It is often said that the Labour party owes as much to methodism as it does to socialism. Not that the great dissenting faith founded by John Wesley ever formally affiliated, of course. But, its non-conformist spirit undoubtedly helped to nourish one of the key characteristics of the British Labour movement: it encouraged, in working people, a collective confidence in their ability to improve their own lives and take control of their own destinies.
Similarly, the trade union and co-operative movements reflected the growing ambition of working people to secure for themselves a better, fairer deal in life. Alongside all of this, workers’ education flourished, with the Mechanics Institutes, for example, and the establishment of reading rooms. Night schools grew in popularity and even now many of us still benefit from this proud tradition of self-improvement. I went to university at 26, thanks to night school.
So what has all this got to do with Liz Kendall, one might ask. Is she not the Blairite candidate, the torch bearer for a threadbare political philosophy with no roots in the party?
Nothing could be further from the truth. Liz Kendall has a story to tell and it is a story of how we win the future. It is a future where individuals have the confidence to shape the communities they live in and where the right to do so is entrenched in a society which has properly devolved power – not just to local councils but to communities who are increasingly demanding a voice in decisions about how public money is spent, and how public services are organised and delivered. To put it simply, Liz Kendall understands that the spirit of self-help and self-improvement is as strong today as it always was and that it is a spirit which is fundamentally in tune with Labour values.
Many of the individuals who built the Labour movement were dissenters, never frightened to stand out from the crowd. My own family roots, resting as they do in Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire and Cornwall, reflect that tradition. Even my Surrey ancestors were protestant dissenters and I am proud of that.
It is also why I am supporting Liz Kendall. I do not want our next leader to give us more of the same, more of the centralised command and control which has encouraged the long descent of the Labour movement into a sometimes rather authoritarian culture, which is alien surely to our best political traditions. In government, that has all too easily translated into policy implementation based on ‘we know best’. The Westminster machine flourishes, while communities up and down the country feel increasingly estranged from the institutions of government.
Liz Kendall will challenge all of this. She sees devolution not just as a buzz word, but as a radical way of changing the way we do politics in this country and the way we are governed.
Liz Kendall would, quite simply, be the first leader of a political party in this country who wants to win power in order to give it away.
That is why she owns the future and that is why she has got my vote in this leadership election.
———————————-
Angela Smith MP is shadow minister for environment, food and rural affairs and member of parliament for Penistone and Stocksbridge
———————————-
A nice rosy future perhaps. But what about the problems facing people now?
And even in this future, will the majority of people ever be able to find the time to “shape the communities” they live in when so many of them are, or will be, as seems to be the direction we are heading, having to work 60/70 hour, 7 day weeks, merely to aspire to something a little better than merely surviving and keeping a roof over their heads? Even Methodists wanted enough leisure time for pursuits other than work. We should be working in order to live, not living just to work.
Where are the punishments for the bank failures that created the mess that enabled these ideological cuts to the state structures by the Tory government? Where are the plans to feed the people currently reliant on food banks? Where is the funding for the old and infirm? Where is the plan to implement a real love vine wage? Where are the plans to remove market elements such as competition from our public services, so funding can be redirected to where it needs to go? Where are the plans to build the thousands of council houses that will grant people the basic human right their grandfathers and great grandfathers died to give them: the homes fit for heroes sold to corporate developers and greedy landlords. Where are the plans to tax those failing to pay a decent share of their income and wealth, built on the backs of those who fought and died for a country that is now denying their children a minimum level of social security? Where is the call for the publication of the report into the deaths caused by the failures of the DWP?
Ms Kendall should be attacking the government’s approach on these and other issues, not dreaming about a possible future she might be able to create, IF she ever gets into power and if those communities can survive the next 4 years.
We don’t want utopian dreams of a better future, that dream was in the past and had begun to be realised. We need action to put us back on track. I am not hearing them from Ms Kendall or any of the others, except perhaps Mr Corby, which is why he is so popular with those taking an interest. You don’t need to be in Government to act, to generate change, the Labour movement proved that via the many considerable changes it wrought before it took political power for the first time. It wasn’t being in control that led to those changes. The few have now lost their fear of the tyranny of the majority – and the many are, or will be, paying for it.
2020 is a few years away, you should be looking to achieve things through influence before then. You should be calling on this government to meet the needs of all its people, not agreeing with their plans to make things worse. What are you doing now? Today? Tell us.
An admirable response by Sue to Angela’s waffling praise of Liz Kendall. No mention of Liz’s policies or in what way she opposes Tory policies…but some thinly veiled threats about undermining local democratic government through increased privatisation.
