Anticipations - Autumn 2010

Volume 14, Issue 1 | Autumn 2010

Anticipations YOUNG FABIANS

WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA? Matthew Taylor argues that the enlightenment holds the key to Labour’s renewal

INTERVIEW NEIL KINNOCK

Labour’s former leader speaks to Anticipations Editor James Green about what Labour must do to regain power.

OPINION YOUNG FABIAN IDEAS

Young Fabian members share their ideas on a wide range of policy issues, from penal reform to the future of education.

FEATURE MY POLITICAL HERO

As Labour elects its new leader Adam Boulton, Gordon Brown and many others discuss their inspirations.

| political writing by and for young people |

| contents |

C OVER STORY

WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA? b y m a tt h e w t a y l or

Labour is stuck in the past. Progressive politics needs a new enlightenment.

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OPINION

TH E I N T E R V I EW

OPENING UP b y c l a ire l ei g h

It’s time for politics to move on from the old left vs.right paradigm.

— 11

NEIL KINNOCK b y j a m es g reen

Labour’s former leader on what the Party must do to regain power.

— 19

OPINION STARTERS

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR b y v a rio u s

Young Fabian members share their views on the summer edition of Anticipations, Where now for Labour?

— 5 STARTERS

POLITICAL PULSE b y ro w enn a d a vis

Women are fighting for greater equality in the Party. It’s time the Labour leadership caught up.

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WINNING THE TURF WAR b y ro b ne w m a n

Collectivism is Labour’s turf. We musn’t let the Tories claim it.

— 11 OPINION

HOME IS WHERE THE FUTURE IS b y s a m b a con

By focussing on geography we fail to understand modern community.

— 13 OPINION

FEATURES

WHERE ARE THE NEW IDEAS? b y p a tric k d i a m on d

An orderly transition will not be enough.

A new generation of ideas is needed for Labour to win again.

— 21 FEATURES

BIG IDEAS FOR THE FUTURE b y v a rio u s

Young Fabian Policy Development Group members pitch their big ideas to Labour’s new leader.

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WHY TRUST MATTERS STARTERS

b y k u n a l k h a tri

FEATURES

ECONOMICS EYE

Labour must learn to trust both its members and the wider public.

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MY POLITICAL HERO

b y a l l en si m p son

The deficit isn’t going away. Labour must look beyond the stale debate of ‘cuts now vs. cuts later’.

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OPINION

OF CHURCH AND STATE

b y v a rio u s

Ray Collins, Gordon Brown, Adam Boulton and Young Fabian members share their political inspirations.

— 26

b y a l e x g a b rie l

To renew, Labour should reconnect with secularist principles.

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Published by: The Fabian Society 11 Dartmouth Street London SW1H 9BN T: 0207 227 4900 F: 0207 976 7153 Printed by: Caric Press Ltd 525 Ringwood Road Ferndown, Dorset, BH22 9AQ

Anticipations, like all publications of the Fabian Society, and the Young Fabians, represents not the collective view of the Society, but only the views of the individuals whose articles it comprises. The responsibility of the Society is limited to approving its publications as worthy of consideration within the Labour movement.

The editor would like to thank all contributors as well as all members of the Young Fabian Executive Committee. With special thanks to Effussion, Matt Thomas and Ben Philpott.

Images used in this publication are royalty-free or are Creative Commons licensed. Copyright remains the author’s own. Illustrations by Matt Thomas mattthomasillustration.com. Cover image: Creatas/ Creatas/ Thinkstock.

© YOUNG FABIANS 2010 www.fabian-society.org.uk www.youngfabians.org.uk

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| from the editor |

Thinking big

To defeat Cameron, Labour must accept that ideology and electability need not be mutually exclusive — JAMES GREEN —

mattthomasillustration.com

It has almost become cliché to talk about Labour’s need to change. After a ‘change election’ we’ve had a four-month ‘turn the page’ leadership contest. Since May 6th change has been the operative word as the Party dissects where New Labour went wrong and deliberates over who is best placed to lead the Party’s renewal. However, while both these issues are vital to Labour’s future, there is a more fundamental question that the Left needs to ask. It’s a question that Matthew Taylor poses in this edition’s essay - what shape should social democracy take in the 21st century? This isn’t about policy, rebuttal or plans for government. It’s more fundamental than that.

Put simply, it’s about big ideas.

These ideas must be rooted in the political and economic landscape of today. It’s no good reverting to the stale old debate about old vs. New Labour when the world has moved on since 1997.

That doesn’t mean we have to abandon our core ideas. But it does mean that we have to reimagine them for a changed world. Neil Kinnock, one of Labour’s great reformers, put it best in this edition’s interview when he described this process as, “rediscovering what we’ve been about all the time.” As the wealth of ideas discussed in Anticipations by Young Fabian members shows, Labour has a rich philosophical tradition to tap into. The challenge is not whether we have big

ideas. It’s whether we have the courage to explore them in a meaningful way.

This is something that the Tories have been willing to do. While some on the Left scoff at Cameron’s new big idea, others recognise it for the dangerous intellectual framework it has the potential to be. Francis Maude, the Tories’ moderniser in chief, is right to argue that the coalition’s first hundred days have been more radical than Thatcher’s. Far reaching reforms have seen the state rolled back in a range of key policy areas. Yet Labour would be wrong to caricature Cameron as an unapologetic Thatcherite individualist. He has staked his reputation on the belief that a strong society and small state need not be mutually exclusive. While his views remain half-baked, the Big Society is far from superficial spin. Much worse. It has the makings of a post-Thatcher Tory ideology.

And here lies the key to beating Cameron; you can’t fight ideology with policy. To defeat the modern Tories, Labour must win a fundamental ideological debate about the rightful role of the state. This requires a powerful set of ideas that reflect the political and economic realities of today. As we face what Patrick Diamond describes in Anticipations as the three structural crises of our time - the fall out from the financial crisis, the emergence of competition from the East and

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the pressing threat of climate change - winning this debate could not be more important. Yet to engage in it, Labour must escape the spectre of its past and accept that it is possible to be both ideological and electable. Ideology isn’t about swinging to the left or reverting to unworkable dogma. Rather, it’s about developing an intellectual road map that can be used to navigate a complex and interdependent world.

Some will argue that such a debate is selfindulgent, distracting us from the real task at hand - opposing the Tories’ cuts agenda. But if we are to be seen as a future government we must offer more than blanket opposition to the coalition’s cuts. The public have real concerns about the deficit and, as Allen Simpson highlights in our new economics column, there are structural issues within the UK economy that need to be addressed. Indulgence doesn’t come from ideology. Rather, it comes from dogma and clinging to outdated ideas.

It is often said that the greatest challenge in politics is not having the right answers but asking the right questions. As it elects its new leader, Labour must ask what social democracy means in the 21st century. It’s a question that goes to the heart of what the Labour Party stands for; and surely that is what renewal is all about.

James Green is Anticipations Editor

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Note from the Chair

Labour’s new leader must be bold, open and offer real change — DAVID CHAPLIN —

This edition of Anticipations comes at a key moment in Labour’s fight to return to power.

The new party leader will set the tone and pace of British politics over the coming months. A weakening coalition has failed to get to grips with power since May 6th and Labour now has a once in a lifetime opportunity to halt the coalition in its tracks.

Our first elected leader since 1994, a closely fought but at times quiet and unengaging contest - but the end of this four month marathon signals that it’s time for a change in our party, from top to bottom. We’ve passed the point of talking about triangulation and new new Labour. The change that Labour campaigners and activists will be part of is a reconnection of Labour with people and communities from all across the country. The method will depend on who wins the leadership race but whoever that is, they will all need to reach the same goal of making Labour relevant again as a political and social force.

Our new leader faces a formidable challenge almost immediately - how to respond to the coalition’s cuts and what to say in October when the full extent of the reduction in spending is unveiled by George Osborne. The easy option would be to use Labour’s off the shelf pre-election policy which translates as opposition to any cuts to spending on this scale and offers only £15 billion worth of cuts in 2010-11. This is the easy option, but it’s not the right one.

Recent research from Demos and YouGov proved what many people had felt since the election, that Labour’s message on tackling the

deficit was simplistic and shortsighted. Labour’s unwillingness to offer a transparent answer to voters before May 6th on how we would have reduced the deficit was wrong, and according to the research it did cost us votes.

The change in our leader will also help us change the way we offer our policies to voters and will allow us to reassess our response to the deficit and the challenge of reducing public spending in the short term. Some new Labour MPs have argued that being transparent and honest with voters about where we would cut public spending is wrong as it engages the opposition on its own terms, but I disagree. One of Labour’s biggest challenges is proving in a very short space of time that our new leader and shadow cabinet are a credible government in waiting. To do this we need a credible solution to deficit reduction and one that is understood by voters as easily as the coalition’s promise to slash budgets by 25 per cent.

This isn’t the only change that the Party’s new leader will have to manage. The change in our politics since the election and the formation of the coalition has highlighted the weakness of Labour as an election-fighting machine. The new leader will face the challenge of reshaping the Party’s structure and organisational ethos.

We need to be more open and welcoming to supporters and new members. We need a process for debating policy within the Party which isn’t symbolic and alienating like Partnership in Power was. We also need to consider how we select our candidates for Parliamentary elections to

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stem the view amongst many Labour activists that the trade unions, party hacks and Party power-brokers hold the key to winning selection contests in Labour-held seats - even if this is more a perception than a reality.

Finally the new leader will have to initiate a shift in gear from Labour’s shadow ministers. It’s time to start holding the coalition to account and challenging them not only on the impact of their indiscriminate cuts, but also on their policies on schools, restructuring the health service and capping housing benefit for larger families. A new energy on the shadow front bench and an end to the distraction of the leadership contest will help Labour rebuild itself as an effective opposition.

The Young Fabians have an exciting role to play in generating ideas and offering a forum for policy debate both within and without the Labour Party. I hope all Young Fabian members are excited by this opportunity and that you will all read the ballot papers for elections to the Young Fabian and the Fabian Society Executives which are sent out with this edition of Anticipations. I have been on the Young Fabian executive for four years, and it’s been a very rewarding experience.

The Young Fabians are fifty years old this year and I hope that more of our members than ever before take part in this year’s elections. I’d encourage you to do so by casting your vote today!

For further information about the Young Fabians and to join the debate on our blog visit www.youngfabians.org.uk.

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Letters to the Editor

Young Fabian members have their say on the last Anticipations

Dear Editor, I agree with Preth Rao’s assertion (Where were the women?) that the next leader of the Labour Party needs to take decisive action to better support women in the Labour Party and improve on the current number of women MPs. However, I think we must also remember that we all have a part to play in addressing the under representation of women in Parliament. This is why groups such as Young Fabian Women are so important, providing peer to peer support that in the long term will hopefully transform Labour’s gender balance. Many of us will be watching with interest to see what action the new leader takes to improve the representation of Labour women in Parliament, but it will be equally interesting to see how the Party as a whole reacts to the challenge.

Dear Editor, Richard Angell is of course right that Labour did not lose because it was ‘too right-wing’ (After the election). However, I do think that it failed to cover the interests of the less well off - it was not ‘wide’ enough.

Correct, ‘C2’s left us in droves. But voters lower down the economic scale left in far greater numbers still. They are essential to winning swing seats all over Britain including in the South East. tom miller, south east representative, young labour national committee

Dear Editor, Paul Richard’s article (10 of the best moments in Labour history) was both moving and insightful. From his article we can draw a vision for the future.

I believe a National Care Service could be for this century what the NHS was for the last. The Labour Party must seize the moment as it did in 1948, to produce true progressive change. I thank Mr Richards for reminding us why the Labour Party was so important in the past, and why it will continue to remain vital long into the future.

Dear Editor, I read Alastair Stewart’s article with interest (Focus on: The TV debates). I agree with him that the election debates opened up politics to a greater number of people but I would add that I think Labour missed an important trick. Stewart talked about his time at university and the feeling that there was something important to believe in. That, I believe, is what was missing from the debates.

We failed to properly explain to people what we believe in and why. The debate was too often about policy differences. Yet I vote Labour not because I believe in every single Labour policy but because, even when I disagree with the method, I agree with the underlying purpose. That is what we needed to tell people in the election debates.

Dear Editor, I thoroughly enjoyed the contributions from Young Fabian candidates network members in the last edition of Anticipations (Lessons from the network). As a first time candidate in a recent post May 6th by-election for Camden Council, the network served as a vital tool in notifying other Young Fabian members as to what was happening in my campaign as well as offering me advice on running it in what was, as many will know, quite a stressful few weeks.

As a result, a great number of people came out to help me pound the streets in an election which was ultimately unwinnable. A huge thank you to all the members who helped and offered me their advice and support. Also, it is great to see Anticipations keeping campaigning so high on the agenda, even ‘off-season’.

martin edobor, young fabian member

emma carr, young fabian member

jack smith, young fabian member

rebecca rennison, young fabian treasurer

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Political Pulse

Labour must do more to value its women if it is to win again — ROWENNA DAVIS —

There is something rather satisfying about seeing middle class white men feeling a little insecure about their identity. It’s a feeling that women – and indeed all other under represented groups – feel in Westminster on a regular basis. Placed on a podium in a neat, homogenous line, Ed Miliband, David Miliband, Ed Balls and Andy Burnham looked around, nervously loosened their starched collars and asked, ‘What kind of party have we become?’

Diane Abbott simply drew attention to the problem. Whoever becomes leader; they will know things need to change.

During the leadership campaign, diversity pressure groups made the most of the rare opportunity elections offer to make top party dogs listen to the base. Lead4Women was one entirely autonomous coalition that sprang up during the race, writing an open letter to all candidates that asked what they would do to support women’s involvement in the party.

All the candidates have now replied. Ed Balls and Ed Miliband offered the strongest commitments, both saying that they would support the policy of giving women equal representation in the shadow cabinet and continuing with women short lists. Andy Burnham committed to having the number of women in the parliamentary party reflected in the shadow cabinet and across all departmental teams. Interestingly, Diane Abbott provided the shortest response – we have to hope she felt she’d already been leading on this issue, rather than assuming that being a female candidate was enough.

David Miliband’s response was also unimpressive. Although he committed to making one third of his shadow cabinet women, he believes that softer methods are required such as training workshops for under-represented groups. While this has value, it implies that women are underrepresented because of some weakness in themselves, rather than a direct result of the subtle forms of discrimination that still exist within the party.

This certainly seems to be the message coming from rank and file female members. Talk to them, and they’ll tell you it’s not themselves they want to change – it’s the Party. The problems they have are the little things that appear everywhere but are difficult to explain. It’s the bemused feeling you’re left with when you put forward an idea in a male-dominated room, receive a blank expression and then hear your male colleague next to you suggest the same thing and get a hearty response. Or the extra anxiety that

comes from speaking in a room - not because you’re under-confident - but because you know as a woman you can’t afford to fumble. Women aren’t whining for the sake of it or because it’s just unfair. We know that there are at least three serious strategic reasons for supporting greater women’s equality.

First, we know that if you want to win elections, you have to win over the women’s vote. For some evidence of how much women’s ballot papers matter, check this out for a fact: if women hadn’t been given the vote, then the Conservatives would not have won a single election in the post war period. To win again, Labour will have to speak more directly to women, and the best way to do that is to get more women in it.

Secondly, having more women in top positions doesn’t just look better – it also produces better policy. Professor Sarah Childs at the University of Bristol has traced the difference 100 women MPs have made to party policy, documenting their input into the emergence of Sure Start policies, flexible working and extended maternity and paternity leave. Although men played a role in these policies too, the evidence shows that it’s women who have experience of these issues that bring them to the table.

