An Agenda for Britain

An Agenda for Britain Frank Field Originally published in 1993, An Agenda for Britain offers a radical vision for the future of Britain and the Labour Party.Unemployment, Frank Field argues, must be the major issue on the political agenda; welfare should be taken ‘out of the ghetto’ and made part of the debate about Britain’s economic and industrial future; and employees should have much greater control over their own pension capital. The adoption of this reforming agenda is, he believes, essential if the Labour Party is to be elected to govern the country again. COPYRIGHT (#ulink_52f793f8-f029-5221-8449-3e34c8a6376b) Fourth Estate An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/) First published in paperback 1993 Copyright © Frank Field 1993 Frank Field asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. 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Source ISBN: 9780006382263 Ebook Edition © JUNE 2016 ISBN: 9780008192044 Version: 2016-06-03 DEDICATION (#ulink_10f1f440-a0a1-5a31-bd6a-dc52edfeb959) For Nick and Cathy Warren CONTENTS Cover (#u403b7b9d-00e7-5805-bac2-f98dba7d4702) Title Page (#u8d8365bc-ab38-5875-b703-f3061873fd25) Copyright (#ulink_55282a77-d392-508e-a21b-0c51bf09b8f4) Dedication (#ulink_706f0821-c4b3-51d9-89a8-cc9b8a37f79a) Preface (#ulink_4aa8a131-e4b9-596d-8202-aa630938d237) The Vision Thing (#ulink_28d09fd7-b397-539f-be0f-3ccf579628f0) 1 Reinventing the Traditional Party of the Opposition (#ulink_1759373f-27d2-5f49-aabf-2f0031cf523e) 2 Reclaiming Labour’s Natural Constituency (#ulink_ff1de7d2-0c19-555e-8de4-29bdd2c6b1c7) 3 The Emergence of Britain’s Underclass (#litres_trial_promo) 4 The Other Side of the UK (#litres_trial_promo) 5 Labour: the Party of Work, Wealth and Opportunity (#litres_trial_promo) 6 The Forgotten Goal of Full Employment (#litres_trial_promo) The Vision Thing Again (#litres_trial_promo) Sources (#litres_trial_promo) Index (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) PREFACE (#ulink_d6e2a6ee-b63d-5d2b-87b7-90b5eaedc1f4) While I have added a substantial amount of new material, this book began life as the University of Durham’s Bernard Gilpin’s Pastoral Lectures for 1993. My first thanks goes to the Department of Theology who invited me to Durham. The magnificence of that city was matched by spring weather and the hospitality of Sheridan Gilley, the Chairman of the department, Meg Gilley and Sheridan’s colleagues. A second wave of thanks goes to four people. Jill Hendey worked on the manuscript in addition to all her other work. Matthew Owen did likewise, as well as trace material and discuss with me the book’s line of argument. I am particularly grateful to them for absorbing the considerable amount of extra work that producing a book entails, and doing so in such a way as to make working with them such a pleasure. Damian Leeson went through the whole document and sharpened both the prose and presentation. In Rebecca Wilson I was the beneficiary of being given by HarperCollins an editor whose talents were matched by a dedication to a production of books of the highest technical quality. John Grigg, Lord Bonham Carter and Calum MacDonald read through the first draft of the introduction. I am grateful to them for their comments. In addition, Mark Bonham Carter read through the original lectures, commented upon and encouraged me to publish them. He also kindly thought of the book’s title. Robert Twigger, Robert Clements, Richard Cracknell, Adrian Crompton, Richard Dewdney, Nicola Chedgey, Ed MacGregory, Mahmed Nawaz and Jane Dyson of the House of Commons Library produced a number of statistical papers, and Dora Clark and Andrew Parker traced innumerable sources for me. MPs are blessed by having a library research staff whose qualities are unsurpassed. While I am grateful to all these people who helped produce this volume, its opinions are my responsibility, as are any errors which have escaped their watchful eyes. The book is dedicated to Nick and Cathy Warren. Nick worked with me as solicitor to the Birkenhead Resource Unit and Cathy too worked for the Unit in a voluntary capacity. During Nick’s twelve year’s stewardship my constituents received a Rolls-Royce legal service. His standing in the town is testament to that, as was my vote at general elections. Due largely to the happy fallout from Nick’s work, of which I was the beneficiary, Birkenhead was turned into one of the safest seats in the country. The book’s dedication is, therefore, a small but public means of thanking Nick and Cathy for the care they lavished on so large a number of my poorer constituents. FRANK FIELD June 1993 The Vision Thing (#ulink_f5d40c4f-5daf-508d-b3df-894231a77b3d) Poor old George Bush got it right. Stumbling through the presidential election campaign he realized what was missing. In true Bush style he blurted out that he was short on ‘the vision thing’. What was true of the defeated Republican campaign is also true for a defeated Labour Party. The ‘vision thing’ affects both Government and Opposition parties. That the Government is almost bankrupt of ideas is not surprising. Four election wins in a row and fourteen years in office is enough to convince any group of human beings that they are destined to remain there to the end of their days. Winning, after all, is the major test, so why worry too much if Cabinet Ministers cannot spell out in precise terms what the Government is trying to achieve? And yet? In times past the pendulum has always swung back. So why won’t it next time? That must be the worry at the back of the mind of every Government supporter. It is, however, far from the back of the mind of Labour activists. In order to talk up morale a political law of averages reigns in Labour Party thinking. No swing back on the last three occasions makes it more, not less, certain that the swing will occur next time. It is a belief of all gamblers that their chances improve the more they lose. This is not the case, neither in the casino nor in the election arena. Political memories are inevitably short. No member of the current House of Commons was elected to the 1945 Parliament, so that the pendulum years appear to most politicians as the natural rhythm of politics. But such a pattern does not fit the decades before 1945 when the Conservatives were rarely out of power. The dreadful thought which ought to be stalking the Left is that the close fought elections of the early 1950s and mid-1970s might prove to be the exceptions rather than the rule. Fundamental changes have been taking place which make a regular sharing of power between the two main parties a less, rather than more, likely future turn of events. For one thing, the swings which do occur, and which would have swept the board for the Opposition party, now merely reduce the overall size of the Government’s majority in the House of Commons. The 2 per cent swing gained last time by Neil Kinnock would have been enough to land him in Downing Street if only the election had been held in the 1950s rather than in the 1990s. It is the size of the Government’s lead amongst voters on election day, combined with the disappearance of the traditional marginal seat, which is part of the stumbling block. The clear polarization into ever more safe seats presents a microcosm of what is happening across the country. The nagging doubt of many Labour activists is that the change in British politics is more fundamental than this. Two forces are at work. The first is that the social groups from which Labour’s traditional support has come have shrunk, are shrinking and look set to shrink further. It is as though Labour is trying to advance on a downward moving escalator. But why is Labour on a down escalator in the first place? Here lies the second and more deadly of the two forces working against the Party. A large number of people raised in Labour-voting homes have simply walked away from the Party. In fairness many of these people would argue that Labour has simultaneously been marching off in a different direction