The success of the next Labour government depends on Claire Kober, Jim McMahon, Gordon Matheson and Andrew Burns. Who are they? They are the future. People for whom the Labour party’s recent conversion to localism is a blinding flash of the obvious. They are, respectively, the Labour leaders of Haringey, Oldham, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Not for them the hoary old cliche of local government being a battered shield against the Tories when Labour are in opposition. They are not whingeing about the cuts. Instead each of them has taken at least £100m of spending out of their authorities in the last four years while improving services. Yes, you read me right. You can cut £100m cash without losing £100m of value. That should make us all pause for thought. It means billions and billions of pounds of public spending were being wasted. There is a stark lesson here for Chris Leslie. He should be starting his zero-based budget review with a conversation with the best local leaders. Indeed the leader’s office should have the shadow cabinet out in the country, listening and learning.
The key to Labour’s success in local government is purpose. The cuts do not drive the behaviour of the best and most successful. They are a constraint at times, for sure, but Bevan was right – the language of priorities is the religion of socialism. Great council leaders have a vision. They manage for people, for place and space. So Edinburgh and Oldham’s trams, Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games, Haringey’s transformation of Tottenham are all examples of creating connections and unlocking potential.
Socialism, comrades, is being built from the ground up.
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David Cameron doesn’t really get it, does he? The appointment of Elizabeth Butler-Sloss is just another example. Is there really no former judge available who is not the sibling of a Conservative law officer from the 1980s? Did no one think to say ‘Boss, I have Googled Butler-Sloss. Seems her last inquiry report didn’t go so smoothly’. Does anyone in No 10 game through what the response to an announcement is?
It’s Keystone Cops, but the real point is that this latest enquiry is just another in a long line which will fail to answer the real question.
There comes a time in any scandal when it breaks through to public consciousness. Following Jimmy Savile, Cyril Smith and Rolf Harris that is what has happened to the issue of historic child abuse. And when the public are involved the terms of trade change.
It is no longer enough for an inquiry to be good enough to satisfy civil servants and ministers. The country needs a full an honest account of what really happened – the what, the how and the why. And the country aligns itself with the survivors. Not in what is vulgarly called a ‘witch-hunt’ but in solidarity – wanting the survivors to have their day and have their say.
That was why Australian prime inister Julia Gillard, when I was working for her, announced a royal commission into institutional responses to child abuse. Not an inquiry into crimes – they are for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, and we should celebrate Keir Starmer’s achievements in getting prosecutions of historic crimes made. But a place where the authorities who failed can be held to account. And where survivors can get a hearing which is a healing too.
We will inevitably end up here in the United Kingdom. It is shameful that the government have been dragged to this limited inquiry. It will not be enough. There is a model in Australia. Are we really too proud to learn from our sister country?
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John McTernan is former political secretary at 10 Downing Street and was director of communications for former prime minister of Australia Julia Gillard. He writes The Last Word column on Progress and tweets @johnmcternan
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Photo: Matthew
So, £100 million cuts from the budget of the London Borough of Haringey is and was entirely money previously “wasted”; has no impact on services; and deducted nothing or nobody of any value.
I was going to write that not even Messrs Cameron, Osborne and Pickles would have put these arguments as clearly and pithily as John McTernan. Except that while this is probably what they believe, they do actually dress up their brutal cuts as unavoidable. Regrettably forced on them by “Austerity”. And of course wholly due to the international banking crisis caused by the Labour Government’s profligacy.
Which begs a curious question. It seems from John McTernan that Dave, George and Eric have been right all along. Right about applying their leeches to our public services, to our Welfare State and economy. And right about directing their prescription especially at the poorest and most vulnerable people.
But if a Labour future is no different, why bother persuading anyone to vote for us?
Now, I confess to not being Claire Kober’s biggest fan. But then I’ve been a Party member for over forty years, over thirty of those living in Tottenham – broadly speaking the poorer part of Haringey. And sixteen years as a councillor. So I’ve seen the Kober leadership up-close and impersonal.
Though I doubt that even Claire Kober would welcome the Tory cuts as joyous gifts from benefactors. And I may be wrong, but I tend to think that the idea of her building any sort of Socialism in Haringey would rather grate with our Dear Leader.