I spent last week in Moscow, a strange destination for Spring Break. It was hardly Cancun, but on the upside it allowed for some fascinating meetings with Russian officials. I’d been naïve about the extent of Putin’s 2005 anti-democratic reforms: the replacement of elected governors by Kremlin appointees, the barring of small political parties, and the use of state-owned energy company Gazprom to quash media dissent. For anyone interested, there’s an excellent summary from Human Rights Watch here
Arriving back in New York at the weekend, the good news was of course healthcare; scrolling across a Times Square billboard on Sunday: ‘Historic health bill passes’. The NYT gives a good summary here of the main aspects of the bill, and a nice history of attempts at reform here.
As a British progressive, it’s hard not to gulp in relief as the clamor of battle dies down, grateful that we don’t have to wage full scale war every time we want to get something done. To pass healthcare, Democrats had to enter the fight of their lives – charging full speed toward a brutal and tenacious opposition backed by hoards of lobbyists and armed with billions of dollars of weaponry. Worse, they had to fight the battle uphill, overcoming both the inherent conservatism of the US political system, and the hostility of a conservative media.
It’s not a situation we’d want to emulate in the UK, but there are upsides from which we can learn. First, there is no better way to draw political distinctions than by having a bloody great fight. In making the case for healthcare, president Obama was forced to hit the road, laying out in speech after speech the progressive case for reform. In the UK, too many voters still see little difference between the parties, and those who do are more likely to take a chance with Cameron’s offer of change. That is particularly true when it comes to the public services, where we face an unprecedented challenge of salience. In 1997, 54 per cent of the British public thought that education was a key issue facing Britain. By 2005, that figure had fallen to 30 per cent. Today, it is 14 per cent. For the NHS, these figures are 63 per cent, 44 per cent and 17 per cent. Too little radicalism – and not enough fight – has allowed these key progressive issues to wane from the public’s consciousness.
Second, as William Saletan argues for Slate, one upside of the last year is that Republicans are now perceived as the party of No. Obama felt – rightly or wrongly – that he needed GOP support to secure reform and, in the face of their intransigence, he pursued an approach of ‘aggressive transparency’. When Republicans opposed him but offered no solutions of their own, he called them out, hauling them before the TV cameras to thrash out a deal before the eyes of the American people. Given today’s powerful anti-incumbent sentiment, that has been an effective way of sharing the responsibility of government – and ensuring that the opposition take their fair share of the anger directed at Washington. As I wrote in February Labour could learn lessons from that approach, doing much more to hold the Tories to account when they are unconstructive, and have no response to the big challenges facing Britain.
Of course, it’s difficult to enter battles like this voluntarily. But we might find upsides if we start some of our own in coming weeks, not least on social care, financial reform and entitlements in the public services.
Excellent article. Time for Labour to wake up and call the opposition parties to account. Within the next month the Government has to articulate their argument and convince voters. In the absence of anything convincing the Conservatives need do nothing more than wait for the inevitable results of discontent and a low poll.