anyway. These voters compare their past loyalty to Labour to the bonds which they used to have with their school friends. At the time, few people could be more important. However, even in the most stable of circumstances people can grow apart. Britain, far from being stable, has seen not merely the collapse of its traditional manufacturing base but of new strains throughout its social fabric. Partly as a result of this, but also because of rising living standards, people are on the move. A third of all households moved during the last decade. Old ties and friendships are thus broken, commitments reduced to memories which are valuable as part of our past, but definitely no longer of present significance. As with the ties of friendship, so too with political parties. It is as though the country has been shaken up in a gigantic political kaleidoscope. Many of us, with different aspirations, have settled down in different places and are relating to different areas and people. Class loyalties have been loosened and in many instances have simply disintegrated. The political kaleidoscope might well be shaken again; the Government could simply fall apart. Whilst it came close to doing so in the twelve months after winning the 1992 election, the Opposition cannot rely upon it doing so again. The Government may lack vision but it enjoys exercising power which it will not give up easily. The Government may be divided over Europe, but John Major is no Peel. His indentureship in Mrs Thatcher’s Whips Office should not be forgotten: if his apprenticeship there taught him anything it was how to hold a party together in the roughest of political hurricanes. The shaking of the political kaleidoscope has changed many people’s perspective of the Labour Party. This is not simply because voters remember the rule of the bullies in the early 1980s. It is one thing to have one’s life run by a series of barely competent Governments. Incompetence is a widely shared human failing, we are all incompetent in different ways. It is quite a different ball game to think of electing a party that has cowered before political extremism in its own ranks. Those images of supposed Labour Party supporters ranting and screaming at Labour leaders have become too much part of the folk memory of all too many voters for an easy accord to be again struck between the ruled and those wishing to rule. And there are still examples – though fewer, thank goodness – of this behaviour at a local government level. But each time there is an exposure of such an instance the scar tissue which the national party has been so carefully growing is ripped off. The importance of such memories in deciding how to vote are underplayed by the Party ?lite, many of whom have little day-to-day contact with voters. For example, most do not ride on buses, their main means of transport being their own private car. The private car, and the need for security, has had a profound impact on the direct link between senior politicians and voters. Some of my constituents remember seeing photographs of Ramsay MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin hailing cabs at the corner of Downing Street and Whitehall. After some Cabinet meetings Attlee would adjourn to a bar on Liverpool Street Station. He would be accompanied there only by his Parliamentary Private Secretary (Roy Jenkins’s father) and they would travel by a Circle line underground train. Such mixing is impossible now and without it senior politicians are dangerously exposed to hearing only what they want to hear. The Party’s negative image has been compounded by our painfully slow adjustment to Mrs Thatcher’s violent shake-up of the political kaleidoscope. Indeed in some areas the adjustment has still to take place. Many of her changes were to the public’s liking and good. For example, bringing the trade unions within the law, rather than setting a law by which the trade unions agreed to be bound. This Barbara Castle tried to implement and it should have been a Labour reform. Likewise, giving members control over their union ought to have been a Labour reform. However, far from being advocated by Labour, both reforms were bitterly opposed by the Party, and some members have still to accept the new accord. It is no use Labour’s breast swelling with pride now as it claims to be the party fighting vested interests here, there, and everywhere except in respect to the block vote’s operation in Labour Party affairs. Such posturing does not present the image of a party ready for government. The list could be extended. But the message is clear. Not once since 1979 did Labour break free, leapfrog the Thatcher Government and start setting out its own stall with wares relevant to the new world. Changes were made but only after one, or sometimes two, election defeats. Had the Party embraced the ‘one person–one vote’ principle when it was first proposed this would have been part of Labour’s new stance, rather than a reform seen to be emanating from the SDP. Selling council houses similarly could have been to the Party’s advantage. In Labour’s hands the resources raised would have been used to replenish stock and prevent the rise of the sink estates which now pockmark so much of the country. But, some will say, look at the opinion polls. Yet in past parliaments the polls predicted future Labour success. Now, with Labour’s enormous lead, the length of time the Conservative Government has been in office, its ability to make a mess of things, all point to a Labour success next time. This is as comfortable a reading of events as it is a misleading one. However, in a country which appears to many voters to be a one-party state, by-elections and opinion polls have assumed a new role: they have partially replaced the Opposition’s function of harassing the Government. Most Government seats are now unsafe in a by-election. Whilst the electorate enjoys turning out a member of the ruling party at a by-election to express its anger at the latest piece of Government nonsense, this form of protest is limited and, above all, safe, as was evident at the last general election where every seat lost by the Government in the previous Parliament was won back handsomely. Opinion polls, which now play a crucial part in our democratic process, serve a similar role of giving the Government a rough time. Voters trying to get government policy modified or changed willingly mislead the pollsters. The trouble is that politicians have yet to wake up to what is going on. The polls give voters a chance to double- and sometimes treble-bluff the Government. Clearly, the more they are used in this way the less accurate they are as a guide to how voters might behave two or three years hence at a general election. It would be foolish therefore for Labour, or any party, to read the polls as we might have done in the 1950s or 1960s. The polls, then, give no accurate guide to what voters will actually do on polling day. Moreover, the long-term socioeconomic trends are against the Party. So what actions should Labour take? Given the seriousness of the situation I believe it imperative for the Party to develop a two-track strategy. The first is to go for an all-out win next time. The second is simultaneously to plan sharing power with the Liberal-Democrats as a serious fall-back position. A contradictory approach? When asked about holding what might be contradictory positions, Jimmy Thomas, a Minister in Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour Government replied that, if you couldn’t ride two horses at once there was no point being part of the circus. And while it is a mistake to think of political life only in terms of the circus there are common elements to both activities. In planning for an outright win Labour must ask itself the most fundamental question of all: what is it that Labour believes it can and should add to political life that no other party does or can contribute? Once the question of what Labour believes in is asked we are immediately faced by Labour’s black hole. It is