Home » Posts tagged 'Unions'
Tag Archives: Unions
How talk of the Unions went very Pete Tong for David Cameron
At first, nobody knew what he was going on about. David Cameron appeared to have some weird pathological obsession with Len McCluskey of UNITE, like somebody who acts oddly around someone that find deeply attractive. It is of course a tried and tested weapon of the Conservative Party; the notion that the Unions have secret ‘beer and sandwiches’ in Number 10, and they periodically hold the country to ransom. And yet, the truth is that David Cameron is quite unable to party as if it is 1979. Cameron’s attempts to capture the atmosphere of a Nation at ease with itself was simply returned with derision, as no-one clapped for him, in contradistinction with other names, when a long list was read out at the Wimbledon Gall Ball this year. The ‘Cameron brand’ has, despite the best attempts at mitigation against re-toxification, been tarred with the corruption brush, in the perception of many, with the close relationship between News International, Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks. Cameron has kept reminding us he saved this country from the brink of bankruptcy, when the fact is the economy has done extremely badly in the last three years. This is all about the political process and the economy.
Conveniently enough for Ed Miliband, the political process and the economy constitute two thirds of Jon Cruddas’ extensive policy review for Labour (the third leg of this tripos being society.) Whilst Falkirk was bad, the public is not altogether pleased with the extensive lobbying which appeared to culminate in the Health and Social Care Act. Private US ‘not for profit’ “health maintenance organisations” appear to have infiltrated the language of senior health policy wonks, and yet the problems of trade unions in private healthcare providers have not gone unnoticed. The main problem for David Cameron is not many people actually object in principle to the idea of democratic representation through Unions, and as for the idea of groups of people ‘holding the country to ransom’, the effect of the 1 Trillion Pound bailing out of the investment backing sector is not a trivial one. Boris Johnson and others proudly continue to ‘defend the competitive advantage’ of the City, with the Serious Fraud Office visibly impotent to deal with alleged LIBOR fraud offences in the City’s own back yard.
It is not so easy to argue that there should be a no special relationship between Labour and the Unions, as Labour historically was invented as the vehicle to represent working class citizens in parliament. Members of Unions can of course ‘opt in’ to any political party they wish, but why should they wish to have the protection of the Unions in the first place? David Cameron would be onto a winner if Unions were unpopular, but the unpalatable fact for him is that Union membership is actually on the increase. The protection of employment rights, with the Unions in a pivotal rôle to bargain for the rights of workers, has never become more relevant. With the eligible time period for unfair dismissal having gone up form one year’s continuous service to two years, and with the quantum of the unfair dismissal having gone down, there has never been a better time to protect the worker. The worker is of course part of the ‘One Nation’ economy that Ed Miliband wants, it is part of the notion that we all have something to contribute to society in One Nation, and the process of participation politically of members of Unions (not whole Unions) has been approved.
Unions matter because they can speak up for the living needs of workers, whether this is the national minimum wage, or the living wage which is widely predicted to form part of the 2015 Labour manifesto. Members of Unions are much more accountable than the private equity shareholders who have profited through the rent seeking opportunities of the Health and Social Care Act. Unions could also be pivotal in bridging the gulf between the most extremely well paid and the worst paid. By having members of Unions on the renumeration committees in public companies and private limited companies, there will not only be an apparent perception of participation of the workforce, but there will also be active participation of the workforce in decisions promoting the ‘success’ or profitability of a company. This has already been working well in Germany, and Ed Miliband and Lord Stewart Wood are already most familiar with this aspect.
To be honest, this was a ‘cheap shot’ for David Cameron and it was inevitable it would explode dramatically in Labour’s face. While the BBC’s Nick Robinson will wish to chuck water on frying oil, his case is weakened by Tony Blair’s remark that Ed Miliband has shown remarkable leadership; and we know how much ‘they’ love Tony Blair. As usual, Ed Miliband will be called ‘weak, weak, weak’, but fundamental to all this is that the “political class” grossly underestimate the level of insight which ordinary voters have. It does not matter how this is all packaged by the BBC any more. Labour members think the way the country has been run stinks. Even hardcore Conservative voters are finding it hard to learn to love Cameron any more. Cameron’s in deep shit. And he knows it.
@Ed_Miliband’s speech on the Unions and party funding, 9 July 2013 [full text]
Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Labour Party, said:
Let me start by saying how pleased I am to be here at the St Bride’s Foundation. Only a few hundred yards from where the Labour Party was founded over a century ago. And especially to be here with so many community organisers and Labour Party members from right across the country.
I am here today to talk about how we can build a different kind of politics. A politics which is truly rooted in every community of the country and reaches out to people across every walk of life. That is what I mean by One Nation. A country where everyone plays their part. And a politics where they can. It is about a politics that is open, transparent and trusted.
Exactly the opposite of the politics we’ve recently seen in Falkirk. A politics that was closed. A politics of the machine. A politics that is rightly hated. What we saw in Falkirk is part of the death-throes of the old politics. And the reason why Falkirk is so damaging is because it comes against growing mistrust in politics. People thinking politicians are in it for themselves. Not to be trusted. Not to be believed. And every time something like Falkirk happens, it confirms people’s worst suspicions.
