Things will never be the same again
Things will never be the same again. The turmoil in the banking sector will ensure that the housing slump turns into a full scale recession. There will be massive knock on effects, not just for housing associated business in areas like carpets and furniture, but also all those hundreds of thousands of businesses selling things that none of us really need.
For example: In their new sketch show Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse feature a shop in Notting Hill that sells overpriced tat to gullible women. A topical satire may soon feel like a piece of history. Almost every parade of shops in well off areas includes pretty little boutiques selling posh bric-a-brac. How many will survive in a world where every penny counts? And as existing business close who will be able to raise the money to start new ones? As for any hope that the public sector will pick up the flack; the public deficit was already huge and now we can add all the money being pumped in to save lame duck banks. I said to my fifteen year old son this morning that if he is lucky things will be starting to pick up again when he leaves University.
All this may be too pessimistic but it reflects the distilled views I have collected from people who know more than me. In terms of the decline of the economy from its peak what we are beginning to experience may be on a par with the depression of the thirties, although fortunately for us absolute levels of personal and social affluence will remain several times higher than those experienced by our great grandparents.
Accounts of the origins of the welfare state emphasise the determination of economists and policy makers to avoid a repeat of the depression – it was this that inspired Keynes and Beveridge. So almost two decades after the beginning of the depression – albeit with the interruption of the war – its impact was determining future policy. What is now happening will cast a shadow over decision makers who are, as I write, on their way to primary school.
Over the coming years we can expect radically new thinking (which always involves rediscovering old thinking). To be sure we will have new economic theories and policy frameworks. But the recession will also reframe thinking about social norms and values and about the relationship between human capacity and complexity (this crisis shows what can happen when we create systems so complex no one knows how to repair them when they go wrong). I popular saying in the eighties was that ‘the right have won the economic argument, the left the social argument and the centre the electoral argument’. As financial capitalism collapses the Tories talk of a broken society and a third of Austrians vote for neo fascists little of this world remains. We can expect ideology to return to politics but the new dividing lines are unpredictable, and possibly dangerous.
Only time will tell what this will all mean but I hope that we here at the RSA can be at the forefront of debating what kind of economy and society will and should emerge now the neo-liberal experiment has collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions.
So conference season is over
So conference season is over, at least for the RSA. We had another good turnout with the Conservatives yesterday evening, which means each event has attracted over 150 people. After years and years of party conferences I can’t help feeling that doing one big event is infinitely preferable to putting on the kinds of programmes other think tanks host. A game to play when browsing through the fringe guide is to identify the most boring fringe meeting and the one which the think tank has most obviously just done just for the sponsorship: ‘Plastic recycling; time for a new paradigm’, ‘light transit rail systems; thinking out of the box’. When they retire the people who plan fringe meetings could get jobs choosing the name of hairdressers or fish and chip shops prone as they are to clunking puns: ‘Let’s go Higher baby; the case for university expansion’ or ‘Who cares wins; why nursing homes need a new deal’. Finally, there are the titles that imply the fringe meeting will change the world but betray their inevitably blandness: ‘Children; they are our future’, ‘Climate catastrophe – isn’t it time to act?’.
The Conservative delegates were a very normal and mixed bunch, which is very different from the people I met at my first Tory conference in 1994. There was the inevitable contribution from a breathless, young, free market enthusiastic asking why the Conservatives wouldn’t nationalise the NHS. But this, and Peter Hitchens’ attack on Cameron, the BBC and the liberal elite, were greeted with minimal enthusiasm. Instead it was an earnest debate in which most of the questions would have come just as easily from the delegates at either of the other conferences. The attack on Labour seemed rather muted, mainly focussing on Government bureaucracy and the Michael Gove line that while Tony Blair was trying to do the right thing, Gordon Brown has abandoned reform.
Until a few days ago it might have seemed that the Conservatives didn’t need to articulate much of a critique of Labour so deep was the evidence already of disenchantment. But just as happened last year conference season is seeing a change in the political weather. Labour is looking decisive over the banking crisis and, whatever their disagreements about the detail, the Conservatives aren’t articulating a coherent alternative. Given all the other things going on in the world it may be difficult for David Cameron’s team to get much traction with the several new policy documents they are planning to unveil this week.