a question which has taken a long time to be asked, and even longer to be answered. But now two major political events have swept away the political life-support machinery which had hitherto prevented such a question being even posed. The first, the collapse of communism, has had a silent but devastasting effect on Labour’s confidence. It is not that many activists wanted a Bolshevik state established in Britain, but rather, that the Soviet r?gime acted as a beacon for those believing in Utopian politics. Here was an example not only of a Utopian ideal translated into day-to-day practice, but of a superstate motivated by a system of ethical judgement based around rewards – each according to his ability, each according to his needs. The Soviet r?gime collapsed almost overnight. Labour is taking a much longer time to adjust to the sweeping away of Utopian politics. Secondly, Labour has at the same time suffered a series of major electoral rebuffs with which the Party has still to come to terms. At first senior party figures believed that the loss of power, while regrettable, was part of a normal course of events in the two-party system. That view is still mightily represented in some parts of the Party hierarchy and expresses itself around the idea that one more heave will restore Labour to power. The results of the last four elections were not solely about the electorate embracing the Conservative cause. Equally important has been the electorate’s rejection of the kind of socialism Labour was offering. An economy with core industries nationalized, a highly centralized government machine (although not nearly as centralized as the Thatcher Governments proved themselves to be) run on the basis of a compact with the trade unions, is not now the formula for successful electoral politics. Most of the activists in the country know this to be true, but some of the party’s hierarchy is slow to adapt to the political facts of life. The key question is what should replace Labour’s traditional appeal which has so often emphasized institutions rather than values. This political life-support machinery – of believing that a Utopian solution to British political and economic problems was at hand, and that a swing back to Labour is inevitable – now needs to be switched off. Labour must answer the fundamental question of what it believes in. In doing so, it must face the reality that, for at least the forseeable future, no party is going to get elected which is against the market economy. Here is the crunch. Is Labour going to embrace the market economy or not? At the moment the Party’s position is ambivalent. Labour mouths statements in support of the market principle but all the Party’s body language speaks of a deep distrust. The market economy must be embraced without reservation. It works too well for too many people for too much of the time for any alternative to be practical politics. It is responsible for the highest standard of living known to mankind. It is inextricably bound up with a free society. Why then, if the advantages of the market economy are so obvious, is Labour diffident about embracing its principles? Here again the answer is quite simple. For the whole of my political life Labour has espoused a view of human nature which is simply wrong. The self-regarding side of the human character has been ignored or suppressed. The result has meant a shaping of politics which not merely ignores self-interest, but goes out of its way to punish it. Self-interest is one of the most powerful of human characteristics and practical politics has to be built around that simple but fundamental fact. Moreover, it is through a market economy that self-interest can operate most easily to greatest effect and for the greatest common good. That doesn’t mean that the exercise of an unadulterated self-interest is always edifying, let alone acceptable, or that self-interest is the only consideration which society must take into account. What it does mean is that radical politics is about channelling self-interest wherever possible so that it also promotes the common good. The agenda for radical politics for the next decade or more is one of attempting to deal with the unacceptable faces of the market economy. What those unacceptable faces are is dealt with at some length in this book. Instead of exhibiting a body language which most voters read as an expression of opposition to the market, Labour should embrace the market and spend the whole of its effort expressing its disapproval of the market’s unacceptable faces – particularly its inability to tackle unemployment and its power to punish the poor and the least strong. The radical agenda is about eradicating these unacceptable faces without undermining the essential principles of the market. Here Labour’s ethical tradition of socialism can come to the fore. That ethical tradition has always consisted of two clear strands. The first, which has often been overshadowed, has been about the opening up of opportunities so that individuals (rather than classes) can develop and use their talents to the full. The second strand of the tradition is concerned with the protection and enhancement of the poor, the weak and the disadvantaged. It is here that Labour can play its strongest card. For the market economy left to itself is at best amoral. Labour’s ethical tradition, built around the importance that should be attached to each individual member of the community, can provide the moral framework within which a more just market economy can flourish. Merely to espouse the first principle – of ensuring the widest possible extension of opportunity to individuals to use their talents to the full – immediately suggests a whole range of policies, from action against unemployment right through to education reform. It is important that the development of policies on these fronts should be within the moral framework which is part of the Party’s heritage. The emphasis on each individual will give a coherence to the Party’s manifesto, while at the same time presenting the policies themselves with a much clearer cutting edge. The attack on unemployment, for example, is not urgent merely because of the lost production which results from it, or the added social problems which undoubtedly arise because of it. The task is urgent because unemployment is an attack on the sacredness of each unemployed individual. The existence of unemployment is a reminder of another important political fact. Contributing to, as well as receiving from, society must be given its proper weight in public policy. Today’s unemployment prevents millions of people from making their rightful contribution to society, thereby gaining equal status to those in work. Tackling unemployment effectively is at the heart of the ‘vision thing’ for British politics. CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_79197e2a-1696-5281-b8bc-4d11096a4285) Reinventing the Traditional Party of Opposition (#ulink_79197e2a-1696-5281-b8bc-4d11096a4285) In The Importance of Being Earnest what Lady Bracknell said of Ernest’s loss of both his parents could also be said about the losing of elections. If the loss of one election is unfortunate, and two careless, then three is reckless, four criminal, and to lose five in succession might well prove fatal. This chapter looks at the reasons for Labour’s losing streak. It considers whether the Party is now so enfeebled that it will be unable to win again, unless it offers an electoral reform which will ensure that it is unlikely ever to form a one-party government again. The promise of electoral reform must be accompanied by the most fundamental changes in the Party’s constitution if Labour is to continue to be a serious political force. Rationalizing defeat Whatever the result of the 1992 election, records were bound to be broken. For Labour to have won would have required a larger swing than had ever occurred in any previous election. For the Tories to win meant a record of four election victories in a row, a feat never achieved by