the Labour Party will still be the party of the NHS for some (despite having implemented PFI and NHS Foundation Trusts), and the Conservatives will still be party of fiscal responsibility for some (despite having sent the economy into orbit due to incompetent measures culminating in avoidance of a triple-dip).

 

It doesn’t seem that Labour is particularly up for  discussion about much. It gets easily rumbled on what should be straightforward arms of policy. For example, Martha Kearney should have been doing a fairly uncontroversial set-piece interview with Ed Miliband in the local elections, except Miliband came across as a startled, overcaffeinated rabbit in headlights, and refused doggedly to explain why his policy would not involve more borrowing (even when Ed Balls had said clearly it would.) Miliband is chained to his guilty pleasures of being perceived as the figurehead of a ‘tax and spend’ party, which is why you will never hear of him talking for a rise in corporation tax or taxing excessively millionaires (though he does wish to introduce the 50p rate, which Labour had not done for the majority of its actual period in government). It uses terms such as “predistribution” as a figleaf for not doing what many Labour voters would actually like him to do. Labour is going through the motions of receiving feedback on NHS policy, but the actual grassroots experience is that it is actually incredibly difficult for the Labour Party machine even to acknowledge actually well-meant contributions from specialists. The Labour Party, most worryingly, does not seem to understand its real problem for not standing up for the rights of workers. This should be at the heart of ‘collective responsibility’, and a way of making Unions relevant to both the public and private sector. Whilst it continues to ignore the rights of workers, in an employment court of law over unfair dismissal or otherwise, Labour will have no ‘unique selling proposition’ compared to any of the other parties.

 

Likewise, Labour, like the Liberal Democrats, seems to be utterly disingenious about what it chooses to support. While it seems to oppose Workfare, it seems perfectly happy to vote with the Government for minimal concessions. It opposes the Bedroom Tax, and says it wants to repeal the Health and Social Care Act (2012), but whether it does actually does so is far from certain; for example, Labour did not reverse marketisation in the NHS post-1997, and conversely accelerated it (admittedly not as fast as post-2012). No-one would be surprised if Ed Miliband goes into ‘copycat’ mode over immigration, and ends up supporting a referendum. This could be that Ed Miliband does not care about setting the agenda for what he wants to do, or simply has no control of it through a highly biased media against Labour.

 

Essentially part of the reason that the Conservatives have ‘run out of steam’ is that they’ve run out of sectors of the population to alienate (whether that includes legal aid lawyers or GPs), or run out of things to flog off to the private sector (such as Circle, Serco, or Virgin). All this puts Labour in a highly precarious position of having to decide whether it wishes to stop yet more drifting into the private sector, or having to face an unpalatable truth (perhaps) that it is financially impossible to buy back these industries into the public sector (and to make them operate at a profit). However, the status quo is a mess. The railway industry is a fragmented disaster, with inflated prices, stakeholders managing to cherrypick the products they wish to sell to maximise their profit, with no underlying national direction. That is exactly the same mess as we have for privatised electricity, or privatised telecoms. That is exactly same mess as we will have for Royal Mail and the NHS. The whole thing is a catastrophic fiasco, and no mainstream party has the bottle to say so. The Liberal Democrats were the future once, with Nick Clegg promising to undo the culture of ‘broken promises’ before he reneged on his tuition fees pledge. UKIP are the future now, as they wish to get enough votes to have a say; despite the fact they currently do not have any MPs, if they continue to get substantial airtime from all media outlets (in a way that the NHS Action Party can only dream of), the public in their wisdom might force the Conservatives or Labour to go into coalition with UKIP.  There is clearly much more to politics than our membership of Europe, and, while the media fails to cover adequately the destruction of legal aid or the privatisation of the NHS, the quality of our debate about national issues will continue to be poor. Ed Miliband must now focus all of his resources into producing a sustainable plan to govern for a decade, the beginning of which will involve an element of ‘crisis management‘ for a stagnant economy at the beginning. The general public have incredibly short memories, and, although it has become very un-politically correct to say so, their short-termism and thirst for quick remedies has led to this mess.  Ed Miliband seems to be capable of jumping onto bandwagons, such as over press regulation, but he needs to be cautious about the intricacies of policy, some of which does not require on a precise analysis of the nation’s finances at the time of 7th May 2015. With no end as yet in sight for Jon Cruddas’ in-depth policy review, and for nothing as yet effectively Labour to campaign on solidly, there is no danger of that.

