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812   9 September 2003   

Reshuffle II

And this is the third, Pat McFadden. Pat McFadden returns to Downing Street after a gap of several years - he was there in the final years of Opposition and the early years of office.  He is well-connected in the trade union movement and strong on constitutional affairs.  I was once interviewed by him, as a possible speechwriter for Blair, because of my keen interest in constitutional devolution - but that was "not taken further"...  Geoff Mulgan was the founding Director of Demos, and has always specialised in blue-skies, longer-term thinking.  Matthew Taylor is Director of the Institute for Public Political  Research.   I reckon the Labour Boiler Room is in good hands.

This is Matthew Taylor.  I was always sceptical about Blair's choosing to fight his Second Term on the bread-and-butter issues of health and education.  Their very complexity makes an outright "win" impossible - and they are very dull topics.  They cannot excite political passions, engage active enthusiasm.  The political idealism of the young will never be fired by better exam results, or improvements in bedpan supply.  We can, however, do nothing about that, unless Gordon gets the chance to take over as Leader, and shift the emphasis.  I suspect that Labour is stuck with that strategic decision, and will have to muddle through, this time.

But the next Manifesto must get away from the bread and the butter. That is my message to McFadden, Mulgan and Taylor.  The draftsmen's watchword should be "In place of fear". They will have to emulate Aneurin Bevan, and address the electorate's -
  • Worries about job insecurity, which will increase not decrease
  • Worries about the growing abuse of power by employers and corporations
  • Worries about crime and civic disorder at home
  • Worries about international disorder, rogue states, terrorism
  • Worries about upcoming poverty in old age

The key to Labour's success will be to generate confidence in place of fear.   And for Labour, this must be achieved in partnership with the trade union movement.  The next Election will be won by the Party offering the greatest reassurance on these five fronts.

That is my view.  Do you agree, or disagree?  Drop me a line

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813  10 September 2003   

Which way is "Left"?

Tony Blair is said to have denounced a "Labour Government of the Left" as a delusion, in his approach to the TUC at Brighton.  But which way is Left?  In my view, the path to political success now lies leftwards - in devising key socialist strategies which will appeal to the English middle-classes. The trade unions are the ones trapped in the old politics, without socialist perceptions.

Let me come clean.  My socialism is all about rights - enforceable, indefeasible, universal, egalitarian rights.  Gordon Brown's idea of Baby Bonds - payable to every child upon birth regardless of status or parental affluence - is a socialist formula.  At the very heart of the heart of the NHS is a key socialist perception, and no management devices should impede that perception.  Child Allowance is a universal, socialist benefit.  The mandatory attendance of the Health Visitor upon very child during its first-year of life is a socialist practice.  And while I am enough of a pragmatist to know that means-testing is sometimes unavoidable, it is evidence for me of a failure of socialist imagination.  Free medication for the elderly, regardless of income, reflects a socialist perception.  I used my Free Bus Pass for the first time this week - that reflects another key socialist principle.

  • All this socialism is profoundly popular with everyone, right across society. Universal benefits build the feel-good factor, as nothing else does.  And Labour should offer more.  Absolute rights of this kind reduce anxiety and un certainty in peoples' lives - they displace fear. That is what I mean by "moving Left".

Yet there is no evidence that the Trade Unions share these perceptions, whatever individual TU leaders may think. Nor do I expect the trade union movement to be "socialist" in any coherent sense - while they played a limited part (which should not be exaggerated) in the initial promotion of a "Labour" party in the Commons, they are no longer on the socialist front-line. 

Just consider what the TUC is advocating -

Oppose the "Private Finance Initiative" outright  Yet PFI is only one contractual method of getting public work done, public functions performed - there are (I readily concede) many examples of its having been used inappropriately, indeed incompetently.  But the baby should not be thrown out with the bathwater - the TUC should actively cooperate with Labour across the whole sector of public procurement, and select the best systems, sector by sector.

Oppose Foundation Hospitals outright.  But the principle of devolution within the NHS must be right, and the TUC response should not be "No", but "How?"  I agree that the Government, plagued by Milburn's untimely resignation, has made a dog's dinner of its devolution formula, and has ended up with the worst of possible worlds.  I want to see radical amendments to create real elective democracy at local level, a real sense of democratic ownership, of local control.  Just as in Police and Education, I instinctively support the Government's drive for a new localism.  My concern is that their democratic perceptions are so faulty that no viable political institutions will be created, in this process.

More Job Protection.  Gordon Brown rejected the ill-advised protectionism of the TUC, and he was right to do so.  There is no future in the outmoded protectionism of many EU countries.  But socialists must address the canker of job insecurity - not by preventing dismissals, but by creating a new universal form of termination benefit sufficient to enable workers to find alternative employment without interim loss of income.  That must be a universal benefit (I have advocated a new form of Adjustment Pay, to replace the Redundancy Payments system).  The challenge is not to inhibit the rate of economic change, but to support the individual affected by economic change - by creating new assurances, a new form of "employment security", a new peace of mind.

Oppose University Top-up Fees outright.  Here I agree with the TUC - but I am still concerned at the absence of a TUC alternative.  My solution is a universal "Graduate Tax", payable by all graduates throughout life as a minor percentage premium on all Income Tax liabilities.  Those having the misfortune to drop out, or to fail to secure any qualification, would face no additional tax.  That would not be perceived as a debt, and would not inhibit participation by lower-income students.

Strengthen Union rights. This drive is misplaced.  "Union rights", collective rights, are not the issue.  Three workers out of four in the UK are not union members, and the only way of helping them is to strengthen individual workers' rights - allowing the unions to assist their members in securing their enforcement.  In the private sector, only 19% of all workers are now union members.  I would join the TUC is any drive to strengthen personal workplace rights - but I deeply resent their 1998 refusal to allow "non-Union advocates" in workplace representation.  Socialists must apply all their efforts to strengthening the workplace rights of workers without unions - for they are, and are likely to remain, in the overwhelming majority.

Improve and Protect Occupational Pensions.  This is an understandable, and limited, TUC objective.  But socialists must give priority to the fundamental improvement of the universal Old Age Pension.  The TUC is silent, on the question of OAP reform.

Do you think I have made my case?  Do you understand why I find the Trade Unions so hopelessly fuddy-duddy, and stuck in a historical rut?

What do you think?  Drop me a line

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