a modern political party. Both the major parties, therefore, went into the record books – Labour by doing worse than any other party had done previously by losing four consecutive elections; the Conservatives simply by doing the opposite. Why did Labour lose so easily and by such a wide margin? The twenty-one-seat Tory majority over all other parties disguises the extent of Labour’s defeat. The Tory lead over Labour in the popular vote was a staggering 7.5 percentage points. Labour cannot this time make its usual cry of ‘we was robbed’ by the electoral system. The unfairness of the voting system is not working against Labour. Had Labour cornered merely half a percentage point more of the popular vote the Tories, still with a 7 percentage point lead, would have been denied an overall majority in the House of Commons. Tactical voting played its part in the final result. Despite the commonly held view that only the Liberal Democrats gain from tactical voting, Labour was a main beneficiary, almost halving Mr Major’s overall majority as a consequence. What explanations have been put forward to account for Labour’s dismal record? Here I group the main arguments under four headings, starting first with the considered views of psephologists. Psephologists Anthony Heath, Roger Jowell and John Curtice explain Labour’s electoral failure not so much in terms of people switching sides, although that was what in part happened, as of the shrinking of the working-class base from which Labour has always drawn its main support. The size of the working-class population has fallen dramatically over the past two decades – by a sixth since 1971 – but even so this argument by itself is inadequate. While the Heath thesis goes some way to explaining the long-term decline of Labour’s vote, it has nothing to say on the reasons why people from traditional Labour-voting families came to believe that Labour no longer adequately represented their aspirations. These families may not define themselves as working class any more, but their economic circumstances are not so different from those of other families who, also experiencing significant changes in their living standards, continue to vote Labour. Closely allied to the Heath thesis is one centered on class conflict, the great exponents of which are psephologists David Butler and Donald Stokes. Their thesis is that, not surprisingly, a class-based appeal does well in times of clear class antagonism and vice versa. It is hard not to recognize what Butler and Stokes write from conversations had on people’s doorsteps, where a fundamental feeling of ‘them and us’ helps to determine the votes of some households. It works both ways, of course, with Tory voters having a mirror image of the ‘them and us’ spectrum. But does the thesis adequately explain Labour’s long-term decline or does it point to other processes at work? The Butler/Stokes data highlight a decline in class antagonism and so one would expect, if they are right, to see Labour’s vote similarly fall. Yet in the late 1960s when, according to the authors, class antagonism peaked leading one to expect Labour to do particularly well, the Party was unexpectedly defeated by Edward Heath. Class antagonism appears to have been replaced by a more widely diffused political antagonism to the Labour Party by no less than 65 per cent of voters. Similarly, Professor Ivor Crewe’s explanation accounts for only some of the main events. His thesis is that the working class is disintegrating from within as people no longer see themselves as working class, no longer propagate working-class values and, as a consequence, view themselves as Conservative voters. The 1992 result did not prove the Crewe view entirely correct. There was a 1 per cent swing against the Labour Party from its supposed core working-class supporters, while a 4 per cent swing was notched up amongst the AB groups. Again, what Crewe describes, unsatisfactorily as a complete answer, is obvious to anyone who regularly canvasses in the same area over longish periods of time. One other explanation of Labour’s failed voting appeal rests on a belief about how voters perceive the likely course of the economy, and how self-interest is related to its developments – what the American economist John Kenneth Galbraith calls the ‘culture of contentment’. Conventional wisdom used to be that Oppositions not only could but probably would win when the economy was doing badly, causing concern to people about what the Government’s economic mismanagement might cost them in reduced living standards. The 1992 election was fought during a slump as severe as the 1930s with real disposable income falling between 1990 and 1991. Yet, despite this traditional reasoning, Labour failed to win. In contrast to this James Alt asserts that only if people feel economically secure will they risk voting Labour. But the Alt line has a degree of incongruity absent from all other explanations of Labour’s electoral failure. Is it really believable that individuals will vote for a party on the basis that they are now well off enough to make themselves less well off by a government’s mismanagement of the economy? There may be here a partial explanation of the feeling of some affluent voters about the prospect of tax increases. But I would be surprised if most of this group did not wish to be on the receiving end of rising living standards over the life of a Labour government, even if they paid back in part for those improved conditions in increased taxation. That view, however, is somewhat different from the proposition advanced by Alt. The Contented Culture of Conservatism The latest explanation, not merely of Labour’s unelectability, but of the failure of radical parties in Europe and America, comes from the pen of J. K. Galbraith. After Labour’s 1992 defeat commentators fell like vultures upon Galbraith’s culture of contentment thesis. His line is as simple as it is eloquently expressed. Two-thirds of the electorate have a vested interest in the economic and therefore political status quo. Radical parties intent on redistributing to the underdog do not get elected. No sooner had Galbraith collected his royalties than this idea ran into the buffers of Bill Clinton’s election win. What are the politician and voter supposed to make of these varying explanations of Labour’s failure to achieve a decisive breakthrough? And what lessons should Labour draw from the Clinton campaign? Many of the psephologists step carefully around the obvious reason why Labour falters when voters have to decide on polling day. From the very start, and long before universal franchise, political parties in this country have been about representing interests. A major part of a political party’s function is to set out a stall which is attractive enough in representing interests and aspirations so that enough voters become regular customers. The word ‘aspirations’ is important. I believe we are now in a transitional stage where the electoral system has moved on from simply representing major economic interests. To some extent, of course, that still applies. Traditionally, Labour represents what voters perceive as the interests of the working class and the underdog. But a majority of voters are not sufficiently attracted by such a slate alone to vote in a Labour government. Indeed, many people who would be classified by occupation as working class find Labour’s programme positively unattractive. Labour’s representation of interests has an essentially static approach. For much of its existence the Party has been making an appeal to the voters when politicians were unappreciative of the effects that economic growth not only would have but was having on political aspirations. Wave upon wave of workers were made unemployed during the 1920s and 1930s. The fight was essentially to get out of this pit. Labour’s solution was socialism, which one day would rectify the injustices. Until then the struggle of opposing capitalism would continue and, because most working families were aware of