Finally, women need to be represented at the top to help keep crucial women at the grassroots engaged and inspired. Women might have been invisible in the May election, but our influence was tangible. Out of loyalty, we kept quiet about our under-representation, and focused our efforts working hard behind the scenes, knocking on doors, coordinating meetings and arranging leaflet drops. It would be good to have some recognition.

Even now, Labour women are carrying on the fight. Autonomous groups are helping to organise women’s leadership hustings, mentoring schemes and networking events. They know that they’re not just working for the good of women, but for a broader fight about the nature of the Party. Labour cannot claim to be the party of fairness, equality and justice if it cannot get these qualities sorted in its own ranks. The sooner women and other unrepresented groups can feel more comfortable in their own skin in this party, the sooner our white middle class male candidates can feel comfortable in theirs.

Rowenna Davis is a Young Fabian member and journalist specialising in comment and features on political and social affairs.

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Economics Eye

Labour must face up to the cuts required if it is to be credible — ALLEN SIMPSON —

One of the key dividing lines in the election was the timing of government cuts in response to the credit crisis. The Conservatives would have the electorate believe that Labour are spendthrifts who couldn’t keep a pound in their pocket if a diversity outreach officer’s job depended on it; and Labour liked to imply that the Tories were intent on swingeing cuts that would cause a double dip recession, purely for the joy of watching a tear roll down an orphan’s face as the doors shut on his beloved community centre for the last time. I’d like to use this column to look briefly at what sort of crisis we face, and the two major parties’ divergent views on how to address it.

Firstly, the long term deficit is not primarily the result of the banking sector’s idiocy. A good estimate by the EU places the Europe-wide fiscal impact of the bank rescue packages at around £3.3 trillion, which of course does not include the totality of the costs of the crisis, but is a useful indication of scale. In contrast, the public sector debt in the UK alone stands at a conservative estimate of around £1.7 trillion, once off-balance sheet expenditure and unfunded public sector pension costs are factored in.

The major cause of our long term debt is our ageing demographic profile.

Today in the UK, 11,000 people are aged over 100. In 50 years’ time that number is expected to reach 345,000, or a population larger than Coventry.

The costs to the public purse of this will increase by 40% over the next 40 years, and by 2060 the yearly price of funding public sector pensions will have reached £79 billion, larger than any projection for the banking bailout.

So the deficit results as much from unaffordable (and to some extent unavoidable) public spending as it does from the credit crisis; and equally as importantly, this is a long term structural issue, not a short term fiscal shock. We on the Left must recognise that however much cutting valuable public services might hurt, there does need to be a sizeable reduction in the cost of the state if we are to avoid bankruptcy and fund our old age.

The question therefore isn’t whether we need to cut, but whether it is safe to cut now or if a government stimulus is needed to prevent a double dip. Martin Wolf points out in the FT that the effect of the new government’s plans on the deficit doesn’t differ that greatly from their predecessor, with Labour aiming for a cyclically adjusted current deficit of 1.6 per cent in 2014-15 and the Conservatives forecasting a surplus of 0.3 per cent. And as George Osborne’s

own Office of Budgetary Responsibility has emphasised, the effect of the government cuts is to turn a 0.5 percentage point public sector contribution to growth into a drag on GDP of the same amount. Is it enough to cause the dreaded double dip? Probably not. Even factoring in this half a point drag, the economy should grow by between 1 to 2 per cent in each of the next two years.

Given the limited impact on the deficit, the loss of public services and the small but enhanced possibility of dipping back into recession, the motivation for cutting now is not immediately obvious. But very simply, the added short term growth provided by maintaining government spending would not be enough to satisfy the international bond markets, which we must do if we are to avoid the catastrophic loss of our AAA rating.

Let’s separate out debt – the total capital sum owed by the government – and the deficit – the gap between the government’s spending and income. The deficit in 2009 stood at £159.2 billion, £31 billion of which was accounted for by interest repayments to the bond markets. The cost of servicing this debt will grow considerably over the next five years, reaching £67.2 billion even assuming the proposed cuts are made.

Keeping this bill manageable will rely on the nation’s credit rating staying strong. Rating agencies are hawkish creatures, and have warned consistently of the consequences of taking an insufficiently strong line on cuts. Moody’s have been very clear that if the UK’s interest repayments rise above 10% of GDP (the OBR’s projections amount to about 8-9%) then the UK seriously risks a downgrade to AA. The result would be raised interest rates costing the taxpayer an additional £10 billion, and if Ireland is any guide, setting in train a series of downgrades, further pushing up the deficit and debt.

I would suggest that on balance, the data shows cutting now is probably the right response, however tough a job it is. The anger the Left currently directs at the government for reducing the deficit would be much better spent interrogating them remorselessly on whether each individual cut will actually save money in the long term, or whether, as Martin Wolf has suggested, Osborne’s programme of cuts is deliberately unworkable.

Allen Simpson is a Young Fabian member and speechwriter to the London Stock Exchange CEO. He writes in a personal capacity.

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| cover story |

WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA? Labour needs new ideas. It should look to the enlightenment for inspiration — MATTHEW TAYLOR —

So far the key questions in the Labour leadership battle seem to be about the past – ‘who is to blame for what New Labour got wrong?’ – and the present – ‘how best should we oppose the Coalition?’. Sure, there have been new phrases, lists of issues, a scattering of policy but unless I have missed something, none of the candidates have managed to communicate a compelling narrative about the shape social democracy should take in the future. It is easy to scorn big ideas like the Third Way or the Big Society, but they provide an intellectual foundation for the development of a broad policy programme.

These new ideas are often ways of returning to deeper political and philosophical traditions. In this spirit, the organisation I now run, the fiercely politically independent, Royal Society of Arts has a new motto - 21st century enlightenment. We have been asking how enlightenment principles have come to be interpreted and whether they should be rethought in the light both of today’s social and environmental challenges and important new insights into human nature.

While this may sound a long way from the more prosaic debates in Labour’s leadership campaign, perhaps that process might benefit too from imagining a project which seeks not merely to respond to modern values, but to shape them.

To think about the core ideas of the

enlightenment, and how they gave rise to modern values, norms and lifestyles, is a process of cultural psychotherapy, delving into the collective consciousness of modern people.

The rise of science and technology, the growth of market capitalism, the expansion of social tolerance and personal freedom – all these drew on the impetus of enlightenment thought.

Self-aware autonomy

In his recent book In Defence of the Enlightenment, Tzvetan Todorov suggests three ideas were at the core of the enlightenment project - autonomy, universalism and what he calls the ‘human end purpose of our acts’.

The principle of autonomy holds that human beings should be free to use their reason to create self-authored, valuable lives.

Ever since the enlightenment, debate has raged about the implications of the ideal. But by the end of the 20th century, a combination of ideas (notably free-market economics) and changes in society (including the perceived failure of the postwar settlement and the rise of consumer capitalism) had led to the apparent triumph of an individualistic conception of autonomy and a highly rationalist view of human nature.

This ideology of possessive individualism

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has shaped the way we think about democracy.

With the decline of deference and class-based politics, the principle that the customer is always right has been imported into the political sphere.

But the voter is not always right. The pollster Ben Page has summed up voters’ preferences in the phrase ‘we demand Swedish welfare on American tax rates’. But the preferences people express in polls are different to those they have after a process of group deliberation. When politicians and commentators genuflect to public opinion, it is generally to superficial individual preferences, not the outcomes of informed collective deliberation. The Labour leadership candidates constantly promise to listen to the voters, but what are they listening to?

Individualism has been subject to a variety of philosophical, sociological and political critiques. Meanwhile, public opinion and public policy have moved to and fro on the individualist/collectivist spectrum. But in recent years, research in areas as disparate as economics, evolutionary psychology and neuroscience have provided new grounds for questioning our interpretation of autonomy. The 21st century enlightenment should involve a more self-aware, socially embedded model of autonomy. This does not mean repudiating the rights of the individual.

Nor does it underestimate our ability deliberately

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to shape our own destinies. Indeed, it is by understanding that our conscious thought is only a part of what drives our behaviour that we can become better able to exercise self-control.

Most of what we do is the result of automatic responses to the world around us rather than the outcome of conscious decision-making.

Practically, it turns out that changing our context is a more powerful way of shaping our behaviour than trying to change our minds. If you want to be a more virtuous person, don’t buy a book of sermons – choose better friends.

The brain uses a whole set of shortcuts to make sense of the world and sometimes these mislead. For example, we tend not to be very good at making decisions for the long term and are better at understanding relative than absolute values. The panic of the credit crunch was a reminder of how we are in thrall to what John Maynard Keynes referred to as our ‘animal spirits’. We are poor at estimating our own capacities, predicting what will make us happy or even describing accurately what made us happy in the past. The moral and political critique of an individualist, rational choice model of autonomy now has an evidence base.

Empathic universalism

Building on the idea of natural rights, which can be traced back to the ancient Stoics, Todorov’s second enlightenment principle, universalism, is generally taken to mean that all human beings are born with inalienable rights and equally deserving of dignity. It is a principle Labour politicians claim to be the well-spring of their beliefs. But what is it that drives us to act on the principle of universalism? It is one thing to sign up to the ideal, another to put it into practice.

The emotional foundation for universalism is empathy.

In Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, people deemed to have reached the highest level, self-actualisation, are interested in problem solving, are accepting of themselves and – most significantly for universalism – lacking in prejudice. The developmental psychologist Robert Kegan goes further, arguing that a higher, more empathic level of functioning is essential to meet the practical demands of 21st century citizenship. This, “requires us to have a relationship to our own reactions, rather than be captive of them.”

The good news is that there is every reason to believe we can expand empathy’s reach.

Despite major departures from the trend, the history of the human race has been one of diminishing person-to-person violence. Since the advent of modern civil rights, we have seen a transformation in social attitudes based on race,

gender and sexuality. Immigration, emigration, foreign travel, global culture and communication all provide us with reasons and opportunities to appreciate our similarities and respect our differences.

But are there reasons to fear that the process of widening human empathy has stalled, and just when we need it to accelerate? Levels of inequality have risen across the rich world.

Tensions between different ethnic groups have taken on new dimensions. Anti-immigrant sentiment has grown, arguably reflecting a failure by policy-makers to balance the imperatives of globalisation with the empathic capacity of the (usually disadvantaged) communities most affected by change. There is concern about gang culture and about young people living more in the virtual world than the face-to-face one.

Labour needs to find a way back to its radical roots, but its message must be relevant to voters. The original enlightenment sowed the seeds for modern social democratic politics.

Might the renewal of the progressive project benefit from imagining a 21st century version?

Despite the growing interdependence of the world, the national frame for political interests which became dominant around the time of the enlightenment shows little sign of weakening. The stock of global empathy upon which democratic leaders can draw has to grow if the long-term needs of the human race are to be put ahead of

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short-term national interests.

It is reasonable to presume that those most relaxed about outsiders in their midst would also be those most inclined to be sympathetic to the plight of strangers far away. But the chain linking inter-personal, communal and global-scale empathy is complex. We need to understand better what enhances and what diminishes our empathic capacity. The policy implications range from child rearing to popular culture.

Ethical humanism

Todorov describes the third enlightenment principle as ‘the human end purpose of our acts’.

In other words, the basis for social arrangements should be what increases human happiness and welfare. There is little doubt we have succeeded in this area. The poorest citizens of the developed world now have better health, longer lifespans and many more resources and opportunities than those who would have been considered well-off two centuries ago.

But sometimes it feels as though it is taken for granted that the very act of pursuing progress is the same as improving human welfare and happiness. The success of the western postenlightenment project has resulted in societies such as ours being dominated by three logics of scientific and technological progress, markets and bureaucracy.

Sometimes these logics clash, often they reinforce each other. In politics and in the media, the abandonment of principle is excused by pressure to compete for power, votes or audience share. The voluntary sector (in which I work) might be thought of as a haven from competitive values. Not a bit of it. Charities compete for philanthropy, government contracts and media profile. And we all know how easy it is for day to day politics to drift away from ethical purpose and ethical methods.

A utilitarian approach to human progress leaves us without a framework through which we can inquire more deeply into what kind of future we want. Surveys suggest the Danes are the happiest people in the world not only because of their material circumstances, but because they say what matters most in life is good relationships. The most miserable nationality, the Bulgarians, say money is the key to happiness.

Living the good life may be as much about what you aim for as what you achieve.

Ethical thinking is also part of our human nature. In a recent Yale University experiment, babies between six and twelve months old watched a simple coloured geometric shape ascend a slope. When other shapes intervened, apparently either helping or blocking the circle, the children’s responses showed a clear preference

Copernicus monument/iStockphoto/Thinkstock

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The scientific revolution started by Copernicus led to the enlightenment.

for the helping shapes. The evolutionary biologist Marc Hauser has conducted a huge global online survey of moral judgements. He argues that subtle, but from a modern perspective idiosyncratic, moral distinctions appear to be ‘hard-wired’ in humans.

The logics of progress are themselves dependent on an often unrecognised ethical framework. Markets rely on trust, bureaucracies on duty and scientific progress on collaboration.

Indeed, as life becomes more complex and fast moving, and using external regulation to shape behaviour is consequently more onerous and less effective, our reliance on benign motivation becomes greater. But is it becoming harder to acknowledge our ethical nature or find ways of talking about substantive differences in aims and values? Just as sexual repression spawned hypocrisy and vice in the 19th century, so the suppression of ethical discourse leads to the strange coincidence of an era that combines social tolerance and cultural relativism alongside an almost continuous drum-beat of public indignation against everyone from bankers and celebrities to welfare cheats and immigrants.

As we face tough policy dilemmas, recognition of legitimate ethical differences is necessary for an authentic and engaging politics – an enlightenment politics of human ends rather than a technocratic politics of regulatory means.

Moral reform

The historian Peter Clarke first made the distinction between the ‘mechanical’ model of state-led change in Fabian socialism and the ‘moral’ model advocated by social Liberals such as Leonard Hobhouse and T.H. Green. It is an idea often referred to by David Miliband, among whose favourite books is The Progressive

Dilemma, in which David Marquand makes the case for reintegrating the two traditions.

If Labour does have a debate about moral reform, it may involve asking why recently the Conservatives have been more willing to discuss how people, not just government, have to change. This, after all, is one of the themes of David Cameron’s Big Society; as the state recedes, individuals and communities must be more willing to meet their own and each other’s needs.

At a recent Number Ten reception Cameron said that, “giving back to society…is the route to a happier more fulfilled life.” This is a long way from the unapologetic individualist ideology of Thatcherism.

There are some searching questions to be asked about the thinking behind Tory rhetoric.

Strong services and good local government are more often the foundation for civic action than its antithesis. And what of Labour’s own account of good citizenship? Tony Blair sought to re-moralise the Labour message with the emphasis on responsibilities as well as rights, along with a tough stance on crime and antisocial behaviour. But the tone of New Labour’s rhetoric often seemed punitive and populist, while the underlying account of human nature, in this and broader economic policy, was hard to distinguish from the self-interested rational man of economic orthodoxy.

In the 1970s and 80s, when feminists were asserting that ‘the personal is the political’, there was much talk of consciousness-raising. People were invited to reconsider their beliefs, social identity and most deeply held assumptions. Some of this may have been self-indulgent and even silly (I should know, I was chairperson of a men’s group in Leamington Spa), yet this approach contributed to major advances in social attitudes on gender, ethnicity, sexuality and disability.

