In Defence of Politics Revisited

8/12/2019 In Defence of Politics Revisited

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David Blunkett


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In Defence of Politics Revisitedis pamphlet is dedicated to the memory of my tutor and friend

the late Professor Sir Bernard Crick who not only observed,

researched and wrote about politics but in Britain and specifically

in Northern Ireland, engaged as an active citizen in trying to make

the world a better place.

Rt. Hon. David Blunkett MP

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Forewordby Ed Miliband, Leader of the Labour Party

DAVID BLUNKETTS reconsideration of Bernard Cricks defence of

politics is timely. Sadly, politics needs defending in this country. Few

people believe it can really change the world around them. Few believethat politicians are much different from each other. And few vote.

is is not just bad for us politicians. It is bad for the country.

When politics becomes an increasingly minority activity, no politician

or party can gain a good mandate to make the radical changes this

country needs.

e biggest mistake those of us in politics can make would be to

blame the voters. Apathy will not be defeated by voters having a changeof heart. I do not blame the voters. I think people are telling us

politicians something we need to hear. Not just that this out-of-touch Tory-led government has

run out of ideas. But that Labour like politics in general has a long way to go to win back

trust.

Our solutions start with our diagnosis of the problem. Why do people have such low faith

in politics?

Firstly, it is because they see politicians who make promises they do not or cannot keep.

Where the present Government has done so such as its promise not to reorganise the NHS orto cap migration it does not just harm their reputation, it harms the reputation of politics as

a whole. It is up to Labour not to fall into the same trap. We must always set out bold aspirations.

But under my leadership, we will not make promises we know we cannot keep.

e second reason people have such low faith in politics is that too many do not see how it

can make a difference to their everyday lives. We need a politics that is more engaged in the

lives, concerns, and problems of the people we seek to serve. at means not just knocking on

doors and asking those who answer if they will vote for us. It means also asking them what they

are concerned about and then building our campaigns around those concerns. It means not just

knocking on the doors of party members, but also knocking on new doors. It means bringing

people in and showing them what politics can do for them. In some areas the Labour Party is

already doing that. Despite being in Opposition, we have MPs running jobs fairs to help people

find work, and campaigning against payday loan companies to prevent people being fleeced

when they are at their most vulnerable. e solution to people feeling that politics does not

make a difference to their everyday lives is simple: showing them that it can.

e third reason people have such low faith in politics is that too many see our politics as

detached, and conducted by politicians who listen to a powerful few but not the many. is has

been symbolised in recent years by the wealth gap between London and the rest of the country.

Regaining trust on this count is perhaps the most important step to rebuilding trust in politics

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as a whole. It means standing up for the working people of this country. at means standing

up to energy firms which deliberately make their tariffs opaque. It means standing up to a

banking system which all too often uses its profits to pay its senior staff, rather than paying its

shareholders or lending out to those businesses who will be the engine of recovery and growth.

And it means standing up to those media companies which have exerted unaccountable power

over our democracy for too long.

We will show people that politics can make a difference by being on their side. e British

people want a Government that is more ambitious about making things work not just for a few

at the top or for a few big companies, but for all the people in Britain.

And ultimately, our task is nothing less than to rebuild this country. We must rebuild our

economy so that it works for working people, our society so that it represents the values of

working people, and our politics so that it includes the voices of working people.

And we must always be optimists that trust in politics can be restored. at spirit shinesthrough this pamphlet. And it is that spirit which must guide our efforts in the years to come.

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Executive summary

FROM CYNICAL REPORTING to even more destructive satire, it is tempting to see the

denigration of political democracy through the print and broadcast media as a spectator sport.

However, there is a profound issue to address. Namely, in a st century response to Professor

Sir Bernard Cricks challenge to defend the role of politics In Defence of Politics (1962) inproviding a counterweight to the financial markets and economic imperialism, is it possible to

renew political democracy as a force for progressive change?

Fifty years on from the publication of In Defence of Politics, the same questions are being

raised today. What is the role of traditional political parties? Are people alienated from traditional

political processes? How do we reconnect, and build trust and confidence in democratic politics?

e last five years of political and financial turmoil have seen democratically elected

governments removed in Greece and Italy, not by the voters, but by forces outside the country.Politicians have been blamed for the global meltdown, yet all the pressures on them have been

to leave the markets to do their job. Indeed, support for deregulation was proclaimed to the

City of London by David Cameron back in March , As a free-marketeer by conviction, it

will not surprise you to hear me say thatthe problem of the past decadeis too much regulation.

However, it was in fact politics that was called upon to intervene to save the national as well as

the global economy from disintegration.

A lack of narrative developed as to what was happening, and therefore an opportunity to

exert the importance of politics was missed. Now we see continuing contradictions in terms ofattitudes to profound issues, from public spending to stimulate the economy versus retrenchment

to release investment, or from the desire to get involved as opposed to the ambivalence of people

happy to let others make decisions for them.

Indeed, e Economist, in a survey Do the public know what they want? reflected the

inherent contradictions which make politics a necessity, not an optional extra or alternative to

technocracy. e findings showed that there was no clear consensus on whether or not to cut

public spending (54% for cuts and 3% against), and opinion was even more finely balanced

when the potential consequences of cuts for individuals was spelt out in more detail (4% forcuts and 4% against). Moreover, public involvement in public services was seen as a good idea

in principle 4% strongly agree that people should get more involved in improving services

and local areas. However, this fell to % strongly agreeing that I should get more involved.

Further to this, as David Miliband indicated in his lecture during the second series of the

Speakers Lectures on th June , there is a contradiction between a desire for localism and

an imperative for dealing with globalisation. e concept not only of neighbourhood and a sense

of belonging, but also of developing city regions, is gaining traction. But this is mirrored with

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1 Ed Miliband MP, Prime Ministers Questions, 4 July 2012, Hansard Debates for 4 July 2012

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm120704/debtext/120704-

0001.htm#12070479000012


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also needed is planning for what will be inherited from 5. In education, for instance

(but this is also true of health), there will be a fractured and fragmented landscape. Whilst

it is clear that measures to increase cooperation and mutuality will be necessary, the main

challenge will be to engage parents, governors and trustees in a bottom up-approach. is

will involve the various layers of government providing the information and wherewithal to

genuinely offer the individuals concerned the capacity to take control of issues at local levelin holding to account those who have been passed the levers of decision-making.

. Meaningful empowerment and development of communities Equally, funding the

expansion of leadership and community development is something that we are familiar with

why not build on this? In simple terms the Government, using the collective power it still

possesses, and of course the resources of the taxpayer, would be putting that funding at the

disposal of people who, in their own lives, are fighting battles against vested interests or

forces outside the normal realms of everyday life. Neighbourhood budgeting, very local

political engagement and the building of a functioning civil society depend on encouragingand supporting leadership and community development. As seen from the Ulster Peoples

College in Northern Ireland more than a decade ago, government has a real part to play in

this. As with other adult education colleges across the UK, the Ulster Peoples College

deliberately set out to provide support and training to those with natural leadership qualities

in all parts of the divided community. By doing so, they sought not only to give a voice and

capacity for community development and action, but also to unite people in the common

cause of improving the quality and standard of life, and building a stake for all in the

community in which they lived and worked. is was about equality and fairness, as well asabout reducing the divide what Ed Miliband has described as Fair Chance a not so

new but imaginative way of describing the drive for a fairer society in which the power of

government is used to liberate the talent of all.