The 'One nation' of Ed Miliband is essentially about rebuilding the economy, rebuilding society and rebuilding politics



There are a number of overly-complicated accounts of what ‘One nation’, in its latest reincarnation, is about. One interpretation of ‘One nation’ is that it is literally that; scottish citizens can feel proud that ‘Team GB’ has won another Olympic medal, an example which Ed Miliband actually gave in his conference speech. The general consensus  is that the speech was very well delivered, but lacking in firm policy. This is clearly unfair as a number of examples were given in that speech given last Tuesday, and Labour is currently undergoing a detailed, complicated, policy review, being led by Jon Cruddas.  Describing the next steps in Labour’s policy review, Ed Miliband has said it would focus on three themes: rebuilding the economy, rebuilding society and rebuilding politics. Jon Cruddas has indeed previously provided that, “For me, politics is more about emotion than programme; more groups, community and  association- imagined as well as real- rather than theoretical or scientific.” The significance of this is not to be underestimated, as the three planks of policy review, namely economics, society and political process, if executed correctly, would be more than sufficient to rebuild ‘One Nation Labour’. What is clear is that ‘One Nation Labour’ is not a slick re-branding exercise; it could provide a natural break from the neoclassical or neoliberal approach taken by New Labour, and it is clear that Ed Miliband wishes to make it a sustainable political ideology for the party which he leads.

The economy

Peter Kellner argues that Labour needs a new doctrine of equality.

Kellner argues that,

“If Britain is to remain a part of the global economy, in which trade and investment ignore national boundaries, it will struggle to fight the forces that are driving low incomes further down, and high incomes further up. Symbolically, we can and should clamp down on the worst excesses, such as bankers’ undeserved bonuses; and more could be done to banish poverty by, for example, raising the minimum wage and enforcing it properly. But these policies will make only a slight difference to the normal measure of income inequality, the Gini coefficient.”

There have been countless descriptions of why the deficit exploded in the global financial crisis of 2008/9. For example Nick Thornsby describes that,

“Whatever Ed Miliband’s claims, the Labour party clearly have to take a significant share of the responsibility. Firstly because the government was spending more that it was taking in before the recession, clearly putting the UK in an unusually bad position (by international standards) when the recession began. And secondly – and more significantly – because they assumed they had done away with the business cycle – they believed they had “abolished boom and bust” – when actually the truth was that Britain was living through an enormous boom, and consequently underwent an enormous bust in 2007.”

Peter Kellner has further argued that,

“Labour has less to worry about on that front (though other YouGov data suggest that the party is vulnerable to the charge that it is too soft on illegal immigrants and welfare claimants). On the other hand, it can’t shake off the charge that it messed up the economy when in office; but there’s not much it can do about that now. What Ed Miliband does need to do is persuade voters that he heads a competent team that is in touch with their own supporters, that Labour has learned from its failures in office, and that he, personally, has the backbone as well as strength of purpose to take the tough decisions that will enable it to govern Britain effectively.”

Ed Miliband has some economic priorities for this.

The Guardian noticeably gave its support for Ed Miliband in his approach to banking regulation. Ed Miliband does not feel that the Coalition has gone far enough in implementing the recommendations by Sir John Vickers, and interestingly the Guardian editorial uses an experience from across the Atlantic to support its argument:

“… , Congress has failed to put in place a coherent set of rules to offset the eye-watering amount of money the Obama administration pumped into the banks, leaving the US with much the same arrangements as before the Lehman Brothers crash. Banks, awash with cheap funds, lend to the same people under the same rules and pay the same bonuses to their executives. Senators Dodd and Frank, who put their name to the new banking regulations, have sadly found their legislation lobbied to death, increasing the danger of another crash in a few years. Miliband is right to say the same is happening in the UK.”

