The political philosopher Antonio Gramsci viewed policy in terms of ‘settlements’ between competing political groups. These settlements provide the broad ideological boundaries of the time in which policies are created.
Since the war there have been three broad Gramscian settlements.
The postwar social democratic settlement lasting from the 1945 Labour landslide saw power swap between Labour and a One Nation Tory party. This lasted until 1979, when it was usurped by a New Right settlement. Margaret Thatcher’s monetarist Conservatives dominated the political agenda, while the leftwing Labour opposition remained irrelevant to the public’s real concerns.
In 1997 the rise of New Labour represented a third settlement, in which markets were not rejected or worshipped, but made to work for the benefit of all.
Following chronic underfunding of public services, the Conservatives were no longer trusted to manage public spending. Under the leadership of William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard, they pursued core vote strategies that saw Labour maintain power, winning two further general elections with little resistance. New Labour’s electoral triumph came not, as many claim, through a media management obsession, but in shifting the policy settlement of the time to the left, to an area in which the Conservatives could not compete.
Through hugging hoodies and huskies, and eulogising on the NHS, under the leadership of David Cameron the Tories became relevant again in the eyes of many electors. After regaining credibility on social policies and briefly agreeing to match Labour’s spending plans (following Gordon Brown’s example before 1997) the voters began to listen to what they were saying.
Following the financial crisis and the 2010 general election, an argument could be made that a new political settlement has been created. This theory seems to be supported by the apparent public acceptance of the coalition’s strategy of the need for complete deficit reduction.
However, in social policy the picture is rather different. Free schools are an extension of Labour’s academy programme and health spending has been ringfenced, maintaining Labour’s previous spending levels. This would suggest that rather than entering a new policy settlement we have merely shifted within an existing one.
If this is the case then the new centre-ground is not far from where Labour governed from after 1997. Recent moves to accept elements of the free school programme and new welfare agenda allow us to build on our record in government, while a less Euro-enthusiastic position advocated by Douglas Alexander is more in chime with the public mood.
However, our major stumbling block is the economy. Having lost the argument on the scale of deficit reduction we need to stop trying to convince the electorate that they are wrong and look seriously at public spending for practical cuts. Progressive does not necessarily mean high spending. Labour should aim to convince the electorate that we can deliver a less brutal alternative to the coalition.
A radical solution would be announcing that we would match the current spending cuts, abolishing the deficit by 2017 rather than halving it by 2015. Only by accepting, and then offering a progressive model for, deficit reduction can we aim to compete with the coalition as a credible alternative. This way we can avoid the Third Way settlement becoming one in which Labour cannot compete as happened after 1951 and 1979.
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Rowan Ree works for a Labour member of parliament