. Services for and by the people Nurturing the process of getting people to run their own

facilities locally can be seen as one of the few positive developments from the austerity

agenda. Instead of trying to turn the clock back and reinvent all the formalised professional

delivery of services that existed prior to , the opportunity should be taken to lay out

not only the big picture of how the world might look with genuine democratic involvement,but also how the drive to marketisation and fragmentation of services can be countered. Co-

delivery is the oldest concept of all. Namely, that instead of simply delivering to people the

support services from government and from other forms of public- or third-sector assistance

locally and nationally, delivery should be about helping people to help themselves. is is

about providing a way in which those in receipt of services can play a part both in the delivery

of the more formalised professional aspects, as well as the notion of people linking together

and helping each other. ere are, in Europe and North America, good examples of how

services have been reshaped to offer this new way of meeting need.In the UK the Balsall Heath Forum in Birmingham has demonstrated how services can be

transformed and the community mobilised to meet need from crime reduction and

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tackling drug misuse through to improvements in the environment and social care (see

Nourishing Social Renewal published in January by Balsall Heath Forum Chief

Executive, Dr Dick Atkinson).

In Oregon in the USA, people with mental health conditions are helped to live independent

lives through a personal budget. ey are assigned a personal advisor to identify goals and

how to best use the self-determined funding to buy goods and services which will help them

achieve these aims (whilst personal budgets have been adopted in order to give greater

independence and choice in adult social care in the UK, personalised advice and the peer

group way of working, distinguishes this approach).

Equally, the Harlem Childrens Zone (HCZ) is one solution for poverty-stricken children

and families living in Harlem, providing free support for children and families in a range of

areas, including parenting workshops and a pre-school programme for thousands of families.

Building from the bottom, HCZ began as a one-block pilot in the s and has now

expanded to cover almost blocks, and is being replicated by President Obama in twenty

cities across the US. ose who are engaged in whatever way, have a stake in their

community, and not only feel involved but are subject to, in its broadest sense, political

education. ey are learning about the world as well as themselves. ey are engaged in

opening up their own ideas and working through how change can be carried forward. In

the jargon, this means building social capital and therefore the capacity of both families and

the wider community to be in a position to contribute to the wellbeing of us all.

. New and innovative approaches to finance Pioneering new finance mechanisms should

be explored as new approaches to fight the growing gap between rich and poor. Sensible

lending, for instance, which building societies used to do perfectly well, could resume in

providing the wherewithal for a revival of the housing market. Moreover, there is much talk

(and legislation) relating to reformatting the banking system, but little discussion has taken

place about the creation of city and regional banks, which would reinforce mutualism.

Meanwhile, learning from the development of the Child Trust Fund (abolished by the

present Coalition Government), and from suggestions by Rt. Hon. Malcolm Wicks MP, the

development of a Lifelong Account must also be urgently examined in order to once againface the long-term divide between asset-rich and asset-poor in our society. ese would be

personalised accounts that would give individuals a sense of ownership, with inbuilt

flexibility, including the ability to access money at certain points in ones life cycle ahead of

retirement. e challenge of tackling the inequality between the asset-rich and asset-poor is

enormous. e issue will not go away. is is where, for the future, the question of greater

equality will lie. Not just simply in terms of its impact on day-to-day wellbeing, but also

how intergenerational disadvantage and a familys lack of long-term hope damages a childs

start in life, therefore counteracting the cost to society as a whole in trying to remedy that

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2 Liam Bryne, Cabinet Office Strategy Unit Power in Peoples Hands: learning from the worlds best public services, July

2009, http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:/www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/224869/world-class.pdf


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early disadvantage and prevent other expensive interventions later in life.

. More effective use of pension funds Enormous personal saving takes place through the

mechanism of pension funds. ere has long been debate about trying to engage people

who contribute in decision-making about the use of their own funds. Now must be the time

to address the mechanisms and information about the use of such funds to benefit both the

contributors and wider society. For example, the Local Government Pension Fund in Greater

Manchester has used the resources it has to invest in local developments, providing both

the hope of increased jobs and of substantial economic returns. It is not necessary to turn

to international Sovereign Funds alone, but to look to home as to how we use such vast

investment resources with greater social responsibility, as well as economic prudence. In

addition, pension funds are shareholders in major national and international concerns. Albeit

at the margin, they can make a difference in accelerating the trend towards shareholder

power. Tougher measures, which could help small shareholders to counterweight the

institutional holdings, and a greater say for the contributors to, and therefore investors in,pensions funds, would be an excellent development. is would be in addition to, not

instead of, the proposals forced upon the present government by public opinion that aim to

give shareholders a greater say over the remuneration and bonuses of directors.

. Microcredit At the opposite end of the spectrum is the issue of breaking the cycle of

unaffordable credit, followed by increased debt, followed by an inability to take even the

lowest paid forms of employment. Microcredit, which provides affordable loans specifically

to kick-start self-employment, has liberated people in South Asia and elsewhere. In the UK

we could link affordable credit with the availability of funds for start-up businesses, toprovide niche employment to meet specific need, and offer employment within an

immediate neighbourhood. Taken together with the so-called Troubled Families

programme, this would go towards breaking intergenerational disadvantage, and would offer

the opportunity of a ladder out of poverty rather than the amelioration of it. And with

imaginative forms of conditionality and the reassertion of earned entitlement, microcredit

can be shaped to ensure that rights and responsibilities go hand in hand, and that the

obligation we owe to each other is matched by the duty of every individual to take up those

opportunities open to them.

. A refocus on issues affecting day-to-day life, away from the preoccupations of the

political class Linking as it does the oft-quoted adage think global, act local, with

community action and non-violent direct action, politics can be made relevant to the

concerns of the electorate, not simply as a matter of playing on grievance but by promoting

and supporting alternatives. e wrangling which has taken up so much time through to

the debacle for Nick Clegg on th August this year in respect of House of Lords reform, for

instance, mirrored the obsessions of the political class rather than reflecting the immediate

concerns and needs of those they serve. With the fine balance of responsibilities betweenindividual and family on the one hand, and more mutual provision on the other, it will be

necessary to spell out how we can face some of the growing challenges in our society. An

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ageing population is just such a challenge, for instance, where taking the Dilnot Report and

income in retirement it would be possible to have a more holistic approach linked to civil

renewal and the role of volunteering. Indeed we must also create greater understanding as

to how to counterweight the influence of the financial markets and credit rating agencies.

is is a phenomenon which has changed the relationship between sovereign democratically

elected governments and their own electorate, as well as between those governments andglobal forces. In reshaping the welfare state, in dealing with the issue of social care and in

facing up to the unaccountable hand of global finance, it will be necessary to think

imaginatively. is will of course include much greater inter-governmental cooperation on

dealing with the unaccountable credit rating agencies and the perverse operation of bond

markets where, as in the Eurozone, blocks have been placed on institutions designed to

provide a counterweight specifically the European Central Bank.

Underpinning these challenges is the ever present issue of finding how best to hold those to

account who handle the purse strings, or who are responsible for making decisions. is crucialarea affects both formal politics and the new bureaucracies of reconfigured public services, as

well as outsourced responsibility.

None of the above in any way diminishes the challenge to government in the twenty-first

century to use the power ceded to it by people through the election system, to combine with

governments across the world to take on those enormous global best interests, which are beyond

the reach of even the most determined campaigners. It is the role of government to do what

individuals and mutual action are unable to achieve in isolation.

However, with the power of government behind the people, it would be possible to foster a

whole new spirit of seeing the political process as a way of organising, advising and, yes,

demanding something better from large institutions, both public and private.

is would also offer more opportunity of radical and innovative approaches by the trade

union movement in both the workplace and the community. By setting aside the sterile debate

about big versus small government, about the overbearing State versusthe individual, we can

construct a relationship between the government and governed at every level, by rooting the

logic of what we do from the needs of those individuals and families. In other words, to rebuildthe trust and faith in democratic politics by asking the simple question what is this for?

