Rob Blackhurst, until recently communications director at the Foreign Policy Centre, has caused ripples in wonk world with an article in the New Statesman decrying the current state of Britain’s political thinktanks. Once the intellectual hothouses of government, today’s tanks, writes Blackhurst, are failing to influence the policies of political parties.‘
Aside from a few neat ideas such as baby bonds, for which both the Fabians and ippr claim paternity, it is hard to think of any policy for which thinktanks have made the running’, he moans.
According to Blackhurst, the main reason for the tanks’ current lack of political clout is their over-dependence on the corporate wallet. As an example, he cites Demos’ recent work on the future of telecoms regulation, sponsored by Cable and Wireless. Keen wonks will remember that this worthy project resulted in the embarrassing Guardian headline: ‘Break up BT, says Demos. Its sponsor? C&W’.
Those who have ever reeled in horror at the endless procession of corporate puppet shows offered up at the party conference fringe will no doubt concur with Blackhurst that ‘if we want serious, well-researched policy-making, free from corporate whim, the state will have to pay for it.’ However, given the particular drubbing Blackhurst’s former employer comes in for – whose Russian democracy programme is benefiting from the financial largesse of an ‘unnamed Russian oligarch’, apparently – we can’t help feeling the real reasons for the article lie a little closer to home.
If there is one thinktank that can be counted on for ‘serious, well-researched policy-making’, it’s Prospect’s thinktank of the year, the New Local Government Network. Their latest publication, New Localism in Action, continues to champion their pet concept of new localism, by looking at how new localist thinking is impacting on the frontline delivery of public services.
The pamphlet features a range of essays from key practitioners and thinkers working in transport, education, housing and community safety, showing how new localist thinking can benefit service delivery across policy sectors. The contributions demonstrate that public service policy in general is undergoing a process of transformation, with autonomy from central control increasingly sought after. ‘New localism may sound like a fancy bit of theory, but our conclusion is that if we followed its principles we could see profound improvements in the services that our citizens want and pay for’, the collection concludes.
Featuring a foreword by the Home Office minister Hazel Blears, who calls on local councils to be given a more pivotal role in the delivery of new localism, here is one thinktank still firmly on the government’s radar.
Finally, to an organisation we could hardly accuse of being addicted to the private pound, Compass. In their latest pamphlet, its chair Neal Lawson warns the Labour party that it needs to Dare More Democracy if it is to achieve the promise of a radical third term.
The pamphlet argues that Britain is currently in the throws of a ‘democratic and identity crisis’. This crisis, Lawson argues, ‘is being fuelled by New Labour’s over-enthusiastic accommodation with neo-liberalism and its continuing adherence to the culture and practice of Labourism.’ Roll back the boundaries of the market, the former lobbyist suggests, and the democratic yearnings of society will be sated.
To substantiate his case, Lawson takes a distinctly New Labour turn by using evidence from focus groups commissioned especially for the publication. The groups certainly reveal deep cynicism about the political process among the great British public. Perhaps what Lawson didn’t expect to find, however, was such overt racism directed against immigrants. Luckily, our budding Marx has an explanation: ‘What these fears reflect is a wider and deeper-rooted sense of insecurity bought about by the demands of unfettered market capitalism.’ As the great Donald Rumsfeld once said, ‘if your only solution is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.’