In 1952, in the final chapter of In Place of Fear, Nye Bevan wrote that ‘progress is not the elimination of struggle but rather a change in its terms.’ In the next few weeks, 51 years later, Labour’s new centre for policy research, Forethought, will publish Britain in 2020 – a hard-headed analysis of the facts and forecasts for progress and ‘struggle’ as Labour renews itself over the next eighteen years.
In Japan, there is a proverb that says: ‘in politics, one inch ahead is darkness’. So looking eighteen years ahead, to when this year’s newborns get the vote, is difficult. But what leaps out, from twenty pages summarising scores of trends from dozens of sources, are three key conclusions.
Conclusion one is the good news – that there is, on balance, unmistakable evidence that tomorrow’s Labour party can be more ambitious – not less – to remake Britain as a fairer, more prosperous and more exciting country.
For years, commentators have carped on about the idea that in politics, there is less and less room for manoeuvre. In fact, there is more. Today, we are better educated, better equipped and better connected with the best ideas, not only in our country but wherever on the planet they are conceived, than at any point in our history.
Think about the Britain of eighteen years ago. In 1984, 48 percent of the workforce was unqualified – just one in seven got to go to university and only one-third of sixteen year-olds stayed in education. Unemployment was over three million, the miners’ strike began in March, the Eastern bloc boycotted the Los Angeles Olympics, we discovered AIDS, Ethiopia’s famine prompted Live Aid and Ronald Reagan was re-elected by a landslide. In fact, the only ray of sunshine was Torville and Dean’s perfect scores in the Olympics and Britain’s first test-tube babies.
Today, we already have more latitude. In a global society, we are one of the world’s most open economies. Britain is a hub of international trade – 2001’s turnover on the London stock exchange was £5 trillion – and there are thirteen million British nationals living abroad. In a knowledge society, 90 percent of our workforce is now qualified. Business management and computer science are the most popular degrees, and our university graduation rate is the highest in the OECD. We have the world’s second largest biotechnology industry with nearly £2 billion in sales, the world’s second best environment for e-commerce, and 80 percent of our businesses have websites.
The Britain of 2020 will be wealthier and healthier still. Computers will be around 4,000 times more powerful. The economic output of two working weeks is forecast to fit into just two working days, and the nation will be 50 to 60 percent wealthier. By 2005 we will have mapped the human genome. By 2010 artificial hearts will be in use and genetic screening will let us predict when illness might strike; by 2015 we will have developed artificial lungs and genetic-based medicine will help treat a third of life-threatening disease. By 2020, a new-born girl can expect to live and see in the 22nd century. The risk we run, to quote Bevan again, is not that we offer the country too much vitality, but too little.
And therein lies the second conclusion of Britain in 2020 – that if Labour gets it wrong, we run the risk of a new era of inequality. At home, the key will be the guarantee that new possibilities don’t become privileges of the few, but the options of the many.
It will almost certainly mean another revolution in our public services – and ongoing victories in arguments for investment. Our health service will have to ensure that the revolution in genetics, the new possibilities for home treatment and remote diagnostics reach everyone who could benefit, not just those who can afford it.
Our schools, colleges and universities will have to skill and re-skill our workforce for an economy where computer skills become fundamental to employability and which change even faster than today. Demand for transport, housing and social care will all grow enormously. Rail travel may rise 38 percent by 2011; by 2020 nearly one-third of Britons will be over 60; and by 2021 we may need another four million homes.
And, as demands rise, so too will expectations. In five years time, British people are forecast to spend the majority of their household income on services for the first time – and as exposure to the service economy grows, voters will expect more from government. Already, Britons are better informed about public service issues (there are, for example, 46 UK health consumer magazines – compared to thirteen in 1992), 50 percent more likely to complain about bad service than five years ago and much busier – 66 percent of people now agree with the statement ‘I never have enough time to get things done’, up by twenty percent on ten years ago. As a consequence we will expect more flexible, more convenient services – and have less time for standards that do not hit the mark.
Abroad, too, our international responsibilities will grow. A world of trade is not a world of trust, and as Britain’s trade continues to expand – globally and with the new, enlarged Europe – so too will our responsibilities for peace-keeping, development, leadership of the environmental agenda and reform of international institutions.
The third conclusion from Britain in 2020 is a message for the party. The change that has been a hallmark of the last eighteen years will be a permanent feature of the next. The party of 2020 must become not just the radical centre in our country, but a centre of radicalism in every community.
Westminster will be one important route to change. But in a country where only fifteen percent of the population trust political parties, just 33 percent trust the government, and over half of fifteen to 24 year-olds say they are ‘not interested in politics’. Our community institutions – schools, colleges, primary care trusts, councils – and our community enterprise will therefore become a vital focus.
Take the example of IT. In 1984, the PC had just been launched and the internet barely heard of. Today, computer skills are a ‘key requirement’ of employability and as fundamental to an equal society as learning how to read. To meet the challenge, the Labour government has had to provide investment, trade unionists have had to promote workplace learning, Labour councillors boost access, Labour governors ensure that computers get into classrooms, and social entrepreneurs have had to form organisations to help ensure that even the most under-privileged and disaffected get a chance to go online.
It will be this multi-lateral ability to act – not just to understand the new possibilities for Britain, but also to deliver them to every corner of British society – which will ensure that Labour not only rises to the challenge of change, but truly lays the foundation of a century of progressive politics.