what life would be like if their wage packet was denied them, Labour’s collective approach to security had a powerful appeal. This approach went unquestioned even though during the 1930s many working-class families – particularly those in the South – were the grateful beneficiaries of economic growth. Living standards of those in work rose during that decade. Labour’s incompetence during the 1929–1931 Government was overshadowed by the world slump. Blaming as traitors Labour ministers who helped form the National Government was easier than looking for more deep-seated causes of such poor political performance which most Labour leaders thought would take two post-war elections to rectify. The sweepstake amongst Labour leaders guessing the 1945 result was won on an estimate of a 40-seat Tory majority. That guess was the closest to the actual result of a Labour majority over the Conservatives of 196 seats. The first hint of a possible divergence of traditional class interests and the newly emerging aspirations of voters began to register during that first post-war government. The ration-book approach of fair shares lost its appeal. Much more popular was ‘the bonfire of restrictions’ which, to his credit, Harold Wilson instigated as President of the Board of Trade. But it was left to the Tories to make the most out of the determination to do away with wartime restrictions and rationing. In one of those decisive electoral junctures, in 1951, the Conservatives impressed upon the voter’s mind that they sided with those who wanted the freedom to get on and build their own lives. A similar political juncture came at the end of the 1970s. Racked by the shift in economic power to the oil producers, those in work tried to prevent the resulting inflation from cutting living standards as this global transfer of wealth took effect. The stage was being set for another of those once-in-a-generation shifts in the political debate. The issue and the moment came together in the sale of council houses. I develop this point because the significance of this issue is still underrated by practitioners and commentators alike. Of course it was an immediate vote winner. But it had equally important long-term effects on British politics. The Primacy of Home Ownership The sale of council houses appears to have had a lasting influence on how the Labour and Conservative parties are perceived by many of the electorate to a degree which most political commentators have missed. When in 1976 I advocated that Labour should be the party of ‘freeing the council house serfs’, I was addressing how best politicians could persuade people to devote more of their income to covering housing costs. The only way I believed this possible was to change the rules: hence the option to buy. Only partially did I perceive the long-term political importance of the sales policy. I realized, of course, it was an election winner which could be ours, but I did not then comprehend how one single policy could so symbolize a party’s link with the future. While Labour embroiled itself in vicious internal warfare, the Tories went out to meet the future. Council house sales have an appeal which extends beyond council house tenants themselves. No policy statement or action comes anywhere near to having the almost sacramental impact this policy has had on what political parties stand for. While the Conservatives scooped the advantages of espousing freedom, Labour’s fractious opposition to the sale of council houses made an equally indelible mark on the electorate. Increasingly, Labour was seen as a party looking backwards and wanting to hold people down. A decade and more after the mass sale of council houses became a political reality, the NEC report on the 1992 election continued to record key voters perceiving Labour as the party of the past. Council house sales affected the political debate in a second decisive way. It was the issue on which the voters’ aspirations took primacy over class interests. I need to go back again to the 1950s bonfire of controls. The return to government of the Conservatives in 1950 saw the dismantling of wartime industrial controls. The effects on supplies to the shops, which occurred after the dismantling of controls and regulations, had a wide appeal, not least to those who experienced the drudgery of the 1930s and the hardships of the 1940s. Goods slowly became more available and the end of coupons signalled the demise of the spivs and the black market. The market system which Labour held in such disdain seemed to be working. This was, however, change within old structures. Life went on very much the same. Those who could worked five and a half days a week for fifty weeks of each year. The sale of council houses came at a time when rising living standards had reached a point when many ordinary individuals could start making decisive choices over how they spent their growing leisure hours. Non-working hours grew in importance both in their length and in the opportunities they offered individuals. People were opting for their own form of privatization long before Mrs Thatcher began shifting around industrial ownership from public to private monopolies. The most significant visible sign of this came in the inexorable climb in the number and percentage of people owning their homes. The figures rocketed under the Conservative Government’s sales policy. Through their own home, and their leisure pursuits, voters were building their own world which ruthlessly excluded officialdom. While public services remained important, an increasing priority was given to private pastimes. Tax rates thereby took on a new significance. It wasn’t simply a matter of wishing to pay for a pukka health service. That demand now competed with resources which might be spent on a new kitchen, bathroom, extension or in planning regular family holidays. It was the Conservatives who became seen in the voter’s mind as the party which not only understood this new development, but which encouraged it. Council house sales therefore have to be seen as a second stage in the Tories’ 1950 appeal of being the party which abolished controls, freed business, which began the age of mass consumption. Here the cry of ‘setting the people free’ was immeasurably reinforced with a ‘trust the people’ approach. The policy reinforced the Tory message that they were on the side of the individual. Labour’s stance did the opposite. The difference between the parties could not have been clearer during the last election. One of the Prime Minister’s more important speaking engagements was at a DIY store. Labour’s spin-doctors snobbishly laughed at his performance. On polling day that laugh appeared on other faces. Significantly, the DIY appearance was not engineered by the pollsters: It was a natural event for a party which shared the aspiring lifestyles of a growing majority of voters. These aspirations are now forming a new block of consumer interests in politics which has to operate within a two-party system. Labour’s Self-destruction While the Conservatives were confirming their role as enhancers of individual freedom, Labour, though unintentionally, spent its efforts in making the Party as unattractive as possible. It was not long after the 1979 defeat that Labour fell into a lengthy bout of ethnic cleansing of those in the Party who were deemed not to be true socialists. These actions by the Bennite praetorian guard have done lasting damage to the Labour Party which it is hard to underestimate. The ranting and screaming, and the guard’s use of verbal abuse, were seen too often on television for it not to have entered the subconscious of many voters. Again, in contrast to the Conservative’s action of being on the side of the voters, Labour offered the image of the bully. The immediate damage brought about by these actions was evident in the 1983 result. Indeed, it is possible to argue that Labour, far from being damaged electorally by the SDP’s secession, was saved from an almost complete electoral rout by the existence of