Sustainability is critically another key factor. In law, there is a duty of directors to promote short-term profitability, as judged by the shareholder dividend, and sometimes corporates can prioritise this above business ethics. For example, it is said that it was many years before RH Tawney defined socialism in terms of its objective of resistance to the market and its constraints to private profit. He had identified two approaches: ethical and economic. The ‘responsible capitalism’ narrative, firmly footed in the ‘strategy and society’ work of Prof Michael Porter from Harvard concerning how corporates can be good citizens like everyone else, was of course famously introduced by Miliband in his 2011 conference speech in Liverpool. There has always been disquiet about why corporate citizens should voluntarily wish to embrace good citizenship, but the recent LIBOR scandal has demonstrated how potentially the City could lose its competitive advantage by not being a safe place to do business.

I spoke to an expert in wealth management at a Fabian Society event last week and he echoed what a fellow panel member from Which? suggested – that corporates, including banks, could publish transparently hard data on its business activities, such that customers could make an informed choice as to whether to transact with them (this is otherwise known as the “differentiation” strategy). Miliband interestingly highlights that it could be possible to legislate for this: “You see businesses tell me that the pressure for the fast buck from City investors means they just can’t take the long view. They want to plan one year, two years, ten years ahead but they have to publish their accounts in Britain every 3 months. In line with the wishes of the best of British business, we will end that rule so companies in Britain can take the long term productive view for our country.” Also notably, Ed Miliband has also started a debate about immigration within Europe, and the effect particularly that the behaviour of some some multinational companies and recruitment firms in employing workers with poor standards, for example: “So the next Labour government will crack down on employers who don’t pay the minimum wage. We will stop recruitment agencies just saying they are only going to hire people from overseas. And we will end the shady practices, in the construction industry and elsewhere, of gang-masters. So we need a system of immigration that works for the whole country and not just for some.”

The society

Welfare for many in Labour will be of concern; disabled citizens are irritated that their living allowances have been mixed up with the “lazy benefit scrounger” rhetoric, particularly as disability living allowance is not an employment allowance. Many have felt indeed that welfare might be the next “big” issue, closely after the NHS and the economy, particularly after the handling of work capability assessments by ATOS.

The NHS is often cited as a “national treasure”, but certainly an institution which is well cherished amongst the vast majority of members of the British Public. In relation to this, it is indeed interesting that Jon Cruddas, when talking about institutions in general, says, “… socialism is about the creation of institutions that allow us to self realise, to flourish. Vaclav Havel once said that we ‘ are capable of love, friendship, solidarity, sympathy and tolerance…:we must set these fundamental dimensions of our humanity free from their ‘private’ exile and accept them as the only genuine point of meaningful human community’.” It is indeed particularly noteworthy that Ed Miliband wishes to repeal the Health and Social Care Act (2012), and to eliminate competition from the NHS. While it appears that Ed Miliband will keep NHS Foundation Trusts and commissioning in some form (possibly through retention of the clinical commissioning groups and the NHS Commissioning Board), Miliband appears to signalling that activities in the NHS will not be caught by the competitive legal definition of the word “undertaking” in domestic and European law, and Labour will return to a NHS built on traditional values as provided in the speech: “Not values of markets, money and exchange but values of compassion, care and co-operation.” This is fundamental, as it appears that Miliband and Burnham would be prepared to legislate for the NHS, asking existing structures to do different things, to avoid another costly reorganisation of the NHS which could potentially cost billions, at a time when England is struggling to meet the efficiency demands of the Nicholson challenge anyway.