Ultimately, to make any progress on the road to enlightenment, it is necessary to have ones

hands on the levers if they still exist of democratic government. Which brings me back to

In Defence Of Politics, the messy business, the compromise and the choosing of the best of evils,

which Bernard Crick understood all too well.

Once in government, countervailing unaccountable power must be the objective for a left-

of-centre party. In other words, to be on the side of, representing and providing not just a voice

but a mechanism, for the ordinary citizen with a mere vote to cast.

And equally, government at all levels must help individuals, families and the broader

community, and to aid them in coping with rapid economic, social and cultural change.

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No bigger challenge exists than that rapidity of change. Old certainties disappearing, unknown

experiences pervading daily life, and the differences around the world suddenly seen not just on

television but around the corner, in the changed shops, languages and culinary smells.

e transitions of life, and economic and employment uncertainties exacerbated by austerity,

create subliminal fear. Instability leads to negative reactions, to defensive postures and the closing

of minds. In the UK at least, history teaches us that the more fearful and insecure, the less likely

it is that people will feel and think radically, as the Social Trends statistics in this pamphlet

demonstrate. It is this reality that has to be addressed in renewing and reinforcing democratic

practice.

If we are to turn the politics of grievance into the offer of hope, we need to renew our values,

whilst at the same time restore faith in new ways of developing and using the political process.

In this way we can give people the confidence that politics is the solution, not the problem.

Introduction

IN 1962, Bernard Crick (later Professor Sir Bernard Crick) published his seminal work In

Defence of Politics. Fifty years on, formal political processes have never been in greater need of

defending. In this pamphlet I seek to argue that in order to defend politics we need to change

the way in which we do our politics.

Never has the world seemed to change around us as rapidly as it does today. Power

configurations have altered, the attitude of the electorate in developed democracies has moved

far faster than any of the political parties traditionally seeking support from the electorate. e

means of receiving and exchanging information and the historic forms of association, not least

in the workplace, have altered substantially, and with it the forms of political education which

came from shared experience and mutual action.

Economic, cultural, social and political change bring both opportunities but also subliminalfear and insecurity. Traditional political debate hardly engages with the aspirations or, for that

matter grievances, of a population for whom five-point plans or the fitness of global media

moguls to hold substantial shares in BSkyB, are too often seen as peripheral or, more likely, the

business of what is often described as the political class.

e tragedy of an economy which, as predicted by Labour, has fallen into a double-dip

recession (with the last quarter of and the first two quarters of in negative growth),

has a direct bearing on the wellbeing on the population. Explaining why, and above all what,

might be done is drowned out in a welter of other undoubtedly entertaining but less centralissues.

In simple terms, traditional politics is running on parallel rail tracks to the immediate

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political concerns arising from the daily lives of voters. In such circumstances it is not surprising

that the politics of grievance leads voters to respond to those offering simplistic messages and

opposition to the forces which appear to be out of control and beyond the reach of traditional

democratic parliamentary debate.

From maverick by-election results in this country through to almost one in five of the French

electorate casting a vote for Marine Le Pens National Front in the Presidential Election,3

there are messages which mainstream political parties ignore at their peril.

To pick up the baton and debate these issues fifty years on is therefore not to rock the boat,

but to try and keep it afloat. For just as we know that there are no easy and simplistic solutions,

we must also be aware that reflecting the cry of pain from the electorate is an essential feature

of ensuring our democracy works, not in the interests of the rich and powerful but of those for

whom political participation and yes, voting, are the only levers at their disposal.

Meanwhile, whilst of course learning the lessons from the recent past is important,identifying where power will lie in the future will enable us to develop a narrative which both

relates to the daily lives of those we seek to serve and, at the same time, offers a counterweight

not solely to individuals or even powerful organisations, but to a raft of sources of power outside

the scope of normal parliamentary processes.

e argument here, therefore, is to lay aside the politics of fixers, and the manoeuvrings

which bewilder and alienate the electorate, and instead offer some hope that responsible politics

can give a voice to the voiceless.

After all, we have the word of the retiring Governor of the Bank of England Sir Mervyn

King, that what was at fault from onwards was the failure of the system. Now there is a

phrase from fifty years ago if ever I heard one.

So what did I learn from the original In Defence of Politics?

For me there were three overriding messages in Bernards seminal work. e first was that

politics matters because a democracy cannot function without, like it or hate it, the political

process.

e second was that politics, like life, is a messy business. As Winston Churchill famouslytestified in the House of Commons in 4, indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst

form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.4

e purists

sneer or despair, the cynics poke fun and seek to destroy those who practice the art (or science)

of politics. ey adhere to the belief that there is some day zero, in which a magic wand is waved,

the ills of the world are abolished and an individual government within one parliament sets right

the inequities of history. But understanding the nature of compromise, making progress through

the morass of contradictions of both human frailty and public bureaucracy, is an essential feature

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3 French presidential election first round 2012, Marine Le Pen, son 18% of the vote

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/23/francois-hollande-french-election?intcmp=239

4 Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons, 11 November 1947


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of ensuring that those crucial differences can be made.

irdly, that political democracy was and remains the counterweight to the market. In

historic terms to the power of Capital. In the present day, as the Labour Partys revised

constitution has it, a community in which power, wealth and

opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few.5

e foundations

of identity and belonging through participative involvement and

engagement in politics are therefore essential in ensuring a

countervailing force to the power of globalisation.

In the use of government at every level, to extend the limited

power of the individual by the combining of ones own sovereignty

into the power of a functioning State, we create the government of

the people, by the people, for the people.

e reason that theory and practice went together in Bernardsmind was that simply observing was not to be a Citizen. e Polis was

about engaging.

Certainly at the time of Bernard Cricks publication, there was talk in fashionable, political

and journalistic circles of the end of ideology, and as party political membership slumped it

became the vogue to suggest that joining what was then described as Interest Groups would be

a better way of demonstrating political commitment. e emergence of Alec Douglas-Home as

a short-lived successor to Harold Macmillan as Prime Minister provided a symbolic tipping

point between the old and the new, the battle between the lad from Huddersfield and the old-guard aristocracy. In the finely balanced election of October 4, it was modernity that won.

But just as it was in the aftermath of the Second World War, when the 45-5 Government

had to battle with the economic consequences of all-out warfare and demobilisation of four-

and-a-half million people, so in the balance of payments crisis in 4 (and as was to be the

case ten years later with the oil crisis), those committed to using political democracy as a vehicle

for offering influence and a democratic outlet to those without wealth and privilege found

themselves at the mercy of global factors.

In debates reminiscent of the interwar focus on the Gold Standard, the role of sterling and

exchange rates were to dominate the political imperative for economic credibility.

In simple terms, forces outside the realm of elected democratic politics, or the power of an

individual nation, were already reflecting themselves in the reality of decision taking.

Yet with some exceptions, the willingness to address that stark reality was missing from

mainstream debate. is is obviously crucial to those on the centre-left of politics for the reason

that those who seek to use political as opposed to economic and financial power to bring about

radical change are most likely to be thwarted by powerful external forces outside the sphere ofelected accountability.

5 British Labour Party constitution, Clause IV

. . . forces outsidethe realm of electeddemocratic politics,or the power of anindividual nation,

were alreadyreflecting

themselves in the

reality ofdecision-taking


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Of course, those involved in politics are all too familiar with the power of oppression (most

obviously through military might) in world history. e twentieth century had been dominated

by the forces of totalitarianism from left and right. In the postwar era we had seen Soviet

oppression of Hungary in the 5s, Czechoslovakia in the s, and the overthrow of Allende

by General Pinochet and his right-wing military coup in Chile in the early s. In all these

cases the will of the people was subjugated to the will of what Stalin brutally described as thedivisions, which he counterposed against the power of the pope.