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Is it time for another consciousness-raising mission? There has been a greater emphasis in recent policy debate on what is called ‘behaviour change’. The focus is on the contribution we, the people, must make to social progress. What I have called the ‘social aspiration gap’ can be seen to have three aspects.

First, as citizens, we need to be more politically engaged and self-aware, acknowledging the dilemmas policy-makers face, giving permission for the right long-term decisions and recognising how our own behaviour shapes policy options.

Second, with the cost of labour-intensive public services bound to rise, citizens need to be more self-sufficient and resourceful; looking after our health, investing in our education and saving for our retirement. Creativity and risk-taking are also vital. Third, we need to be more pro-social, contributing to what David Halpern calls the hidden wealth of nations, our capacity for trust, caring and co-operation.

To get noticed and mobilise activists, Labour needs to find a way back to its radical roots, but its message must also be relevant and attractive to voters. The idea that people can change, need to change and, through changing, would be able to live more fulfilling lives should be part of the story. It is an idea that builds from political values and science-based accounts of human nature and provides the foundation for new policy priorities and models of governance. The original enlightenment sowed the seeds for modern social democratic politics. Might a renewal of the progressive project benefit from imagining a 21st century version?

Matthew Taylor is Chief Executive of the RSA. He writes here in a personal capacity. His pamphlet on 21st century enlightenment is available on the RSA’s website.

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POLITICAL IDEAS

OPENING UP b y c l a ire l ei g h

It has been a long-standing truism of British politics that domestic issues win elections. In this year’s poll, concerns such as immigration and the economy dominated pre-election debates both on the TV and off. The election also demonstrated how far we are from a political consensus on core domestic issues, with vital elements of the welfare state and public services seemingly up for grabs.

But as the Labour Party licks its war wounds and regroups in opposition, it may do well to ‘think global’ in its bid to reclaim the home front.

Revisit the debates that dominated this election – on defence, immigration, the economic crisis – and it is clear that the domestic issues people care most about are in fact intimately bound up with challenges of globalisation. It is for that reason that Tony Blair in his recent speech to the Institute for Government postulated that the politics of the future will not be a contest between right and left, but between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ political philosophies. The forces at play in the world are compelling political actors to make a choice. In Blair’s own words, “do you look at globalisation as an opportunity, do you look at immigration as an opportunity, or do you actually see yourself closing down in the face of these forces of change.”

If we buy the hypothesis that domestic politics will increasingly be divided along the lines of open vs. closed approaches to global forces, how will parties on the left and right in Britain and elsewhere fare as they struggle to adjust to the new paradigm?

The challenge for parties of all colours will be finding a way to reconcile a greater concern for the global context with an increasingly limited capacity to shape that context. ‘Liberal Conservatism’, as expressed by William Hague in his landmark speech last year to the International

Institute for Strategic Studies, is essentially the Tories’ attempt to mediate this dilemma. While not exactly a ‘closed’ approach to globalisation, it’s an awkward third way that manages to combine complacency in the face of global challenges with reactionary delusion in the face of unstoppable change.

For those on the Left, charting a path towards openness raises many of its own challenges, particularly on issues of free trade and labour mobility. How can we defend social justice at home and promote it abroad, even when the two appear to be in conflict? Is it still enough to achieve domestic progress if this is done in spite of, or even at the cost of, injustice overseas? And if being the open party means meeting global problems with activism rather than reaction, what levers are realistically available to us?

The legitimacy of unilateral interventionism is a hard-sell to voters, and yet the world lacks effective multilateral forums. These are dilemmas that New Labour recognised but often ultimately failed to overcome.

However, boldly positioning itself in any emerging ‘open/closed’ paradigm is also a significant opportunity for Labour. It is well placed to benefit from branding itself as the ‘party of openness’ for at least three reasons.

Firstly, a sizable chunk of votes awaits the party able to successfully reengage disenfranchised, often young, cosmopolitans.

Labour should be the natural home of this swing demographic. But many currently doubt the will or ability of national political parties to address the international issues they care about, such as structural trade inequality and climate change.

Secondly, as part of a larger global labour movement, the Party should be able to establish its globalist and ‘open’ credentials more readily than operators on the political right. By framing our mission and activities within the context of a globalised fight for social justice we also have an opportunity to reinvigorate the progressive narrative and recapture political imaginations.

Thirdly, progressives should be able to seize the intellectual high ground in the globalisation debate. Liberal Conservatism is a flawed and regressive formula. As the party of engagement not retrenchment, we have the chance to put clear water between us and our opponents. We should not be apologists for policies which seek to work with rather than against the forces of change. To sceptics on the Left, we must show that enlightened self-interest in the modern age means positively engaging with transnational trends, and that conservative retrenchment in the face of these forces is ultimately harmful to people both in the UK and overseas.

Going forward, the challenge for Labour is to assert itself as the party of openness. In practical

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terms this requires a shift in priorities - the issues we focus on; in approach - the policies we adopt to address these issues; and in presentation - the public narrative that we employ to explain our approach.

Claire Leigh is Young Fabian Reform Officer

LABOUR PARTY REFORM

WINNING THE TURF WAR b y ro b ne w m a n

There’s a sentence in the Home Office’s policing White Paper that could be said to sum up this coalition government as a whole. “Solutions to local problems are often found within communities”, the Paper says, “and drawing back the state will allow neighbourhood activists and groups to come forward and play their full role.”

It’s the oldest right-wing argument in the book – and it’s the answer to those who believed that David Cameron was some kind of postideological, non-dogmatic politician. Far from being the ‘new politics’, this is Conservatism at its most raw. To combat it, Labour will need to return to its own roots as a movement.

We would be making a profound mistake if we cling to the hope that the coalition will fracture down its Lib-Con fault line. Despite the rumblings of backbenchers from both government parties, the simple fact that neither the Conservatives nor the Lib Dems have been in government for excruciating amounts of time until this May should mean that, in the end, the government hangs together. Only an event of extraordinary political significance – the loss of the AV referendum, for instance, or a foreign policy crisis – could bring them down.

Given that, it is imperative that Labour sketches out its own policy agenda and finally addresses some of the systemic problems which have been steadily undermining it as a political force for over a decade. Some of these – the loss of so many of our local councillors, for instance – will be at least partially corrected as the electoral pendulum swings back to us. But that isn’t enough; and nor is a simple policy of blanket opposition to all attempts to cut the deficit, or an endorsement of a renewed wave of union militancy.

John Prescott coined the term ‘traditional values in a modern setting’ – and if we are to combat the coalition’s ‘Big Society’ rhetoric, this is exactly what is required. We need to reach back to the very beginning of the Labour movement, summoning up the spirit of reciprocity which drove communities to form co-operatives and trade unions, and apply it to our times.

David Miliband has talked throughout the

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leadership contest about creating a ‘Movement for Change’; of training community organisers who can rally support within neighbourhoods for progressive causes.

Adopting this approach and combining it with what the best Constituency Labour Parties already achieve can result in a real renaissance for our movement, putting it where it should be - at the heart of each of our communities, connected to faith groups, parents, tenants and residents associations - and prove that it is far from broken.

Identifying the people within these groups who are our next generation of councillors and local members is crucial to regaining the level of membership that we enjoyed at the height of the Blair phenomenon – and to the continued life of our party.

As we welcome new people into the fold – people who share our values and who we should never have let slip away – we should look again at our structure. These are part of a 19th century architecture which we should most definitely not be wedded to, lest we lose the ability to retain members all over again.

So as our recruiting methods change, our structures alter with them – and those who get elected to and formulate our policy in local government need similarly to reassess. Just as with the parliamentary party, the best route will not be blanket opposition to the coalition and militant refusal to countenance new ways of delivering services. Yes, we should expose the worst cuts and fight them. But we should also recognise the public concern about the deficit and respond to its desire to see its money well spent.

So we should look to Lambeth and its ‘cooperative council’ model – standing as it does in stark contrast to the Tories’ preferred ‘EasyJet’, no-frills approach. The only council which we won back in the 2006 elections, Lambeth Labour are involving the public much more widely in the delivery of services.

They’ve created more tenant-managed estates; created a housing co-operative on the South Bank; set up a community trust to run an old school site in Kennington as a sports and youth club; and launched the biggest participatory budgeting exercise in the country.

As Labour oppositions try to formulate their manifestos ahead of elections next May, or as Labour administrations try to adapt to the swingeing cuts being visited on local government, what better approach than to draw up a plan for delivering services that truly involve the public in making a difference to their own lives?

Our mission as a party has always been to enable people to help themselves, to lift up the disadvantaged and to equip them with the tools and wherewithal to make their own choices in life. There is no bigger idea than this – and,

unlike Cameron’s hollow conversion to the language of co-operativism and community, it is an idea which has been with us since our birth as a movement.

It is our territory, not theirs. Ceding it would be a betrayal of our history – and of those who depend on us. We should recast our values for today’s challenges – and fight the coalition on our turf.

Rob Newman is a Young Fabian member

LIBERALISM

THE NEW LIBERALS b y c a l l u m totten

At the beginning of the twentieth century the Labour Party had a prominent liberal stream epitomised by individuals such as Harold Laski and G.D.H Cole. However, it gradually moved to a more statist philosophy (epitomised by the 1945 government) which was more ‘traditionally’ socialist. This meant the Left in Britain were often reluctant to engage in debates on liberalism, feeling more comfortable with topics such as social justice and inequality. In government this led them to focus too heavily on means rather than ends. Today there is much to be gained for the British Left in renewing their thinking on liberalism, just as the Liberal Party did in the early 20th century under philosophers such as Hobson, Hobhouse and Green.

Civil liberties have rightly played an important part in the Labour leadership election, fuelled by the recognition that the issue was often overlooked or neglected by New Labour. This recognition must be the starting point for any liberal renewal.

We were wrong over 90 days detention.

We should have been bolder on constitutional reform, going further in devolving power and taking up complete electoral reform when we had the chance. Basic political liberties are crucial because they send a message that we believe in the individual’s ability to take serious decisions.

More than this, we must encourage people to take active responsibility for all aspects of their lives. There should be an expectation on people to take their obligations seriously and not to expect protection at every stage. Individuals will value achievements far more if they have achieved them independently. At the same time we must ensure that people have the capabilities and opportunities to exercise genuine choice in the important areas of their lives. All of life’s most important decisions are far more valuable and much more likely to be well made if decided upon by informed individuals.

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To achieve this sense of agency we must challenge the neo-liberal idea that the balance between state power and individual freedom is a zero sum game and instead recognise that sensible government policies can expand individual power.

But this approach also requires us to challenge our own assumptions on the Left that for all problems the state holds the solution.

Sometimes it will be a case of giving individuals the tools to resolve their own problems and letting them get on with it (this is a compelling argument for further and greater devolution).

This process will be the social manifestation of the republican ideal of freedom (that no-one has control over you but yourself) and will generate a sense of true liberty.

But the answer is not, as David Cameron suggests, to immediately take the state away and to replace it with the ‘Big Society’. If we are serious about an agenda which regards each individual as having equal worth and ability then we must also be willing to ensure that everyone is given the support and advice they need to navigate what will be a long and difficult process.

First, we must ensure that individuals have both the opportunity and the ability to exercise the freedoms open to them. It is naive to say to someone claiming job seeker’s allowance that they are free to get a job if they have been out of work for a long period, don’t have suitable skills or there are not any jobs available. Empowerment requires confidence and encouraging confident individuals should be a key aim.

Second, we must ensure that people have real choices open to them in directing their lives.

Being independent has no value if your choices are restricted from an early age, so we must strive to give people the best opportunities at the beginning and throughout their lives so there are always alternatives open to them.

Lastly, we must accept and encourage diversity, which is the inevitable product of giving people greater freedom. In striving to ensure that individuals have the greatest range of choice possible open to them, we should ensure that prejudice never restricts freedom. For instance people should be free to wear the burka, but should never be forced to do so.

There will of course be times when the goals people set contradict each other. As ever, freedom for one person may mean death for another. It is to be hoped however, that by giving all individuals equal power we can avoid a situation where one person is able to overpower another.

Autonomous agents should be able to resolve conflicts and adjust their aims accordingly. Equally not all the goals people set themselves will be achievable, and goals will need to therefore be prioritised. The process of

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compromise and prioritisation does not take away freedom but is an essential part of agency.

It should be something all individuals get used to in a world of scarce resources.

A liberalism based on the importance of agency, self-direction and primary goals, is just one possible new liberal agenda which the Left in Britain could unite behind. Irrespective of the outcome, the Left must have a serious debate about these issues and Labour must learn to talk the liberal language if they wish to return to government any time soon.

Callum Totten is a Young Fabian member

TRADE UNIONS

FIGHTING IDEOLOGY

Is the coalition set for a battle with the unions?

b y d a n w h itt l e

Before the election Cameron was showing signs that he did not have the appetite for a Thatcherstyle showdown with the unions. Conservatives were openly acknowledging the contribution organised labour had been making on education and green improvements in the workplace, and there was hope that an attack on unions would not be on the coalition’s first 100 days to-do list.

But since May their policies on health reorganisation, academies and cuts in public sector pay, pensions, jobs, benefits and services have stoked a conflict with unions. And instead of choosing cooperation, the coalition has gone for head-on collision, reheating the old politics of threat and counter-threat.

In opposition Cameron scolded Labour for legislative speed, promising a more reflective style of government. In government he has done the opposite, and the coalition’s ‘momentum’ strategy of limiting all consultation and scrutiny on cuts and legislation, heaps pressure on unions.

Even the most reserved feel forced to react inkind to a barrage of daily announcements which adversely affect their members.

Unions responded robustly to the emergency budget, arguing that the government needed to focus on economic growth, and that there was no mandate for damaging cuts or for further privatisation. The TUC pointed out that cuts in public sector spending and pensions will hit women the hardest, as women work in much higher proportions in the public sector and are also more likely to receive a public pension.

The coalition posed as thoughtful on pay and pensions, appointing former Labour MP John Hutton to review the latter and the other Hutton, Will, to run a ‘fair pay review’ set to scrutinise public sector pay to ensure the highest earners are paid no more than twenty times what the

lowest earners receive. This came as cold comfort alongside a two-year pay freeze, the roll out of academies which by-pass national pay deals, and verbal attacks on ‘gold plated’ pensions.

Though wishing to challenge unions, the coalition are wary of ending up with the situation in Greece, where a general strike paralysed the nation and produced the biggest demonstration through Athens for 50 years, as well as the tragic death of three bank staff in a fire. As a consequence the right wing media ponder hopefully whether the coalition will restrict unions’ ability to strike by raising the proportion of workers required to vote for one before it takes place.

Amongst the Conservative Party ranks even new comers like Priti Patel, the new Conservative MP for Witham, seem to be eager to play their small part in attacking workplace representation, in her case by seeking to restrict union facility time – the time away from work duties that union reps get so that they can help their colleagues and negotiate with management. She has asked 67 parliamentary questions on the amount this costs government departments.

Against this backdrop unions are remarkably resilient, as they embrace new ways of organising and representing their members. Unions are more trusted than politicians and there is no public appetite for the government to go to war with them. Conservatives and Liberal Democrats would do well to remember that unions will long outlast their coalition, and that hasty legislation and cuts pushed through without partnership could cause a backlash that marks the beginning of the end for their government.

Dan Whittle was Young Fabian Trade Union Liaison Officer 2008/09. He is Director of trade union think-tank Unions21 and writes in a personal capacity.

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COMMUNITY

HOME IS WHERE THE FUTURE IS b y s a m b a con

As Bob Dylan once sang, the times they are’a changing. As the recession made all too clear, we do now truly live in a global age. Like it or not, our communication, finance, entertainment, fashion and even our food is interconnected and interdependent with the wider world around us.