Ed Miliband admits that the focus on universities was incorrect, in that 50% of individuals were failed by an academic drive which put little value in vocational qualifications. Andrew Adonis in “Education, Education, Education” has certainly started the ball rolling, and the growth of a skills-based economy (and indeed the Technical E-Bacc which Adonis himself is an architect of), and the idea that the private sector would have a psychological and social contract with the state is indeed a concrete policy proposal. Labour latterly has tried not to use the term “industrial policy” of late, but the issue that Ed Miliband does not see a distinction between private and public sector is a useful one in framing the future policy. No vested interest will be overly powerful in Miliband’s one nation; whilst Ed Miliband explicitly refers to bankers (and he has said that he will work closely with anyone wishing to introduce a ‘mansion tax’), Miliband is mindful that members of the Unions only constitute 40% of Labour’s funding, and that Conference last year agreed to implement a different means of electing its Leader. Miliband will be fully aware, however, that many members of the public do not feel that the pay of the “super-rich” is fair, and indeed this is a concern shared by the Chartered Institute of Management Consultants for both private and public sector. A criticism of the ‘One Nation’ speech is that it is something which potentially could be attractive to workers, if there were an emphasis on building affiliations of working class individuals in communities consistent with Maurice Glasman’s goal for Blue Labour, but New Labour and Progress (amongst others) will be keen to ensure that ‘One Nation Labour’ is also attractive to floating voters who might otherwise not vote for Labour. A number of Union leaders broadly welcomed the speech, ranging from full-on acceptance to caution saying that it was lacking in policy. While Vernon Bogdanor in the New Statesman in an article entitled “Half echoes of the past” this week has warned that Labour should perhaps be keen to keep a safe distance from Blue Labour, it is likely that Jon Cruddas will not wish to see any watering down of socialism and working class values in the policy review, whatever the recent history of the Labour Party.

The political process.

There is of course a concern that ‘for one nation’ to succeed, it has to do so on a number of levels. Harriet Harman in Progress Online described it as, ” With the Tories’ collapse in Scotland, Wales and much of the north, and Labour making progress again in the south, we are now the only ‘one-nation party’.” This is reflected in Ed Miliband’s observation that, “So we must be a One Nation party to become a One Nation government, to build a One Nation Britain. “Currently, in the three southern regions, where Labour have 24 target seats, Labour have only 10 Labour MPs and far fewer councillors. Here, the Fabian policy document, “Southern discomfort again” might provide some useful clues in particular about how Labour might form new connections with potential voters:

“Any party seeking to recover from electoral defeat has to develop a coherent analysis of why it lost, and what ought to be done to put it right. For a decade after New Labour’s 1997 election triumph, the Conservative Party refused to listen to voters and, as a consequence, suffered its worst sequence of election defeats since 1832. In the 1950s and the 1980s Labour made a similar mistake which condemned it to long periods out of power. If the party is to escape the impotence of opposition, it will need to shape a political strategy that will enable it to win next time.”

The critical aspect about all of this, thankfully, is that Labour has got time on its side. There is no point in Labour publishing its policies way in advance of 2015, particularly since the economic performance of the UK is declining by the second (as illustrated in the latest Labour initiative, “the borrowing counter”). Labour has said it regrettably that it would not be able to reverse many of the cuts, such as the closure of the law centres, or certain NHS institutions being abolished (e.g. PCTs or SHAs), but the approach taken by Ed Miliband indeed is a practical one for the time-being. Ed Miliband’s leadership is now a curious mixture of ‘charismatic leadership’ and ‘crisis leadership'; ‘charismatic’ in that Ed Miliband pulled off a performance which meant that people have not written him off, and seem prepared to give him and Labour a chance, despite Labour’s potential mistakes, because the Coalition’s performance has been so poor. If a week is a long time in politics, two to three years constitute an ever longer period.

The 'One nation' of Ed Miliband is essentially about rebuilding the economy, rebuilding society and rebuilding politics



There are a number of overly-complicated accounts of what ‘One nation’, in its latest reincarnation, is about. One interpretation of ‘One nation’ is that it is literally that; scottish citizens can feel proud that ‘Team GB’ has won another Olympic medal, an example which Ed Miliband actually gave in his conference speech. The general consensus  is that the speech was very well delivered, but lacking in firm policy. This is clearly unfair as a number of examples were given in that speech given last Tuesday, and Labour is currently undergoing a detailed, complicated, policy review, being led by Jon Cruddas.  Describing the next steps in Labour’s policy review, Ed Miliband has said it would focus on three themes: rebuilding the economy, rebuilding society and rebuilding politics. Jon Cruddas has indeed previously provided that, “For me, politics is more about emotion than programme; more groups, community and  association- imagined as well as real- rather than theoretical or scientific.” The significance of this is not to be underestimated, as the three planks of policy review, namely economics, society and political process, if executed correctly, would be more than sufficient to rebuild ‘One Nation Labour’. What is clear is that ‘One Nation Labour’ is not a slick re-branding exercise; it could provide a natural break from the neoclassical or neoliberal approach taken by New Labour, and it is clear that Ed Miliband wishes to make it a sustainable political ideology for the party which he leads.

