While the summer months saw MPs vacate their Westminster desks and head for sunnier climes, the policy wonks of our nation’s thinktanks were toiling away more than ever, churning out reports on the kind of topics usually only discussed at Miliband family barbeques.
The Fabian Society published Facing Out, its long-awaited pamphlet on party reform, with a title alluding to the wise words of that Men’s Vogue model (and former PM) who told delegates at last year’s Progress annual conference that the party must ‘face out, and not face in’.
The pamphlet comes out fighting against those naysayers who predict there is little future for membership parties but says that Labour must alter its structures and procedures pretty radically if it is to engage the Make Poverty History generation.
In the event that the pamphlet found its way into Gordon Brown’s holiday luggage it will have made useful reading for the new prime minister whose own party reform proposals have been met with scepticism in some quarters of the Labour movement. The Campaign for Labour Party Democracy predictably responded to the PM’s plans to rein in the decision-making powers of party conference by issuing a strongly worded statement insisting that ‘the proposals represent a serious threat to genuine party democracy’. Those who have attended Compositing meetings might not agree.
While the lefty tanks have been pondering party reform, those on the right have wasted no time in taking shots at the new premier’s raft of policy announcements. Reform issued a report at the end of July purporting to show ‘that the initial decisions of Gordon Brown’s government have put public service reform into retreat’, leading to the cardinal old Labour sins of increasing public spending and reducing efficiency.
Over at the Adam Smith Institute, in addition to producing reports entitled Stemming the Growth of UK Regulatory Agencies, a lot of work appears to have gone into the Joke of the Day section of the organisation’s website, a useful resource for those making lucrative after-dinner speeches or looking to impress the opposite sex at Conservative Future speed dating events. One particular favourite wisecrack is about a businessman on his deathbed who tells a friend to send his ashes to the taxman once he dies with a note that says ‘now you have everything.’
Those in wonk world might not have been taking much holiday over the summer, but they have sure been enjoying themselves.