Fair point
It looks like I may be appearing on Channel Four News this evening to discuss fairness, presumably in the context of Mr Hester’s bonus.
I will approach the conversation with two pieces of recent reading in mind. The first is a paper by Peter Taylor-Gooby, Professor of Social Policy at Kent University. It’s worth quoting his summary in full:
‘ This article analyses a dataset covering 26 countries for more than two decades to show that spending cuts, privatisation and increases in poverty undermine legitimacy. It uses a direct measure of legitimacy in terms of the frequency of riots and political demonstrations and strikes rather than the usual indirect measures in terms of attitudes and trust in government’.
So there we have it, cuts and poverty lead to unrest. You may think the good Professor should list his subsidiary specialist subject as ‘the bleedin’ obvious’, but, having seen resistance to the very notion of social causes among even intelligent people, his findings are worth sharing.
My second influence is Gavin Kelly’s latest column for the New Statesman. Summarising the latest research from the Resolution Foundation, Kelly shows that even if the Government meets its growth targets middle income households will suffer significant falls in living standards, but that there is a very good chance things will be substantially worse. (At least we are doing better than Spain, where the unemployment rate for 18-24 year olds is now a staggering 50 per cent.)
When large swathes of people are suffering economically the issue of fairness become more important. It also tends to become more toxic. The news this week has been dominated by two big fairness arguments, one about the poor (the Coalition’s plan for a benefit cap) and one about the rich (Mr Hester). In both cases much of the coverage was couched in terms of public anger, indeed Coalition ministers chided Bishops voting against the cap on the grounds that they were ignoring public opinion.
This reinforces a point I tried to make (ill advisedly at great length) in posts over the festive break. As we move further into the age of austerity, there is, I believe, an urgent need for our leading politicians to try to articulate a comprehensive, coherent and, hopefully, humane account of what fairness should mean. Without such an account we risk ever louder cries of rage as angry people look for someone to blame for their current problems and future prospects.
Of course, there is no simple account of what is fair and unfair and certainly not one to which everyone would agree, but recognising this is part of the point. As long as we use the idea of unfairness as a kind of conversation stopper it will be hard to find any narrative that addresses the legitimacy deficit that Taylor-Gooby’s work suggests will steadily grow.
Just as I finished writing I got a call on the train from Channel Four News saying I’d been dropped. The researcher remained unmoved even when I suggested that my blog reader would be glued to her set. ‘Oh dear,’ said the nice lady opposite me as I hung up with a sigh, ‘sometimes life just isn’t fair’.
Spinners and bangers
‘Sell the sizzle not the sausage’ goes the old advertising phrase. Political strategists too have been creative in exploring the stretchable space between substance and message. As a former member of the New Labour junta I am hardly in a position to complain, but the Coalition publicity machine does seem to have gone into a super-fast spin cycle since the New Year.
There is a good example this morning. Normally in Government when ministers are told there might be a problem they will ask their officials to check the facts closely before admitting anything publicly. It is interesting to see the logic reversed as it has been this morning by Chris Grayling, the employment minister, and Damian Green, the immigration minister. Writing in the Daily Telegraph the ministers give the clear impression that there is a major problem with migrants illegitimately claiming benefits. The ministers’ article gets a predictable front page splash with the implication that this problem of benefit abuse involves 370,000 people.
But as a searching interview of Chris Grayling by John Humphries revealed on the Today Programme, the evidence of actual wrongdoing is much, much smaller. Indeed of the 370,000 only 2% were found to be making fraudulent claims. There is a large batch of cases in which the claimant is yet to be fully identified, but on the surface at least, there isn’t any very strong reason to think the proportion of fiddlers will be much higher in this group.
It is unusual for ministers apparently to seek to alarm the public about an existing policy, but even more odd when the factual basis for the concern seems so tenuous. Two of the Government’s vulnerabilities right now are unemployment (which is high and rising) and immigration (which is also high and rising despite a high profile Coalition commitment to reduce it). In the short term, at least, it isn’t clear Government can do much to put either trend into reverse.