But at the heart of the global world we now live in, we still find communities.

No matter what the unique characteristics of someone’s life are, we all identify with something (in truth, often many things) and we use this to organise ourselves into communities. However, the way in which we develop and understand our communities has been changing over time and now presents us with a major challenge for the future of our economy and our politics, and will potentially be one of the most important issues of the next decade.

If someone asked you what community you belonged to, what would your first thought be? Your ethnicity? Your religion? Your job?

Your politics? More than a generation ago, the instinctive response would have been to think of the place you live in, your neighbourhood.

In many cases, thinking of your neighbourhood would actually be a proxy for some of the other issues listed above – your area would be full of other people in similar jobs, from similar backgrounds with similar beliefs to you. It was simple. These days though, this simple geographic distinction is becoming increasingly rare, and whilst it may not have entirely disappeared, its days are certainly numbered.

Predominantly in urban communities (where the majority of the population lives)

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people are increasingly relating more to ‘communities of interest’ than communities of geography. People’s access to information and changing social attachments and values mean that they are increasingly hard to categorise simply by location.

To turn this into a concrete example, just think how many people reading this are likely to know their neighbours? And even if you personally do, would you expect your neighbours values, interests or leisure interests to closely match your own simply because they live next door to you? For most young people in an increasingly cosmopolitan world, this seems a strangely quaint idea.

Demographics play a part in this sort of change, but even across age groups, people no longer rely on the people in their close proximity to find friends or companionship. The rise of highly mobile family units means people are more likely to be separated from their extended family and friends, but through technology they are still likely to stay in close contact with them, rather than simply make new friends or re-root themselves in an area just because they’ve moved there.

Whilst social groups have historically always been physically closer to each other, they have never had such instant access to each other’s movements and thoughts. As sci-fi as it may sound, the internet does mean that we can maintain lives and communities purely through the virtual.

As a result of this greater ability to stay in contact with people, and with the breakdown of traditional community interaction, people are much more likely to define themselves by the interests they have rather than the place they live.

People (especially young and urban) will more often than not feel their ‘community’ is those like-minded people at their work, sports club or university; few of which require them to live next door to each other.

So ‘communities of interest’? So what?

So communities have changed. People no longer expect or want to be defined by the place they live in. They have wider interests, are harder to categorise and more likely to share their sense of identity with people online than in the street.

But does this really matter? Well, yes actually.

Whatever David Cameron may have recently claimed, the age of Britain being the workshop of the world is gone. The competitive demands and opportunities of an international economy mean that other (usually developing) countries will, for the most part, always be able to make things cheaper than we can here in the UK. Many developing economies offer large pools of labour and low development and manufacturing costs.

The UK cannot and will not compete when only

communities, the way in which we make policy, and elect politicians may seem increasingly remote and unsuitable. Quite how we develop and understand our communities in the future may have implications for a lot more than just where we call home.

Sam Bacon is a Young Fabian member

HOME AFFAIRS

21ST CENTURY PRISON REFORM b y c l a ire f renc h

Do we need to change our idea of community? these factors are considered. But all is not lost.

Quality of life is one area Britain can and will continue to compete in. When businesses look to set up somewhere, costs may be lower in Mumbai, but wise directors will be aware that the quality of life in places like Manchester or London will act as a particular incentive to the highly skilled workers they will need to staff their company. So the type of life we offer in our geographic places will be fundamental to maintaining competitiveness in an international economy.

The changing nature of our (geographic) communities and the way people interact with them, poses a unique question in this regard how do we work to improve quality of life at a local level when people within those geographic spaces feel dislocated from them? It’s the sort of question that our policy making simply doesn’t address at the moment. We have little conception of how to work with people who feel more linked to a virtually maintained community than to the one outside their front door. How we understand such communities and find ways to improve the lives of people connected to them could be vital.

But it’s not just in the economy that the move from physical communities to more abstract ones may have an effect. We currently elect MPs on the basis of a constituency, a defined geographical area. But if the social interaction and ‘community’ between people within this area have begun to break down, this raises the prospect of significant democratic deficit. If people feel that their lives are led by considerations that operate outside of spatial boundaries, for how long does it continue to make sense to represent them on the basis of geography?

Ultimately, if we as a society continue to look beyond the geographic confines to form our

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The feared reverberations of a right-wing media backlash against political parties continues to stifle important debate about entrenched social issues. One tough, but vitally important, policy area that requires urgent attention is the British criminal justice system. It’s time for Labour to chart a new direction in the way that we react to and punish deviant behaviour.

In the complex dichotomy between tough punishment and rehabilitation, it would be foolish to think that penal reform alone could address the woes of society. Politicians and organisations must work together towards creating a fairer, more equal society – to tackle social problems and, in turn, reduce crime levels.

During recent years, the Left has not had a unified approach to punishment. In its last report on prison reform under the Labour administration, the Ministry of Justice said that, “prison is first and foremost a punishment and prisoners are subjected to a tough and structured prison regime.”

This authoritarian, nineteenth century-style attitude to crime and punishment shares much with the draconian approach of our Victorian past. We now have record numbers of people in prison - just over 85,000 - and the introduction of control orders in 2005 has resulted in individuals facing long periods locked up in their homes without being charged or experiencing a fair trial.

As progressives we must make the case for a credible alternative to the status quo. Research from organisations like the Howard League for Penal Reform and important case studies from around the world have a crucial role to play in reshaping public attitudes towards criminal justice.

Hansard shows that by 1895, the reforming idea of the penal system was to, on the one hand, punish those who have committed crime, and on the other to rehabilitate inmates before they were released. This philosophy appears to have stuck ever since. Yet treating all men, women, and young offenders with a one-size-fits-all ‘tough punishment’ approach cannot address and rehabilitate the individual. Over 70% of people

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sent to prison have mental health problems, yet many are sent to mainstream prisons and given no specialised help. Is it any wonder that 66% of ex-prisoners go on to reoffend?

We should look to Scandinavia for a better approach. The Nordic prison model focuses on rebalancing common social norms in offenders.

Most prisons are small, with inmates given time to access the internet, go fishing and participate in paid work during the day.

These sentences are not about having a good time. Criminal justice campaigners and lawmakers in Britain can learn a number of lessons from the Scandinavian model. Prison in the 21st century should not only be about punishment, but rather about reforming the offender - giving them the help that they need to succeed in life.

For those who have committed less serious crimes, we should explore the greater use of community sentencing. ‘Restorative justice’ – the idea of meeting the victim to apologise - is an increasingly popular idea that could make a real difference.

Of course, changing people’s character is never a short or easy process. When Justice Secretary Ken Clarke announced that the number of short sentences handed down by judges would be reduced, he admitted that it was to save on public funding. This move has gained the support of penal reform groups, not because it saves money of course, but because it is the right thing to do.

The prison population has never been larger and yet the rate of repeat offending remains high.

The progressive left needs a 21st century outlook on penal reform and a representative Labour Party that promises to bring about real change.

Claire French is a Young Fabian member

VALUES

WHY TRUST MATTERS b y k u n a l k h a tri

Opposition has proved cathartic rather than chaotic for the Labour Party. After years of spin, in-fighting, and of course the Iraq war, the leadership candidates are united in recognising the challenge the Party faces in overcoming the deep distrust that continues to scar it.

It has been well documented how New Labour catapulted to power on the back of a broad coalition of support, yet failed to sustain this spectrum through a decade of power. Rather than understanding that openness and the clash of ideas was critical to success in 1997, the party leadership closed ranks, held a fierce grip on

policy and distrusted those who questioned the Party’s course. We, as a party, sacrificed inclusivity, stifled individuality, and by the May election, had lost our creativity.

This centralising tendency was too often reflected in the policies the Party pursued throughout its time in government. After years in opposition, New Labour developed a misty eyed belief in the power of central government to deliver sweeping public service reform. What resulted was an ever-increasing centralisation of power through a world of inspections and targets, financial incentives and bonuses. Though of course there was some merit in these mechanisms providing a benchmark for the worst performing of our public services, the over-reliance on these mechanisms served to distort public service performance and over-burden professionals.

Indeed targets and bonuses often bring out the worst in human nature as organisations bend to their resources to meet the targets, rather than their true goal. Similarly, financial incentives denigrate the public service ethos in assuming that the only motive for someone in a vocation such as nursing is the earning of money rather than a desire to do something worthwhile.

Embedded in public choice theory, this approach presumed that individuals were motivated by selfish desires and were unwilling to perform to their best without targets, accountability or financial reward. It is a theory motivated by suspicion. It is predicated on a lack of trust.

Future Labour Party policy must, in contrast, revolve around a presumption of trust.

We must recognise that to be trusting and act trustworthily is a feature hardwired into human beings. The burgeoning field of behavioural economics testifies that human motivation is not solely derived from selfish desires, but also altruistic purposes.

While the Party may attack the Tories ‘Big Society’ agenda as a mask for cuts, it is short sighted to ignore the appeal it has for professionals and public servants who want to be trusted to perform their jobs free from bureaucratic control.

This is not simply to advocate naive or blind trust carte blanche, as there are of course those who could be malevolent or incompetent. Instead it is an active trust, where our critical faculties are engaged when deciding who to trust and who not to trust.

For instance, the academies system provides a rare instance where Labour placed trust in teachers to teach in a manner and to a curriculum that they considered most effective and suitable.

Foundation hospitals stemmed from a similar ethos.

Furthermore, some of society’s most intractable problems require a level of sustained engagement and self-responsibility that cannot

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be generated through the levers of central government. Time and again it has proved near impossible to break down the policy silos that develop in government in order to tackle crosssector issues such as homelessness, obesity and youth crime.

Rather than looking to imitate or replace, the role of government should be to help, primarily financially, those charities and social enterprises that are embedded and are well placed to tackle these issues in the community. The state has to evolve to become much more of a venture state where we are willing to provide the finance to those already existing organisations that we trust to continue to successfully tackle some of society’s most complex problems.

Of course, with such an approach, there is the risk of government providing capital to initiatives or social enterprises that fail in their task. But the risk of failure is no less acute than with policy initiatives driven from and administered by central government, the only difference being that in the latter instance the lines of accountability are in fact less transparent.

Trust is also vital for building stronger communities and, as Richard Layard has demonstrated, is highly correlated with happiness and wellbeing in society. It is this quality of life agenda that has to become the driving force of Labour Party policy over and above the simple pursuit of GDP maximisation. We have reached a point in most western societies where further GDP and wealth maximisation is no longer tantamount to increased wellbeing. The economic crisis of the last two years has provided a rare opportunity for this debate to gain traction, with the likes of Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen amongst those advocating this shift.

This is not to entirely dismiss information on GDP as it remains fundamental to questions of market production and employment. However, it is indisputable that there is an increasing gap between the information contained in GDP data and what counts for people’s well being. Ultimately, it is the broader vision of responsibility, love, loyalty, friendship and, critically, trust that must be the Party’s policy end.

Yet for Labour to realise this vision, the Party must embody these values itself. The next party leader has the opportunity to transform how the Party engages with its members and the wider public, to foster a climate of trust and trustworthiness. Ultimately, if it is a more sustainable and trusting society that we seek to pursue, then it is with the Party’s and with our own individual behaviour that we must begin.

Kunal Khatri is a Young Fabian member and coauthored ‘Trust: How we lost it and how we regain it’ with Anthony Seldon.

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EQUALITY

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL b y re b ecc a l u ry

As a progressive party, Labour and equality should be synonymous. The last government took great strides towards achieving greater equality, introducing the minimum wage, increasing maternity grants and leave, ensuring that there were more affordable childcare places and encouraging flexible working practices.

The last term of the Labour government also saw the introduction of the Equality Act, which laid the foundations for further reforms that aimed to foster greater equality within society.

But there is much more to do, and Labour cannot rest on its laurels.

The new coalition government has been a major stumbling block to this agenda. As Yvette Cooper has highlighted, the coalition’s first Budget, with its benefit cuts and direct tax changes, has left women disproportionately worse off.

The decision to take time out of a career to have a child is becoming increasingly challenging.

While Labour made provisions to help women, such as increasing maternity pay and leave, the new government appears to be withdrawing this vital support. Childcare places are no longer a government priority, maternity grants are to be abolished next year and child benefit is set to be frozen.

Women will now have to choose between spending more time at home after their child is born, but not receiving government support, and returning to work, paying ever-increasing childcare costs. And for those who cannot afford childcare, they are faced with having to give up work altogether.

Instead of fostering the ‘Big Society’, we look to be creating a divisive society. Labour must act now to make its voice heard and place equality at the heart of its vision for the future.

While Harriet Harman did a great deal of important work before May 6th, the pursuit of equality between men and women is far from over. The Equality Act successfully made it through Parliament before the election but it is in the hands of the coalition to ensure it is fully implemented. With the Conservative resistance to the Act during its passage through Parliament, Labour need to campaign for its full and proper introduction.

Instead of being the end goal, the Act needs to be seen as the beginning of a renewed effort to achieve true equality in Britain. Labour must campaign on key parts if the Act including tackling the gender pay gap, raising the minimum wage and increasing the numbers of women on

company boards.

The gender pay gap is the biggest threat to equality in the UK. While the Equality Act has provisions within it to force companies with more than 250 staff to publish information relating to disparity in pay between men and women, this is far from enough. We must go further. It simply isn’t right that women can be paid less than their male counterparts for the same job. Labour must fight for greater transparency in organisations of all sizes.

The minimum wage was one of Labour’s greatest achievements but we must continue the campaign and increase it to a level that is truly enough to live on - a living wage. This is an important issue of gender equality as women work in far greater numbers in minimum wage jobs.

We must also continue the fight for more equal representation on company boards. Not through an arbitrary figure, but by helping women by removing the barriers that currently exist. The answer lies not in positive discrimination but in putting in place the right conditions to help women achieve what they are capable of. Through robust maternity packages and flexible working, amongst over things, women will steadily rise to the top.

The coalition government has also commissioned Lord Davies of Abersoch to carry out a review into women’s representation on company boards. This work by a Labour peer, who has been passionate about the topic for many years, goes to show that the coalition acknowledge the important role that Labour can play in tackling inequality.

Only Labour are committed to true equality, and it is vital that we never lose sight of the fact that the coalition government is undermining the Party’s past efforts. To bring about real change in the 21st century, Labour must become the party of equality.

Rebecca Lury is a Young Fabian member

RELIGION

OF CHURCH AND STATE b y a l e x g a b rie l

Summer 2010, and Labour’s leadership hustings have buried the Blair-Brown era. Miliband D. has railed for ‘Next Labour’, Andy Burnham for ‘Our Labour’ and Diane Abbott for a general and ambiguous turning of the page – the flavour of the day, as every day in politics, is change.

Despite what Telegraph readers may have said, the New Labour period saw some of Britain’s most explicitly Christian governments for

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decades. Now that the time for reinvention has arrived, perhaps it’s time for Labour to reconnect with secularist principles.

Before I say why, let’s be clear about just what that means. Forget the nasty, oppressive burqa bans of France or Belgium. The country best embodying secularism is the USA, where government is constitutionally forbidden to support or oppose any particular religion.

The fact that the USA’s populace is dramatically more religious than most other western nations demonstrates that far from encroaching on them, separation of church and state protects religious freedoms. From the state’s point of view, why give people of one opinion more policy influence than another? From any church’s, why let government choose between you and your competitors?

