Local news
New Labour s approach to public service reform has come a long way. The launching of centrally devised initiative after initiative and a flirtation with crude command and control techniques has given way more recently to a cool-headed commitment to earned autonomy, which could be termed steering centralism . As a result, local authorities today have the scope to be innovative in delivering tangible improvements to our public services.
The government s move in this direction is laudable. What it lacks, however, is an overarching commitment to a strategy which blends resources and capacities from the state, market and civil society. This is essential to the creation of a real dynamic for change as well as a base for a vibrant politics to re-engage people in their communities. It is also vital for the different form of governance that the New Local Government Network, in a recent report, refers to as new localism (New Localism: refashioning the centre-local relationship).
As with all new theories, new localism raises as many questions as it answers. In giving greater freedoms to localities, will central government be strong enough to live with the consequences of local failure; developing fast and effective responses to be used only as a last resort? What can be done to ensure that this new civic realm has the best professional leadership? Is it realistic to expect the electorate to understand that responsibility rests with their local representatives, or do we need alternative forms of political accountability? And when devolving greater powers to those operating at local level, how do we ensure they act on behalf of all their communities?
Those who wish to dismiss new localism out of hand will also raise such questions but these concerns are clearly not insurmountable. For example, in ensuring that minorities and poorer members of a locality are not denied services, we would first address what needs to be determined centrally and what can be done locally.
One fundamental question is whether localism is compatible with a desire to equalise opportunity and redistribute wealth. Yet many social democratic countries in Europe believe and act upon far more re-distributionalist motivations than Britain, succeeding in their aims within systems more profoundly devolved than our own. While equalisation will remain part of how government helps the less well off, the associated problems eg perverse incentives for local authorities not to succeed will be less powerful once local players have greater freedom to act. Only a pessimist would view this as accepting both the further expansion of differentials and the giving up of the struggle for social justice and equality in some modernising quest for a more complex democracy.
Whatever form it takes, centralism will always fall short of offering us the prospect of a richer, more diverse and pluralist democracy that motivates local actors and promotes a feeling of community. New localism, on the other hand, has the potential to do all of this, while at the same time offering us the potential to achieve high-class delivery in our public services.
weblink: www.nlgn.org.uk Dan Corry is executive director and Professor Gerry Stoker is chair of the New Local Government Network
The policy donkey race
The Labour Party conference in Blackpool witnessed frenetic activity from the centre-left think-tanks. Each one tried harder than its rivals to grab attention, make a splash and get bums on seats for various fringe events.
Time was when organisations booked a room in a hotel, ordered some curly sandwiches and got a couple of politicians to address some urgent issue. Not any more. This year in Blackpool we saw the think-tanks go into fringe event overdrive. The Institute for Public Policy Research booked the entire Rosecrea hotel on the promenade, and renamed it Illuminations . It was going to be called the Policy Palace , until friends from the Social Market Foundation threatened to hire a Policy Beach Hut and some Policy Donkeys on the beach. With a string of fairy lights around the door, the IPPR s illuminations never quite managed to rival the Blackpool illuminations outside.
The joint think-tank awards, in conjunction with Prospect magazine, were held in Tussauds wax museum. The New Economics Foundation picked up think-tank of the year, Civitas, an offshoot of the right-leaning Institute for Economic Affairs, won one to watch and the IPPR won pamphlet of the year for its work on pensions. The audience were looked down on by Cher, the Queen, David Beckham and friends. By the end of the evening, the waxwork of John Major was trouserless.
The Fabian Society, however, surpassed its rivals by hiring Blackpool pier for its party, laying on free rides on the carousel. There s a joke in there somewhere about spin, or going round in circles, or taking everyone for a ride.
There was some serious discussion in amongst the stunts, drunks and jollity. The Fabian Society hosted meetings on Iraq, farming, railways, economics and energy policy. Demos held six meetings with speakers including Roy Hattersley, David Blunkett and Douglas Alexander.
The SMF held over 20 events, on subjects including social entrepreneurship, poverty, cities, communications, globalisation, transport and young people. It was only a couple of years ago that the SMF held just one fringe meeting at Labour Party conference truly its rehabilitation as a left-of-centre think-tank is complete.
The SMF also hosted one of the more entertaining meetings on spin in politics, with the ghosts of spin past, present and future in the shape of David Hill, former Labour Party communications director, Douglas Alexander and Labour s latest spin doctor, Eddie Morgan. What might have been a serious examination of the symbiosis between media and politics instead became a slanging match between David Jordan from the BBC and Elinor Goodman from Channel 4 on one side, and David Hill and Douglas Alexander on the other.
Finally a word on Blackpool. Streets covered in litter, drunks using the streets as open urinals, surly and unhelpful service in hotels and restaurants, uneatable food, a stifling lack of ventilation in the Winter Gardens (which Blair even mentioned in his speech!) and the unnecessary crush in the Imperial Hotel bar. Let us say now: never, ever again will we hold Labour Party conference in Blackpool. Next time, let s make it somewhere capable of hosting a major conference, such as Manchester.