The economy

Peter Kellner argues that Labour needs a new doctrine of equality.

Kellner argues that,

“If Britain is to remain a part of the global economy, in which trade and investment ignore national boundaries, it will struggle to fight the forces that are driving low incomes further down, and high incomes further up. Symbolically, we can and should clamp down on the worst excesses, such as bankers’ undeserved bonuses; and more could be done to banish poverty by, for example, raising the minimum wage and enforcing it properly. But these policies will make only a slight difference to the normal measure of income inequality, the Gini coefficient.”

There have been countless descriptions of why the deficit exploded in the global financial crisis of 2008/9. For example Nick Thornsby describes that,

“Whatever Ed Miliband’s claims, the Labour party clearly have to take a significant share of the responsibility. Firstly because the government was spending more that it was taking in before the recession, clearly putting the UK in an unusually bad position (by international standards) when the recession began. And secondly – and more significantly – because they assumed they had done away with the business cycle – they believed they had “abolished boom and bust” – when actually the truth was that Britain was living through an enormous boom, and consequently underwent an enormous bust in 2007.”

Peter Kellner has further argued that,

“Labour has less to worry about on that front (though other YouGov data suggest that the party is vulnerable to the charge that it is too soft on illegal immigrants and welfare claimants). On the other hand, it can’t shake off the charge that it messed up the economy when in office; but there’s not much it can do about that now. What Ed Miliband does need to do is persuade voters that he heads a competent team that is in touch with their own supporters, that Labour has learned from its failures in office, and that he, personally, has the backbone as well as strength of purpose to take the tough decisions that will enable it to govern Britain effectively.”

Ed Miliband has some economic priorities for this.

The Guardian noticeably gave its support for Ed Miliband in his approach to banking regulation. Ed Miliband does not feel that the Coalition has gone far enough in implementing the recommendations by Sir John Vickers, and interestingly the Guardian editorial uses an experience from across the Atlantic to support its argument:

“… , Congress has failed to put in place a coherent set of rules to offset the eye-watering amount of money the Obama administration pumped into the banks, leaving the US with much the same arrangements as before the Lehman Brothers crash. Banks, awash with cheap funds, lend to the same people under the same rules and pay the same bonuses to their executives. Senators Dodd and Frank, who put their name to the new banking regulations, have sadly found their legislation lobbied to death, increasing the danger of another crash in a few years. Miliband is right to say the same is happening in the UK.”

Sustainability is critically another key factor. In law, there is a duty of directors to promote short-term profitability, as judged by the shareholder dividend, and sometimes corporates can prioritise this above business ethics. For example, it is said that it was many years before RH Tawney defined socialism in terms of its objective of resistance to the market and its constraints to private profit. He had identified two approaches: ethical and economic. The ‘responsible capitalism’ narrative, firmly footed in the ‘strategy and society’ work of Prof Michael Porter from Harvard concerning how corporates can be good citizens like everyone else, was of course famously introduced by Miliband in his 2011 conference speech in Liverpool. There has always been disquiet about why corporate citizens should voluntarily wish to embrace good citizenship, but the recent LIBOR scandal has demonstrated how potentially the City could lose its competitive advantage by not being a safe place to do business.