It isn’t just a matter of politicians’ tone. We live in a country where no Roman Catholic can be Prime Minister, where state school pupils under 16 are bound by law to take part in daily Christian worship, where twenty six members of the House of Lords are there solely due to being Anglican bishops, and where only the Church of England can perform civil marriages without a registrar.

With 21st century multiculturalism bringing a groundswell of non-Christian religions to Britain, and an increasingly vocal population who don’t identify with any, life would be fairer by far if government stayed out of the debate by not backing anyone.

Inside of Labour, both left and right can understand the arguments. While the Party’s origins might indeed be more Methodist than Marxist, separation of church and state has long been a feature of its left wing supporters.

Equally, the notion has strong support from social libertarian factions, preventing the state as it does from telling its citizens what to believe.

Horse-trading between left and right wingers might have become a mainstay of recent party politics, but with secularism Labour can both have its cake and eat it.

What about those, though, who aren’t the party faithful? At least for the past few years, it’s been the Liberal Democrats who’ve stood up for secular politics as a party. Far from the risk the Tory press called it, Nick Clegg’s ‘I’m not a man of faith’ cemented his party’s secular reputation, having spearheaded the removal of blasphemy laws, spoken against exclusively religious education and planned to remove the Lords Spiritual from Parliament. The Lib Dems may not be able to achieve these plans within a Conservative-led coalition, and already monopolising the anti-government vote, Labour stands to gain a great deal by approaching secularists the Lib Dems will lose.

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Is it time to remove the bishops from the Lords?

Let’s not forget other faith groups whose support Labour lost in its second and third terms.

Look at the second generation Islamic community, broadly working class and with immigrant history. While the Middle East groaned under the military weight of George W. Bush and Tony Blair – both of whom used Christianity to justify warfare – this was the demographic maimed by 42 day detention laws and authoritarian police powers. Young Muslims punished Labour, feeling victimised, and removing the special status of Anglican Christianity would doubtless be an olive branch worth offering.

There remain, of course, those who think their religion – Christian or otherwise – deserves a special place above all others, even at the expense of government treating people equally. These voters, though, count the political right as their natural habitat - those who hail Britain’s past as a ‘Christian nation’ and swear by flag, faith and family may have been won over in the early days of Blairite religious politics, but by 2010 have deserted Labour en masse (and rightly so). If the Party can reconnect over secularism with progressive communities it’s lost before, then these are votes it can certainly afford to lose.

Religiously neutral, secular government embodies the core values both of Labour and the liberal left in Britain as a whole, ensuring religious freedom by making all faith groups equal. While it ought to be a cross-party mainstay of British politics, as in the US between Republicans and Democrats, no major party is better positioned to offer pluralistic, egalitarian secularism than Labour – and if we can’t at least begin to make that offer, how can we call ourselves the party of fairness?

Alex Gabrial is a Young Fabian member

EDUCATION

STOP TINKERING WITH SYSTEMS AND FOCUS ON LEARNING b y l a u r a m cinerney

Structural changes in education will happen under the coalition government but until the consequences of such changes are known education policy from the Left must not merely be about ‘undoing’ current changes. Schools are tired of upheaval and a party suggesting more ‘transformation’ will not get far. Instead the argument must shift from school ‘systems’ to focusing on day-to-day school practices and their impact on learning.

Current performance measurement, for example, undermines individual teachers’ ability to encourage learning in the classroom and stifles students’ natural curiosity. Recognising this issue, I propose a policy that is not transformative in terms of funding or governance, but which would change who is responsible for learning in school and encourage continual teacher improvement.

Such is the obsession with student progress that most schools assess learners every six weeks. Over a seven year secondary school cycle this equates to a year of testing for the average student. While these tests happen, little new learning takes place. So why the high level of inhouse testing?

When schools are judged on single-test measures they easily become obsessive about ‘finding’ the borderline students. For example, if schools are judged on the number of students gaining C grades or above, D grade students will find themselves kept back after school and heavily mentored (or pressured) into higher testperformance. The pressure for a school to achieve

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is pushed onto the young person’s shoulder, even though ‘high-stakes testing’ means students shun education in the future, are poorly prepared for higher education and are more likely to cheat.

Of course, schools should demonstrate that students are progressing under their guidance.

Students also learn best when they get continual feedback about progress because it helps them feel safe and confident about what to do next.

But student feedback should not be confused with school performance measurement. External test scores such as SATs and GCSEs are currently used to reward or vilify schools in the media and in league tables.

But these ‘scores’ are the accumulation of individual students’ test performances and those young people are acutely aware that the jobs of adults are ‘at-risk’ because of their scores, as well as their own character. Being responsible for one’s own learning is difficult enough without having the school’s public reputation resting on your shoulders.

Good teachers know the purpose of an assessment should be reflected in its design. If an assessment is being used to measure whether or not learners are progressing as a whole, then the tool should inform school practice only and not fall onto students.

This would be much more likely if after students sat external ‘school measurement’ tests, the school received an overall ‘Value-Added measure’ showing how much an average student had progressed during the year, but individual student results were not returned. This approach would allow a school (and government) to see if it had enabled a student to progress in their learning without putting pressure on individual students or putting them in a position in which they could be blamed for or labelled by their results.

An initial objection to this would be that teachers simply must see student scores in order to target future support. However, a simple thought experiment shows that this is actually bad practice. Imagine, a school is told that in upcoming SAT exams their students’ profiles mean 20% are expected to achieve Level 6s, 50% Level 5s and 30% Level 4s. Upon return the results show a higher than expected proportion of Level 6s (say, 25%) but also more students gaining Level 4s (say 40%). Objectors will argue the teacher needs individual scores so they can push the brightest and support the unexpectedly weak – as happens now. But the original assessment purpose was measuring the school’s ability to progress learners. A more important focus post-results would reflect on why students’ results were so different from expectations. If the teacher cannot account for the difference, there is a disconnect between their practice and the

reality in the classroom. Maybe it is easy to ‘weed out’ the students who should have achieved Level 5 and intensely focus on them in order to gain the desired progress. But if results were anonymous, it would stop this practice and instead force schools to consider what happened in the classroom for all children.

Through observation and support, a teacher could discover why some students unexpectedly over or under-performed and adapt teaching practices accordingly. After all, it is clearly more sustainable to improve the practice of one teacher who will then teach many children, of all abilities, than to continually run after the borderline or under-performing pupils.

Students must, eventually, participate in external ‘validation’ of their abilities so that employers and higher education courses can select among students as appropriate. When the purpose of assessment is a final ‘grading’ of ability, the scores should not be aggregated and published. Instead, individual students should be the sole receivers of the data, reducing the likelihood of cheating and pressure to perform in order to keep adults in jobs.

Children are not ‘pods of data’ through which schools and governments can measure their achievements. Teacher quality has the biggest impact on student achievement (John Hattie’s research is unequivocal on this). If we want to assess school performance we must do so in a way that means negative outcomes are properly shouldered by the teacher, who can learn to improve their practice. Otherwise, we are asking young people to take responsibility for more than can ever be fair.

Laura McInerney is a Young Fabian member and a secondary school teacher.

HOW TO:

STOP A BIG IDEA BEING A BAD IDEA b y a ntonio w eiss

Politics has always been about big ideas. But the history of big ideas is not a particularly happy one. Firstly, for every idea with some degree of longevity – welfarism, Keynesianism, privatisation – there are countless more which have been discredited or forgotten. Nowadays we rarely question the legitimacy of liberalism as our guiding political ideology, but it was a very different, neo-Roman, theory of civil liberty which was equally dominant as a concept of liberty up until the nineteenth century in Britain.

Secondly, big ideas have rarely been democratic in nature and more often than not are the prerogative of a Platonist learned intellectual

The Big Society.

A good idea?

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elite – often alienating the very people that politics is meant to be about helping.

Finally, big ideas are rarely a successful electoral tool in politics. British elections usually come down to de facto referenda on the incumbent government, not a battle between opposing ideas and ideologies. The most common big idea heard in election campaigns is invariably the most vacuous of all - ‘we need change’.

A trawl though the history of big ideas presents five lessons that any political concept should adhere to in order to avert a big idea from becoming a bad idea.

1. The idea must be implementable. There are two extremes that almost all political ideas fail to avoid. One extreme is to be so overtly blue sky thinking that the idea has no concrete meaning (ask someone to define a belief in ‘equality’ – does this mean equality of opportunity, or outcomes, or ability?)

The other extreme is that ideas can be so tightly constrained by policy pledges that once political realism forces a pledge to be broken, public trust is eroded in both the idea and the proponent of the idea – see Brown’s ‘Golden Rule’ for fiscal borrowing. To avoid these extremes an idea must have practical, implementable policy initiatives ascribed to it, but must also be able to flex to the vagaries of political feasibility.

2. Avoid political tribalism. A successful big idea needs to accept that Britain is of a fundamentally centrist political disposition. To pretend otherwise and discard ideas because they are deemed to be ‘too conservative’ in nature, is to fail in the political duty of governing the country in the best way possible, and to instead put political rivalries over the interests of the nation.

Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ bares little difference

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with Labour’s belief in mutualism and cooperation in the 1940s, or indeed Hazel Blears’ 2008 White Paper Communities in Control.

Labour must look to all ends of the political spectrum for ideas for its future, and shape these ideas to meet its own values of social justice and fairness.

3. Form a coherent ideology. Big ideas usually form either a visionary meta-narrative ideology (such as liberalism or isolationism), or are reinforcing parts of such an overarching ideology (like monetarism was to Thatcherism).

Whatever guise a big idea takes, it must be, or form part of, a coherent ideology.

Labour’s 2010 election manifesto is a good example of a failure of the second kind of big idea. Ideas for reducing anti-social behaviour and enforcing public service guarantees did not fit into the dominant political narrative that cuts would need to be made to public sector expenditure. As a result, the messages of social justice and improved public services were confused amidst the overriding narrative of financial austerity.

4. Capture the zeitgeist. Political ideas which have lasted the longest are those which have gone with the grain of public opinion, rather than against it.

Nationalisation in the 1940s was successful because it tapped into recent experiences of wartime solidarity; privatisation was implementable in the 1980s because it confronted the accepted failures of the nationalisation model to reap the economic benefits expected of it.

There is a balance here that must be met between politics leading or reacting to public opinion, but it should not be forgotten that big ideas are an expression of politics, and politics should ultimately be the servant of the people.

5. Go beyond the soundbite. Public levels of distrust in politics have negatively correlated with the increase in ‘soundbite politics’ in recent years. There can be no doubt that increasingly our airwaves and televisions are filled with ‘snippets’ of political discussions, as opposed to real debate.

Allowing a big idea to become merely a phrase only serves to dilute the integrity of political thought and intellectualism. As such, any big idea should have a genuine intellectual backing.

When Blair reformed the Labour Party he was guided by Anthony Giddens’ The Third Way; Conservative libertarian thought has long been influenced by Hayek’s Road to Serfdom.

Politics should not be afraid of intellectualism; the opposite – ‘soundbite politics’ – is a far worse enemy.

Antonio Weiss is a Young Fabian member and Executive Committee member of Harrow West CLP.

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NEIL KINNOCK Labour’s former leader on the Tories, opposition and how to regain power — JAMES GREEN —

Walking through Peers’ entrance I hear Neil Kinnock before I see him. His booming voice reminds me of a gospel preacher, the sort of ‘fire and brimstone’ politician you’d find in the mining valleys of Wales rather than the sofa government of New Labour. Kinnock is telling stories to a throng of well-wishers and it seems so natural that I wonder whether he’s always surrounded by an adoring crowd. In fact as we walk through the corridors of Parliament supporters seem to come out of every nook and cranny. “How’s the wife Neil?”; “I thought you were off on holiday?”; “We really must have that drink.” It all seems a far cry from the famously combative politician of the 1980s.

We sit down. It’s a beautiful sunny day and we’re on the House of Commons Terrace overlooking the Thames. “Lord Kinnock”, I begin.

“Neil.” He quickly interrupts. “Lord Kinnock makes me feel like a pub.” I start again. We talk about his recent speech to the Fabian Society Summer Reception. He had brought the house down with stories of past campaigns and Nye Bevan. The speech offered a fascinating analysis of the state of the Party and many of its themes – authenticity, the value of sheer hard work and the importance of effective communication – come up again throughout our conversation. Neil doesn’t pull his punches. In fact he jokes in his Fabian speech that people could be forgiven for viewing him as, “a sort of resident permanent Labour political pathologist… analysing the remains that confront us in silent witness form,” except that, “as a witness, I am never silent.”

That’s what immediately grabs me about Kinnock. Having listened to countless Labour ministers hedging their bets when asked a question, there’s something refreshing about his frankness. Hard left agitators aren’t ‘members who deserve a voice’, they’re, “nutters who will get short shrift from the genuine democratic socialists.” Conference might be a valuable space for members’ views but the idea of ‘conference sovereignty’ is, “bullshit. It never existed.” The Conservatives aren’t ‘political opposition’ they are, quite simply, “the enemy.” I quickly realise that Kinnock’s no nonsense hard edge is still very much in tact. The mirage of ‘everyone’s mate Neil’

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dissipates. I’m sitting in front of the man who dragged Labour kicking and screaming from the wilderness years of the early eighties to the brink of power.

In his speech to the Fabian reception Kinnock described Labour’s defeat at the last General Election as “mighty”. “It was in some respects worse than the defeat of 1983”, he said, “because it came out of government and not out of self-indulgent opposition. That makes it worse.” I ask him why he thinks the electorate rejected the party so comprehensively.

“There were components. One doubtlessly was that we had been in government for thirteen years. Added to that not enough time and effort had gone into continual renewal of thinking, commitment and appeal over that time. All governments have got the duty to refresh.

That duty is particularly explicit in the case of democratic socialist parties. I can understand why the business in hand distracted people from that refreshment task but it’s a lesson for everybody to learn. It’s a sermon I’ve preached continually. Hopefully next time people will act upon it.”

Kinnock knows what he’s talking about.

It was him after all who spearheaded Labour’s transformation from the party of militancy and long suicide notes to the professional operation that would lead Labour back to power. His Leader’s Speech to the 1985 Labour Party conference attacking the Militant Tendency has become the stuff of Labour legend. It is said that as late as the train journey there he was

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debating whether to do it or not. Yet the speech was delivered with a ferocity and conviction that made it seem inevitable. Three years later, following a wide-ranging policy review, the party produced a new statement of aims and values inspired by Anthony Crosland’s seminal work The Future of Socialism. This shift in emphasis from public ownership to equality would become the bedrock of New Labour.

Neil leans forward as if to signal that his previous comments about the need for continual renewal were just preamble. He gives me a knowing look. Now he’s going to reveal the real secret of Labour’s electoral woes, “I think the final component was our virtual absence of efforts to explain why we were doing what we were doing. To connect our accomplishments with the values and priorities from which they originated. So that every advance seemed to drop from the sky. It’s a failure to convey what is fashionably called a narrative.

To give a coherent picture of where Labour started from, what had been accomplished, why it had been accomplished and crucially, what was next.”

The need to root Labour policy in the history and values of the movement is a recurring theme throughout our conversation.

Kinnock talks passionately about the importance of “demonstrating authenticity” and it strikes me that he still bears the scars on his back of the battles he fought during the eighties to do just that. However, it’s clear that for Kinnock authenticity is about far more than relating policy to history. Rather it’s about being committed to intellectual honesty and having an unflinching sense of duty to those you represent. To hammer home his point Neil quotes Nye Bevan and I feel a pang of jealousy that he knew the man.