And as the Labour Party – the party of working people – we have a special responsibility to stand for a better politics. So I want to build a better Labour Party. A better politics for Britain. And that is what we will do. And we will do so by shaping a Party appropriate for the twenty-first century not the twentieth century in which we were founded. Understanding we live in a world where individuals rightly demand a voice, where parties need to reach out far beyond their membership and where our Party always looks like the diverse country we seek to serve, representing the national interest.
Building a better politics starts by building a Party that is truly rooted in every community and every walk of life.
A hundred years ago the Trade Unions helped found the Labour Party. Decade by decade, from Neil Kinnock to John Smith to Tony Blair, we have been changing that relationship. And in this generation, to build the new politics, we need to do more, not less, to make individual Trade Union members part of our Party – the three million shopworkers, nurses, engineers, bus drivers, construction workers, people from public and private sector.
The problem is not that these ordinary working men and women dominate the Labour Party. The problem is that they are not properly part of all that we do. The vast majority are not members of local parties, not active in our campaigns. We have to turn that round. Working people should be right at the heart of our Party.
Our relationship with individual Trade Union members needs to change. Trade Unions have political funds for all kinds of campaigns and activities as they choose. These funds are governed by law, passed in the 1980s, and there are arrangements where their members can opt-out from that fund if they do not want their money spent on political activities, activities covering a whole range of campaigning issues.
We do not need to change that law on the right of Trade Unions to have political funds. But I do want to change the way individual Trade Unionists are affiliated to the Labour Party through these funds. At the moment, they are often affiliated automatically. I do not want any individual to be paying money to the Labour Party in affiliation fees unless they have deliberately chosen to do so. Individual Trade Union members should choose to join Labour through the affiliation fee, not be automatically affiliated. In the twenty-first century, it just doesn’t make sense for anyone to be affiliated to a political party unless they have chosen to do so. Men and women in Trade Unions should be able to make a more active, individual choice on whether they become part of our Party. That would be better for these individuals and better for our Party. It could grow our membership from 200,000 to a far higher number, genuinely rooting us in the life of more of the people of our country.
I have a message to the millions of Trade Union members currently affiliated to the Labour Party: with this change I invite you to be at the centre of what this Party does, day in day out, at local level. Together, let’s change our communities and change our country.
Moving to this system has big and historic implications for both the Trade Unions and the Labour Party and they need to be worked through. But I am clear about the direction in which we must go. I have asked Ray Collins, former General Secretary of the Labour Party, to lead work on how to make this a reality and he will look at the other Party reforms I am proposing today as well. So a new politics starts with the vibrancy of our Party.
And it also needs candidates for election who are properly chosen and truly representative of our country. That is what we are doing as a Party. It is why we have taken steps over the last few years to seek more candidates from backgrounds that are under-represented. It is why I have put an emphasis on also getting more ordinary working people as candidates. It is why we have All Women Shortlists which have transformed the representation of women among MPs, now at 33% Labour and rising.
I am incredibly proud of so many brilliant candidates who have been selected for the Labour Party. Those who have served in our armed forces, our health service, successful entrepreneurs, school teachers, shop workers, all selected for the next election to represent Labour. People from almost every walk of life. But we need to make sure that every selection process happens in the fairest way. That’s not what we saw in Falkirk.
So we will have a new code of conduct for those seeking parliamentary selection. Observing this code of conduct in the selection process will be a condition for moving forward to being a parliamentary candidate for our Party. Also as a Party which believes so strongly in equal opportunity, we cannot have any part of the Party being able to stack the odds in favour of one candidate over another simply by the spending of money. We will not allow this to happen. That is why we will also urgently agree new spending limits for Parliamentary selections to include for the first time all spending by outside organisations. And the same goes for future selections to the European Parliament and future leadership contests.
So a new politics involves a diversity of candidates, from all backgrounds, selected in a fair way. It also involves ensuring trust in Members of Parliament. Just as I am proud of our new candidates, so I am proud of our Members of Parliament. All of them serve their local parties. All of them owe their allegiance to their constituents and to our country. That is the way they behave.
Many constituency Labour parties also have agreements with Trade Unions. These agreements help local parties campaign on issues that really matter to local, working people. I want it to be absolutely clear that there is a proper place for agreements like these, enabling people to campaign locally from everything from violence against shopworkers to promoting apprenticeships. They help keep our Party connected to the needs of working people. What a contrast to the Conservative Party that stands for a few out of touch people at the top. But these agreements need to be properly regulated. So henceforth, the Labour Party will establish standard constituency agreements with each trade union so that nobody can allege that individuals are being put under pressure at local level.
And there is another issue that all parties must confront if we are to rebuild trust in politics. And it is time we talked about it again. That is the pursuit of second outside jobs, sometimes paying higher salaries than the job of an MP itself. Decades ago being an MP was often seen to be a second job. The hours of Parliament starting in the afternoon, so people could do other jobs in the morning. We have changed that. But there remains a problem, as recent episodes involving lobbying and outside interests have shown. The vast majority of all MPs have performed their duties properly within the rules. And raising this issue casts no doubt upon that. But we should question the rules. The question of MPs second outside jobs has been discussed but not properly addressed for a generation. The British people expect their MPs to be representing them and the country not anyone else. They understand that Members of Parliament need to keep connected to the world beyond Westminster and will always write articles and give speeches. But can it be right that the rules allow MPs to earn hundreds of thousands of pounds from private legal practice while they are supposed to be an MP? Or from outside corporations without any real form of regulation?