this new party. The SDP gave hordes of Labour voters a convenient non-Tory safe haven in that election. Without the SDP candidates, and their Liberal colleagues, many Labour voters would have shown their contempt for what was happening within the Labour Party by crossing straight over to the Tories. As it was, many did. Even with the existence of a third party attachment, the 1983 result was worse than the disastrous 1931 election. Time is running out. How many more elections can we lose and still expect Labour voters to remain loyal? The Asquithian Liberals found to their astonishment, and anger, how quickly voters move once they see a viable alternative. The build up of Liberal Democrat councillors – doubling over the decade – and the capturing of local government seats in by-elections on a scale which outpaces both the Conservative and Labour Parties combined is an ominous warning. Moreover, at the time of writing, it is a year after the election and no serious discussion has begun on the lessons we must draw from a record-breaking series of defeats. So what can be done? I use the remainder of this chapter to sketch out an answer on four key issues for Labour’s future. These are first, why it is urgent for Labour to become an effective challenger for power even if that challenge has to be accomplished in union with Liberal Democrats; second, why even in this context Labour’s political programme matters; third, what lessons are there to be learnt from Bill Clinton’s success in the United States; and, fourth, what kind of party must Labour be for enough of the electorate ever to trust it with sharing power? An Effective Opposition First there is the question of why Labour must get itself into a credible position to challenge for power. I cannot impress enough the importance which the fear of losing power has in checking abuses of government. Take any one week of John Major’s Government’s existence and examples can be found of what I mean. It appears that anything is now permissible and nothing is so serious as to warrant resignation. Being a spectator for the last fourteen years leads me to the conclusion that it is a fear of electoral defeat which is the most powerful check we have in our democratic system. Offering programmes of constitutional change, however exciting they are to the political ?lite, is no substitute for winning power. Indeed, the constitutional caravan which now meanders over British politics is itself largely a product of Labour’s failure to win power. Without winning power, constitutional plans remain mere plans. The issue on which I want to focus is Labour’s traditional commitment to the poor and the underdog. For two reasons it is now more not less important to see that these views are effectively represented. It is of course a harder job now. The poor are in a minority, and the terms ‘poor’ and ‘working class’, used for so much of Labour’s existence as if they were synonymous, are no longer. The poor are out there on their own. I will not stress the figures here; I set them out in the next chapter when I look at the opportunities for Labour which come as a by-product of Tory policy. Few doubt that the gap between the poor and what is called the average family has widened decisively under Mrs Thatcher’s stewardship. It would be surprising if it hadn’t; it was, after all, an object of government policy. Towards the end of her long life Beatrice Webb was asked what was the most significant change she had observed during her lifetime. Unhesitatingly she replied that it was the disappearance of beggars from Britain’s streets. Beggars are now back in force once again. But they are not an isolated social group. They are the tip of a huge social iceberg. The beggars are part of a continuum embracing literally millions of our fellow citizens, many of whom are hidden from our sight. The Thatcher Government went about the largest redistribution of wealth to the rich that has ever been recorded in this country. As a result of this redistribution, rising unemployment, the reduction in benefits for some and outright abolition for groups of teenagers, we should not be surprised that beggars are now very much in evidence. As Mrs Thatcher might have said, you cannot buck all these moves by government and survive. Never before have the needs of the poor required greater representation than now, and never before has Labour been less able to fulfil this role. To do so Labour has to win, and that brings us back firmly again to policies which meet people’s aspirations. In the following chapters I deal with this in some detail. Here I wish only to emphasize the importance of a political programme. Programmes Matter Elections in the past have of course been won without any definite programme being put forward by the winning side. But since Labour is no longer seen by the majority of the electorate as a serious competitor for power, the importance of a programme to win over new voters is crucial. Only by remoulding itself around a programme which raises hopes and aspirations and is seen to work with, rather than against, the grain of human nature, does the Party stand any chance of increasing its share of the vote at the next election. In creating that chance, policy has a fundamental part to play. We need here to take a leaf out of Mrs Thatcher’s book. In inducing voters into a new mould, Mrs Thatcher designed a programme targeted to that end. The liberal intelligentsia may have viewed Mrs Thatcher’s Conservative Party with disdain, but large numbers of voters did not. It is often forgotten now, but in 1974 commentators saw Labour as the natural party of government and were busily writing off the Conservatives as a totally spent political force. From 1975 onwards Mrs Thatcher went out to remould what the Conservative Party stood for. In those crucial four years prior to the 1979 contest Mrs Thatcher and her team began to build a programme which created the politico-intellectual sea change which only in the closing stages of the 1979 Election campaign Jim Callaghan realized was about to engulf him and the Labour Government. If Labour is to have any chance in staving off a fifth successive election defeat similar determination, vision, and simple hard work must now, at this stage of the parliament, be undertaken. Here Labour’s Commission on Social Justice comes into view. That Labour should be undertaking the most wide-ranging review of social policy is not in question: the timing is. The Commission is working to a two-year timetable. Though it will be publishing papers and reports along the way, its findings will not be published until well into the second half of this parliament. The ideas it proposes will then have to be discussed with rank and file members before the Party can adopt and campaign around a new strategy. If the commission comes up with radical proposals they will need selling to the electorate. A strategy that leaves the new policy under dust sheets, so to speak, and unexplained to the electorate, is unlikely to work. Not only is the electorate likely to feel that it is being hoodwinked by such a strategy, but such an operation misreads the task before the Labour Party. We are not attempting to regain power after a temporary relapse. The party has suffered not one but a whole series of major rebuffs at the hands of the electorate. In Sans Everything the old man is being shaken by an angry nurse. He replies: ‘It take time to die nurse, it takes time nurse.’ Similarly, it takes even longer not to prevent a political death but to stage a successful comeback. Policy changes this time round are not about picking up a few floating voters along the way, welcome as this would be. They need to be about convincing political opponents amongst the electorate that the Party has fundamentally changed, which takes time and much explaining. That is precisely what Mrs Thatcher did and she was duly rewarded. In contrast, Labour appears to be adopting an approach in which policy will be unveiled at the last possible moment. The US Example The third issue I want to consider is what lessons can usefully be learned from the United States. Much nonsense is talked about whether Labour has anything at all to learn from Clinton. On this I make one comment. If an international seminar on political success were being organized, Clinton would receive an invitation, Labour would not. Learning from the United States takes the discussion onto reforming the Labour Party itself, which has to accompany any change in the programme the Party puts forward. In drawing on the US experience it is important to underline the differences between our two political cultures. But these differences, significant as they are, should not swamp the similarities, the most important of which was that in 1992 the Democratic Party was, as the Labour Party is, a party with a tradition of losing elections. It is important, of course, not to misread or misunderstand the basis of Clinton’s election success. There is the crucial economic difference in the performance of the American economy in the run up to the 1992 election and the economic background to the last three Conservative victories in this country. Although real disposable income fell in this country between 1990 and 1991, it had increased by seventy per cent over the previous twenty years. In contrast, the standard of living of many Americans, and particularly the Democratic Republicans, which was one of the keys to the Reagan and Bush victories, suffered a decline. For all but the richest fifth, incomes stagnated in the 1980s. Families with below-average incomes actually saw pay-packets shrink by almost three per cent in the second half of the decade. Such a decline was unheard of and the dent it put in millions of Americans’ aspirations contributed crucially to the Democrats’ win. In Britain, by contrast, wages and salaries generally kept above the rate of inflation. But Clinton did not sideline himself, or his party, waiting for an economic crisis to win the election. One is tempted to believe that, while the Major Central Office team was busy advising Bush on his electoral tactics, Mrs Thatcher was similarly getting Clinton to understand the basis of her success. Unlike any previous political leader, Mrs Thatcher went out from the very start in 1975 to convince the electorate that she had turned her back on the record of previous Tory administrations, not least that in which she was one of the biggest spenders. The strategy worked. As the voters came up to the election tape in 1979 enough saw the Tory Party under Mrs Thatcher as having discarded what was seen by many as the discredited concensus politics of the last three decades which appeared to so many to be resulting in chaos. Whether advised by Mrs Thatcher or not, Clinton applied an equal determination to destroy his links with the old, traditional Democratic Party as it fought the presidential election. The Party, of course, continued to be successful in many state, local and congressional elections. Indeed he went even further than Mrs Thatcher: he made a virtue out of apologizing for the Party’s past. Contrast this with the British record. All the changes Neil Kinnoock wrought in the Labour Party were presented as though nothing much had happened, or, at best, that any such changes were only a logical extension of previously long-held positions. Big changes were made but the voters would be forgiven in thinking that they weren’t. Bigger changes remain to be made. Democratic leaders have distinct advantages over their Labour counterparts. Presidential candidates emerge through a public primary system where voters choose a candidate whose programme reflects their views. Changing a party programme is therefore that much easier. Change is also made easier since the Democratic Party is a much looser federation than the British Labour Party. Moreover, vested interests are not built into the day-to-day running of the Party as they are in the Labour Party. But Clinton did not leave the matter of the Democratic Party’s past failure by making a general apology. Unlike Labour, Clinton did not blame the voters. He laid the blame squarely on the Party. Instead of pretending that those voters with different views to the Party’s prevailing orthodoxy were a collection of moral deviants, Clinton went out, met and listened to the voters. The Democratic programme this time began and ended with the fears and hopes, despair and aspirations of voters who had previously crossed over to the Republicans. There is another equally important lesson to learn from Clinton’s success. This centres on his insistence on building up a programme which appealed to a wide coalition of interests and brought the Democrat Party diverse support. What might be done in the UK on this score is an underlying theme of all the following chapters. Here I underline the importance of the apology Clinton gave to the voters for the past behaviour of the Democrat Party. Labour must similarly seek the opportunities and the occasions to gain a rapprochement with the electorate. Party Reform An apology in words has to be followed with action and here I begin with the nature of the Labour Party itself. If what happened in the early 1980s had occurred to an individual we would have classified the event as a severe mental breakdown. It is not enough for Labour to apologize and promise to do better, although that would be a start. Two decisive changes must take place. A commitment to changing the voting system should accompany a total overhaul of the Party’s constitution. The Party structure must be reformed to prevent a situation from occurring again where pressure from minority groups results in a large part of the Party leadership commending to voters views and policies which, without that pressure, they have since recanted. The greatest defence of our current electoral system is that it produces strong government. But consider for a moment what is meant by strong. If pushing through a programme about which many back-benchers on the government’s side have major reservations is a sign of strength, then I suppose the British Government qualifies. Similarly, if a strong government is equated with the views of only a minority of the electorate being imposed upon the majority, then again Britain can claim that it is ruled by a strong government. But if the words ‘strong government’ are dropped in favour of ‘representative government’, then our voting system does far less well – indeed it does very badly. Take the 1992 election results. If two parties are wiped out completely from the calculations, the distribution of seats almost exactly mirrors the proportion of votes gained in the country. The two parties which need to disappear from consideration are the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Nationalists whose following in the country was not represented by the number of seats they held in the House of Commons. My belief is that the declaration of a willingness to change the electoral system and, if need be, to share power with another party might – just – so restore Labour with the electorate that it wins an outright majority to implement such a programme. But the price is high. The chances of this working have to be weighed against the possibility that Labour might never again form a majority government. A promise to reform the electoral system needs also to be accompanied by determined shake-up of the Party’s own constitution. As action here can take place without winning an election, change on this front gives a glorious opportunity for the Party to convince voters that it has not only been transformed, but is prepared to take the kinds of tough decisions with respect to its own domain which will be even more necessary with respect to the country after the next general election. We need to start with an acceptance that the so-called democratic reforms of the Party in the early 1980s were largely undesirable; they concentrated power in the hands of the activists rather than the full membership. It is also necessary to accept