Half a century later, as we saw in David Camerons decision at the December European

Council meeting in to isolate Britain from the rest of the European Union, we are still not

confronting the stark realities of where power lies and how it might be confronted. e shift

from the battle between worker and employer, labour versus capital, as observed by Marx and

Engels in the th century, has moved on to global forces which threaten the very basis of

democratic accountability and the power of the ballot box. For whilst fifty years ago political

activists may have railed against transnational corporations and today their successors talk ofglobal capital, the unseen and unaccountable hand of the global financial markets can make or

break governments as effectively as the power of the tanks rolling into Budapest or Prague. Of

course, the horrifying experience of the violent totalitarianism of the twentieth century is absent

here, but these global financial forces cripple governments in a different but devastating fashion.

e power of the bond markets and the bizarre role of credit-rating agencies seem almost to

debilitate those who still possess the power to join across boundaries to confront this modern

political reality.

Paradoxically, it is at this very moment that such events are paralleled by even greatercynicism towards politicians than at any time in our recent history, a phenomenon not just seen

in the United Kingdom, but in Europe and in North America. Whilst oppressed people seek

the right to vote, and to elect and remove those who stand for political office, the citizens of

countries already exercising the freedom of the franchise, too often see politics and politicians

dismissed in favour of the technocrat.

Indeed, greater transparency about the lives of elected politicians has increased rather than

decreased such scepticism. More is known about our professional politicians than in the whole

of our history. eir lives, their income, their contacts are registered, surveyed and commented

upon; a transformation from the much revered and often grossly overblown view of the past.

Taken together, the twenty-four-hour-seven-day-a-week news, instant communication through

the internet and social media such as Twitter, has changed the terms on which we do our politics.

From cynical reporting to even more destructive satire, it is tempting to see the denigration

of political democracy through the print and broadcast media as a spectator sport. However,

there is a truly profound issue to address. Namely, in a st century response to Professor Sir

Bernard Cricks challenge to defend the role of politics In Defence of Politics (1962) in

providing a counterweight to the financial markets and economic imperialism, is it possible to

renew political democracy as a force for progressive change?

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The Financial Collapse

FROM 2007, when in Europe and North America the banking crisis unfolded, it was in the

United Kingdom that we could see most visibly both the problem for, and the failure of,

traditional political action.

e problem was obvious. e inability to save the rest of the economy from the

shortcomings of both domestic and international banking would have been totally catastrophic

for families and for businesses alike. e failure was not the actions taken, but paradoxically,

not explaining that this was one moment of our recent history where political democracy was

in the ascendant, essential to saving us from those very unaccountable forces which had and still

do exercise such overwhelming power.

In April there was a fulcrum moment when the G nations and institutions gathered

in London under the chairmanship of the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Some limited

coordination was forthcoming and if nothing else, a stabilisation of the situation globally was

achieved together with a recognition that a hand was now on the tiller.

However, three interconnected elements intertwined starkly in the UK at this time. e

least central to world events, but most devastating, was the scandal of the misuse of allowances

by a handful of parliamentarians.

It may have been coincidence that the Daily Telegraph chose the immediate aftermath of the

April G summit to launch their previously purchased bombshell onto the public scene,

but

whatever the timing, it certainly undermined in the public mind the view that politicians wereto be trusted with the crisis, and that they were the ones to put right the failures of global markets

and domestic banks.

No one could deny the significance of what the Telegraph revealed about what some

politicians had been doing. However, greater moves to regulation hid the fact that enormous

steps had already been taken in improving transparency; as noted earlier with financial and other

interests of Members of Parliament registered with tight rules on what could or could not be

done. In comparison with what had happened over the previous century, British politics was

and certainly is now the most open and tightly regulated in the world.

Nevertheless, politicians were put on the back foot, and politics itself looked mired in sleaze

just at the moment when the financial institutions should have been in the firing line. Meanwhile

as one section of the media reviled the political class, another section found itself on the

battlefront for illegal hacking of phones and intercept of emails, drawing in both the police and

politicians and further emphasising the dog-eat-dog nature of those engaged in our great

democratic institutions.

is latter issue of intrusion into privacy by substantial parts of the mainstream media (most

obviously focusing on News International), which included hacking and covert surveillance, was

14

6 In May 2009, two months prior to the official disclosure of full expenses claims, The Daily Telegraphobtained a full

copy of all expenses claims. The Telegraphbegan publishing, in instalments from 8 May 2009, certain MPs expenses.


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15

a slow burner, but it provided further confirmation that our democracy was in dysfunction.

Credit is undoubtedly due to those whose tenacity inside and outside parliament ensured

that the underlying issues were not lost. However, the Leveson Inquiry has, in the main,

concentrated on re-running historical events. Whilst this is perfectly understandable, it does not

deal with the new challenges of the electronic media and the un-moderated, unedited and

unauthenticated deluge which constitutes an alternative to traditional print and broadcast

journalism. What were central arguments about ownership and penetration, whilst remaining

salient, will in years to come have much less relevance in an entirely different pluralistic media

environment.

ose debating issues around the balance of Article and Article of the European

Convention on Human Rights, and for that matter a more traditional replacement for the Press

Complaints Commission, must take account of these enormous changes. Politicians too often

revert to addressing the known and identifiable past challenges rather than the world of

tomorrow. ose of us who strongly support public service broadcasting need to ask the question

as to whether, as suggested by Ofcom in June ,

this non-commercial area should also have

a greater pluralistic element, not least to uphold standards and choice beyond the Wild West of

the blogosphere.

e second strand, devastating to the defence of politics, was the action which politicians

by necessity were now forced to take in dealing with the financial meltdown. To meet the cost

of saving the nation from the consequences of the banking crisis, the Government had to

drastically reduce projected spending, and the outgoing government was criticised for not being

gung-ho enough in laying out even more draconian austerity measures.

Saving the nation from the banks did of course involve substantial funds, in bringing part

of the banking system into public ownership, providing recapitalisation and ensuring a

restoration of confidence. is was an enormous outlay at a time when global retrenchment had

begun and growth was therefore stalling. Government income was about to fall at a time when

government expenditure was unavoidably rising.

e basic presumption that continuing growth would lead to increased government revenues

and therefore any borrowing would be in the long-term covered easily by the expansion of theeconomy, was no longer a tenable option. Emergency action had to be taken but the

consequences were clearly the development of an unsustainable structural deficit.

e issue, as we shall see, was all about the speed which this should be dealt with. ose

with a grasp of history recalled that in very different circumstances the post-war borrowing from

the United States (negotiated by John Maynard Keynes in 4) was eventually paid off in .

However, the structural deficit was different in the sense that this was not borrowing for

sustainability, but in order to save the basic economy and, as a consequence, as revenues dropped,

so the structural deficit grew.

7 Ofcom report on measuring media plurality, 19 June 2012 http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2012/06/19/ofcom-publishes-

report-on-measuring-media-plurality/


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But this was a global crisis not invented in one country or played out under the stewardship

of any individual government. e ludicrous debate as to the responsibility of the Labour

Government for Britains economic and financial situation can only be revealed in its full inanity

by parading the proposition that the Labour Government were responsible, in turn, for the

problems from North America through to virtually every Western European country.

Yes, it could have been a lot worse in Britain if there had been a housing boom, another

twist given the undoubted need for more affordable accommodation. Unlike the situation in

Ireland and Spain, British house prices had been pushed up, there was not an unsustainable

construction boom leaving properties empty and that part of the economy floundering. Sadly,

that aspect was going to be part of the continuing and deep-seated recession four years later, as

construction was drastically cut.