We will change things in the next Parliament. That is why I believe that at the very least there should be new limits on outside earnings, like they have in other countries and new rules on conflict of interests too. The British people must be reassured that their MPs are working for them. Being an MP should not be a sideline. It’s a privilege and a duty. And the rules must reflect that. And I urge other party leaders to respond to this call for changing the system.
So we will do everything we can to have diverse local parties, candidates selected in a fair way, and we will make clear that MPs’ allegiance always being to their constituents and our country. But as we make these changes, we must also recognise that a new politics must always reach out to more people. We live in a totally different era than when the Labour Party was founded. People in Britain today are less likely to join political parties. They are more likely to focus on single issues and they are rightly demanding an open rather than a closed politics.
That is why Labour is increasingly becoming a community organisation, leading and participating in individual campaigns, from the living wage to library closures to campaigns against legal loan sharks. I know so many of you here today are pioneering that work and I applaud you for it.
As we reshape our Party for the future, we must always value the role of Party members. And I do. But valuing Party members cannot be an excuse for excluding the voice of the wider public. Since I became Labour leader, we have opened up our policy making process and opened up the Party to registered supporters, people who do not want to join Labour but share our aims. But I want to go further. If we are to restore faith in our politics, we must do more to involve members of the public in our decision making. We must do more to open up our politics. So I propose for the next London Mayoral election Labour will have a primary for our candidate selection. Any Londoner should be eligible to vote and all they will need to do is to register as a supporter of the Labour Party at any time up to the ballot. And Ray Collins will examine how to pioneer this idea elsewhere too.
Such as in future Parliamentary selections where a sitting MP is retiring and where the local party has dwindled, and a primary could make for a more properly representative selection process. I want to hear what local Labour parties think about this idea because we all know there are parts of the country where our Party could be reenergised as a result.
To build trust, we also need to change the way that our country’s politics is funded. I repeat my offer that as part of a comprehensive set of changes we should set a cap on donations from individuals, businesses and Trade Unions. I urge the other party leaders to reopen talks on how we can clean up the way we finance our politics and if they won’t, the next Labour government will start that process anew. What I have proposed today are big changes in the way we do our politics. There is no place in our Party for bad practices wherever they come from.
I am determined that we have a Labour Party that operates in a fair, open, transparent manner. I am determined we uphold the integrity of our Party. And that reaches out to the country.
These reforms though are not just putting right what has gone wrong in our Party. It is about much more. Political parties are too often seen as remote from people’s lives. As somebody who deeply believes that the Labour Party can be a force for good, we must change that. We must change it with a Party not of 200,000 but of many, many more. We must change it with candidates from diverse backgrounds, accountable to their constituents. And we must change it by reaching out at every opportunity to the people of Britain, including through primaries. These changes are about making it possible for us to change Britain for the better. All of our history shows that change does not come just from a few people at the top. It comes when good people come together to demand change. But to make that happen we need those people in our Party and we need to reach out to others outside our Party too, to genuinely build a movement again, a movement that makes change happen in communities across the country, and a movement that changes Britain.
That is what I believe. That’s what the founders of our Party knew. That is what these reforms are about. That is the Party I want us to build. That is how we will make Britain One Nation again.
My personal response to Tony Blair's "advice"
This is a response to “Labour must search for answers and not merely aspire to be a repository for people’s anger”, by Tony Blair, published in the New Statesman on 11 April 2013.
Fundamentally, Blair is right in that Labour cannot merely be a conduit for ‘the protest vote’, but the issues raised by heir to Thatcher are much more than that to me. Blair argues that, “the paradox of the financial crisis is that, despite being widely held to have been caused by under-regulated markets, it has not brought a decisive shift to the left.” I am not so sure about that. Whilst I have always felt the taxonomy of ‘left’ versus ‘right’ largely unhelpful in British politics, I think most people in the country today share views about bankers and the financial services ‘holding the country to ransom’ (like the Union Barons used to be accused of), the failures of privatisation, the failures in financial regulation (PPIs), for example, which might have been seen as ‘on the left’. Tony Blair had a good chance of coming to power in 1997, and ‘the pig with a Labour rosette might have won at the 1997 General Election’ is not an insubstantial one. To ignore that there has been no shift in public opinion is to deny that the political and social landscape has changed to some degree. Whilst ‘South Shields man’ is still living with the remants of the ‘socially divisive’ Thatcherite government, what Michael Meacher MP politely called yesterday “a scorched earth approach”, voters are indeed challenging flagship Thatcherite policies even now.
Some Labour councillors and MPs did indeed embrace the ‘right to buy’ policy, but likewise many MPs of diverse political aetiology warn about the currentcrisis in social housing. Blair is right to argue, “But what might happen is that the left believes such a shift has occurred and behaves accordingly”, in the sense that Ed Miliband does not wish to disenfranchise those voters who did happen to embrace New Labour pursuant to a long stretch of the Conservative sentence, but we have a very strong danger now of disenfranchise the core voters of Labour. They are rightly concerned about workers’ and employees’ rights, a minimum wage (a Blair achievement), and a living wage (possibly a 2015 manifesto pledge by Ed Miliband.) Nobody wants to re-fight the battle of ‘left’ and ‘right’ of those terms, but merely ‘building on’ the purported achievements of Margaret Thatcher has to be handled with care.
