On the surface, it seems to react to the current climate and may even chime with the insecurities and aspirations of many people across Britain. In five years’ time, when the economic, social and political landscape has changed, will the advocates of New Socialism react to these new circumstances with open minds? I suspect they will not. It is their rejection of almost all that went before that convinces me of this. They do not seem to grasp the fact that New Labour was the product of a specific moment in our history.
And as Will Straw points out New Labour wasn’t all bad. Thirteen years in government gave us the national minimum wage, devolution, the Northern Ireland peace process, the biggest ever investment in the NHS and smaller class sizes in primary schools. It saw huge increases to the salaries of teachers, nurses and police officers and the creation of the sure start programme. Under Labour, Britain adopted the social chapter, trebled international aid and led the world in equality legislation. I do not believe that any of this would have happened under a government of a different hue.
Straw rightly calls out Compass for their savaging of Labour’s record:
‘Twenty-twenty hindsight is a fine thing but those who call now for a new form of capitalism should be more realistic about the collective hubris of the boom years.’
Indeed, Labour must share the responsibility for not speaking out against the excesses and risk taking of the banks and multinational corporations. But we lived in different times. There was a historically unprecedented movement of goods, capital and people across borders in the early 1990s and after. The idea that the market knew best and that government intervention could merely chip at the armour of globalised capitalism was commonplace. Established leftwing parties across the world accepted the view that there was no longer an alternative. The markets could not be slayed. The role of government was to tame the worse excesses of the free market and redistribute by stealth. In spite of this hostile terrain to the aims and values of traditional centre-left social democratic parties, Labour achieved, as already noted, many positive things.
So where did we go wrong? A lot of it is down to perception. Despite crime falling by 43 per cent since 1997, from 16.7 million offences a year to 9.6 million, the public felt that things had actually got worse. The lowest crime rates in 30 years – and despite this ordinary people no longer felt that Labour was on their side.
Andy Burnham was the first candidate to break cover over this issue in this summer’s leadership contest. The party had become, particularly under Tony Blair’s leadership, managerialist. This was to the detriment of our wider message. In his pitch for an ‘aspirational socialism’, Burnham critiqued the so-called prawn cocktail approach:
‘We seemed dazzled by power, glamour and big business. There is a fine line between celebrating success and courting elites and to many people we crossed it. Unlike some others in the upper echelons of the party, I do have a problem with people being filthy rich. This isn’t based on some working class kneejerk reaction. It comes back to that sense of fairness, and the contrast between my constituency and George Osborne’s.’
This theme of detachment strikes a chord with many former (and returning) Labour party members. Activists and our traditional voting base were left wondering what Labour stood for. By the latter years, even loyal Blairites and cabinet members like Tom Watson became disillusioned. Chris Mullin relays Watson’s sense of despair in his Decline and Fall diaries. According to Mullin, the £7,500 that Cherie Blair billed the Labour party for her hair costs during the 2005 election campaign was a significant factor in his joining the attempted coup of September 2006. The great party schisms of the past, Gaitskellites versus Bevanites, Healey versus Benn, Kinnock versus Militant had been replaced by a resentment at the perceived extravagance of the leadership and its inner circle.
More than any other candidate, Ed Miliband seemed to understand the scale of the problem Labour faced after the general election. Although it was his brother David who named Anthony Crosland as a major political influence in a summer hustings event, Ed was first to renew the ideas of the author of the Future of Socialism and put them into practice.
And why not? The ‘bible of Labour revisionism’, as a certain Ralph Miliband once disparagingly called the Future of Socialism, still bubbles with relevance today. It argues that the defining goal of the left should be greater social equality. It emphasises the importance of equality of opportunity. Crosland’s key contribution to the Labour movement is his distinction between the means deployed and the ends sought. He argues saliently that our means should never be set in stone but that our ends should always be informed by our values.
Four years ago, at the 50 year anniversary of the publication of the book, and at a time of uncertainty over the direction of the party (Blair had announced he was standing down and it was not clear whether or not Brown would run unchallenged for the role of leader), Ed framed the party’s renewal with Crosland’s ‘revisionism’. He stressed the need to apply Labour values to the particular. To the here and now. He also argued that successful renewal would require a greater confidence in the importance of ideological thinking:
‘We have sometimes tended to talk as if ideology leads us into dogma. But it is when we are not clear about the ideological principles that we get stuck with a dogmatic approach to particular policies.’
Certainly, New Labour was not clear enough about articulating its values to the wider public. In practice, this meant that good Labour people were talking more about the means of reform and not enough about the ends which these reforms were supposed to serve. Certain individuals were too busy chasing the approval of newspaper proprietors and columnists and failed to stop and take stock of what was happening ‘on the ground’. The leadership and hangers-on were happy with the headlines but failed to scratch beneath the surface. The party had become disconnected from its members, voters and traditional supporters and no longer knew how they felt.
The newly commissioned policy review may well provide the space that is needed for a reinvigoration of the grassroots and for fresh ideas to be forged.
However, we cannot lose sight of the fact that we lost the election, not because we weren’t leftwing enough, but because we were seen as out of touch with the majority of people in this country. We no longer seemed to sympathise with the ‘squeezed middle’ and appeared to resort back into our comfort zone by dismissing the Tories as toffs. If Neal Lawson and John Harris think that by holding a big red flag with the slogan New Socialism emblazoned across it will see the British public come flocking back, I suspect that they will be sorely disappointed.
Our values are constant but we must be open to change.