that we live in an age of privatized leisure which is hostile to the ‘public meeting’ syndrome which political parties are dependent upon. So let me end by listing the agenda as I see it for party reform. This agenda rejects proposals such as giving every levy-paying trade union member full Labour Party membership. It calls for an end to the block vote in the running of party affairs. An age which sees the end of mass parties calls for a new constitution to match the times in which we live. Indeed, a hundred years since its first constitution was established Labour should seize the opportunity to draft a new constitution. Amongst many changes, the new constitution should state that the parliamentary leader – the person who would become prime minister – should be elected by Members of Parliament only. The present electoral college system prevents any leader from being removed from office against his or her wishes – that needs to end. Also voters don’t want trade unions to have a say in who is going to be the prime minister as they elect MPs directly to make that choice. Second, a position of party president should be created which would be elected on a one person–one vote membership throughout the entire Party. The party president would have the task of supporting the Party in the country and representing those views in the shadow cabinet. The holder would carry shadow cabinet rank irrespective of whether he or she was an MP or peer. Third, trade union members should have an influence in the Party only to the extent to which individual trade unionists chose to carry Party cards. The block vote would therefore be abolished. Fourth, as Labour will never have a mass membership, the Party should therefore cut its organizational cloak according to this cloth. The efforts of regional organizers and their staff at the last election helped secure twice the national average swing in some key marginal constituencies. That success needs to be spread and reflected in the balance of staff between Labour’s headquarters at Walworth Road and the regions. A party which preaches decentralization and regionalism as the basis for reforming British government would justly get short shrift from the electorate if it maintained a rigid centralization of power in its own affairs. Fifth, the preparation of policy documents should fall to the staff in the Leader of the Opposition’s office, and the offices of trade unions. Trade unions, as affiliated organizations, would have a right to present policy proposals at the NEC and at the national conference. Conference should become a forum for debate rather than pretending it is some form of representative parliament – which it clearly is not. The adoption of policy should be by the membership by postal ballot. This would affect how the trade unions vote in the Party. The trade union vote in Party affairs would be limited to the number of real, rather than imaginary, Labour Party members contained by the unions. Those members would need to pay the full membership and not gain influence because they pay the political levy. Sixth, the selection of parliamentary candidates would be by one person–one vote only. Re-selections would be initiated by a majority vote of all constituency party members. Seventh, Clause 4 Part 4 of the existing constitution (which demands common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange) would be omitted, giving Labour the chance to express its objectives adequately. Labour’s ends are not about the dreary task of nationalizing or renationalizing this or that industry. Over half of British industry is already owned by the voters through their pension funds (how to make this ownership effective is considered in the fifth chapter). In the place of Clause 4 Part 4 Labour’s view of ethical socialism should be proclaimed. Our central challenge is about how to create a society where self-interest is balanced by a proper emphasis on fellowship. Our central task is to formulate varying policies which will allow the poorest the opportunites to develop their talents which are equal to those of the richest. Our central difficulty will be in rewarding adequately those with the greatest talents while cherishing those whose talents are less prized by the market. In the early 1980s Labour promised to bring about an irreversible shift of wealth and power to ordinary people. That objective must first be enshrined in the Party’s new constitution if voters are to elect a Labour government. The constitution, through the one person–one vote principle, must ensure, above all, that the ordinary Party members hold the decisive say in what the Party stands for and how it should go about achieving its objectives. Conclusion Despite the Government’s chronic unpopularity, Labour looks as though it may have been beached by the electorate. But the beaching is not of a kind which makes it obvious that the Party can never win again. Between elections the tide comes in and laps around the stranded ship. But that tide never comes in far enough to lift the Party free and sweep it out to an election victory. Similarly, because the crew can see the tide lapping around the boat it remains loyal in the hope that, this time, the tide of disgust against the Government will somehow lift their boat free. By remaining at their post the crew are not engaged in building an alternative, more streamlined craft which could sail the electoral tides. Part of the crew’s time must be spent in showing the electorate that the boat is once again seaworthy. Two reforms above all else are necessary to achieve this objective. First, the Party must pledge itself to reforming the electoral system. This would require a public declaration to the effect that the Party may never be presented with power on its own again, other than to deliver a change in the voting system. To continue the metaphor, Labour will need the help of another craft if it is to be pulled free of the electoral mudbank on which it has been stranded since 1979. Accompanying this pledge on voting reform, the Party must draw up a new constitution enshrining the one person–one vote principle. It must also have a clear statement of objectives which, as Jack Straw has wryly noted, can be proudly shown to voters rather than shamefacedly hidden from view. CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_51b89845-7b12-5511-86e1-32649332c9d7) Reclaiming Labour’s Natural Constituency (#ulink_51b89845-7b12-5511-86e1-32649332c9d7) The politics of the Thatcher governments are commented upon in a manner which suggests that they have made Labour irrelevant to a permanent majority of the electorate. This chapter examines why and how this has happened. It looks at the fiscal redistribution brought about by Mrs Thatcher which itself explains why a growing proportion of the population are living on low incomes. The extent of this success now offers radicals their opportunity to win. While significant in number, the poor are still very clearly a minority. The Thatcher governments persuaded many commentators (some didn’t need persuading) that the poor were a forgotten cause: ‘There are no votes there.’ If a more careful analysis of the distribution of income in the post-Thatcher age were to be carried out, a potentially larger grouping of voters would be found who could be mobilized by policies based on Labour’s traditional values. Such policies must be presented in a manner which appeals to the aspirations of these voters. Tax Cuts Galore Two trends in taxes have been evident since 1979, as the table opposite illustrates. Reduction in taxation is calculated by assuming that the 1978–79 tax regime has continued unmodified. From the level of taxation that this would have produced is deducted the current tax yields. The result shows the level of taxation has been cut in this current year by a simply astonishing total of ?31.4 billion. We know that the rich gained most from these tax cuts, but the extent of their gains will surprise many. 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