Weather patterns can be very local. Sometimes you can stand amidst a raging storm in London SW1, and then cross over from Westminster to, say, SE11 and find the sky is glassy calm. Looking back, it is hard not wonder what all the fuss is about. Right now it is about tuition fees.
Any Labour supporter knows what it is like to be lectured over dinner on every egregious act the government has ever perpetrated. But this issue, and in particular the difference between the ‘rebels’ and the government, is largely invisible to people outside SW1. It is safe to go out and socialise. Tuition fees is no single mothers’ benefits, 75p pension rise or petrol tax. Of course, there are a few people who think that university expansion should be entirely funded by general taxation (surely deeply regressive spending), but on the whole, the point of difference that is forcing the parliamentary party into a game of chicken, and the political media into a frenzy is all but invisible outside SW1.
In Gulliver’s Travels Lilliput and Blefuscu stand on the edge of war over which side to open an egg. Even reading that at school it seemed a little strained as an idea.
But, of course, that was before the age of ceaseless political programming. It’s a slow news day in Lilliput. The editor of Mildendu This Morning (the capital’s keenly watched morning news programme) invites on a leading opening-the-top-of-the-egg advocate and a heretic who wants to switch to the bottom. Or maybe they report on a possible change in the government position based on something a junior minister wrote in a local newspaper about eggs. Perhaps they just put out a report saying tempers are rising in the debate – and then invite people on to comment about the rising temperature of the debate.
The issue of top-up fees has been with us for years now. Over that time the real substance of what people have argued against has changed bewilderingly. At first it was an argument against top-up fees in principle. Then the issue was used as a critique of Labour party democracy. Now debate is centring on variable fees.
Remarkably the level of passion stays just as high as the debate moves on to ever smaller points of detail. Principle remains stubbornly vested in the remaining atoms of contention. Almost everything that matters to people outside politics has gone, all that remains is disagreement and faction. Instead of distilling to the heart of the matter, the long process of political debate has served to uncover intractable disagreement.
It is a fine example, too, of how the process of compromise can actually serve to harden positions. Each side thinks only they are being reasonable with their concessions and so end up bunkered down under remaining points of principle.
Nothing could be more boring for someone not personally caught up.
The Labour party risks seeming out of touch with the country to pursue this argument to the end. An argument about what exactly? Now most of the debate is settled on whether universities should be able to vary course fees or not. What real difference does that make? For someone going on one of the majority of courses expected to cost the full amount it could mean fees £500 lower a year – and what is that spread over 25 years? For someone going on a ‘cheaper’ course, it could mean that they a pay little more.
In any case, for anyone outside Westminster the difference is lost. All that can be heard is people arguing about something different than what they are actually talking about. It is rather like being a toddler overhearing your parents arguing in code, but much, much less interesting.
It is true that there is a lesson in all this for the government. Party democracy must be adhered to. A great deal of the hatred of this bill comes from its sudden emergence as a fully formed policy outside the usual party system. It is true that anything imposed is vexatious. But the bigger lesson is for the whole Labour party – and how we do our business in the modern world.
There is an indulgence in allowing ourselves to be drawn into these spectacular, set-piece battles. While the party enjoy the thrill of parading principles and enjoys the agonies of principled indecision; those watching from the outside are nonplussed, repulsed and bored.
It is the tendency of a mature governing party to turn in on itself. This is much exacerbated by a media perpetually hungry for news and lazy enough to think that all dissention is interesting. Sadly it is a regular sight to get two Labour MPs invited on to a programme to discuss issues. Worse, it is pretty common to see all four parties invited on: Labour, Tories, Liberals and Labour Rebels. The real battle for the Labour party is in the country. Do we really think all the arguments there have been won? Is this county now more progressive? Has the terrible atomisation, fear of outsiders, and loss of hope engendered by Thatcher really been entirely reversed? Perhaps when these battles are finally won the time will come when the Labour party can issue a general invitation to gaze upon its navel and allow the press to set the issues of the day alone.
In the meantime it has, at every level, to learn how to resist the temptation to turn one issue a year into a titanic, boring, struggle over points of detail. Whatever the ending of this the result can barely strengthen the Labour government. I hope the vote goes well. But even if it does and the rebellion is less extensive than predicted, just think of what the opposition have been able to get away with. The Labour party has made such a racket that the two opposition parties have been able to offer nonsense policies without being serious challenged. Michael Howard has even managed to drop his party’s policy mid-stream. And worst of all the Labour party will have planted itself in some peoples’ minds as fractious and out of touch. This kind of debate is a temptation that Labour must learn to refuse.