However, the UKs situation was of course exacerbated by the over-reliance on the financial

institutions, which had in the boom years contributed to both our balance of payments and

increased prosperity. ose seeking greater deregulation and reliance on the market managed

the almost incredible feat of blaming a Labour Government for failure to regulate more strongly

and face up to the failure of the system. And the ordinary man and woman going about their

business, earning their living and of course, the businesses relying on affordable loans, found

themselves in the firing line.

e rewriting of history encourages the belief that those most strongly in favour of the

markets and deregulation were not to blame but rather those traditionally committed to greater

intervention, who had failed to regulate sufficiently. Indeed, as Ed Miliband pointed out at

Prime Ministers Questions on 4th July, David Cameron proclaimed to the City of London back

in March , As a free-marketeer by conviction, it will not surprise you to hear me say thatthe

problem of the past decadeis too much regulation.

Indeed, the effects of this on public perception were revealed by polling for Policy Network

in late ,

which found that 5% of people in the UK, 3% in Germany,

% in the US, and % in Sweden agree with the view that big companies these days care only

about profits not about the wider community or environment. Voters today are worried about

concentrations of corporate power and their inability to do anything about it. Peoples faith inthe market to deliver social goods, particularly jobs and shared wealth, is at a low. Only between

5% in Germany and 35% in the US cite as an advantage of the market economy that it is the

best way to provide jobs and opportunities to individuals; s Statistics which, certainly in terms

of the United States, demonstrate the schizophrenia of the electorate towards the role of the

State and that of the market. is might of course reflect a major degree of scepticism that any

mechanism could provide an answer. Nevertheless, this was an opportunity for politicians to

demonstrate the positive role of government as a force for good.

8 Ed Miliband MP, Prime Ministers Questions, 4 July 2012, Hansard Debates for 4th July 2012 http:

//www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm120704/debtext/120704-0001.htm#12070479000012

9 Policy Network, The Quest for a New Governing Purpose, March 2011


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Failure in many western countries to grasp this opportunity to provide a clear narrative and

an optimistic vision of the future made space available for the voice of anti-politics. As a

consequence, those truly responsible for the mess were able to regroup and reassert their power.

e third strand was the more vivid and explicit role of those who might be described as

technocrats. is was coupled with a reassertion of the markets and, therefore, of international

finance. e bond markets were now effectively in the driving seat in Europe and North America.

It could be described as nothing short of a coup in terms of what occurred in Greece, with

the removal of the Prime Minister, and in Italy, with the removal of both the Prime Minister

and the Cabinet.

Whatever feelings people had about Silvio Berlusconi and those around him, they were at

least elected. e technocrats that replaced them were not.

A military coup, which of course Greece had suffered in the s, would have been

condemned out of hand, yet the pressure brought to bear and the role of those second-guessingthe bond markets proved to be more decisive in removing governments than in sustaining them

or in finding long-term solutions.

If, as was the case in respect of Germany, you are asked to be the guarantor of last resort, it

is not surprising that you take a particular interest in, and layout your requirements for, such

help. Nevertheless, even as late as August the German government were still blocking

efforts by the European Central Bank to provide decisive as opposed to temporary, and therefore

indecisive, action to ensure the economic stability of Spain and Italy. Nevertheless, as we shall

see in relation to the aftermath of the French Presidential Election, the Chancellor of Germany

had taken on an entirely inappropriate role vis--visthe electors of other countries.

e contrast of Germany imposing its will on Greece, laying down in terms the detailed

austerity measures required for the bailout, contrasted sharply with the original intentions of

the founders of the European Union. After all, it was to prevent any nation overriding the will

of other sovereign nations that the European Union had emerged as the great stabilising and

mutual force of postwar Europe. Now, in the contrast between theory and practice, Germany

did not need the battalions in order to require compliance. In advance of the initial Greek

general election held on th May, the main political parties were forced to sign up to a pre-

election pledge not to offer the people of Greece an alternative fiscal and economic scenario!

Paradoxically, as was seen after th May, those parties that had accepted external diktats

suffered gravely in the General Election. In particular, Pasok, who had inherited the financial

mess but inevitably suffered the consequences of the humiliation imposed on the Greek

government by the international community. It was not merely that anti-austerity parties did

extremely well, it was that those opposed to compliance with the bailout requirements were

seen as untainted by the capitulation.

One ursday in June demonstrated perfectly the world in flux as I have set out. On

4th of the month, David Camerons relationship with the media was put under the spotlight

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18

at the Leveson Inquiry; George Osborne reiterated his commitment to Plan A the

appeasement of the Credit Rating Agencies and the markets at his annual Mansion House

address; and Spains rating was cut three notches, from A3 to Baa3, one notch above junk.

Indeed, the reaction of the market was predictable government bond yields reached the critical

% level that had signalled state bailouts for Greece, Portugal and Ireland.

ursday 4th June also saw the final pre-election rallies take place along pro versus

anti bailout lines for the second Greek election (attempts to form a new government had failed

following the first election). Alexis Tsipras, the left wing Syriza leader, was explicit in his attack

on Angela Merkel. At his final election rally in Athens, Tsipras accused his rival, conservative

New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras of defending Merkels Europe of the past.

ough the German government had pledged not to endorse anyone in the Greek race, on

the day before the election, Angela Merkel said it was vital for Greece to elect lawmakers who

will respect austerity commitments. Not surprisingly in the event, the exhausted and bewildered

Greek electorate gave the main opposition party (under the strange Greek constitution which

adds fifty seats to the winning party total) the right to form a coalition. In effect the deal brokered

earlier in the year with Germany, was to be carried through.

Never in recent history has so much interference been tolerated in the election of an

independent sovereign country, and with so little comment outside that country about the

unacceptability of such encroachment.

It can be seen that politicians were either adopting the guise of technocrats, or being replaced

by them. e anti-politics stance of politicians themselves across the globe must have had someimpact in relation to the psyche of the electorate. In Germany, technocratic solutions (and a

particular form of economic orthodoxy) suited both the German psyche and their economy.

Politics and professional technocracy blended seamlessly together. Elsewhere across the world,

offering the great and the good responsibility for key delivery mechanisms in respect of public

services (or in some cases turning to judges to deal with inherently political issues) became

commonplace.

e faith in technocrats over politicians is not a trend from which Britain is exempt. Peter

Kellner, President of the polling organisation YouGov, tested in spring the propositionthat Britain would be governed better if our politicians got out of the way, and instead our

ministers were non-political experts who knew how to run large organisations. Almost as many

people agreed, 3%, as disagreed, 43%.

And indeed, austerity measures in Britain have been praised by the faceless credit-rating

agencies and, in a parody of the organ grinder and the monkey, Chancellor George Osborne in

mid-February could be seen to welcome the threat of downgrading Britains ratings as a

vindication of his own policy. Politicians appearing to assert themselves merely by capitulating

to the markets is the worst form of self-delusion. As John Gray rightly pointed out in BBCRadio 4sA Point Of Viewat the end of , the price the markets have exacted for the political

10 YouGov poll, 5 March 2012


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decision to save the structure of the banking system in Europe and America was to be borne through

austerity inflicted on the innocent populations of those countries most affected.

Even former Chancellor Alistair Darling is on record as feeling that the pressure from the

rating agencies was helpful in his internal struggle to offer a balanced response to the crisis.

However, this misses the point. If the pressure of such unaccountable organisations is to be

lauded, where does this leave the ordinary citizen with a mere vote to cast?