Put the two challenges of rising unemployment and immigration control together and the populist script writes itself. Facing this danger – reinforced by the continued toxic salience of immigration in opinion polls – ministers may well have decided that it was vital to show they were getting a grip on the issue. I will leave others to decide whether presenting the public with alarming, but arguably misleading, statistics is a price worth paying to pre-empt allegations of complacency.
The Grayling/Green article is the second high profile example of the Coalition volunteering concern about its own policies. The first was David Cameron’s recognition of the inequities of removing child benefit from households containing a higher tax payer. I am not for a moment doubting the sincerity of the Prime Minister’s concern but it is noteworthy that not only did the Chancellor almost immediately confirm his intention to implement the change but, as Gavin Kelly pointed out, it is hardly credible that Mr Cameron has only just noticed a flaw (namely that a household with a single income of £45k will lose out while one with a combined income of £80k might not) which must have been apparent from the very first time it was floated by officials.
There is no reason why ministers cannot acknowledge problems with their own policies, indeed it could be seen as welcome candour. But aspects of both cases (the ministers’ apparent indifference to the impression created and Mr Cameron’s ‘discovery’ of the perverse impact of benefit withdrawal) suggest that the Coalition has of late been listening rather too carefully to the spin doctors’ advice.
Given the tough policies it is pursuing the Coalition’s popularity is holding up pretty well and most of the media continues to give it the benefit of the doubt. In these circumstances spinning can feel like an easy game to play. But as the weather of public opinion changes the political wicket takes spin less and less well.
Regardless of disagreements about the pace of spending cuts, there is no question the Coalition is trying to do something tough and brave with its austerity programme. Given the pain being suffered by ordinary folk, the credibility of the Government is important not just to its political aspirations but to national morale.
Modern politics inevitably involves creative communication, but selling a sizzle will stop being such an effective strategy once people start noticing the frequent absence of sausage.
Counter democracy
Last week, at the kind invitation of a Fellow, I was the lunch guest of a Middle Eastern bank.
The conversation turned quickly to UK politics and then to the US. The bankers were united in their sympathy for what they saw as our long term decline of that of our Atlantic cousins. They were in awe of the progress being made by China both at home and in extending its influence around the world, especially Africa. They were also contemptuous of American claims that China is taking unfair advantage by holding down the value of its currency. Their view was both the US and the UK and many other Western nations need to go through a long process of adjusting public expectations and restructuring their economy. But they considered this impossible due to the nature of our politics and democracy. ‘You need a benign dictatorship’ said one ‘but you have a crazy democracy’.
As America elects a House to oppose the President it elected two years ago (which will surely lead to logjam at best and chaos at worst) these words ring true. The Coalition in this country can be commended for being brave on the public finances (as I have said, this is a gamble which worries me but which I hope succeeds). However, there must be real question marks still about whether the people will react with such equanimity when the cuts start to bite. This piece by my former IPPR colleague – and former Brown advisor – Gavin Kelly suggests not.
I have spoken in the past about the way the consumerist myth of democracy (that politicians should give us what we want even when what we want is impossible or contradictory) saddled with us with the triple deficit of unsustainable consumption, unsustainable public spending and the generational legacy described by David Willetts in his book ‘The Pinch’.
I have just put a new book on my must-read list (currently 157 and rising). It is ‘Counter democracy, politics in an age of distrust’ by the French political historian, Pierre Rosanvallon. In it he argues that democracy performs two central tasks: first it is concerned with mechanisms for agreeing the common good and the parameters of a just society, second, it is dedicated to preventing the abuse of power by elected representatives. The emphasis placed on each of the two tasks changes from era to era.
Currently, for a variety for reasons – the decline of social deference and class based affiliation being the most significant – it is the second task of democracy which is the one which receives by far the greater predominance. One symptom is the tendency to devolve more and more decision making power to institutions which are more trusted than political parties to act in the public interest – the courts, the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee, the Office of Budgetary Responsibility etc.