You cannot expect any candidate to lay out all the solutions to all the problems the a brief period of an election. Any serious person would hold their fire until needed and minimize commitments to avoid being pigeon-holed by the Conservatives and their press. The big fight doesn’t start until 2020 so why show all your ‘ammo’ now?
It’s different for Jeremy Corbyn. He may win the election but he cannot win the country and so, like UKIP, he can say anything at all. In fact, he can cherry pick uncosted, ill though out slogans to his heart’s content. For example, on student fees…
If 50% of the people go to university then when the costs are fully paid off, each person must pay a sizable part of that cost. Someone has to pay and you can’t expect the other 50% to pay for them. The costs can’t be paid by the poor. If the student doesn’t pay their fees we have the situation where we all pay off everyone else’s fees – you pay for someone’s fees just as if you had paid your own fees. The difference is that the person benefiting pays the cost, chooses more wisely and only pays up if they are successful.
The alternative is to take money from other sources, such as the early-years pot of money, and use that. Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t have to think in these terms because his followers don’t want to think about it either. Liz Kendall wants to make early-years a priority and that will benefit everyone, eventually.
“The big fight doesn’t start until 2020…” It should have started in 1979!
Let those people who went to university and are earning lots more now pay for those going today. I paid taxes, at much higher rates, to pay for those who went to university while I was working… And was happy to do so despite not having access to a free university when I was young. Taxes are much too low, and there are too many people and companies avoiding/evading paying it. Education is an investment of all our futures; we can find money to fight wars, to bail out banks. Other countries, not as wealthy as this one manage it – why can’t we?
If today you tell the Conservatives everything you are going to throw at them in the 2020 election, you will have given away anything you can use against them.
Countries such as Spain, Italy and France buy things they can’t afford – it’s one of the reasons their economy’s struggle.
Yes, education is an investment in the student’s future and gives them a higher than average salary which they pay for when they get a good job after graduation. What is wrong with that?
The alternative is that they pay for other people to go for free instead of paying off their own fees. When you have to pay, you make more sensible choices. Don’t you?
Education is not just an investment in a single student’s future – it is an investment in the economic future of the state. They will earn more, and they should pay more in taxes, why confuse the issue? Those who have benefitted most from the state structure should pay the most towards its upkeep – via taxes. Why has this argument been abandoned in favour of the individualistic nonsense touted by the Tories?
Choice: yes another piece of neoliberal ideological nonsense. That someone should suffer for the choices they make at 16 years of age! The neoliberal notion that we are all “rational egoists” has been proven to be false, yet is the basis on which the whole theory is founded. The Open University used to exist to offset the “irrational” choice of not going to university. Have you compared their prices today with that of ten years ago? You should – it will shock you.
Your analogy fails: rent has nothing to do with education. Although it does take us back to the silly rational choice element. Children have no choice about where they are born – but where they are born has a massive impact on the “choices” they get to make in their young lives: the people they mix with, the schools they attend, the pollution in the air. So, there is certainly a link. Neuroscience is discovering just how rational our faculty for choosing is… I suggest you examine the latest findings before blaming people for the “choices” they make in their young lives.
Countries like Spain, France etc. I suppose you mean the government’s of those countries? Yes we are all suffering for the “rational choices” made by those in power – are we not? Should the people who had no input into those choices suffer for them? Or should we have a society that accepts that sometimes the “rational” decisions made by the powerful will often lead us into economic misery in the favoured system of capitalism – the best of the worst – and have a social structure in place that limits the damage done to all those working hard to keep the state going and benefitting little during the so called “boom periods”. Or should we keep on punishing and blaming them whenever the decisions of those in charge lead to failure of the economic system?
On your last point: Corbyn seems to have set his stall out rather well. Are you saying the others aren’t capable of doing the same?
Er… Liz Kendall WOULDN’T be the first politician to win power to give it away. George Osborne is doing it already. He has announced, albeit vaguely, a programme of devolution down to community level which according to him will do things cheaper and better.
I’ve already posted a ‘when I was a lad’ message about my own abortive contribution to the devolution debate, 40 years ago. I understood then and now that uncontrolled devolution to community level would be disastrous, because people at community level don’t behave the way you want them to – in fact one of Liz’s MP supporters has already told me there would need to be a raft of checks and balances to make sure the whats, hows and who tos matched up with what the government expects. That level of bureaucracy doesn’t come cheap. Big Brother never does.
Doing things WITH the community, now that’s a different matter. Partnership is great, at all levels. But we win power for a reason, and that’s because somebody has to take the decisions. In partnership, government has the whip hand, because otherwise things go wrong and there’s noone to blame. Whoever gets this leadership, we want someone who will win power and keep it.