Historically the two large and powerful credit rating agencies, Moodys and S&P, and their

smaller counterpart Fitch, had provided ratings for pension fund investors. e practice of rating

the credit-worthiness of bond issues (more recently for sovereign funds) was not matched by

any regulatory or review mechanism of the credit-rating agencies themselves. Only now, in the

United States with the work of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the investigation

by the British House of Commons Treasury Select Committee,

and investigations initiated in

Italy, has any meaningful counteraction been forthcoming.3

Questions have at last been raised relating to the fact that the large shareholders owning

credit-rating agencies, also have an interest in the outcome of their work. Paradoxically,

governments have no such influence. If of course you are the United States, as in August ,

a minor downgrading can be shrugged off. In the case of the US, borrowing rates actually fell!

Nevertheless, somewhat belatedly, the question is being asked are these the right organisations,

should they be making these judgements and, who is holding them to account? Whilst the

European Commission have tentatively raised the issue, they almost immediately backed off the

idea of seeking to create a European counterweight to organisations which, after all, were set up

originally to avoid a modern version of the South Sea Bubble. At this, they failed abysmally. We

therefore end up with the contradiction of agencies which contributed to the global meltdown

now being responsible for the near hegemony of fiscal retrenchment.

Inevitably governments have found themselves having to succumb (if economies were not

to have collapsed completely) to what sometimes has amounted to the whims of those setting

short- and medium-term interest rates. is has resulted not in a major political education

exercise, explaining where power lies and how best in future to be able to counteract these forces,

but politicians turning on politicians, and country upon country.Of course, blaming other politicians has come at a price. e price being that the message

to the electorate is that politics and politicians, and not the markets or the little-known credit-

rating agencies, are to blame.

Democracy has always been understood to be about empowering those without wealth and

11 Alistair Darling MP Speaking to BBC Radio 4s File on 4, 28 February 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-

17197337

12 House of Commons Treasury Select Committee inquiry into Credit Rating Agencies 2012 http://www.parliament.uk/

business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/treasury-committee/inquiries1/parliament-2010/credit-rating-

agencies/

13 Investigation by Italian state auditors, June 2012, Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/22/us-italy-ratings-

probe-idUSBRE85L0SJ20120622


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privilege, to balance the purely economic with the social and human element of dealing with

globalisation. What is happening now is the disempowerment of politics by, of all people,

politicians.

On the th March at the European Council, those countries signing up to the Fiscal

Compact effectively built in a particular economic orthodoxy which, whilst suiting the German

economy, took out of the hands of national electorates any real opportunity to engage in

alternative fiscal programmes. e challenge by incoming French President Francois Hollande

to this Compact offers some hope of politicians standing up for political democracy and the

rights of their electorate. If fiscal as well as monetary union locks in a particular political as well

as economic orthodoxy, then of course Euroscepticism will be substantially exacerbated and, in

a further twist, will then make it more difficult to get a revised European Union to take combined

measures to counterweight the markets rather than to capitulate, and will codify capitulation to

those markets.

e result of all this of course is that politics has begun to have fewer and fewer defenders.

And when the technocrats become politicians, democracy has effectively been declared incapable

of meeting the challenge.

The political impact

THE MESSAGE RECEIVED BY THE VOTERS has been twofold. Firstly, that

interventionist politics has somehow failed; and secondly, that fending for yourself, that

individualism and suspicion of the State, is the common sense way of responding.

Worryingly, in the Audit of Political Engagementby the Hansard Society the proportion

of the public who say they are very or fairly interested in politics has dropped by % and

now stands at 4%, falling below 5% for the first time since the Audits began. In the same

survey perceived knowledge of politics fell by a staggering % over the last year, with 5% of

people claiming they knew absolutely nothing at all about politics. is at a time when the

teaching of citizenship and democracy in our schools is under severe threat, and politicians claim

to want the population as a whole to get more engaged in society and to make a bigger

contribution to the world around them.

Furthermore, disillusionment with traditional political processes was matched by the

hardening of attitudes towards solidarity. In the Social Trends Reportpublished in , 53% of

adults questioned either agreed strongly or agreed that if welfare benefits were not so generous

people would learn to stand on their own two feet an increase of 5% on ten years earlier.

Meanwhile, whilst four in ten adults at the turn of the century agreed the Government should

14 Office for National Statistics, Social Trends No. 41, 2011, http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/social-trends-rd/social-

trends/social-trends-41/index.html


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spend more money on welfare benefits for the poor, this fell to just % ten years later.4

Further

to this, in a poll carried out by YouGov for Prospectmagazine in February , it was found

that 4% of people think that Britain spends too much on welfare and should cut benefits.

Moreover, % of people also agreed with the statement that Our welfare system has created a

culture of dependency. People should take more responsibility for their lives and families.5

Most dramatically, the most recent NatCen British Social Attitudes report shows that support

for government increasing taxes and spending more on health, education and social benefits has

halved from a peak of 3% almost a decade ago to just 3%. In fact, support for tax and spend

policies has reduced to a level last seen in 3 in the aftermath of recession and stagflation in

the economy.

e Economist, in a survey Do the public know what they want? reflected the inherent

contradictions which makes politics a necessity, not an optional extra or alternative to

technocracy. When the technocrats become politicians, democracy has effectively bitten the

dust. e findings showed that there was no clear consensus on whether or not to cut public

spending (54% for cuts and 3% against), and opinion was even more finely balanced when the

potential consequences of cuts for individuals were spelt out in more detail (4% for cuts and

4% against). Moreover, public involvement in public services was seen as a good idea in

principle 4% strongly agree that people should get more involved in improving services and

local areas. However, this fell to % strongly agreeing that I should get more involved.

is is precisely why we need politics and, dare I say it, politicians. Both to articulate the

language of priorities, as described by Aneurin Bevan, but also to mediate and decide between

contradictory demands from the public and short term pressures alongside long term imperatives.

Of course as indicated earlier, it is critical in defending politics not to defend the indefensible.

In defence of politics means defending the rights and the positive role of the individual and

family, but combined through solidarity into having the genuine ability to offer influence and to

hold others to account. Building a vibrant civil society, developing a bottom up approach, is vital.

As Professor Geoff Green and I wrote in a Fabian pamphlet at the beginning of the s, the

approach should be one of bottom-up (the title of the pamphlet being Building From e Bottom).

Instead, the liberal left tinkered with further constitutional change and a top-down approachwhilst fearing the end of old certainties.

e 45-5 Government is commonly assumed as the high watermark of British socialism.

Of course I understand entirely why this is the case, but there are two elements that need to be

unpicked here.

15 Bronwen Maddox, Britains Quiet Revolution, 23 February 2012, http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/

blog/britain%e2%80%99s-quiet-revolution-bronwen-maddox-editorial-march-2012-issue/

16 NatCen British Social Attitudes 27th Report, December 2010 http://www.natcen.ac.uk/study/british-social-attitudes-27th-report

17 Ipsos-Mori Economist Poll, Do the public know what they want?, 23 April 2010 http://www.ipsos-

mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/2598/Economist-Poll-Do-the-public-know-what-they-want.aspx


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e first is where the governments are now powerless by comparison and of course they

are not, but we do need to recognise the necessity of an entirely new approach, which must be

adopted and made clear to the electorate.

e victory of Francois Hollande in the Presidential Election in France poses the challenge

to politicians and the role of government very starkly. e voters of France chose to reject the

so-called Fiscal Pact referred to earlier, which built in austerity as part of economic orthodoxy.