The other Tory attack line is the assertion that Britain is broken. Conservatives say that this is not an alarmist argument but perhaps they should tell the Sun. The tabloid has a broken Britain fringe and has festooned Birmingham with lurid posters featuring a hooded teenager thrusting a knife towards the camera.
Evidence that the Conservatives have to deal with a new context is underlined by the same newspaper choosing today as its front page story an attack on Barclays bankers for taking an all-expenses break in Monte Carlo in the midst of the credit crunch. It is too early to say whether the current crisis will translate into a more general backlash against the values of financial capitalism but the fact that our most popular newspaper is now reviling bankers in a way previously reserved for loony left councils, benefit ‘scroungers’ or asylum seekers must be a sign of the times.
In advance of the Conservative Party Conference
Off to Birmingham on Sunday for the third of our Party conference fringe meetings held in partnership with the World at One and IPSOS MORI. I’m hoping Conservative conference will prove to be less stressful for me than was Labour’s.
If I was a Conservative (cue malicious laughter among my remaining Labour friends) I would see next week as offering a big opportunity and a growing threat.
Given the polls and the general morale of the Party, Labour’s conference was a success. But it was a success secured against a modest objective – keeping the Party together and giving Gordon Brown more time to turn things round.
Achieving this was a necessity. If at a time like this the Party had looked like it was eating itself, the voters would have been unforgiving. As it is Labour has had a small poll bounce.
But what Labour really needed to have any hope of making the next election competitive was a conference that connected with the public at large.
They missed this target because they were never really aiming for it. Indeed, the expressions of satisfaction among Labour politicians and activists that they got through the week may grate with the growing number of people – worried about their homes, bills and jobs – who aren’t sure how they are going to get through the next few months.
This is the Tories’ opportunity. Their message can be simple: ‘Labour spent the week talking to itself, we will spend our week talking to the nation’.
Someone who saw David Cameron speak in recent days told me the absence of references to Labour was noticeable in a speech which was pitched directly to popular concerns about the state of both economy and society.
If the Conservatives can make this contrast with Labour, it will go a long way to cementing their lead.
The threat to David Cameron is a growing impatience with the lack of policy clarity. The time for speculative working papers and commissions is over; people want to know what the Conservatives’ first Queen’s Speech will contain.
Yet, the signs are that the Conservatives still see little purpose being served by policy elaboration. One bright special advisor to a Tory front bencher reports his frustration at rarely getting any response to the many policy ideas he puts forward. Lobby groups from business and NGOs find the Conservatives’ enthusiasm to share platforms and brands unmatched by the desire to discuss or resolve policy questions.
I have, for example, spoken to several business interests trying fruitlessly to get a handle on the Conservatives’ approach to public sector commissioning and contracting out.
Press commentators are now picking up on this. Mixing his metaphors one said to me ’next week we will be on waffle watch, warm words may go down well in the hall, but the refrain from the press corps will be ‘where’s the beef?’.
So the public want connection while the press and policy community want substance. A difficult balance but the kind of thing a party needs to achieve if it wants to move from effective opposition to Government-in-waiting.
The relationship between progress and social contentment
We hosted a Joseph Rowntree Foundation debate here last night as part of their project on the new social evils. Perhaps surprisingly given the economic gloom the overall message of speeches from Julia Neuberger, AC Grayling and Anthony Browne was that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Grayling and Browne were particularly keen to argue that we have never had things so good (Anthony now works for Boris Johnson, so an echo here of the Mayor’s dismissal of Conservative talk of a ‘broken Britain’ as piffle). Julia Neuberger highlighted how fear of being accused of abuse can discourage people from showing kindness and concern to children and old people alike. She called for a renewal of trust and altruism, the opening up of institutions so the public feel confident about getting involved as volunteers or advocates and an end to a culture of blame.
Responding, Naomi Eistenstadt from the Cabinet Office made a spirited defence of the role of the central state in providing a social guarantee, a framework of values and protection for children.