Blair further remarks: “The Conservative Party is back clothing itself in the mantle of fiscal responsibility, buttressed by moves against “benefit scroungers”, immigrants squeezing out British workers and – of course – Labour profligacy.” Of course, Blair does not address the growth of the welfare dependency culture under Margaret Thatcher, but this is essential. Blair has also airbrushed the core of the actual welfare debate, about ensuring that disabled citizens have a ‘fair deal’ about their benefits, but to his credit addresses the issue of pensions in his fourth question. However, Blair falls into the trap also of not joining up thinking in various arms of policy, in other words how immigrants have in fact contributed to the economy of the UK, or contributed essential skills to public services such as the National Health Service. This is indeed a disproportionate approach to immigration that was permeating through the language of Labour ministers in immigration towards the end of their period of government. Blair fundamentally wishes to fight this war – indeed battle – on his terms and Thatcher’s terms. This is not on – this debate is fundamentally about the divisive and destructive nature of policy, of pitting the unemployed against the employed, the disabled against the non-disabled, the immigrant versus the non-immigrant, and so on. Part of the reason that Thatcher’s entire hagiography cannot be a bed of roses is that there exists physical evidence today of this ‘divide-and-rule’ approach to leadership.
Blair, rather provocatively at this stage, refers to the ‘getting the house in order’, which is accepting the highly toxic meme of ‘A Conservative government always has to come in to repair the mess of a Labour government spending public money it doesn’t have.’ However, the economy is in a worse state than bequeathed by Labour in 2010, and therein lies the problem that the house that the Tories ‘is getting in order’ is in fact getting worse. Acknowledgement of this simple economic fact by Blair at this juncture would be helpful. Blair’s most potent comment in the whole passage is: “The ease with which it can settle back into its old territory of defending the status quo, allying itself, even anchoring itself, to the interests that will passionately and often justly oppose what the government is doing, is so apparently rewarding, that the exercise of political will lies not in going there, but in resisting the temptation to go there.” Like all good undergraduates, even at Oxford, this depends on what exactly Blair means by the “status quo” – the “status quo” is in Thatcherism, and the “greatest achievement” of Conservatism, “New Labour”, so a return to listening to the views of Union members, ahead of say the handful of wealth creators in the City, is in fact a radical shift back to where we were. In other words, a U-turn after a U-turn gets you back to the same spot.
Blair then has a rather sudden, but important, shift in gear. He writes, “The guiding principle should be that we are the seekers after answers, not the repository for people’s anger.” This is to some extent true from the law, as we know from the views from LJ Laws who has described the challenges of making dispassionate legal decisions even if the issues are of enormous significance in social justice. Blair, consistent with an approach from a senior lawyer remarks, “In the first case, we have to be dispassionate even when the issues arouse great passion.” But then he follows, “In the second case, we are simple fellow-travellers in sympathy; we are not leaders. And in these times, above all, people want leadership.” Bingo. This is what. Whatever Ed Miliband’s ultimate ideology, which appears to be an inclusive form of social democracy encouraging corporate as well as personal citizenship, people ultimately want a very clear roadmap of where he is heading. The infamous articulation of policy under Cruddas will help here, but, as Ed Miliband finds his feet, Miliband will be judged on how he responds to challenges, like Thatcher had to respond to the Falklands’ dispute or the Miners’ Strike.
Blair fundamentally is right to set out the challenges. In as much as the financial crisis has not created the need for change per se, to say that it has not created a need for a financial response is ludicrous. The ultimate failure in Keynesian policy from Blair and Brown is that the UK did not invest adequately in a period of growth, put tritely by the Conservatives as “not mending the roof while the sun was shining”. Mending the roof, to accept this awful image, is best done when the sun is shining. Therefore, Labour producing a policy now is to some extent not the best time to do it. Blair had a great opportunity to formulate a culture in the UK which reflected Labour’s roots in protecting the rights and welfare of workers, but it decided not to do so. Tarred with the ‘unions holding the country to ransom’ tag, it decided to Brown-nose the City quite literally, leading to an exacerbation of the inequality commenced under Thatcher. Blair skirts round the issue of globalisation and technology in a rather trite manner, one assumes for brevity, but the wider debate necessarily includes the effects of globalisation and technology on actual communities in the UK, and the effect of multi-national corporates on life in the UK. Even Thatcher might have balked at the power of the corporates in 2013 in the same way she was critical of the power of the Unions throughout all of her time in government.
