Our Labour Government was elected precisely four months ago today. We might now be expecting the joy at the dawn of the sunlit uplands to be fading slightly. Sadly, this vision never actually took off. The government seems to have been on the “back foot” from the start.
This is partly due to inexperience (government is probably more difficult than we spectators, even those who’ve occupied the Opposition Front Bench, think it is), and partly due to inept perception management (which now seems to be called “comms.”)
Why on earth announce the potentially controversial decision to drop the pensioners’ winter fuel allowance at the start, rather than wait to pack it into the budget? Why not have the sense to recognise that free specs, suites and tickets to posh concerts would give the hostile press an opportunity to tar them with the same brush as the Tories? Why wait a whole four months to produce a Budget, thus allowing speculation in the media that every economic evil under the sun might be in it?
There has been no honeymoon, the Tories , “refreshed” by new leadership, are once again neck and neck in the polls, and there is a very real policy that Labour is doomed to be a one term government.
However, this miserable start is perhaps what was to be expected.
Although our twisted electoral system has given them a massive Commons majority, the electorate did not vote for Labour. (Nor, for that matter, did we vote for the Liberal Democrats) We voted against that Tories.
Only 33.7% of the votes went to Labour, and when we recognise that the turnout was only 60% ,then only a mere 20%,or one in five of those entitled to vote, give their (grudging?) support to Labour.
The government was not elected on a wave of popular enthusiasm. Given the hostile press, prepared to pick holes in anything, however minor, the government does or proposes, it is not surprising that our politics is dominated by small-minded carping criticism.
Glad confident morning never dawned.
Here is an alternative, counter-factual, scenario.
Suppose Sir Keir Starmer had said on July 5th, something on the lines of:
“ Thank you for giving us a massive Commons majority.
But we recognise that Labour alone does not really have the support of the majority of you - far from it.
Nevertheless, we recognise that there is a desperate need for transformational policies to raise our quality of life in Britain to the level of that enjoyed in similar advanced developed countries.
This recognition is shared with the 12.2% who voted for the Liberal Democrats, and the 6.7% who voted Green.
Together we have 52% of the vote: a rare majority for the transformational policies we need, though we may have marginally different policies on what they are
So, although with our massive parliamentary majority we do not need to, we invite the Liberal and Greens (and the nationalists if they are interested) to join us in a loose coalition.
The Liberals , with their priorities of liberty and the rule of law, could take over the Home Office and Justice ministry (and as an extra, Sir Ed Davey could be in charge of a newly created Ministry for Care). The Greens could be in charge of the Environment and Energy. The Nationalists could have positions in the Scottish and Welsh Offices.
In a loose coalition the strict rules of collective responsibility will be relaxed. These other parties will not be required to give verbal support to every proposal of the government. Rather than oppose combatively, they will be free to offer, politely, alternative proposals, which we should be happy to consider. We will try to come to agreed positions, but with our Commons majority other parties will be no position to bring down the government.
These proposals are on offer. How about it?
With the backing of the majority of those who voted we can with confidence implement the visionary policies needed to create the modern, innovative, caring, fair and responsible society which our people deserve.”
Fantasy, of course, but it needn’t be.
These proposals are on offer. How about it?
ReplyDeleteWow. I really admire how Machiavellian you think Starmer could be. This would destroy the other parties more thoroughly even than the 2010-2015 coalition destroyed the Liberal Democrats! In that Parliament the Conservatives' numerical weakness meant that they have t listen to the Liberal Democrats at least some of the time (or even could use them as cover for policies that Cameron wanted to bring in but couldn't get the majority of his own party to agree to, like same-sex marriage).
But with Labour's whopping majority, they could just dictate everything this 'loose coalition' government did, without any need to consult the smaller parties at all — and yet the smaller parties would still get the blame from their supporters every time the government did something they didn't like, because even if they did publicly disagree their supporters would (quite reasonably) go 'well you took the ministries and the baubles, didn't you? And you didn't withdraw from the government. So you can't disagree that much.'
(And of course the top brass of the smaller parties would still be bound by cabinet collective responsibility, so it would only be the backbenchers who could speak out anyway).
Sadly, I doubt it would have worked. The Liberal Democrats are almost naïve enough to fall for it, but they were burnt so badly by 2010-2015 that they just wouldn't. And the nationalist parties know that their vote back home relies on them trashing the Westminster government and claiming to be 'standing up for delete as applicable' against those evil Sassenachs in London, something that they couldn't really do while being even nominally in government themselves.
So the only party it might have worked on, the only party dumb enough to drink deeply from Starmer's poisoned chalice, would be the Greens — and they are irrelevant. Partly because they are collectively thick as two short planks, which is ironically the very reason it would work.
Still, nice idea. I like the way you think. Devious. Keep it up.
it is true that what you describe could happen, and there is some evidence for it from past history (2010-15!) But not always: membership of the wartime coalition did not harm Labour. Indeed it strengthened them. And that coalition enabled the country to come together to fight the war. We need something similar now to put the old adversarial politics behind us and pull together to spread the joys of peace equitably.
ReplyDeletemembership of the wartime coalition did not harm Labour.
DeleteDo you think the country is going to have to fight a war of survival in this Parliamentary term? Well I mean I can’t say it’s totally beyond the realm of possibility.