No sooner had the voters given their verdict than the Chancellor of Germany was seeking to

veto the voters with the argument that recently signed Pacts cannot be easily unpicked by

incoming governments. e tone and nature of the German response was, however, deeply

unhelpful and the height of arrogance. Once again, the Germans were appearing to believe that

they had the right (or their leadership had the right) to trump the decisions of voters in individual

sovereign countries. e possibility of a parallel Growth Pact as a way out of the slapping down

of the voters of France was clever. However, it sent a pretty clear message to the electors of the

Republic of Ireland on 3st May in the referendum on the fiscal compact that whateverthey did, the economic policy (because of course it is a policy) of one moment, at one small

period in history, would be unchallengeable!

is is of course a complete nonsense in providing men and women with a democratic

political system that allows them to make change, to demand alternatives and to elect those

willing to carry them through. It does, however, demonstrate a very real question about the

power of individual governments, even those whose monetary and fiscal situation is not so

powerless as to make them subject to the whims of others. In the simplest of terms, the question

has to be asked as to who calls the shots, and an assessment therefore made of where power lies.

e second element is simply the very assumption that the 45-5 Government wasthe

high watermark. is is taken as a given in Labour circles. However, the top-down approach

(the great nationalised corporations, and the particular nature of the development of the welfare

state) can be seen as having contributed to the simplistic but easily understood message of

Margaret atcher in relation to the nature of welfarism, and the return to this theme from

May by the Coalition Government.

A recognition of the necessity of 45 (and the legacy of the war) is welcome, but anappreciation that the world has substantially moved on and the lessons of that era need to be

learnt would help us in addressing the modernity of the st century, and the future aspirations

of individuals and families not caught up in the nostalgia of the past.

e issue of accountability within the formal political structure has long required fuller

debate. Top-down, or highly formalised traditional structures were of course not always either

democratic or for that matter workable. No, the nationalised services or industries were often

a post-war bureaucratic nightmare. Appropriate for a wartime economy, inappropriate for an

open modern democracy. e issue is therefore not going back but how we progress forward ina totally different world of modern twenty-four-hour media and of instant and ever-developing

means of communication? How, at its bluntest, we ensure that those taking decisions within

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the health service or ever-more-autonomous head teachers can be held to account by someone,

somewhere. If it isnt to be politicians at a local or national level in the end, who is it to be?

ese are profound questions which require in-depth debate. ey demand not disillusionment,

hopelessness or alienation from or with politics, but rather a renewal of our commitment. is

entails willingness and encouragement, as well as participation and engagement with democratic

practices.

ose managing key NHS facilities who are happy to see politicians blamed for their own

total inadequacy and sometimes near criminal neglect (such as the Staffordshire NHS Trust), or

those in the private sector (Winterbourne View springs to mind) who neglect or abuse patients,

should be the ones in the firing line, as demonstrated by the Serious Case Review into

Winterbourne View published on th August.

e head teacher or chair of governors of a school who are afraid or unwilling to consult

with their local community about a change in status of the school or its future, have to ask

themselves who it is they think they areaccountable to, who pays their salaries and whose lives

they are affecting.

One thing is clear, that equipping members of governing bodies, trusts and sponsors with

the information and wherewithal to be able to hold the leadership team of a school to account

is a vital piece of future accountability.

Of course, the fragmentation itself has led to Trusts and mini-education authorities in private

hands. As the normal governing body structure of locally-based schools equipping parents, helping

them to mobilise, and to be able to hold members of such organisations to account begins todecline, school accountability will be another issue requiring support locally and nationally.

is is indeed a new politics. It is about equipping people to be able to do their politics for

themselves informing, persuading and, yes, equipping people to be able to question, to require

change and hopefully to be persuaded that mutuality and reciprocity is better than a free-for-

all. It is about schools and colleges no longer working in isolation from their community, and

instead cooperating in the interests of those they teach.

In other words, we need government at national and local level equipping others to be able

to participate effectively and to do the job of representing their own local community or

particular niche in the service.

e future accountably and direction of the NHS following the Coalitions bumbling

reorganisation will at least in part depend on organisation at local level. Using the Health and

Wellbeing Boards, led by democratically elected local government, and developing community

based pressure on the unaccountable Clinical Commissioning Groups, will not only be essential

in giving a voice to patients and the wider community, but also in bringing politics alive. Losing

in parliament does not mean losing the political argument on the ground.

And as set out in the Edith Kahn lecture,

this revitalisation of true localism applies as

23

18 Civil Renewal: A New Agenda. The CSV Edith KahnMemorial Lecture,11 June2003. Rt. Hon. David Blunkett MP


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with the combined clout to do something about global poverty.

Many of those making the commitment on that day were young people, who do not vote

in anything like the same numbers as their older counterparts, which is perhaps an explanation

in part of why the eighteen-plus generation of the moment are more likely to feel the wind of

austerity than those in retirement.

Yet the demonstration of interest in politics and a desire to change the world is obvious in

talking to young people today. In addition to addressing their immediate concerns in relation

to the likelihood of having a job, a home of their own and affordable education post-sixteen, it

will be necessary to find ways of creating the kind of tide of opinion which led up to July 5

and which, in its way, both stimulated and made possible the commitments on world poverty.

Equally, global environmental movements and earlier anti-apartheid movement across the

world demonstrated what people can do from their own lives and by combining together.

e European Union should at its best provide another force countervailing the unaccount-able global influences. Unfortunately, captured as it is by bureaucratic structures and bedevilled

by power struggles, it is reminiscent of fiddling while Rome (almost literally) burns. Enough,

irrespective of the theatricals of December , to turn even the most Europhile politician into

a Eurosceptic.

Again, this must surely mean linking people across boundaries rather than relying on

institutions but the corollary is that those institutions themselves promote rather than undermine

the role of elected and participatory democracy.

Indeed, one of the challenges to politics is to ensure that democracy works in the best

interests of everyone. is means fair access to the law (undermined substantially when people

cannot afford to defend or promote their rights), whilst at the same time providing that it is the

process of politics that offers answers rather than the judicial process. In simple terms, that we

have a system where judges are free to make decisions within the law laid down by parliament,

within the common law under constraints of ensuring that the determination of parliament is

not undermined, and at the same time ensuring that they do not stray into the political arena.

A free society needs an independent judiciary, but a free society requires that it is political

decision making and not the role of judges that determines policy for the future as I set out

in Politics and Progress (September 2001). is is equally true in balancing individual and human

rights, and therefore the position of minorities, with the will of the majority. e challenge is

balancing the post-war consensus in establishing the European Court of Human Rights, but

having in place the subsidiarity required to be able to override judgements from Strasbourg in

order to maintain political consent.

Which leads me back to the central challenge. How politicians can tell the public the truth

about the power relationship, and the very changed role of Westminster, without creating even

greater disillusionment.

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26

What is to be done?

AS I SPELT OUT IN 2008 after the financial crash,

we need radical thinking. We must

combine the desire of the individual to make their own decisions with the reciprocity writ large,

through an enabling State that, as with the desire of those who joined the early Labour

Movement, provides a route to practical self determination. In this way we can put to rest thelie that we on the Social Democratic left are in favour of big, top-down government.

We need to stop promising the undeliverable. We must acknowledge the important, but

partial role of parliament in changing the world. And yes, we should lay out where other forces

can be mobilised, to use the resources of government to assist with that process of mobilisation,

and in that hackneyed phrase, to empower others.

For government to directly support mutual action and key campaigns would be unusual

but not unthinkable. As indicated in the previous section, with the G in 5, people powercan be mobilised to deliver real change by influencing those in more formalised positions of

power. In the spring of , Which?organised, under the heading of e Big Switch, almost

4, people coming together to negotiate a much better personal deal in relation to domestic

energy consumption. With energy bills costing an average of around 3 a year per household,

by using the combined purchasing power that individuals could not dream of exercising alone,

real clout was given to those involved and the winning tariff from Co-operative Energy saved

consumers 3 per year.