Whilst “Labour should be very robust in knocking down the notion that it “created” the crisis”, there is no doubt that Labour has a ‘debate to be had’ about how the Conservatives did not oppose the legislation of the City at the time by New Labour (and even advanced further under-regulation), why George Osborne wished to meet the comprehensive spending review demands of the last Labour government, and how the Conservatives would not have reacted any differently in injecting £1 TN into bank recapitalisation at the time of the crisis. The idea of spending money at the time of a recession has been compared to supporters of FA Hayek as ‘hair of the dog after a big binge’, but unfortunately is directly relevant to Blair’s first question: “What is driving the rise in housing benefit spending, and if it is the absence of housing, how do we build more?” Kickstarting the economy and solving the housing crisis would indeed be a populist measure, but the arguments against such a policy remain thoroughly unconvincing. The second question, “How do we improve the skillset of those who are unemployed when the shortage of skills is the clearest barrier to employment?”, is helpful to some extent, but Blair again shows that he is stuck in a mysterious time-warp; two of the biggest challenges in employment, aside from the onslaught in unfair dismissal, are the excessive salaries of CEOs (necessitating a debate about redistribution, given Labour’s phobia of the ‘tax and spend’ criticism), and how to help the underemployed. The third question is, course, hugely potent: “How do we take the health and education reforms of the last Labour government to a new level, given the huge improvement in results they brought about?” Fair enough, but the immediate problem now is how to slow down this latest advance in the privatisation of the NHS through the Health and Social Care Act (2012), and for Labour to tackle real issues about whether it really wishes to pit hospital versus hospital, school versus school, CCG against CCG, etc. (and to allow certain entities, such as NHS Foundation Trusts, “fail” in what is supposed to be a “comprehensive service”). The other questions which Blair raises are excellent, and indeed I am extremely happy to see that Blair calls for a prioritisation of certain planks of policy, such as how to produce an industrial strategy or a ‘strategy for growth’, and how to deal with a crisis in social justice? There is no doubt that the funding of access-to-justice on the high street, for example in immigration, housing or welfare benefits, has hit a crisis, but Blair is right if he is arguing that operational tactics are not good enough. Sadiq Khan obviously cannot ‘underachieve and overpromise’ about reversing legal aid cuts, but Labour in due course will have to set out an architecture of what it wishes to do about this issue.
Ed Miliband knows that this is a marathon, not a sprint. He has the problem of shooting at a goal, which some days looks like an open goal, other days where the size of the goal appears to have changed, and, on other days, where he looks as if he runs a real risk of scoring an ‘own goal’. It is of course very good to have advice from somebody so senior as Tony Blair, who will be a Lord in the upper chamber in due course, and Miliband does not know yet if he will ‘squeak through’ in the hung parliament, win with a massive landslide, or lose. Labour will clearly not wish to say anything dangerous at the risk of losing, through perhaps offending Basildon Man, and, whilst it is very likely that South Shields Man will remain loyal, nothing can be taken for granted for Ed Miliband unfortunately. Like Baroness Thatcher’s death, Tony Blair’s advice at this stage was likely to rouse huge emotions, and, whilst the dangers of ignoring the advice might not be as costly as Thatcher’s funeral, it would be unwise to ignore his views which, many will argue, has some support within Labour. However, it is clearly the case that some of the faultlines in the Thatcher society and economy have not been healed by the New Labour approach, and Ed Miliband, many hope, will ultimately forge his own successful destiny.
What will a Miliband-Thatcher brand achieve?
Characterising the leadership of Margaret Thatcher is difficult. The problem is that, despite the perceived ‘successes’ of her tenure of government, her administration is generally accepted to have been very socially divisive. For many, she is the complete opposite of ‘inspirational’, and yet listening to current Conservative MPs talk there is a genuine nostalgia and affection for her period of government.
What can Ed Miliband possibly hope to emulate from the leadership style of Margaret Thatcher? Thatcher’s early leadership can definitely be characterised as a ‘crisis’ one, in that full bin liners were not being collected from the streets, there were power blackouts, Britain was going to the IMF to seek a loan, for example. However, the crisis now is one which does not have such visible effects. Miliband can hope to point to falling living standards, or increasing prices due to privatised industries making a profit through collusive pricing, but this is an altogether more subtle argument. A key difference is that people can only blame the business models of the privatised industries, not government directly. Whether this will also be the case as an increasing proportion of NHS gets done by private providers is yet to be seen.
It is perhaps more likely that Thatcher’s leadership, in the early stages at least, migth be described as “charismatic”, involving both charisma and vision. Conger and Karungo famously described five behavioural attributes of charismatic leadership. They are: vision and articulation, sensitivity to the environment, sensitivity to member needs, personal risk taking, and performing unconventional behaviour. In a weird way, Thatcher in her period of government can claim to have provided examples of many of these, but it is the period of social destruction at the time of closure of coal mines which will cause doubt on sensitivity to the environment. While ‘Basildon man’ and ‘Ford mondeo’ man might have been looked after, apparently, ‘Easington man’ was clearly not. A ‘One Nation’ philosophy promoting one economy and one society might not be a trite construct for this, after all. The problem is that ‘Basildon man’ has himself moved on; the ‘right to buy’ is the flagship Tory policy epitomising independence, aspiration and choice for the modern Tory, as resumed by Robert Halfon, but there is ultimately a problem if Basildon man is not able to maintain mortgage payments, or there is a general dearth of social housing.
In a way, looking at the failures of Thatcher’s leadership style is a bit academic now, but still highly relevant in reminding Miliband that his ‘political class’ cannot be aloof from the voters. It is a testament to the huge ‘brand loyalty’ of the Thatcher brand that there are so many eulogies, and one enduring hagimony from the BBC, to Thatcher. Jay Conger provides a way of understanding how charismatic leadership is to be maintained, and the “Poll Tax” is symptomatic of Thatcher’s failure of these aspects. Conger identifies continual assessment of the environment, and an ability to build trust and commitment not through coercion. Miliband likewise needs to be mindful of his immediate environment too: his stance on Workfare disappointed many members of Labour, causing even 41 of his own MPs to rebel against the recent vote, and upset many disabled citizens who are members of Labour. What happens when charismatic leadership goes wrong can be identified clearly in the latter years of the Thatcher administration. These include relatively unchallenged leadership, a tendency to gather “yes men”, and a tendency to narcissism and losing touch with reality. I still remember now (and I am nearly 39), the classic, “We have become a grandmother” and that awful Mansion House spectacle when Mrs Thatcher proclaimed that ‘the batting had been tough of late’ whilst maintaining a quasi-regal ambience.
