If Gordon Brown has not discovered his ‘vision’ by Christmas it will not be the fault of the nation’s thinktanks, who have talked about little else during the last month. Indeed, one phrase in particular has been doing the rounds as the country’s top political thinkers call on the PM to join up his policy detail into an inspirational grand narrative.
First the Fabians were at it with the release of Vision Thing, a paper written by general secretary Sunder Katwala calling on Gordon Brown to ‘define his vision if he is to win another term in office’.
‘The prime minister can powerfully rebut the charge that his government has no clear idea about what it wishes to do with power,’ wrote Katwala reassuringly. ‘To do that, he must paint a clearer public picture of the Britain which his government strives to create by ‘going public’ with his vision of a fairer and more equal society.’
Next were the ippr’s co-directors, Carey Oppenheim and Lisa Harker, who penned a piece for Public Finance magazine, catchily titled ‘The vision thing’, asserting that: ‘Although critics have claimed that Brown’s agenda amounts to little more than piecemeal responses to public concerns…they are wrong to think that there is no defining narrative running beneath these offers. Brown is following a clear path to the future, and it is intellectually sound.’
Not to be outdone, this esteemed publication last month published an article outlining why Brown must put the fight against inequality at the heart of his government’s mission. You can guess its title.
Readers are invited to send in headlines conveying this core message to Brown without using the words ‘vision’ or ‘thing’ – no easy task. The winner will receive a copy of Policy Exchange’s eagerly-anticipated new pamphlet, Choice, What Choice? while the runner up will be rewarded with that Policy Network classic The Hampton Court Agenda: A Social Model for Europe.
If all else fails, it may have to fall to civil servants to ensure that all hackneyed, worn out phrases are eliminated from ministers’ speeches and articles. After all, the man in Whitehall knows best.
–
Iain Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice thinktank has hit the headlines again – this time not for feeding the Tories ill-considered tax proposals but for recruiting disgraced former cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken to head a study on prison reform.
On Radio 4’s Today programme, Aitken offered the startling insight that prison is ‘no holiday camp’ and said he had found being in prison a ‘painful and difficult experience, although ultimately a positive one’.
Labour whip Tom Watson reacted to the news with a hilarious onslaught, indicating that a career as a stand-up comic could beckon should he choose to resign from the government again. ‘What can we expect next from the Tories?’ he asked. ‘David Cameron should go all the way, bring in Jeffrey Archer to run a truth and reconciliation committee, draft Neil Hamilton in to advise him on parliamentary modernisation and scrutiny and bring in Shirley Porter to overhaul his housing policy.’