As all this suggests, there was much to chew over but it still felt that we hadn’t got to the heart of the question. If things are getting better and there is no real evidence of a decline of social values, why are we so pessimistic and why do four out of five of us agree with the assertion that we are suffering from a decline in moral standards? Indeed if we think things are getting worse doesn’t that mean they are? After all, how we feel about society is surely an important measure of its health? Also, social pessimism can be a self fulfilling prophesy – if we think it’s cold and hostile out there we’ll go home and lock the door.
I have been commissioned to write an overview chapter for the final JRF report on this project. Given the slipperiness of the central concept and the quality and range of other contributors it’s a tough assignment. But after last night I think I have a clearer idea about what I am looking for. I want to try to overcome the dichotomy between how society is (getting better) and how it feels (getting worse). ‘How it feels’ is part of ‘what it is’ and how it feels feeds back into what it is. Instead of the starting point being ‘society is getting better but people don’t think it is’ – the theme for last night – it should be ‘society is generally getting better but one of the things that is not is how we feel about it’.
This opens up difficult questions about the relationship between progress and social contentment. Is it in the nature of some of the things that seem to be getting better – for example, growing affluence or tolerance – that they contribute to making (some of us) feel worse? Should we give greater weight in social policy to the subjective than the objective? Interestingly this has been the general shift in how the Government measures public service performance, moving from outcome based indicators to user satisfaction.
One interesting example of this is social mobility. Everyone says they are in favour of having more of it. This is fine when we are talking about absolute social mobility – increasing the numbers getting into the middle class, as happened in the fifties and sixties. But the only way to increase relative social mobility (or to increase absolute social mobility when the middle class has stopped expanding) is to make it easier for people to come down as well as go up. But it is far from clear that a society in which it is easier for middle class people to be downwardly socially mobile would be a more content society. Behavioural economics teaches us that the pleasure of upward social mobility (getting something we didn’t have before) is less than the pain of downward social mobility (losing something we have now). So the net social contentment impact of increasing relative social mobility (disregarding other knock-on effects) is negative. In other words the one thing all leading politicians say they want more of is something that will make us less happy as a society!
Gordon Brown’s big speech
I am writing this blog immediately after watching Gordon Brown’s speech (but posting it the next day) because I want to give a first impression before I let the views of everyone else influence me.
There were certainly some really good parts. The recognition of mistakes and more personal tone showed a man trying to connect. The fairness theme was sustained throughout. The attack on the Conservatives, while over-long, was powerful and made clear to the Party how it should go about campaigning. But overall?
As I said in yesterday’s blog I hoped the speech would be brave enough to speak for society as a whole rather than simply defending the PM and his record. I also hoped for passages when the tempo and tone would change and more of an argument would be developed. This would show confidence. The speech started promisingly in this regard but as long speeches tend to do it somewhat lost its way in the middle. Too many engineered applause lines gave a feel that was both disjointed and monotonous.
There were the usual assertions that no one in their right mind could possible disagree with:
“For too long we’ve developed only some of the talents of some people – but the modern route to social mobility is developing all the talents of all the people….”
And straw men erected:
“So when people say in these tough times there’s nothing we can do, there’s nothing higher to aim for, no great causes left worth fighting for… “
The attempts to pull the emotional heart strings – the ‘not just a number but a human story’ section – felt a bit laboured. And there seemed to be an attempt to borrow some of Barack Obama’s stardust with the assertion:
‘this job is not about me, it’s about you’
recalling the Democratic nominee’s assertion about the US election
‘this is not about me, it’s about you’
Also there seemed to be a plan to follow the American model of constant mini standing ovations – but apart from those who had clearly been primed to keep jumping up this didn’t really take off.
But I am being unfair. You see I have an admission to make. Even when I worked for him, I was alone among his fans in never really liking Tony Blair’s speeches.
It wasn’t just that I hardly ever got any lines in to them (OK, it was mainly that). For me an important aim of a speech is to close the distance between political leaders and the rest of us.
I yearned for argument and connection instead of simply declaiming. Sometimes TB did this, particularly when he was trying to persuade his Party of something with which it felt uncomfortable but generally his speeches were cleverly stitched together lists of quotable assertions.
Then again, I guess Gordon was trying to convince members of the Party and the public of something that many of them doubt – that he is the right man to be PM. In this the case was sustained throughout the speech. Only time will tell if it is an argument he can win.
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