I personally disagree with the notion that elections are won from the ‘centre ground’, particularly because I conceptually do not find the classification of ‘left’ and ‘right’ helpful (especially if you, like me, wish to embrace “One Nation Labour” with genuine goodwill). To use the market analogy, I think it’s like making an offering which looks and functions like an iPod, but which has some of the features missing; you might as well buy the real thing. A more sensible strategy for a competitor to the incumbent is to offer something really disruptive; in other words, something which offers some of the good qualities of the current market leaders, but which adds useful value. Ironically, enough time has passed since the airbrushing of socialism from the mainstream UK political system occurred with the advent of New Labour for Ed Miliband to give this another go. You can argue until the cows come home, and many mere mortals who are management theorists have given it a go, about whether charismatic leadership needs both charisma and vision. Despite Denis Healey’s famous doubts about whether Ed Miliband has charisma, it seems that Fraser Nelson has latterly judged Ed Miliband to be quite personable. Certainly, Ed Miliband to come close to becoming a charismatic leader himself needs to have an extremely clear vision. He may have to “think the unthinkable”, and make an unrealistic promises such as a NHS which is ‘comprehensive, and free-at-the-point-of-use’ (still miraculously, though, in the current NHS constitution). However, to borrow George Osborne’s phrase, “there is a debate to be had”, about whether the deregulation of markets under the Conservatives and New Labour did lead to a climate which encouraged the global financial crash to spread to the London markets. There is also a debate to be had about the ‘market failures’ of privatised industries. Sure, nobody is wishing ‘Thomas Cook’ to become a state-owned travel agent, or you to wait a month to have a phone line fitted by the State. But this is to present outdated, prejudiced, ‘Aunt Sally’ arguments. There is a debate to be had instead about whether we wish certain national services, like utilities or railways, to be fragmented, at relatively high prices, and where there is clearly a substantial benefit to shareholders and corporate directors but little benefit to consumers. Nobody wants to see the Unions ‘holding the country to ransom’, but it is a triumphant failure of Tony Blair and New Labour that this demonising malicious memes have been allowed to remain alive almost forty years on. Nearly all people, instead, firmly believe in the idea of democratic representation, and this has now become vital in abuse of the workforce by certain employers. We hear stories all-the-time of powerful corporates using ‘zero hour contracts’, and it is this Government which has seen the dilution of employment rights of workers and employees (reduced eligibility for unfair dismissal claims, and a lower quantum of award.) And, finally, there is a debate to be had about what exactly underlies the ‘maximum number of people in employment’ claim; is it for example an increased number of part-time, flexible workers who are under-employed, or is it an artefact of migrant workers from Eastern Europe who are doing temporary jobs in the UK?
Ed Miliband has often many times remarked about his thoughts have been ‘shaped’ by Margaret Thatcher, despite the fact he is very clear he disagreed with many of the views of Thatcher. We need, however, a frank discussion of where Britain goes from here. Frankly, a pig with a rosette could have won certain Labour seats in Scotland, but those days are over. Labour’s membership started to go into decline from around 2002/3, long predating the fall in membership after the Iraqi war. The ‘paying of respects’ to the late Baroness Thatcher has allowed some Tory ideology to go unchallenged, such as the importance of the Unions in society, or the failure of privatised industries. However, what Ed Miliband can hope to emulate is a precisely articulation of a vision. Miliband has to prove that he is the right person for the right times (2014/5), like Blair, Thatcher and Cameron/Clegg might have been. If Labour is to be given the honour of a mandate in 2015, it needs to have an extremely clear idea of what it hopes to achieve, and for whom.
What will a Miliband-Thatcher brand achieve?
Characterising the leadership of Margaret Thatcher is difficult. The problem is that, despite the perceived ‘successes’ of her tenure of government, her administration is generally accepted to have been very socially divisive. For many, she is the complete opposite of ‘inspirational’, and yet listening to current Conservative MPs talk there is a genuine nostalgia and affection for her period of government.
What can Ed Miliband possibly hope to emulate from the leadership style of Margaret Thatcher? Thatcher’s early leadership can definitely be characterised as a ‘crisis’ one, in that full bin liners were not being collected from the streets, there were power blackouts, Britain was going to the IMF to seek a loan, for example. However, the crisis now is one which does not have such visible effects. Miliband can hope to point to falling living standards, or increasing prices due to privatised industries making a profit through collusive pricing, but this is an altogether more subtle argument. A key difference is that people can only blame the business models of the privatised industries, not government directly. Whether this will also be the case as an increasing proportion of NHS gets done by private providers is yet to be seen.