But surely in the face of challenges and opportunities ranging from climate change and ageing to globalisation and technological innovation – it is the first task – the definition and pursuit of the good society which is now the most urgent. If political discourse is to focus on developing a common account of progress and winning consent for us all to play our role in its pursuit then we urgently need new ways of thinking about and practicing democracy
The strange case of conservative progressives
One of the most interesting lines in Tony Blair’s revealing book comes in the introduction:
’…I was and remain first and foremost not so much a politician of traditional left and right, but a moderniser. I wanted to modernise the Labour Party so it was capable, not intermittently but continuously, of offering a progressive alternative to Conservative rule. I wanted to modernise Britain so that, while retaining pride in having worn the mantle of the world’s most powerful nation as the twentieth century began, it didn’t feel bereft and in decline as the twenty first century began because that mantle would no longer fit’.
The admission that Blair was not a man of the left – indeed he acknowledges that on economics and law and order he is on the centre right – may appal some in the Labour Party but comes as no surprise to those of us who worked for him.
Everyday it seems a Labour leadership candidate repudiates another aspect of New Labour doctrine and record. But behind this tactical posturing there is a more profound questioning, which is of wider relevance and interest than Labour’s internal manoeuvrings.
In this month’s Prospect, two former Brown advisors Nick Pearce (now back as Director of ippr) and Gavin Kelly write about the need for social democrats to tap into a sense of ‘social patriotism’:
‘Beyond eco-conservativism, the centre-left hasn’t worked out the strands of conservative thinking that should form a core part of its political identity in the 21st century. Only when it finds a sure footing on this territory will it find a way of responding to some of the cultural concerns of the electorate that currently find expression in hostility to immigration.’
And here is Jon Cruddas MP, one of Labour’s most original and respected thinkers, writing in a few weeks ago in the New Statesman:
‘Labour has to win back…terrain with a language that can encompass both cosmopolitan modernity and English conservative culture, linking them together in a sense of national purpose. It would incorporate all the things Blair dismissed as anachronisms: tradition; a respect for settled ways of life; a sense of local place and belonging; a desire for home and rootedness; the continuity of relationships at work and in one’s neighbourhood.
England once had this kind of conservative, common culture; it acted as a counter to the commodification of labour and to social isolation. Ruskin provided its rallying cry, “There is no wealth but life.” At one time Labour gave expression to this kind of conservatism. It need not be reactionary, right-wing, or sentimental, although it has been all these things. Its political character will depend on Labour’s capacity to articulate a progressive and ethical conservatism that embraces difference. It need not be parochial or conformist: England celebrates a rich tradition of volatile, creative cultures. ’
These ideas strike a chord. Here is an extract from an article I wrote last year in Prospect:
‘New ideas about human nature can contribute to a more substantive meeting of minds between left and right. Thoughtful conservatives are once again recognising the importance of social context, inequality and the limits to market rationality. Labour thinkers can use the research to make the case for collective action and social justice, but they may also become more cautious about the capacity of the central state to empower communities, and more interested in the role of social norms and civic institutions”
So as Tony Blair reminds us that he was above all a moderniser, some thinkers from the left are exploring how (small ‘c’) conservative perspectives can be incorporated in the social democratic story.
Call me a sad case, but I find this intriguing. The RSA is a strictly politically non-aligned organisation but that doesn’t mean we aren’t interested in politics. Indeed, over the last few years we have had fascinating events discussing currents in left, right and liberal thinking.
Usually when people talk about moving beyond traditional left and right it is seen as a political ploy – a form of triangulation. But exploring the possibility of philosophy and practical politics which seeks to reconcile the ideals of social justice with the insights of social conservatism is a fascinating intellectual exercise.
I see an RSA event in which social democrats and social conservatives (like Roger Scruton or Ferdinand Mount, for example) are invited to explore common ground. Any takers?
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