“The first duty of the progressive representative is that he should reflect the view of those that he represents authentically. That is more important than mastery of the local accent or the cadences of politics, because people then understand that you are seeking to represent them, because they are your inspiration.”

Kinnock’s modernisation of Labour wasn’t about abandoning the party’s core values. Rather it was, to use his own words, “about rediscovering what we’ve been about all the time.” For Kinnock that is being an authentic champion for the people you represent. The old Clause Four, which Kinnock’s policy review aimed to supplant, may have chimed with activists in smoke filled rooms.

But they, as Nye Bevan would tell you, are not who the Labour Party is for.

It is this unwavering focus on remaining outward-looking that comes to the fore when I ask Neil about the 1980s. He is hesitant to go into detail and I wonder whether this comes from an

urge to avoid introspection or a personal desire not to relive tough times. However, there are important lessons from that period and I remind him that most Young Fabians will have little memory of what opposition was like. He seems taken aback and it’s hardly surprising. During his thirty-five years as an MP, Labour were only in power for four. Perhaps his reticence to talk about the eighties comes from a belief that opposition is akin to defeat and that focusing on victory makes it more likely.

He quickly brings our conversation back to the present day, making only passing reference to the 1980s. “It is vital to regard opposition as purgatory and recognise that the only thing that makes it tolerable at all is the opportunity it

Neil leaps out of his chair and, to my surprise, punches the air three times.

I’m amazed no-one on the Terrace bats an eyelid. Perhaps he does this a lot.

Perhaps not. provides for preparation for the next victory.”

“What I found encouraging about the post defeat mentality in the Labour Party is that within days people were ready to fight again and that contrasted pretty sharply with the Party’s mood after just about every other party election campaign we have fought in the last fifty two years. In other cases the Party reeled and after a long period began to recover or it turned inwards which was even more destructive and became self indulgent with half baked ideologies dividing the movement. This time nobody even paused in that direction. I think that’s inspiring.”

Kinnock believes that if we continue on this track and articulate a strong narrative, Labour can win the next election. He describes the speed and scale of the coalition’s cuts as, “a hideous error that will have repercussions that people can’t imagine yet.”

“As this onion is reduced skin by skin”, he continues, “the grievous implications will become obvious. Then even people who now

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say they will sustain their commitment to the coalition because of the need to reduce the deficit will come to the view that we still need to reduce it but not in this way.”

However, Kinnock knows better than most that the unpopularity of a government is not enough in itself. He may hate opposition with the sort of passion that can only come from experiencing it as he has, but he also knows that Labour will need to work hard if it is to defeat the Conservative-led coalition. It’s clear that Kinnock is relishing the fight. In fact, at the mere mention of the Tories, his eyes light up and he speaks with an excitement that is contagious.

“There’s no time to waste in applying ourself to the political conditions in which we have to fight. We don’t have to fight the Tory party pre May 5th we have to fight the Tory party now. The same applies to the Liberal Party. And we have a third foe, the coalition, which is a new political phenomenon. Which means we have to jab with the left, hook with the right and jab with the left again. There’s no straight punch which can do it.

It’s got to be…”

Neil leaps out of his chair and, to my surprise, punches the air three times. I’m amazed that noone on the Terrace bats an eyelid. Perhaps he does this a lot. Perhaps not. Either way the event leaves an enduring image in my mind that I feel perfectly captures the man I have been speaking to for that past hour. Kinnock is joyous, always up for the fight and the sort of person who would never let the views of others hold him back.

My time with him is almost up so I ask him finally what his advice would be for Labour’s new leader.

“Trust yourself and lead a team you can trust. Not every member of that team has to agree with you or you with them. But there must be mutual trust. In the end that was a great strength that was provided to me. Only two members of the shadow cabinet I led the week after I was elected had voted for me. And with one or two exceptions who fell by the wayside very early on, some say they were pushed, they were great and they showed me real loyalty. We stood square and we faced the enemy. And in very difficult times nobody could think of us as disparate or disunited. In the end that made a lot of things possible.“ This is Kinnock at his most authentic. A determined and combative leader full of fight and prepared to take no prisoners. It’s a far cry from ‘everyone’s mate Neil’. As we walk back through the corridors of Parliament towards Peers’ entrance Kinnock’s well-wishers stay hidden away.

It seems appropriate.

James Green is Editor of Anticipations

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Where are the new ideas?

Labour is at a crossroads. It needs new ideas with deep roots — PATRICK DIAMOND —

Labour has reached a fork in the road and the Party now faces a compelling choice. It can be born again with decisive new leadership. Or division and in-fighting will exhaust it, making defeat next time around almost inevitable. In reality, the challenge facing the Party is more fundamental than staging a stable and orderly transition to the next leader. Labour has to accept that its problems go much deeper than the unpopularity of Blair or Brown. Yes, controversies such as the Iraq War and the 10p tax debacle did lasting damage to its governing reputation. But the Party has increasingly looked bereft of ideas, and has struggled to articulate a credible account of what social democracy is for.

Britain is a far richer and fairer country than it was in 1997. The nation’s schools and hospitals are on a sounder footing. Real incomes rose, as the minimum wage and tax credits helped the poorest families. Cities such as Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and Liverpool enjoyed a renaissance unheard of since the industrial revolution. Social reforms made the British people more secure, more equal and more free.

But Labour was slow to recognise that the world rapidly moves on, and our society is now in the grip of three structural crises - the global financial crisis and its aftermath; the global competition crisis posed by China, India and Brazil; and the looming climate crisis. Each increasingly defines the geo-political landscape, with globalisation itself posing serious challenges and dilemmas. The sustainability of the global economic and political order appears increasingly precarious. There are major threats relating to overpopulation, access to resources such as food and water, and energy scarcity that risk unleashing a global clash of futures. Labour has to show how it would meet and master these challenges as part of the new global order.

Closer to home, the contours of British politics are being transformed.

The new centre-right coalition argues that the best way to guarantee opportunity and security is to cut back the state. David Cameron’s brand of compassionate conservatism may have no coherent underpinning theme, but the Tories have recovered their appetite for power, and the coalition government represents an audacious pitch for the centre-ground.

Labour’s strategic response must be rooted in an analysis of Britain’s

role in a changing world and the governing purpose of social democracy, the purpose of which as R.H. Tawney elaborated is to reform economic and social institutions to promote liberty and maximise human welfare.

The centre-left has to demonstrate how collective action will advance the interests of individuals and communities, not through paternalism or charity, but reciprocity based on an ethic of duty and mutual obligation. If the openness on which the world economy depends is to be sustainable, the ‘winners’ will not only have to share more of the gains with the ‘losers’ - they must abide by a shared social contract.

This has profound implications for the next generation of domestic and international policy. At home, Labour has to set out a coherent set of principles through which it would manage the process of fiscal consolidation, while protecting the most vulnerable in society. That means navigating a way through the economic masochism of George Osbourne, and the self-denial that there is no debt crisis and that Labour’s only purpose is to oppose the cuts.

There are more long-term questions that the Party must start to address immediately - about how to design a regulatory system that encourages the growth of medium-sized and small businesses as the engine of new jobs, particularly in the regions of England that will be hardest hit by the withdrawal of public investment; what to do about inherited wealth given its corrosive impact not only on inequality and social justice, but the basic sense of citizenship in Britain; how to spread the benefits of asset ownership without exposing low income households to the risks of debt; how to finally break the link between class origins and destinations through fundamental reform of our education system, addressing standards as well as structures in our schools. Globally, the world has to show how co-ordinated action on climate change is feasible after the debacle at Copenhagen, and Britain must navigate away from the anachronistic notion that it can act as a ‘bridge’ between Europe and America.

What unites these strategic challenges is that they demand not only coherent policies. Each has profound implications for the very process of governing itself. In truth, despite a decade of radical constitutional and political reform, Britain is still locked into an elite-model of governance. But

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Preceding page: Light bulb/iStockphoto/Thinkstock

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The Great Wall of China.

Should Labour look east for inspiration?

rapid lever-pulling from the centre and top-down, centralised solutions are unlikely to produce optimal outcomes, let alone get to grips with complex challenges. A new kind of politics is urgently needed, based on engagement and debate between citizens and government, building consent for tough and painful decisions. Labour must never concede this territory to the coalition government.

The enormity of domestic and global challenges makes the Party’s search for new ideas all the more urgent. Yet the quest for a single ideological or programmatic synthesis rivalling Anthony Crosland’s legendary work, The Future of Socialism published in 1956, is unlikely to prove that fruitful.

Crosland’s text defined equality as the central social democratic objective.

It had a remarkable impact on Labour’s thinking, becoming the standard by which all subsequent theoretical contributions were assessed. But ‘The Future’ was a product of its time, and for all the book’s originality and intellectual dexterity, it lacked any credible account of the world beyond Britain’s shores. The dialectical relationship between domestic realities and global interdependence makes an all-encompassing analytical framework akin to Crosland’s synthesis of economic growth and state-led redistribution exceptionally difficult to achieve.

Labour’s next generation of ideas will have to be more open and multilayered, but it will be none the worse for that. There are two principle sources on which the Party can draw. The first is its past. Labour has to dig deep, re-discovering a rich heritage spanning at least three centuries of political thought among radicals and dissenters in Britain. The second is to draw on ideological and intellectual developments in the rest of the world. Both are central to producing a compelling governing strategy for the future, matching the scope and scale of the challenges Britain and the world now faces.

New Labour was notoriously suspicious of the Party’s past, but it missed a vital opportunity to reclaim and refurbish important intellectual traditions.

One example is how to define the public realm and the public interest. This is a real concern in the light of the global financial crisis, when it appeared that market interests embodied in financial institutions had prevailed over elected governments. Late 19th century liberals and social democrats in Britain gave considerable thought to how the public realm ought to be strengthened. They envisaged a sweep of civic institutions from guilds and friendly societies to mutuals and trade unions that would generate public

value, and offer protection from the turmoil of rapid industrial change.

These bodies were not positioned against the state. Over the course of the early 20th century, civic associations were seen as increasingly complementary to the expansion of government activity. This was forgotten, however, in the second half of the 20th century, with the growth of the postwar welfare state and the enlargement of the public sector at the expense of community organisations. The rebirth of mutualism as a strategy for embedding the public interest and encouraging the diffusion of wealth and ownership in Britain must be at the heart of social democracy’s future.

Turning to the rest of the world, the development of New Labour’s programme in opposition was heavily influenced by the New Democrats in the United States. After 1997, Labour also turned increasingly towards other European social democratic parties, particularly in the Nordic countries with their strategies for social equality and investment in children. But the search for ideas has to go far wider than Europe and the United States take China as an example. We need, of course, to understand the role that manufacturing industry in China will play in the global economy. But we should also examine how the Chinese government is approaching the task of social development, providing public goods such as healthcare and education to a rapidly expanding population. Latin America, too, provides important insights about how to tackle rising inequalities, including addressing the empowerment of women. Labour must look to the world beyond Europe and the Anglo-sphere if it is to offer a convincing future programme.

The challenge for Labour is to think strategically about how to become the party of the future again, laying down alternative approaches and ideas from the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. The Party understands that there is no untried social democratic programme that would have provided a credible alternative to New Labour, for all the mistakes and dilemmas that have undoubtedly arisen since 1997.

After twelve years in office, Labour and British social democracy is surely ripe for an overhaul. This is the time, more than ever, to reclaim our progressive roots and to think audaciously about the world beyond Britain’s shores.

Patrick Diamond is a Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford and an elected councillor in the London Borough of Southwark.

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Big ideas for the future

Young Fabian policy development group members pitch their big ideas

When I began organising the four Young Fabian Policy Development Groups, little did I know that members would sign up in their hundreds.

But when they first began meeting shortly after the election, from the outset we aimed for fresh ideas, innovative thinking and the policies that a new leader could take forward.

The Young Fabian membership has not let the Labour movement down. The groups have had spin-off meetings organised by members in Manchester, been addressed by experts including practitioners, researchers and specialists. They’ve utilised online meeting space to bring in members who ordinarily can’t participate in London-based events, have experimented with wiki policy development, and members have also been active outside of meetings, sharing reading materials and posting their thoughts on the Young Fabian blog.

They’ve brought forward ideas small and large.

Here we present just some ‘big ideas’ from our three policy groups and our special project group on Labour Party reform. Take these ideas to your CLPs, union branch meetings and community campaign groups. But also let us know what you think via the Young Fabian blog where the debate can continue.

Adrian Prandle is Young Fabian Vice Chair

YF:PDGs

work and families

MAKE GOVERNMENT PUT ITS MONEY WHERE ITS MOUTH IS Josie Cluer

The post mortem to Labour’s election defeat shows voters were frustrated by Labour apparently seeing its swollen state as the answer to everything. Faced with wanting to achieve change, the government usually used one of two options. First, public spending. We knew that people with basic skills are more likely to get a job, so we spent billions on offering training to job seekers. Second, we dictated solutions from the centre.

We wanted employers to give mothers more maternity leave, so we legislated to force them to do so. Both are good policies, but when increasing public spending is impossible, and central diktat is so out of fashion, the new politics calls for a fresh – more subtle – approach.

Central and local government spends at least £86 billion a year on goods and services. Its buying power is enormous. Would you spend your money on a company that didn’t pay a living wage? Well nor should the government. Would you spend your money on a company that didn’t train its workforce? Well nor should the government.

Would you spend your money on a company that discriminated against older people? Well nor should the government.

Labour should reframe the debate about public expenditure. We don’t just care about what money is spent on, but how money is spent. Through intelligent use of public procurement, government could drive up workplace rights, create thousands of apprenticeships, and choke companies who operate poor employment practices. And all without spending an extra penny.

Central government shouldn’t be the only one putting its money where its mouth is. Up and down the country businesses, public sector bodies and charities should be looking at where they spend their money and whether they could spend it more wisely. As they publish their spending, we should be checking it, and holding them to account.

Josie Cluer is Chair of the Work and Families Policy Development Group.

EQUALISE THE STATUS OF HOUSING TENURE Nick Keehan

In the modern economy, it is inevitable that different areas of the UK will generate different levels of employment. The coalition government has responded to this situation by emphasising labour mobility in its social housing policies. However, labour mobility is not just an issue for social housing tenants. Unfortunately, successive governments have tended to promote what can be a significant obstacle to labour mobility - homeownership. The

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greater costs associated with moving house make homeowners much less likely to move for work reasons. To promote labour mobility we should therefore aim for greater equality of status between different types of housing tenure. We should: Abolish the exemption from capital gains tax for owner-occupied houses. This exemption has little economic basis. It serves only to attract investment away from more economically useful assets, while encouraging individuals to see a home as an investment rather than a place to live. Abolishing the exemption would encourage people to make choices on housing based on the needs of their family and lifestyle.

Commit to controlling house price inflation through the CPI inflation target for the Bank of England and regulation of mortgage lenders.

During the housing boom, massive increases in house prices encouraged individuals to see homeownership as a get-rich-quick scheme. A government commitment to deflate a housing bubble would focus decisions on homeownership on living, not making money.

Improve regulation of the private rental sector to give tenants security of tenure and greater stability. This could be done by changing the law to require at least six months’ notice for eviction without a reason, while allowing eviction with two months’ notice if the landlord can provide a good reason for doing so. The government could also take steps to make graduated rent increase or indexation clauses standard in rental contracts, so tenants would know what to expect and could plan accordingly.

These measures could help to make renting a more attractive alternative to homeownership, promoting labour mobility.

This is not about discouraging homeownership.

In fact, controlling house price inflation would make life easier for first time buyers. The main objective is to make choice of housing tenure a matter of aspiration, lifestyle and family rather than fear of being left behind by the housing market.