It is perhaps more likely that Thatcher’s leadership, in the early stages at least, migth be described as “charismatic”, involving both charisma and vision. Conger and Karungo famously described five behavioural attributes of charismatic leadership. They are: vision and articulation, sensitivity to the environment, sensitivity to member needs, personal risk taking, and performing unconventional behaviour. In a weird way, Thatcher in her period of government can claim to have provided examples of many of these, but it is the period of social destruction at the time of closure of coal mines which will cause doubt on sensitivity to the environment. While ‘Basildon man’ and ‘Ford mondeo’ man might have been looked after, apparently, ‘Easington man’ was clearly not. A ‘One Nation’ philosophy promoting one economy and one society might not be a trite construct for this, after all. The problem is that ‘Basildon man’ has himself moved on; the ‘right to buy’ is the flagship Tory policy epitomising independence, aspiration and choice for the modern Tory, as resumed by Robert Halfon, but there is ultimately a problem if Basildon man is not able to maintain mortgage payments, or there is a general dearth of social housing.
In a way, looking at the failures of Thatcher’s leadership style is a bit academic now, but still highly relevant in reminding Miliband that his ‘political class’ cannot be aloof from the voters. It is a testament to the huge ‘brand loyalty’ of the Thatcher brand that there are so many eulogies, and one enduring hagimony from the BBC, to Thatcher. Jay Conger provides a way of understanding how charismatic leadership is to be maintained, and the “Poll Tax” is symptomatic of Thatcher’s failure of these aspects. Conger identifies continual assessment of the environment, and an ability to build trust and commitment not through coercion. Miliband likewise needs to be mindful of his immediate environment too: his stance on Workfare disappointed many members of Labour, causing even 41 of his own MPs to rebel against the recent vote, and upset many disabled citizens who are members of Labour. What happens when charismatic leadership goes wrong can be identified clearly in the latter years of the Thatcher administration. These include relatively unchallenged leadership, a tendency to gather “yes men”, and a tendency to narcissism and losing touch with reality. I still remember now (and I am nearly 39), the classic, “We have become a grandmother” and that awful Mansion House spectacle when Mrs Thatcher proclaimed that ‘the batting had been tough of late’ whilst maintaining a quasi-regal ambience.
I personally disagree with the notion that elections are won from the ‘centre ground’, particularly because I conceptually do not find the classification of ‘left’ and ‘right’ helpful (especially if you, like me, wish to embrace “One Nation Labour” with genuine goodwill). To use the market analogy, I think it’s like making an offering which looks and functions like an iPod, but which has some of the features missing; you might as well buy the real thing. A more sensible strategy for a competitor to the incumbent is to offer something really disruptive; in other words, something which offers some of the good qualities of the current market leaders, but which adds useful value. Ironically, enough time has passed since the airbrushing of socialism from the mainstream UK political system occurred with the advent of New Labour for Ed Miliband to give this another go. You can argue until the cows come home, and many mere mortals who are management theorists have given it a go, about whether charismatic leadership needs both charisma and vision. Despite Denis Healey’s famous doubts about whether Ed Miliband has charisma, it seems that Fraser Nelson has latterly judged Ed Miliband to be quite personable. Certainly, Ed Miliband to come close to becoming a charismatic leader himself needs to have an extremely clear vision. He may have to “think the unthinkable”, and make an unrealistic promises such as a NHS which is ‘comprehensive, and free-at-the-point-of-use’ (still miraculously, though, in the current NHS constitution). However, to borrow George Osborne’s phrase, “there is a debate to be had”, about whether the deregulation of markets under the Conservatives and New Labour did lead to a climate which encouraged the global financial crash to spread to the London markets. There is also a debate to be had about the ‘market failures’ of privatised industries. Sure, nobody is wishing ‘Thomas Cook’ to become a state-owned travel agent, or you to wait a month to have a phone line fitted by the State. But this is to present outdated, prejudiced, ‘Aunt Sally’ arguments. There is a debate to be had instead about whether we wish certain national services, like utilities or railways, to be fragmented, at relatively high prices, and where there is clearly a substantial benefit to shareholders and corporate directors but little benefit to consumers. Nobody wants to see the Unions ‘holding the country to ransom’, but it is a triumphant failure of Tony Blair and New Labour that this demonising malicious memes have been allowed to remain alive almost forty years on. Nearly all people, instead, firmly believe in the idea of democratic representation, and this has now become vital in abuse of the workforce by certain employers. We hear stories all-the-time of powerful corporates using ‘zero hour contracts’, and it is this Government which has seen the dilution of employment rights of workers and employees (reduced eligibility for unfair dismissal claims, and a lower quantum of award.) And, finally, there is a debate to be had about what exactly underlies the ‘maximum number of people in employment’ claim; is it for example an increased number of part-time, flexible workers who are under-employed, or is it an artefact of migrant workers from Eastern Europe who are doing temporary jobs in the UK?
Ed Miliband has often many times remarked about his thoughts have been ‘shaped’ by Margaret Thatcher, despite the fact he is very clear he disagreed with many of the views of Thatcher. We need, however, a frank discussion of where Britain goes from here. Frankly, a pig with a rosette could have won certain Labour seats in Scotland, but those days are over. Labour’s membership started to go into decline from around 2002/3, long predating the fall in membership after the Iraqi war. The ‘paying of respects’ to the late Baroness Thatcher has allowed some Tory ideology to go unchallenged, such as the importance of the Unions in society, or the failure of privatised industries. However, what Ed Miliband can hope to emulate is a precise articulation of a vision. Miliband has to prove that he is the right person for the right times (2014/5), like Blair, Thatcher and Cameron/Clegg might have been. If Labour is to be given the honour of a mandate in 2015, it needs to have an extremely clear idea of what it hopes to achieve, and for whom.