We asked for devolution to get away from New labour, you brought in the min wage and set it way to low, for god sake my best working period was from sixteen until I was twenty five six, I was fit healthy and in great shape, yet I would not even be paid the top rate of what was a disgrace. labour kept the min wage so low it was ten pound better off in work then on the dole, and if you paid a bus or taxi fare your well down on even the dole. The problem for new labour now is killing it off, it’s going to be like Thatcher, the stink stayed around for a long time, it smell for so long it’s back again, so i think it will be with New labour or newer labour or future labour. New labour took us into two wars, one of which i still say was more about Blair’s bank balance then anything else.
Thanks for taking the time to respond to the article David – it is appreciated. We don’t savage Labour’s record – it was good and bad. What ultimately matters is not our opinion but that of the electorate. So why did we lose and what do we do next? That is what John and I try to analyze. We think that some of the fundamentals of Newe Labaour were just plain wrong and predictably so. You cite Croslands Future of Socialism – which in a sense was the defining text of New Labour. What Crosland called for was the more equal sharing of the benefits of growth. New Labour tried this but found that some grow faster than others and it is inequality that grows. Markets needs to be made to work in societies interests – not just their own. The Sprit levels tells us about the effect of such relative inequality. What is more without a moral underpinning when the growth stops support ends. Labour has to be a moral project and not just a managerial one. New Labour bet everything on the end of boom and bust. It didn’t take hindsight to know that bubbles always burst. And even if we just go on growing what about the planet – it’s simply unsustainable. And finally what of the Party? Treated with contempt by New Labour as its democratic structures were taken apart. We couldn’t even trust our own members. All of this and more demands the kind of new and free thinking that early New Labour was so good at. Yes we might win again if the Coalition continues to be terrible. But will we any better than last time without a fundamental rethink. Lets keep having the battle. Best Neal
Reading this it sounds more like an agreement with Harris and Lawson than a disagreement. Yes, New Labour was a product of its time (as I’ve argued here: http://hands-of-the-many.blogspot.com/2010/05/next-labour-will-change-be-moderate-or.html). But if not the absurdly-named “New Socialism”, then what? Crosland’s book was based on the post-war social democratic settlement which broke down during the 70s. His argument was that it was no longer possible to describe Britain’s economic system as capitalist since the state played such a large role in the economy – again, this is a situation that longer exists. That’s not to say we can’t learn from Crosland on more specific policy areas – I’m taken with his vision of co-operative housing in place of a private rented sector, for example. There’s little to be gained in dismissing Harris and Lawson as flag-wavers using a book written in the 1950s when there are far better questions to be asked…
I agree wholeheartedly with David Mentiply’s rejection of the ‘New Socialism’ of Lawson and Harris and also agree that Labour’s defeat in May was the result of “perception – that is, the voters’ misunderstanding of Labour’s record. Like Will Straw, David rightly points to a catalogue of Labour successes since 1997 yet despite these historic achievements Labour consistently lost voters by the million. The question is, Why? Ed Miliband et al attributes our failure to “loss of trust” and “wrong policies” but I strongly believe that our failures are the consequence of poor communication/adversarial/selling skills of Labour ministers. I do not accept that Labour lost support because of wrong policies. Of course, some policy decisions were difficult but, with very few exceptions, they were the right ones to take. Iraq was the right decision to take morally but proved to be politically devastating thanks to a persistent Media anti-war propaganda campaign. This public ‘mis-conception’ of Labour is the real reason we lost power – not POLICY but PERCEPTION. I don’t want to hear Ed apologizing for past ‘errors’ or advocating some ‘consensus politics’. A Labour “re-assessment” of policy is fine: a “blank sheet” is just a political faux pas. By all means let us consider ways of convincing the electorate that our policies, whatever they may be, command general support but also please be aware that the Media’s principle raison d’etre is to be pro-Tory (and, therefore, anti-Labour). Grasp that simple concept and we might begin to fight back!
Why are the comments being removed does it matter that people are blaming new labour because you lot were in power when the banks went turtle up. removing comments is a bit rich, free speech you know.
Robert – predictably, I disagree. The minimum wage was progress for many people right across the country. I’d now like to see a Living Wage policy as the centre-piece of what we do over the next four to five years. Neal – thanks for responding. You say that “What ultimately matters is not our opinion but that of the electorate.” But in your article you conclude that we live in an age an age that “needs socialism more than ever.” Sadly, i think your concluding remarks do not reflect those of the electorate at this moment in time. James – you are right that I agree/find much common ground with what Neal and John have to say. I appreciate the fact they are looking at areas such as sustainability and the redistribution of time, power and well being. You are also right in saying there are many aspects of the Future of Socialism that are outdated. It is over 50 years old now. The key point I take from Crosland is how important it is to apply our values to the day in which we live. Taken as a whole, I don’t think New Socialism does this. In a different context, i’m not sure that Neal and John would ask different questions or offer different solutions. MickleMas – I think your critique is spot on. Public perception was and remains crucial to everything we do. Especially with the media no longer on side. Though I disagree wholeheartedly about your views on Iraq. That would be for another day though..
David, thanks for your reply. I am puzzled that you say “In a different context, i’m not sure that Neal and John would ask different questions or offer different solutions”. Surely this is because whatever situation we are in, we are going to apply our values as Crosland recommended?
If we always asked the same questions and offered the same solutions, whatever the weather, we would not have progressed much further than being the party of industrial nationalisation. Our values should guide our policy, not the other way round.