We need something similar now to put the old adversarial politics behind us
What? No. Politics should be adversarial. Politics is about the clash of ideas. It’s about the big, fundamental questions of what society is for and how the members of society relate to esch other and to the state. And those are questions to which people have diametrically opposed answers.
‘Consensus’ strategies can only work when people agree generally agree on the broad aims and principles of what they are trying to do, and they just need to sort out the details of implementation.
But politics isn’t like that. Politics people aren’t just disagreeing about how to organise society, but about the very basic ideas of the purpose of society.
I mean, you and i have totally opposed ideas of what society is for. A country run according to your most cherished beliefs would be a country I would hate to live in, and vice versa. So how can we possibly come to a consensus? We can’t.
Given that there are only two roads we can take. I can gather up all the people on my side and you all the people on yours and we can fight, and either my lot kills yours or your lot kills mine and the winners get to live in the country you want; or, we can have an adversarial politics where we argue it out, and then we take a vote, and we’re both agree to abide by the outcome whether we get what we want or not.
I prefer the second option. Do you not?
It kind of goes back to the title of the article: ‘The Vision Thing’. Politics is about the battle between incompatible visions of society. How can that be anything but adversarial?
DeleteYou talk of democratic politics as a "battle." I agree with the great R A Butler, who described it as "government by discussion." Yes, "heated words" and "exasperation" are from time to time inevitable, but the more we move towards "quiet calm deliberation" the more successful we shall be.
ReplyDeletethe more we move towards "quiet calm deliberation" the more successful we shall be.
DeleteHow can you have 'quiet calm deliberation' when everything you love, I hate and everything you hate, I love? When there is no possible common ground between us?
For example, I think that one of the biggest problems we have is that public spending is far too high and that the state has far too great a presence in everyone's life. You think that the state should be doing more to take care of people and that in order to enable that public spending much be even greater than it is now.
The very things you see as problems I see as solutions, and the things I see as problems, you see as solutions. Any move whihc makes the country better form your point of view makes it worse from mine.
And the reason for that is that we have totally different ideas of what the state should be. You think it should be like a caring parent, there to take care of us and support us and help us to make the best of our lives. I think it should get out of our way to make our own choices, take our own risk, and succeed or fail on our on terms, taking personal responsibility for everything we do.
Those point of view can't 'deliberate' or 'discuss'; or if you think they can then I'd like to know how you think they can. Because as far as I can see they can only battle.
I agree that it is hard to practise "government by discussion" with someone like Trump who has tunnel vision and refuses to accept any fact that he finds inconvenient. He is not alone in that, but we can surely shape a system (including the electoral system and the shape of the debating chamber) which can promote discussion rather than confrontation. The select committees of our parliament appear to move strongly in this direction, as do some of our more successful local government authorities.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is hard to practise "government by discussion" with someone like Trump who has tunnel vision and refuses to accept any fact that he finds inconvenient.
DeleteAre you saying that I have tunnel vision and refuse to accept any fact that I find inconvenient?
we can surely shape a system (including the electoral system and the shape of the debating chamber) which can promote discussion rather than confrontation.
Again: how? When we are choosing between two totally mutually incompatible visions, where there is no compromise of 'some of one, some of the other' possible (because that would just lead to a muddle that would be the worst of all worlds), how can 'discussion' get you anywhere?
Consider a company which ad been making widgets by hand for years; indeed it has a dominant position in the widget market. But now some other company has developed a way to machine-manufacture widgets, and it's taking market share by undercutting them on price. The company has to decide how to respond.
Some of the board members want to double down on their hand-made widgets. They reckon that there's a market for high-end, bespoke, authentic widgets. They won't sell as many but the margins will still be high, because they will sell them at a higher price point.
Others say they should leverage their dominant market position while they still have it, quickly adopt machine-manufacture themselves, and use their greater volume to producer even more widgets than their competitor, at an even lower price point.
Both these strategies have merits. Either might work; on the other hand, both are risky. Either might fail.
But the one thing the company must do is choose one of them. If it tries to compromise and do bits of both, it will end up doing neither as well as if it committed to a single course of action, and will definitely fail.
In such a case, how can 'discussion' work? There is only confrontation. The company must choose either strategy A or strategy B, and commit to it fully.
Politics is the same. We must decide what kind of country we wish to be and commit to it. Trying to be all kinds of country at once (to give a specific example, trying to be a low-tax, high-public-spending country) is just a guaranteed recipe for failure.
There is no
The select committees of our parliament appear to move strongly in this direction, as do some of our more successful local government authorities.
And local government is different: local government has a defined set of responsibilities given to it by national government and just has to work out how best to implement them. so there's no clash of visions there.
And select committees do not set policy; they discuss legislation proposed by the government. They also are concerned with implementation, not direction. But politics is about setting the direction.
Do we want to be a high-spending country or a low-tax country? We can't be both. Either we have to cut spending, or we have to raise taxes.
So that's where the battle , the clash of visions, is. That's why we need politics to be a confrontation, a clash between the low-tax vision of the country and the high-spending vision of the country.
Once that clash has been one, then we have have discussion over exactly that taxes to raise, or exactly which budget items to cut.
But deciding which direction to take? That's not a matter of discussion, that's a matter of a clash of incompatible visions.
And that's why we need politics to be adversarial: because politics is fundamentally about the clash of incompatible visions (eg, the high-spending vision or the low tax vision?) and that clash is inherently adversarial.