I spoke to an expert in wealth management at a Fabian Society event last week and he echoed what a fellow panel member from Which? suggested – that corporates, including banks, could publish transparently hard data on its business activities, such that customers could make an informed choice as to whether to transact with them (this is otherwise known as the “differentiation” strategy). Miliband interestingly highlights that it could be possible to legislate for this: “You see businesses tell me that the pressure for the fast buck from City investors means they just can’t take the long view. They want to plan one year, two years, ten years ahead but they have to publish their accounts in Britain every 3 months. In line with the wishes of the best of British business, we will end that rule so companies in Britain can take the long term productive view for our country.” Also notably, Ed Miliband has also started a debate about immigration within Europe, and the effect particularly that the behaviour of some some multinational companies and recruitment firms in employing workers with poor standards, for example: “So the next Labour government will crack down on employers who don’t pay the minimum wage. We will stop recruitment agencies just saying they are only going to hire people from overseas. And we will end the shady practices, in the construction industry and elsewhere, of gang-masters. So we need a system of immigration that works for the whole country and not just for some.”

The society

Welfare for many in Labour will be of concern; disabled citizens are irritated that their living allowances have been mixed up with the “lazy benefit scrounger” rhetoric, particularly as disability living allowance is not an employment allowance. Many have felt indeed that welfare might be the next “big” issue, closely after the NHS and the economy, particularly after the handling of work capability assessments by ATOS.

The NHS is often cited as a “national treasure”, but certainly an institution which is well cherished amongst the vast majority of members of the British Public. In relation to this, it is indeed interesting that Jon Cruddas, when talking about institutions in general, says, “… socialism is about the creation of institutions that allow us to self realise, to flourish. Vaclav Havel once said that we ‘ are capable of love, friendship, solidarity, sympathy and tolerance…:we must set these fundamental dimensions of our humanity free from their ‘private’ exile and accept them as the only genuine point of meaningful human community’.” It is indeed particularly noteworthy that Ed Miliband wishes to repeal the Health and Social Care Act (2012), and to eliminate competition from the NHS. While it appears that Ed Miliband will keep NHS Foundation Trusts and commissioning in some form (possibly through retention of the clinical commissioning groups and the NHS Commissioning Board), Miliband appears to signalling that activities in the NHS will not be caught by the competitive legal definition of the word “undertaking” in domestic and European law, and Labour will return to a NHS built on traditional values as provided in the speech: “Not values of markets, money and exchange but values of compassion, care and co-operation.” This is fundamental, as it appears that Miliband and Burnham would be prepared to legislate for the NHS, asking existing structures to do different things, to avoid another costly reorganisation of the NHS which could potentially cost billions, at a time when England is struggling to meet the efficiency demands of the Nicholson challenge anyway.

Ed Miliband admits that the focus on universities was incorrect, in that 50% of individuals were failed by an academic drive which put little value in vocational qualifications. Andrew Adonis in “Education, Education, Education” has certainly started the ball rolling, and the growth of a skills-based economy (and indeed the Technical E-Bacc which Adonis himself is an architect of), and the idea that the private sector would have a psychological and social contract with the state is indeed a concrete policy proposal. Labour latterly has tried not to use the term “industrial policy” of late, but the issue that Ed Miliband does not see a distinction between private and public sector is a useful one in framing the future policy. No vested interest will be overly powerful in Miliband’s one nation; whilst Ed Miliband explicitly refers to bankers (and he has said that he will work closely with anyone wishing to introduce a ‘mansion tax’), Miliband is mindful that members of the Unions only constitute 40% of Labour’s funding, and that Conference last year agreed to implement a different means of electing its Leader. Miliband will be fully aware, however, that many members of the public do not feel that the pay of the “super-rich” is fair, and indeed this is a concern shared by the Chartered Institute of Management Consultants for both private and public sector. A criticism of the ‘One Nation’ speech is that it is something which potentially could be attractive to workers, if there were an emphasis on building affiliations of working class individuals in communities consistent with Maurice Glasman’s goal for Blue Labour, but New Labour and Progress (amongst others) will be keen to ensure that ‘One Nation Labour’ is also attractive to floating voters who might otherwise not vote for Labour. A number of Union leaders broadly welcomed the speech, ranging from full-on acceptance to caution saying that it was lacking in policy. While Vernon Bogdanor in the New Statesman in an article entitled “Half echoes of the past” this week has warned that Labour should perhaps be keen to keep a safe distance from Blue Labour, it is likely that Jon Cruddas will not wish to see any watering down of socialism and working class values in the policy review, whatever the recent history of the Labour Party.