Nick Keehan is a member of the Work and Families Policy Development Group

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YF:PDGs

livelihoods and resource security

ENCOURAGE LOCAL SOLUTIONS TO HELP TACKLE CLIMATE CHANGE Adam Short

It has been the ambitious task of the Livelihoods and Resource Security policy development group to take a fresh perspective on the long-standing international issues of the economy, environment, and food and energy security. Taken together these issues pose a serious challenge to how we currently live. Strong political leadership and decisive action are needed to deal with the interdependence of these issues. However, just as important is the contribution we all can make.

A progressive government could do three things to create a culture of ‘yes, in my backyard’. One, it should review planning regulations to allow the use of sustainable materials in construction such as wood. Britain needs to end its love of the brick if we are to build more efficient homes to run.

Two, planning rules and incentives should be scaled up to encourage more households to invest in generating their own renewable energy. Pilots have shown government gets its investment back quickly and consumers see a reduction in costs, or in some cases profit, from micro-generation. Lastly, the government should support programmes that encourage street by street energy efficiency competition like the recent pilots run by the Institute for Public Policy Research and British Gas – reducing use and utility bills.

Reducing household and business use of energy helps to lower emissions and eases the transition to and supply of low carbon energy.

A progressive party committed to tackling the worst effects of climate change must take the lead in educating the public about the UK’s energy challenge and how everybody has a role to play in helping the country be less reliant on other countries and regimes for its energy. ‘Yes, in my back yard’ also saves consumers money, quickly, so it pays to get involved.

Adam Short is Chair of the Livelihoods and Resource Security Policy Development Group

OVERHAUL THE REGRESSIVE AGRICULTURAL POLICY

COMMON

Margaret Dantas Araujo

One of the many questions that confront the international community is how to assist low income countries to develop. Since agriculture is the primary economic activity for most, international efforts have focussed on increasing agriculture

productivity. While this increases supply of agricultural products, significant efforts need to be directed at increasing demand both in local markets and abroad.

The international trade in agricultural products is one of the most distorted, with the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) a significant cause.

With the Doha Round stagnant and negotiations beginning for post 2013 CAP, the time is right to overhaul this expensive and regressive policy.

Farm subsidies were brought in to support farmers suffering from low food prices. However, the primary beneficiaries have been large agribusinesses, multi-national companies, and wealthy landowners.

The UK spends over £3 billion on subsidising agricultural producers through the EU Common Agricultural Policy. The impacts of these policies on consumers in the UK is high food prices which impact most upon low income families – Defra estimated that in 2007 in the UK consumers spent £3.2 billion more on food as a result of the CAP, some £52 per person. In addition, subsidies lead to the overproduction of agricultural products which are then dumped in the local markets of low income countries.

The presence of large quantities of food in these markets drives down prices resulting in the inability of local farmers to compete and recuperate their costs of production. With food prices expected to continue to rise over the next few years, there is little justification for this continued support.

Import barriers, such as escalating tariffs on value added goods and technical barriers, need to be re-examined with the aim of abolishing most of them.

Barriers prevent agricultural goods from low income countries entering UK and EU markets.

Furthermore, escalating tariffs de-incentivise low income countries from developing and expanding into value added exports which could increase their revenue.

For example, the lowest tariffs are on raw products, such as cocoa beans and sugar, while chocolate and breaded chicken fingers face significantly higher tariffs. For agriculture to develop in low income countries and national incomes to rise, liberalisations of markets in the EU and abroad will need to occur.

The UK should vocally champion this issue at EU level. In these tough economical times, it is not justifiable for the UK to subsidise large companies and wealthy landowners while shouldering low income families with high food bills and preventing low income countries from developing. It is time to put an end to these subsidies and import barriers.

Margaret Dantas Araujo is a member of the Livelihoods and Resource Security Policy Development Group

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YF:PDGs

aspiration and equality

CREATE AN EDUCATION CONSTITUTION Bren Albiston

Education in the UK has become increasingly disparate in its delivery, from academies to comprehensives and the new free schools. This presents us with a problem, that students and parents are presented with an almost mind-boggling array of choices in some areas and little or no choice in others, with often minimal idea of what they should expect. Alongside the vast array of qualifications one can achieve, individuals and institutions find it increasingly hard to know what each mean in respect to one another.

But there is a simple solution - the creation of an education constitution, where these problems are reconciled and the fears of teaching professionals are addressed. Such a document should be a simple and straightforward explanation of what both teachers and learners can expect from their respective experiences. By these measures, all institutions can be held to account by their communities. A national body would see that the constitution is upheld.

The education constitution should not be so constricting as to set out exactly how subjects should be taught – the national curriculum does that currently – rather it would be a curricular guide to what needs to be taught, so empowering teachers to tailor the learning experience to their students’ needs. Whilst there should be provision for national examinations, teachers should be given the responsibility to test their students at times that suit the learner, allowing them to help less able students in a less stressful situation as well as push the most able to achieve more.

Such a document will explain the value and means to attain different qualifications. It should also set out what one needs to achieve at certain levels of one’s education to progress down given educational paths. This then would allow learners, employers and providers of higher education to see what exactly their qualifications are applicable to and to what extent they are equipped to undertake the next stage of learning or work.

We need to create a system of education that sets out clear paths of progression so students can set clear goals. An education constitution, developed by those within the education system, will allow students to achieve all they can from their educational experience through empowering teachers, explaining the landscape, and allowing communities to hold new and diverse institutions to account.

Bren Albiston is a member of the Aspiration and Equality Policy Development Group

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OFFER SECONDARY EDUCATION LATER IN CHILDHOOD Dan Harkin

One of the best ideas for educational reform has been rotting away in the long grass for over half a century now. We’ve had curriculum changes, institutional changes, exam changes, near-constantly since the sixties. But few have mooted changing the one unwarranted and counterproductive historical accident that frustrates the whole system - the age at which a child goes to secondary school. I know, hardly an issue for the front pages.

The UK has a high drop-out rate and a low level of pupils reporting that they ‘love learning’ or enjoy school. Indeed a UNICEF report has noted that we are way down in the league of countries that instil a love of learning.

The Finnish education minister, in a BBC interview, claimed that part of his education system’s success, taking top spot on the OECD’s education rankings, was the emphasis on continuity. Primary education in Finland lasts until age sixteen. In the UK, the 1967 Plowden Report found that eleven was an inappropriate age to transfer to secondary school, and advocated a transitional institution instead of throwing kids into the deep end. The argument is that children need stable environments to emotionally mature before taking on quadratic equations. Further, psychological studies suggest that young people are not cognitively ready for the higher order thinking necessary for secondary education until mid-adolescence. Indeed giving space for that transitional period should lead to better educational outcomes later.

We have a small middle school sector, which splits secondary education into two tiers - schools that cater for the 11 to 13 age group and schools or colleges that cater for 14-19. Ofsted has found better provision and outcomes in middle schools. Many secondary schools are now trying to ensure stronger continuities between primary and secondary to help children with the transition. Increasing flexibility so pupils can transfer to secondary school when they’re ready, by extending primary schools or increasing the number of middle schools, would help provide those continuities.

It’s hard to draw direct causal conclusions in educational policy. At the least, however, it seems strange to maintain an inflexible age division at a point when children are still very young and insecure.

Especially so when the division was instituted for a different era. Education looks set to last far beyond the age of sixteen, so why continue an artificial cutoff point when the evidence suggests it hampers young people’s development? Instead we could leave them more secure in their place in the world and better equipped for the educational challenges ahead.

Dan Harkin is a member of the Aspiration and Equality Policy Development Group

MAKE BETTER USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA TO ENGAGE MEMBERS AND THE PUBLIC

YF:PDGs

Kevin Peel

After thirteen years in government, tight central control of Labour allowed CLPs little scope for innovation or independence, and the influence of party members on policy was all but eradicated. Now that we are out of power, community organising has come into vogue as a way of building grassroots support.

What we do locally and how we organise ourselves matters. Party members must capitalise on this evolving realisation that we are central to any strategy to take back power. We have a huge responsibility to be effective community advocates and campaigners, to make sure people know we’re on their side and standing up for their concerns.

This can be a win-win situation. The party needs to set a high bar for performance in our CLPs, with encouragement and reward for those who do well.

If a CLP holds only closed GC meetings, conducts little local campaigning and rarely tries to recruit members then they reinforce Labour’s perceived irrelevance with voters. If a CLP builds broad support, opens its meetings to the community and energetically pursues the recruitment of supporters and members, then it is perfectly placed as Labour’s eyes, ears and voice in that constituency.

CLPs that can demonstrate broad participation and active engagement locally should be allowed more of a voice in a reformed policy-making process. If CLPs show they are representative of their communities then their voice has more legitimacy and should have more influence. This could be done by introducing more factors in the weighted CLP vote at conference than just membership numbers – such as high rates of voter/community engagement or numbers of policy forums held. CLPs that have high membership/supporter recruitment and engagement rates should benefit from free campaign tools like leaflets and mailouts.

To do this, the role of the national party needs to become primarily that of a facilitator of local action, rather than a centre of command and control. We must invest in our people - scarce central resources should prioritise training in campaign techniques for members who can spread their skills locally. Beacon CLPs, already effective in community organising, could offer mentoring and shadowing opportunities to officers from other CLPs with less experience.

This requires a culture shift but not one that is beyond us.

We live in an age where the old party structures of the past are no longer relevant to most people. Many members are far more likely to Tweet a question or idea directly to a politician than table a resolution at a branch meeting. Increasingly social media is being used by people of all ages to engage in political debate and organisation - and not just members of political parties. The open nature of such sites means that anyone interested in politics can take part.

Labour has begun to use new and social media, but in a very old media way - top-down and oneway, pumping out messages and commands without much room for feedback. The new media team are great, but the fact that the Party even has such a team shows there is something wrong. Digital strategy should be integrated into everything the Party does, not exist as a separate entity.

Looking at social media platforms, it’s clear the Party must provide a more open online forum for members and the wider public to share information, debate policy and organise. Membersnet, hidden behind a login screen and only accessible to party members, is cumbersome and under-used, causing many to bypass the Party entirely, moving to Facebook and Twitter to facilitate political activity.

A transformed Membersnet should be open and inclusive, with contributions allowed from everyone, not just those with a membership card.

There should be a clear way for members and the wider public to come together online and discuss policy - and transparency in how these discussions are fed into the policy-making process.

Crowdsourcing is a great example of how this can be done. Not in the half-hearted way it has been used by the ConDem government, but to encourage wide participation in debate that has a real impact on Labour’s agenda.

It’s not just about debating policy. People often say that Obama won the Presidency because of the internet. Rather, he won because millions of people joined his cause and went out and knocked on doors. We should be utilising the potential of social media to facilitate this. The Obama for America website advertised events across the country with a system to organise car sharing to get people there.

It facilitated meetings between supporters and gave activists the tools they needed to get involved.

Embracing new media is a great way to empower our members by giving them a platform through which to influence policy and to meet, communicate, and organise with other members - taking responsibility and taking the reigns. The Party should move with the times or it may find itself left behind.

Jessica Studdert is Chair of the Transforming our Party special project group

Kevin Peel is a member of the Transforming our Party special project group

transforming our party

SUPPORT CLPS BY INCENTIVISING GOOD COMMUNITY ORGANISING Jessica Studdert

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| features |

My political hero

As Labour elects its new leader, politicians, activists and Young Fabian members share their political inspirations

RAY COLLINS

PETER PTASHKO

g ener a l secret a ry o f t h e l a b o u r p a rty

yo u n g f a b i a n m e m b er

POLITICAL HERO: ERNEST BEVIN

POLITICAL HERO: PETER TATCHELL

My hero Ernest Bevin was a true moderniser whose achievements were matched in their number by their significance. For me his greatest feat was to transform the trade union movement. He recognised that for trade unionism to remain relevant, it had to change. He saw that the future lay with a general union representing all workers irrespective of their trade or skills. He felt that the traditional craft unions held vested interests that served only to divide the movement.

His leadership style has much to be admired today. A pragmatic streak combined with a fierce commitment to democracy.

Starting work in the Bristol docks aged eleven he went on to become T&G General Secretary in 1922. In 1940 when our country and democracy faced its biggest challenge, Bevin answered the call to go into government becoming Minister of Labour in the War Cabinet. After the Labour landslide he became Foreign Secretary.

My political hero is Peter Tatchell. In a world full of politicians who look, sound and act the same, Peter is very different. I’ve always looked to him for inspiration on equality issues, alongside Harvey Milk, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. But here was a British politician who, though he sadly never became an MP, inspired a generation of activists.

Though neither the Lib Dems nor Michael Foot as Labour leader did him any favours in the 1980s in his failed bid in the Bermondsey by-election, his desire to see real social change for gay people, women, ethnic minorities (the list goes on!) saw him found the organisation ‘OutRage!’ which, through its direct approach, helped build a movement. That same movement swept Labour to power in 1997, resulting in civil partnerships, gay adoption, the reversal of the ban on gays serving in the military – to name just a few.

GORDON BROWN MP

CLAIRE SPENCER

m p a n d f or m er p ri m e m inister

yo u n g f a b i a n m e m b er

POLITICAL HERO: NELSON MANDELA

POLITICAL HERO: JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN

Joseph Chamberlain delivered for people, and he delivered for Birmingham, my home. He established the Birmingham Education League in 1867 (later to become the National Education League), rightly saying that, “it is as much the duty of the state to see that the children are educated as to see that they are fed.” It is thanks to pressure from the National Education League that by 1880 it was law for all children to be in full-time education until the age of twelve.

Later in his life, appalled at the quality of life experienced by many in Birmingham, Chamberlain (then mayor) brought the city’s water and gas supplies under municipal control (ensuring access to clean water and fuel for thousands), and re-homed many of the poorest in his slum clearance programme. Chamberlain acted on his promises – even investing large sums of his own money into achieving them – and that is why he is my hero.

Back when I was a student journalist I led a campaign to get Edinburgh University to disinvest from apartheid South Africa. It felt a long way from Scotland when, more than 30 years later, I found myself face to face with Nelson Mandela – Madiba – for the first time. He pointed at me, and grinned, and said, “welcome, representative of the British empire!” It was typical of the man I have come to know – a man whose generosity of spirit and capacity for forgiveness make him a true hero for our times.

Back then – when students, trade unionists, musicians and human rights campaigners formed a grand coalition against apartheid – we talked about a future rainbow South Africa in hope more than expectation. The brutality and tyranny seemed simply too great to be overcome in one lifetime. But the lesson of the struggle against apartheid is that no injustice can last forever – that if people of courage are prepared to stand together, there is nothing we can’t achieve. If any one man can embody that message, it is my hero, Madiba.

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| features |

ADAM BOULTON

TAYLOR SCOTT

s k y ne w s p o l itic a l e d itor

yo u n g f a b i a n m e m b er

POLITICAL HERO: GEORGES DANTON

POLITICAL HERO: TONY BLAIR

My political hero is Georges Danton. It may be still too soon to determine the significance of 1789, but it’s still one of the keys to the times we live in. Danton was at the storming of the Bastille, yet resisted the terror out of humanity and a love of life, and ended up being guillotined for venality and leniency towards the enemies of the revolution.

An ugly provincial lawyer who became a romantic hero, he’s just man to appeal to a political journalist. Like us he saw the world from all sides in different shades of grey. Unlike most of us, he even predicted the future right and let the revolution eat him. He would be a hero for his last words to his executioner alone, “show my head to the people, it’s worth seeing.”

