The origins of the present footballing crisis

June 28, 2010 by · 6 Comments
Filed under: The RSA 

Fortunately, I was distracted from the football fiasco by spending much of the day moderating the final event in the RSA Changing Chelmsford programme (of which more later). But I can’t resist a Marxist interpretation of England’s abysmal showing.

In a famous New Left Review essay published in 1964, Perry Anderson wrote about ‘the origins of the present crises’. Anderson was discussing the sense that Britain was inexorably set on a long process of post imperial decline. At its core,  Anderson’s argument was that the English Civil War was not a proper class based revolution – of the kind which occurred in other European countries – but a fight between factions of the aristocracy. That the war centred on religion also meant class interests were obscured. In consequence a historic compromise took place in which the bourgeoisie was allowed to come to power as long as it kept the aristocracy  in place. It is this compromise that underpins the sclerotic, complacent nature of British (and especially English) political culture.

The application to English football is clear. It too is a unholy compromise between a useless, status-ridden, incompetent ruling class at the FA and a money-grubbing, self interested and amoral Premiership. The deal has two aspects. The Premiership can keep raking it in and enjoying all its perks despite doing terrible damage to the national game; witness its utter indifference in the face of the disastrous financial regimes at clubs like Portsmouth and Hull and the irresponsible and transparently dishonest buy outs of Liverpool and Manchester United.  In return the FA is allowed to stumble on, incompetent, unreformed and increasingly ludicrous.

And who is it that suffers in this pact? Well, who else but ordinary fans; many priced out of watching their clubs, the national game reduced to an international laughing stock, many smaller clubs on the verge of bankrupcy and a shambolic youth system in which, for example, 10 year olds are expected to play on full size mud patch pitches.

It’s not a new manager we need, nor touchline technology, but a full scale footballing revolution: who currently in a position of authority in either the Premiership or the FA should be left in post?

Anyway, back in Chelmsford we had a great day with lots of ideas and commitment. In the end the initiative will be judged by whether, now the formal process is coming to an end, the seeds it has sown turn into new policies and projects. Not for the first time I was struck by the overwhelming desire of people to live in places which feel more distinct, more rooted in their past, more connected to a compelling future. From a variety of starting points the RSA is getting more involved in place-shaping, a task which will I think become even more important as public sector austerity kicks in.

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Bad news Ringen in New Labour ears

September 15, 2009 by · 5 Comments
Filed under: Politics, The RSA 

For all of you dismissive of New Labour’s record there is now a perfect primer for your case. Its diagnosis is powerful but, in my view, its prescription less so. 

Stein Ringen is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at Oxford. He speaks in clipped precise tones and with a bone dry sense of humour. So when last night at the RSA he summarised his short but powerful book ‘The economic consequences of Mr Brown’ thus: “Gordon Brown promised prudence with a purpose. He failed”, the Great Room audience sat up and took notice. 

Ringen shows that since 1997 the UK’s very high child poverty levels have hardly moved, that health inequalities have grown, the downward curve of crime has hit a plateau and, while there have been some gains in educational outcomes, even these are contested.

It is a powerful analysis and not one that anyone involved in New Labour should dismiss lightly. Having said this, Ringen does look through the darkest of lenses. For example, he doesn’t ask what the trends would have been without a Labour Government (which had for example to deal with underlying drivers of greater inequality and cost generating shifts like population growth and the threat of terrorism). Nor does he recognise that some of the things Labour delivered (like the abolition of long waiting lists) were public priorities even if not ones he thinks important. Finally, the good professor doesn’t recognise the impact of major increases in capital spending, particularly on schools and in the NHS.

But while I might want to qualify Ringen’s assessment, I absolutely agree with his diagnosis. Labour’s big failing, he argues, was that it did not mobilise the public or public service professions behind its core social and public service objectives.  Having failed to build this trust and commitment (which was there waiting to be tapped in 1997) ministers came to rely more and more on central control, which in turn led to public service overload and demoralisation. Anyone who has ever run an organisation knows how easy it is to get into this downward spiral.

But why was mobilisation so difficult? For Ringen it all comes down to our creaking constitution. He argues that only measures such as increasing the power of Parliament, devolving more power to local Government, and taking money out of politics will lead to better, more coherent, more honest policy making. I support these measures but I don’t think that they alone solve the challenge of mobilisation.

This, I think, comes down to some bigger problems about the way English people think about the English state, and the deeper culture of public life and democratic discourse. (It is now nearly fifty years old but still for me the classic text here is Perry Anderson’s ‘The origins of the Present Crisis’.

This is why I have argued that an incoming Cameron Government (assuming there is to be one) needs to use its honeymoon period to embark on the long process of changing the terms of trade between Government and citizens. Ringen is right that bad governance leads to bad policy leads to disappointing outcomes, but it is the content of the conversation between governors and governed – indeed the very idea of this relationship – that has to change, not just the rules that frame that conversation.

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