The political process.

There is of course a concern that ‘for one nation’ to succeed, it has to do so on a number of levels. Harriet Harman in Progress Online described it as, ” With the Tories’ collapse in Scotland, Wales and much of the north, and Labour making progress again in the south, we are now the only ‘one-nation party’.” This is reflected in Ed Miliband’s observation that, “So we must be a One Nation party to become a One Nation government, to build a One Nation Britain. “Currently, in the three southern regions, where Labour have 24 target seats, Labour have only 10 Labour MPs and far fewer councillors. Here, the Fabian policy document, “Southern discomfort again” might provide some useful clues in particular about how Labour might form new connections with potential voters:

“Any party seeking to recover from electoral defeat has to develop a coherent analysis of why it lost, and what ought to be done to put it right. For a decade after New Labour’s 1997 election triumph, the Conservative Party refused to listen to voters and, as a consequence, suffered its worst sequence of election defeats since 1832. In the 1950s and the 1980s Labour made a similar mistake which condemned it to long periods out of power. If the party is to escape the impotence of opposition, it will need to shape a political strategy that will enable it to win next time.”

The critical aspect about all of this, thankfully, is that Labour has got time on its side. There is no point in Labour publishing its policies way in advance of 2015, particularly since the economic performance of the UK is declining by the second (as illustrated in the latest Labour initiative, “the borrowing counter”). Labour has said it regrettably that it would not be able to reverse many of the cuts, such as the closure of the law centres, or certain NHS institutions being abolished (e.g. PCTs or SHAs), but the approach taken by Ed Miliband indeed is a practical one for the time-being. Ed Miliband’s leadership is now a curious mixture of ‘charismatic leadership’ and ‘crisis leadership'; ‘charismatic’ in that Ed Miliband pulled off a performance which meant that people have not written him off, and seem prepared to give him and Labour a chance, despite Labour’s potential mistakes, because the Coalition’s performance has been so poor. If a week is a long time in politics, two to three years constitute an ever longer period.

Were Academies ever a good idea? An Academic question?



This article first appeared here http://anpa2001.wordpress.com/

Posted on June 15th 2010 by anpa2001

I was at the Fabian Society Hustings last night in London on 14th June 2010.

Following a question regarding 3 things the contenders would rather Labour hadn’t done or had got wrong, Gaby Hinsliffe asked the audience for other suggestions. Someone shouted ‘SATs’ and I said ‘Academies’ as I don’t think Labour should have introduced academies. This raised a small cheer but then a woman in front got very cross and started raising her voice and pointing her finger at me in disagreement. I didn’t catch what she said but she sure liked academies. Ed Balls then had a little joke with her saying ‘you can be my campaign manager’ and something about giving her a fiver.

Teachers have moved away in their droves from supporting the Labour Party because of SATs, League Tables and Academies. Whilst Ed Balls and some other Labour Party people may draw attention to the fact that under Labour it was ‘failing’ schools which were offered academy status whereas now it is the opposite end of the Ofsted spectrum i.e. ‘outstanding’ schools, this should not detract from the arguments against all academies. Academies fall outside local authority control, are effectively outside the state system, cost a huge amount of money in start-up costs and reduce workers’ rights. There is plenty of evidence to support the fact that they are not always a beneficial force in the education of the children they are supposed to be catering for. From an education point of view I do not accept that academies through their structure and the nature of the fact they are sponsored and taken out of local authority control makes them good value for money or good for children.

I think it’s a shame that at the hustings Ed Balls didn’t take the opportunity to practice what he was preaching and demonstrate that he is interested in listening to the people. Rather than ignoring me (and those who applauded my comment) he could have invited me to communicate with him via his website and defended his position.

http://www.antiacademies.org.uk/Home/why-we-oppose-academies

http://www.teachers.org.uk/files/Academies-FAQ-leaflet-4pp-6883.pdf

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/teachers-declare-war-on-academies-1998321.html

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