As the bankers are holding the country to ransom, we can give them a taste of their own medicine
First things first, I am not in support of anything unlawful or illegal. That is why I do not support illegal or unlawful strikes. I do believe passionately in democratic representation of workers, who keep the economy alive. The Tories have made much political capital about the concept of ‘the unions holding the country to ransom’, but let’s have a careful look at how this Coalition has waged war on people like me, the disabled? I had my Disabled Living Allowance stopped despite being chronically disabled, with no communication or explanation. The deficit increased as we pumped lots of money into the banks, and lots of investment bankers, who are gambling with our money, are still awarding themselves handsome bonuses.
It is the bankers who are holding this country to ransom – and if David Cameron and colleagues believe in law, they will uphold free movement of workers. Yes, these bankers can get jobs anyway, but I don’t want ‘light touch regulation’ if it means corporates can play their part in wilful blindness and tap phones or fiddle the LIBOR rates. Cameron and colleagues have to uphold the European ‘rule of law’.
Beecroft this year, a venture capitalist who clearly believes in the power of money more than the power of people-power, believes that it is far better to live in a culture with no job security for workers or employees, and employers should have the ‘freedom’ to hire and fire staff more readily. Let’s get this straight, the reason we have gone back into recession is due to a series of incompetent decisions made by George Osborne, not because we have too many rights for employees or workers.
Talking of which, this gem appeared on the Guardian website tonight:
Ministers have discussed introducing Ronald Reagan-style employment laws which would allow them to sack UK Border Agency staff who plan to strike the day before the start of the Olympics, the culture, media and sport secretary said on Sunday.
Jeremy Hunt said that the option had not been ruled out as thousands of staff at the Home Office, including the UKBA workers, prepare for a 24-hour strike on Thursday in a row over jobs, pay and other issues. He was responding to a question from BBC presenter Garry Richardson, who himself sparked anger by appearing to ask the minister to dismiss strikers, contrary to impartiality rules. The exchange shows the level of animosity being expressed by ministers and the media towards the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), the union behind the dispute. It follows reports at the weekend of a plan being developed by George Osborne to introduce new laws which would make it more difficult to go on strike.
I have just one response to that. The law – the law protects workers. In a week when Nick Buckles from G4s said he would claim his £57 million management fee for G4s delivering the security contract for Olympics, and in a country where shareholder activism doesn’t work, you can surely see why ‘the worm has turned’? These workers could have reasonable claims for unfair or wrongful dismissal under current laws, and it could end up being rather costly. Thankfully, the Government is not above the law either.
This is not going to be pleasant, but you don’t see bankers going on strike or emigrating, do you?
Owen Jones and the case for engagement at #NetrootsUK
Pervasive in yesterday’s successful #NetrootsUK day at Congress House here in London was how people could feel part of Society. Not a Big Society, just Society. Nick Clegg and David Cameron have given ‘divide-and-rule’ a whole new dimension instead, by pitting the public sector workers against the private sector, by pitting indigenous people against immigrants, by pitting younger people against older people, and by pitting the disabled population against the non-disabled population; they have not supported the unemployment and disabled, but actively sought to stigmatise them through their policies.
For Nick Clegg and David Cameron, this is particularly deceitful as they have senior experience in public relations. As Nick Cohen writes this morning in the Guardian, any Keynesian policy to reverse now the shocking decline of Britain would take years to implement, and indeed Lord Skidelsky, who is the official biographer of John Maynard Keynes, feels that Vince Cable is not a Keynesian (George Osborne is clearly not).
The case for engagement is even more compelling, when many people feel utterly disenfranchised by the Tory-led BBC. The routine news coverage of the BBC borders on a Pravda-esque approach to journalism (an image I thank James Macintyre for). Without the social media, it would have been impossible for disabled campaigners Sue Marsh (@suey2y) and Kaliya Franklin (@bendygirl) to get their messages across about the lies which the government, with the assistance of the BBC, have been spreading about disabled people, as evidenced in the Spartacus Report.
That is what made Owen Jones’ speech at the #Netroots conference so special, in my view. But it was very special for another reason. Ed Miliband, in his final hustings at Haverstock Hill Comprehensive School, poignantly warned us that we must not view the Unions as the evil uncle of Labour. What truly appalled me was to see an army of young ‘activists’ in their 20s, armed with their iPhones and Blackberries, saying that the Unions are ‘irrelevant’ to them. The Unions are in fact the largest democratic movement in the UK with over 3.5 million members. Union membership is not closed to Labour. Crucially, the Unions campaign very actively for the enforcement of rights of citizens, particularly in employment. The fact that Thompsons Solicitors, an eminent law firm, is on the ground floor of the building #Netroots was hosted in for the second year-in-a-row is a testament to that. John, who helped to organise yesterday’s event superbly in my mind, took time to explain his ‘Stop employment wrongs‘ project which he had been working on. This is incredibly relevant to members of the Society I wish to live in.
That Society, symbolised by allegations of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and a fine to banks for the #LIBOR scandal, at worst is a society driven by shareholders with only thing in mind – their shareholder dividend – is utterly galling. Yes, maybe I’d like a stop to the ‘something for nothing society’ – maybe the Tory-led BBC would like to launch a campaign on millionaires in the cabinet paying more tax on their dividends, as strictly speaking that is income rather than wealth for the economic moral-purists.
Owen’s talk in full which I recorded from the front row yesterday afternoon