FRANCIS CLARKE yo u n g f a b i a n m e m b er

POLITICAL HERO: DENIS HEALEY

Denis Healey is most closely associated with the 1976 IMF crisis, when as Chancellor of the Exchequer the Labour government was forced to apply to the International Monetary Fund for a loan of nearly $4 billion. Because of this, it is easy to overlook Healey’s wider contribution to British political life.

Famously misquoted as saying he would squeeze the rich, “until the pips squeaked”, Healey in fact sincerely believed progressive taxation was necessary for achieving a fairer society. Furthermore, he was prepared to challenge prevailing arguments that high taxes discouraged people from working hard. In these times of broad consensus over deficit reduction, Healey’s willingness to articulate a different future is particularly refreshing.

However, it is perhaps as a human being that Healey most inspires.

Besides politics, Healey has remained passionately committed to his ‘hinterland’ of cultural and intellectual pursuits. A consummate politician with a life outside politics? Truly inspiring.

ELLIE GELLARD l a b o u r b l o g g er a n d t w eeter

I grew up seeing absolute poverty and affluent wealth living side by side and, as my interest in socialism and a desire for social change grew, one man inspired me to join the Labour Party aged 16. My political hero is Tony Blair. To me Blair wasn’t simply a politician, he was an inspirational political leader who made me believe I had the ability to change my future. He gave me faith that through hard work I would one day achieve my goals. In his 1983 maiden speech he said, “Socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for co-operation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality, not because it wants people to be the same but because only through equality in our economic circumstances can our individuality develop properly.”

The inspirational statement continues to shape my political thinking today, motivating me to get more involved in the Party with the aim of ultimately improving the lives of society’s most vulnerable.

GLENIS WILLMOTT MEP l e a d er o f t h e e u ro p e a n p a r l i a m ent a ry l a b o u r p a rty

POLITICAL HERO: IRENA SENDLEROWA

Irena Sendlerowa has been described as the female Oskar Schindler. Working as a social worker during World War Two, she saved nearly 2,500 children from Warsaw’s Jewish Ghetto from an almost certain death in the concentration camps. Babies and children were smuggled out of the ghetto, housed with non-Jewish foster families, or in institutions such as orphanages, or convents, and given false identities. Irena kept careful records on scraps of paper which she hid in a neighbour’s garden, so the children could be found easily after the war.

Eventually arrested by the Gestapo, she was brutally tortured, though gave no information away. Condemned to death, she was helped to escape and spent the rest of the war in semi-hiding. Her story only came to light decades later and she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. She died in 2008 at the age of 98.

POLITICAL HERO: NYE BEVAN

In 1948, with the introduction of the National Health Service, a Labour government would afford this country the moral superiority of the world, releasing millions from the fear of financial ruin were they to fall ill. One man merged principle and pragmatism to deliver a service which six decades on remains Labour’s greatest achievement, Nye Bevan.

A politician with the worthiest principles, the loftiest ambition, the strongest values and, crucially, one who put all three into action to improve the lives of everyone - unashamedly championing the fundamental importance of universal welfare provision.

Ed Balls explained why Bevan was Labour’s greatest hero in a Guardian piece in 2008, principally because, “Bevanite remains a meaningful term – still today invoking a Labour vision of a better and more equal society.” I think that’s it - Nye’s legacy is one which can never die and has never died in the Labour Party for it will always represent radicalism twinned with pragmatism and the potential of what a Labour government can do – change this country for the better and forever.

DAVID EASTON yo u n g f a b i a n m e m b er

POLITICAL HERO: ELLEN JOHNSON-SIRLEAF

Steering the UK through the financial crisis, decarbonising the economy or dealing with an ageing population - the challenges facing policy-makers in the West are undoubtedly great. But they are dwarfed by those that politicians like Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President of Liberia and Africa’s first female head of state, are forced to confront.

President Johnson-Sirleaf is leading the rehabilitation of a country whose economy, society and infrastructure have been almost destroyed by decades of war and mismanagement. She has to do this with a public administration that has been wrecked and with a legislature whose membership includes the very warlords who made the Liberian civil war one of the bloodiest anywhere in the world. The fact that she is prepared and able to face these challenges is impressive. But to achieve progress – increased foreign investment, debt-cancellation, improving access to basic health and education – against these odds is nothing short of heroic.

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| endnotes |

Why I’m Labour

Family experiences and a belief in fairness drive our passion for Labour — OMAR SALEM & ANNA-JOY RICKARD —

It was a moment that was foreseeable if not destined. But for me the day that my grandmother, Afaf Hanim Saleh, or as I called her ‘Nana’, passed away at the University of Alexandria Hospital, Egypt, came too soon.

She had been diagnosed with liver cancer, probably a result of the Hepatatis C she had contracted during a hysterectomy in the 1980s.

Nana had been in and out of hospital so often that it had almost become routine. So while I knew that the end would come soon, it came sooner than I expected and certainly earlier than I was ready for. At the time I was studying in Cairo, but I would travel to Alexandria most weekends hoping to spend as much precious time with my grandmother as possible.

That moment and the hours before had a huge impact both on me as a person and my politics. Until then I had always been interested in politics, perhaps you could have called me a politics geek. However, I hadn’t yet made in my mind such a strong and direct link between politics and my life.

Most of all it provoked anger at a system that had let my grandmother down in her last hours. I was angry that the hospital was dirty and disorganised with poor record keeping and seemingly uncaring staff. I was angry that blood wasn’t available at the hospital for the blood transfusion she needed. I later found out that my grandmother had been prescribed a painkiller that might have eased her pain in her final hours, but instead she was allowed to die from organ failure in what looked to me like horrific pain. It all added up to an undignified and painful death – one that my grandmother did not deserve.

The flip side of my anger was a greater appreciation of the values, institutions and politics that ensure the most vulnerable in society are cared for. Values that mean everyone should have a right to health care, especially in old age, delivered with dignity. Institutions such as the NHS that embody these values, staffed by people committed to the work they do to help others.

It was then, almost ten years ago, that I chose to join the Labour Party.

Looking around at Britain today, with a revitalised NHS, more funding and support for education and initiatives like the winter fuel payment to help elderly people live a dignified life, I know my choice was the right one.

When it comes to the things that really matter, only Labour can deliver.

Inequality has always bothered me. As a fourteen year old at secondary school I watched smart kids from difficult backgrounds slowly disappearing off the educational map, and I questioned why something wasn’t being done about it. Growing up with stories of Swaziland and Iraq, where my parents had lived before I was born, I was aware from an early age that we live in a world where inequality and exploitation are often the status quo. Labour, to me, is the party that cares about inequality. And a party where people care about more than just their own backyard.

It is also the party that champions the opportunity to fulfil potential, whatever your background. This is what my grandad, a tailor and a trade unionist, fought every bit of his life to achieve for my dad and aunt. The days that his children graduated from top universities were, I’m sure, the proudest of his life. It’s what my other grandpa, who had to leave school at 14 to earn money for his family, went searching for in evening classes and finally found in RAF training during the war, which enabled him to become a teacher.

My family’s story, like many others, is about fighting for a better life, and making a difference to others. Because of my grandparent’s fights, my parents had more freedom and more opportunity. My parents taught me to invest these things beyond our family. By observing my parents use their spare time to set up a charity which resources local development initiatives in East Africa, and by building friendships with international students far from home, I’ve learnt that life and society are better when we reach out.

I finally found my way to politics at the age of 25, having had no introduction to it at school or home, to find out that politics encapsulated all that I loved about striving to build a better society. I’m Labour because I believe that Labour’s vision of how to do this doesn’t leave anyone behind.

I’m not proud of Labour’s treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, of control orders, or of the decision to go to war in Iraq. I’m extremely proud of the NHS, the minimum wage and Sure Start. There is more to do and there’s a new vision to capture - the future ahead is exciting, but the values are enduring. They are values that I’ve held since I was a little girl and values that I will grow old with. That’s why I am Labour.

Omar Salem is a Young Fabian member

Anna-Joy Rickard is Young Fabian Web Officer

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| endnotes |

My day job

Social enterprises like the Business Bridge are transforming communities — DANIEL BAMFORD —

I once described my job to a friend. Her response was to ask me if I had ever seen the gloriously kitsch 1980s sci-fi movie, Weird Science. This film tells the story of two nerdy adolescents trying to create the perfect girlfriend through new-fangled computer wizardry. After delivering some inevitable cheap personal shots, my friend explained that she saw a parallel between the approach of the teen fantasists and what I do. Let me explain - I don’t quite work in the same area as our laudable young heroes. I work for a charity that is part of a movement that is changing business norms for the better and producing some fantastic, game-changing ideas along the way.

About 18 months ago, I founded The Business Bridge Initiative with a Professor at London Business School. We support grassroots entrepreneurs in developing countries by helping them acquire the skills, knowledge and confidence to run their businesses more profitably and sustainably. With profit and sustainability comes business growth and, with it, the creation of jobs and a greater contribution to the prosperity of a community.

The philosophy that underlies all that we do recently was articulated by Dambiso Moyo in her 2009 book Dead Aid. She argues aid is not the answer, rather the ‘right’ access to markets and capital is. Through our training, we allow grassroots entrepreneurs to engage with markets on their own terms.

Business Bridge has been up and running a year a half, although it feels a lot longer. It has been lonely in parts - I started as, and still remain, the charity’s sole employee in the UK. Working with our in-country teams is great but I often miss the camaraderie of office-mates, the 5-a-side football sessions and moaning about the boss over drinks. The flip side of this coin is that, being the sole employee in the office, I get involved with every aspect of the business. I certainly feel that I have got a good insight into what it is like to start your own business; in many ways I am a typical entrepreneur, albeit in the slightly unusual setting of a Business School on Regents’ Park.

By far and away the best aspect of my job is organising the running of the courses we deliver to entrepreneurs. The whole reason Business Bridge exists is to help entrepreneurs get off the ground and grow their businesses.

Seeing our courses in action gives me a real kick and you don’t forget the stories each and every entrepreneur has to tell. Some of the things people achieve are simply staggering given their circumstances.

I usually say I work for a social enterprise rather than for a charity, I feel the term better captures the spirit of our organisation. The social enterprise sector has really taken off over the last ten years and boils down to one brilliantly simple insight. Businesses often excel at some things (making money) and fail in other areas (creating a positive social impact). With traditional charities it can often be the other way round. Why not combine the two models, junk the worst bits of both and marry up the best?

The social enterprise sector has been growing rapidly in recent years.

At last count there were 55,000 social enterprises in the UK. This growth was strongly supported by the last Labour administration whose leadership in this area saw the creation in 2006 of the Office for The Third Sector. It’s therefore somewhat sad to hear Cameron hijack the idea of the ‘Big Society’.

This is really a Labour innovation and we, unlike the Conservatives, actually built an infrastructure for making it happen.

I am a bit of an earlybird; I far prefer earlier mornings at my desk to late nights in the office. Living in Bethnal Green, there is something magical about the early hours. Wandering through the deserted streets on the way to the tube station, there is a distinct shift in mood. The incongruous lack of activity of backstreets in the heart of London gives way to the bustle of Bishopsgate - a road that must be more sleep-deprived than any in New York.

Being still a relatively young organisation, there is always plenty to do.

The idea of being able to make tangible progress every day towards our next goal is a strong motivating factor. Once there, if I am lucky, I will have some meeting planned for the day and I will have some human interaction. If not, it’s off to the solitary confinement of my fourth floor office, a transformative cup of coffee and onto the phone and my email.

I love what I do and I am proud of my work for two reasons. First, I really enjoy talking to people about how my work contributes to a goal I feel passionately about - community-led development. Second, it is great to look back on what we have achieved and know that I played a role in making it happen. Oh, and a third - it gives me a perfect excuse to dust of the Weird Science VHS from the attic, slump onto the sofa and press play.

Daniel Bamford is a Young Fabian member

| 29 |

| endnotes |

DAVID BLUNKETT The former cabinet minister on his inspirations, motivations and what Labour must do to win again

to construct. We need to avoid simply being a good opposition and make sure that we offer a progressive alternative - based on empowering people in their own lives, rebuilding reciprocity and mutuality, and developing a sense of shared values.

Why did you join the Labour Party?

Because I was painfully aware from my own background of the gross injustice, lack of power and exploitation being experienced by those around me. I wanted to change the world - but I wanted above all to ensure that the people who I grew up with and lived alongside had a chance to make a difference for themselves and to be properly rewarded for their hard work and commitment to one another. I realised that no political party exactly reflects your own feelings and attitudes at any given moment in time. But the values and principles which led to the creation of Labour and the interests it sought to represent were the nearest thing I could find - and would clearly be a vehicle for bringing about progressive and radical change.

What are you most proud of?

I am proud of the changes in the way in which services were protected, developed and delivered in the teeth of Thatcherism by Sheffield City Council when I was its leader in the 1980s. I am deeply proud of the changes in the lives of the people I represent made by the government as a whole from 1997. But I am particularly personally grateful for the chance to introduce Sure Start, nursery education for all, primary school literacy and numeracy programmes and the New Deal, the major initiative to reduce unemployment.

In addition, the difficult work of the Home Office was crucial to providing security, stability and the protection of the nation from terrorism.

What is your top policy priority?

In addition to mobilising against the draconian and massively over-the-top cuts in public expenditure being undertaken by the coalition government, I see the task as explaining firstly, what it is they are endeavouring to do in ideological terms; and secondly, an imaginative and innovative way of trying to cope, at the same time as oppose. Quite simply, we need to explain the ‘scorched earth’ programme that the government are adopting - and the new structures, based on private self-interest, which they are seeking

Who is your political inspiration?

My political inspiration has not been heard of outside Sheffield. Ron Ironmonger, now long dead, was the leader of the City Council when I was first elected to it; and then leader of the short-lived South Yorkshire Metropolitan County, on which I also served. His ability to teach me the hard lessons of politics, whilst still managing to give me confidence and encourage me to make my mark, was quite remarkable. He had no formal further or higher education, but was self-taught; and he would be at work at the crack of dawn in order to be able to be in his town hall office in the afternoon and evening. His connection with the people he sought to represent, his maintenance of his values and his ability to speak a language that people understood was for me an exemplar to be followed in my own career.

What must Labour do to win the next election?

It goes without saying that we need to be a vigorous, imaginative and responsible opposition. But if we are seen, as in the past, as being simply ‘a good opposition’, we will miss the point. People need to hear what we are saying; to understand our critique of the coalition, but to grasp in clear language what we stand for, who we stand for and how, not just whether, we will represent their interests. The task is to have a radical, relevant agenda that is rooted in the concerns and aspirations of people for whom politics is not a daily theatre, but a distant vision which they know can affect their lives, but with which they have very little truck. We must root ourselves in the community from which we grew, at the same time as grasping the challenges of a rapidly changing world. Helping people through change and reassessing the role of government in the 21st century is a prerequisite to being able to present ourselves as a government-in-waiting.

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YOUNG FABIANS

It’s your executive.

Vote for it.

With this edition of Anticipations you will have received your ballot papers for the election of next year’s Young Fabian executive committee. The coming year will be a defining one for Labour and the Young Fabians will have a crucial role to play in shaping the Party’s new direction. So please read the candidates’ statements and cast your vote for the Young Fabian members you want to see drive our society forward. For further information about the election and how the executive committee of the Young Fabians works visit our website at www.youngfabians.org.uk. This is your executive.

Make your vote count.

Ex ec

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Ballot box/ Hemera/Thinkstock

Deadline for completed ballot papers is October 22nd For further information visit | 31 |www.youngfabians.org.uk

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