Paul Richards is vice chair of the Fabian Society
Election hangs on transfers
When the government decided to allow London an executive mayor, it seemed almost inconceivable that Labour candidates would not win the post easily for the foreseeable future. But now, as Labour selects its candidate for the 2004 election, he or she faces a daunting task in challenging Ken Livingstone.
An independent, of course, is theoretically at a disadvantage through having no team of party workers campaigning for him; but public disaffection for political parties is putting the boot on the other foot. Already this year independent mayors have been elected, mostly on low turnouts, in Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Stoke-on-Trent, Bedford and Mansfield. Party loyalty among habitual Labour voters looks a fragile tool to use against Livingstone at the moment.
Yet Labour s vote won t be as weak as in 2000 when Frank Dobson s selection as candidate ahead of Livingstone caused controversy. The possibility worrying both camps is that the vote may split so evenly between Labour and Livingstone as to allow the Conservative to slip through the middle.
All may therefore depend on the supplementary vote electoral system. Each voter may express a second preference as well as a first choice vote; all but the leading two candidates are excluded and their second preferences are added to the count provided their second choice is one of the two remaining candidates.
In 2000, Livingstone and Norris reached the run-off. Only just over a third of voters for the other nine runners gave either their second preference; the remainder, one in five of those who voted, played no part in choosing the winner. What if it is not clear who is likely to reach the final round? Livingstone and Labour may ask their supporters to give their second preferences to each other but Lib Dems and Greens who don t want a Conservative mayor must guess who will reach the last two against the Tory guess wrong and their votes are wasted.
As incumbent, Livingstone and his record will inevitably be at the centre of the argument. His congestion charging policy, to be implemented from February, will surely be a major election issue, succeed or fail. Conservatives will portray Livingstone as the anti-car candidate, and the Conservative candidate, especially if it is Norris again, will find a pro-car platform a natural one round which to build a coalition wider than habitual Conservative voters. Labour s candidate risks being marginalised as the standard-bearer of neither side in an argument where a third way may satisfy nobody. Labour s chances may therefore rest on achieving high salience for some different issue, on which a Labour vote seems a more natural option.
Dr Roger Mortimore is senior political analyst at MORI Social Research Institute
A close look at the big picture
Former education secretary Estelle Morris heads the line-up of speakers at Progress first major regional conference to be held in Manchester on Saturday 23 November.
The conference, entitled a close look at the big picture , will bring together party members, politicians, academics and trade unionists to discuss their thoughts on future Labour policy.
Following highly successful national conferences in London and Edinburgh, our first regional event is part of Progress commitment to encouraging real debate and dialogue between the leadership and the grassroots.
Confirmed speakers are the environment minister Michael Meacher; David Lammy, chair of Progress; pensions minister Ian McCartney; Professor David Denver of Lancaster University; Ivan Lewis, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Education and Skills; Kate Markey, editor of The Big Issue in the North; Councillor Azhar Ali, chair of the North West Regional Assembly; Professor Gerry Stoker of Manchester University; Tom Manion, chief executive of Irwell Valley Housing Association; Professor Hillel Steiner of the University of Manchester; Jon Egan, managing director of October Communications; Bill Berry of Unison; and MPs Andy Burnham, David Chaytor and Phil Woolas.
The day will be made up of a keynote plenary in the morning, seminars, and a question time session in the afternoon, entitled Ask the ministers . The seminars are Politics of participation: can we be bothered to vote? ; The rights stuff: rights and responsibilities in a modern society ; and Power to the people: can devolution deliver?
The venue for the conference is the Mechanics Institute, Princess Street, Manchester. Full details of the programme are available on the Progress website. ”
- If you would like to receive a registration form for the conference please email your address to [email protected] or download a form from our website. Weblink: www.progressives.org.uk/events
Minority reports
Nicholas Soames, alleged author of some of the Prince of Wales insightful missives to ministers, is said to be on the liberal wing of the Conservative Party.
MP for highly marginal Crawley until 1997, when he did a runner to the somewhat safer climes of Mid Sussex, Soames introduced Michael Portillo when the latter launched his 2001 campaign to win the Tory leadership. Soames, had served under Portillo at the Ministry of Defence.
But how in-touch with the agenda of the Tory Party s nice bunch is Soames really? In the summer, after Lord Tebbit attacked the modernising spotty youths at Tory Central Office, Soames rushed to join the foray, telling The Mail on Sunday: The Conservatives will not get anywhere until they end this mad obsession with gays, blacks and women and start behaving like a grown-up party. Soames also refused to sign the Commission for Racial Equality s declaration on racism during the 2001 general election.
Of course, Soames, a former equerry to Prince Charles, has also spoken out against spiteful and reckless attacks on minorities . But does this signal a renewed commitment to Tory liberalism? Not exactly – the deserving minority to which he was referring were fox hunters.