Politics is about winning the argument. In 1945 and 1997, the Labour party convincingly won the argument about what should happen next. In 1979, Margaret Thatcher did the same. In the 1990s, Labour argued that social justice and economic efficiency were codependent, not alternatives. In 1979, the Tories argued that the free market was the answer to economic decline. in both cases enough of the voters agreed.
In 2010, neither party won the argument. The result was confusion: Labour lost convincingly, but the Tories didn’t win. The resulting coalition was formed without a mandate for its programme nor public comprehension of its intent. That means that Cameron and Clegg’s first task was to win the argument, not before an election, but in the months after it. It was expressed in simple terms: Labour’s public spending binge has bankrupted the country; there is no alternative to deep cuts to public spending. It’s a shame, but never forget it’s all Labour’s fault. Cameron and Osborne may be pursuing a Thatcherite programme, but they are presenting themselves as reluctant cutters. They’re not doing it because they want to, but because they have to, or so they say. Labour’s counter-narrative is struggling to be heard. Our central message that the deficit was caused by timely and courageous action to save the banks – and our savings, pensions and wages – from collapse has been lost altogether.
The Tories’ Gertrude-like protests and hangdog expressions every time a new cut is announced is scarcely credible. The truth is that they are cutting because they want to. The economic crisis gives them the perfect opportunity. Their motive is not necessity but desire. The modern Tory party is committed in its soul to a smaller state, achieved through reductions in public expenditure. They never won the argument after the British public’s rejection of Thatcherism in the 1990s. Part of Cameron’s detoxification was to ringfence overseas aid and the NHS. So the combination of a global economic crisis and a monumentally unpopular fag-end of a Labour government presented the Tories with the opportunity of a political lifetime. They can’t believe their luck.
Cameron, Osborne and the rest grew up with Thatcher as their guiding light. Cameron served in her Research Department, surrounded by the works of Nozick, Hayek, Friedman and pamphlets from the Adam Smith Institute. One of Cameron’s ministers Alan Duncan co-wrote a book in 1995 Saturn’s Children which provides a blueprint to understanding the current government. The allusion in the title is to the Roman god Saturn who ate his own offspring for fear of usurpation. So the modern state devours personal liberty. The book advocates ‘the liquidation of the state… until its obtrusive bulk is banished from the private lives of English men and women there will be no moral opportunities to seize, or needs to be met, or institutions or associations to be founded, which the state has not already corrupted or crowded out.’
The means to achieve this is also made clear: ‘the liquidation of the state cannot be achieved without a drastic reduction in public expenditure.’ Lest you were concerned that this was merely a philosophical exercise, the authors helpfully provide a list of government services to be sliced. High on the list is overseas aid. Alan Duncan, by the way, is currently a minister at the department for international development. Then comes training, housing, education, the entire department for national heritage (a forerunner to the DCMS), the civil service, foreign office, student support and the police. The hardback edition includes lengthy advocacy for the legalisation and taxation of hard drugs (dropped from the paperback). Another wacky idea is the privatisation of forests. But can you imagine a government rabid enough to attempt it? Oh, hang on.
This is a Tory government animated by a smaller state. The leader and logo has changed but the driving impulses and instincts have not. They hope to take Britain on an ideological journey ever rightwards. One each separate issue, from abolition of the RDAs and child trust funds, to child benefit and the voluntary sector, they will attempt to win the smaller argument, but only as part of a bigger argument about the size of the state. Sure, the presence of Liberal Democrats in the cabinet and government departments gives some cover for the ideologues. But let’s not forget that the Lib Dems’ first choice for chief secretary (before that spot of bother over his expenses) was David Laws. He wrote in the Orange Book that ‘reducing the state’s role in the economy’ was the aim of Lib Demmery. The Lib Dems in office are liberals in the sense Hayek was a Liberal, not Lloyd George or Beveridge.
They may not have the confidence yet to put their cards on the table, but coalition ministers will reveal their hands in coming months. As they do, Labour must strike hard. Some fun and games over Lib Dem U-turns or Cameron’s personal snapper are permissible. But scoring points must come second to winning the argument.
Spot on, Paul! The Tories tell a simple story, and tell it well (see my recent Progress Online article ‘Elephants, Deficits & Words’). We absolutely need to win the argument and this cannot be a matter of point-scoring, or even of clever marketing. Nor will we succeed with an exercise in logical reasoning. There is plenty of science out there in the areas of cognitive psychology and linguistics – we need to use it shrewdly. Our opponents have a head start.
This is very good example of exactly what we need to do : deconstruct the detail of the ideological roots that threaten to drive 60 years of social justice endeavour into oblivion, in a way which avid T Partiers can only look upon with envy. Most British people simply don’t understand what’s happening to the country, but as we found during our successful Ladywell by-election canvassing, concerns are growing. It has to be the role of the Labour Party to deliver a clear and truthful message which makes sense of the situation to the general public. A clear and coherent set of hard hitting counteractive details need to be developed quickly and accurately – for the sake of all off our futures, our new leader needs to gather his momentum now!
That’s an incisive enough piece Paul, but you do realise the logical consequence of making this case is an election: Labour should push for one given the significant changes planned to benefits and reduction in public pay and services. But, Labour needs to think fast about what it will do differently – and more fairly. I’ll give you an idea, Tony Blair said recently when making his speech at the Institute for Government that left/right fixtures had broken free and are more fungible concepts today. In that case, by all means have private intervention in public services to improve service delivery where appropriate, but the true rub will come whenever at a policy level there is a decision to take to have public intervention in certain private sector services – financial services?- in order to realise better efficiencies there on behalf of the nation. Now that would be proof of being ideologically fluid and free – time for some pragmatism that operates across the range.
D.Cameron says …..”the consistent,long term pressure of what people want and choose in their public services-and that is the horizon shift we need” “we are going to take power from government and hand it to the people” But ,for example “people” would bring back hanging ! Karl Marx said, “Political emancipation is the reduction of man on the one hand to the member of civil society,the egoistic,independent individual,and on the other to the citizen,the moral person.Only when real,individual man resumes the abstract citizen into himself and as an individual man has become a species-being in his empirical life,his individual work and his individual relationships,only when man has recognised and organised his ‘forces propres’ as ‘social forces’ so that social force is no longer separated from him in the form of political force,only then will human emancipation be completed”. You see I think the ‘people’ Cameron talks about is a particular creation of a rottweiller style PR campaign ,where one hears loads about someone who happens to live on benefits in a 2m.house in Highgate blah blah blah but there is not the money machine P.R. to hear about the millions living in a detached world on bleak housing estates ,no work available ,not even a bus ride away .To march on the street to say that you are no one ,have nothing would take such guts wouldn’t it and fill anyone with shame,so people in desperation, steal or get high ,take the dole .It seems to me that this drive to localism could be dangerously divisive at such a time of austerity, put pressure on to scapegoat and disenfranchise the needy even further.
I hope Danny Phillips has read this. We must challenge these cuts and not force ourselves onto the back foot by detailing and second guessing whether we’d have made this cut or that cut. We lost so now we can oppose. My gut feeling about why we ended up with no overall winner is all sides ran on cuts but didn’t say what or precisely how much and people were nervous. No-one ran on dismantling the state or universal benefits – certainly no Lib Dems. We have to start defending our principles. There may never have been a better time when the arguments were laid out so clearly and concisely for us by the right field.