Avoiding criticism that only those in the know would really take advantage of this, theEden Project, local authorities and others on the Cornish peninsula have launched a similar

scheme to pull together in excess of , consumers struggling to pay their bills. Once again,

the idea is to use collective strength, backed by local government and others, to get a better deal.

However, the Which?campaign was extraordinarily complicated and the energy companies

extremely difficult to deal with. Government support for such mutual initiatives would be

transformational.

Most recently in July , angry bank customers, frustrated with the NatWest computer

meltdown and the Barclays rate-rigging scandal, vented their anger by leaving the big five banks.

Data compiled by the campaign group Move Your Money UKshowed an enormous surge in

requests to switch from large high street banks to smaller alternatives believed to be more ethical.

Charity Bank, which lends its savers money to charities, saw a % increase in depositors; the

Ecology Bank had a % rise in applications; and credit unions have seen week-on-week

increases of at least %, some of them up to 3%.

Whilst this offers an example of

individuals as consumers making choices that reflect their disquiet, it cannot substitute for the

19 David Blunkett, Mutual Action, Common Purpose: Empowering the Third Sector, published in November 2008

20 Finanical Times, Elaine Moore, 11 May 2012 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8877251c-9abe-11e1-94d7-

00144feabdc0.html#axzz22IGlJOjI

21 Observer, p.8, Heather Stewart, 8 July 2012, Move Your Money Campaign


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kind of major decisions which government makes on behalf of the people as a whole.

e power to switch, literally, hundreds of branches from one bank to another is of, course,

an area where government and regulators have power, but one in which they should involve

people even when using that macro-mechanism for achieving change. e decision to force

Lloyds TSB to switch not only its outlets but customers to the Co-operative Bank, which will

be completed in 3, is an example. Here, questions of what happens to the individual and

their choice have to be raised. Giving people real power would be to ensure that they were part

of the process for switching rather than the passive recipients of such change.

What is really needed is planning for what will be inherited from 5. In education, for

instance (but this is also true of health), there will be a fractured and fragmented landscape.

Whilst it is clear that measures to increase cooperation will be necessary, the main challenge will

be to engage parents, governors and trustees in a bottom up-approach. is will involve the

various layers of government providing the information and wherewithal to genuinely offer the

individuals concerned the capacity to take control of issues at local level in holding to account

those who have been passed the levers of decision-making.

With this in mind, funding the expansion of leadership and community development is

something that we are familiar with why not build on this? In simple terms the Government,

using the collective power it still possesses, and of course the resources of the taxpayer, would be

putting funding at the disposal of people who, in their own lives, are fighting battles against

vested interests or forces outside the normal realms of everyday life. is would indeed be radical

politics!

Of course this does already happen. On a micro scale, communities have taken hold of their

own destiny. From Birminghams Balsall Heath to Bradford, from East London to East Glasgow,

men and women have decided that enough is enough. Tackling drug abuse and prostitution,

unfit housing and unacceptable behaviour, they have changed the immediate world around

them.

Enabling people to make their voice heard and to facilitate their capacity to participate,

surely has to be an essential role for a vibrant and living democracy?

Embryo versions of this have existed for some time in the way in which more radical local

government had in the past supported the growth of community leadership and development,

so much so that Margaret atcher feared that local government would form an effective

opposition to central government diktats. In fact, she used the s Community Development

Programmes as an example of something to be concerned about.

However, as seen from the Ulster Peoples College in Northern Ireland more than a decade

ago, government does have a real part to play in this. As with other adult education colleges

across the UK, the Ulster Peoples College deliberately set out to provide support and training

to those with natural leadership qualities in all parts of the divided community. By doing so,

they sought not only to give a voice and capacity for community development and action, but

also to unite people in the common cause of improving the quality and standard of life, and

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22 David Blunkett & Keith Jackson, Democracy in Crisis: The Town Halls Respond(Hogarth Press, 1987).

building a stake for all in the community in which they lived and worked. is was about

equality and fairness, as well as about reducing the divide what Ed Miliband has described as

Fair Chance a not so new but imaginative way of describing the drive for a fairer society in

which the power of government is used to liberate the talent of all.

e early Blair government from provided support to community groups who had

been successful in developing self-help, in order that they in turn might help others. e Guide

Communities were such a working example, but fell victim to the then fashionable idea that

government should not have small pots of money or initiatives of this kind. Instead, what became

known as the single pot, the Treasury-driven desire to offload both responsibility and blame,

came into play. Latterly, of course, this has been picked up in what the present Coalition and

the Communities Secretary Eric Pickles describes as localism; centralising more of the decision-

taking even down to what should go out in a community newspaper, but decentralising the pain

of making difficult decisions in what is effectively the unravelling of the post-war welfare

settlement.

Squaring the circle of government accepting responsibility for its actions whilst facilitating

and encouraging self-help and innovative community development is the task that a left-of-

centre government should relish. Localism, and the sustaining of a functioning civil society is

fertile ground for those whose raison dtrehas been to empower the powerless and to ensure

that decision making is not confined to the rich and powerful.

Similarly, nurturing the process of getting people to run their own facilities locally can be

seen as one of the few positive developments from the austerity agenda. Instead of trying to turn

back the clock and reinvent the formalised professional delivery of services which existed prior

to , the opportunity should be taken to lay out not only the big picture of how the world

might look with genuine democratic involvement, but also how the drive to marketisation and

fragmentation of services can be countered.

At its best, local government historically demonstrated the power of the will of people to

make change for themselves through more traditional structures. e municipal socialism of the

early twentieth century is an obvious example, but so is the best of what happened in the

turbulent decade of the s. In Democracy In Crisis, which I co-authored,

the innovativedecentralised model of service delivery was accompanied by a radical look at what part could be

played in saving and creating jobs at local level.

Similarly, as I urged back on 3th April in a speech entitled ink Global, Act Local:

Mobilising civil society in the face of global meltdown, we must renew our radical community roots.

In that speech I advocated a number of radical policies which are as relevant today as they were

over three years ago. In particular, that benefits should remain where possible universal, but

should, where practicable, be taxable. In other words, they should be what they always were

intended to be part of someones income. is would resolve a number of thorny issues, notleast in relation to child benefit so long as the lower rates were lifted appropriately and with


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adjustments, only those on very high incomes would lose but in a way that did not cause the

kind of complications that the current Coalition Government are heading for in 3 onwards.

Co-delivery is the oldest concept of all. Namely, that instead of simply delivering to people

the support services from government and from other forms of public- or third-sector assistance

locally and nationally, delivery should be about helping people to help themselves. is is about

providing a way in which those in receipt of services can play a part both in the delivery of the

more formalised professional aspects, along with the notion of people linking together and

helping each other.

ere are, in Europe and North America, good examples of how services have been reshaped

to offer this new way of meeting need. In Oregon in the USA, for example, people with mental

health conditions are helped to live independent lives through a personal budget. ey are

assigned a personal advisor to identify goals and how to best use the personal budget to buy

goods and services which will help them achieve these aims (whilst personal budgets have been

adopted in order to give greater independence and choice in adult social care in the UK,

personalised advice and the peer group way of working, distinguishes this approach).3

Equally,

the Harlem Childrens Zone (HCZ) is one solution for poverty-stricken children and families

living in Harlem, providing free support for the children and families in a range of areas,

including parenting workshops and a pre-school program for thousands of families. Building

from the bottom, HCZ began as a one-block pilot in the s and has now expanded to cover

almost blocks, and is being replicated by President Obama in twenty cities across the US.

ose who are engaged in whatever way, having a stake in their community around them,

not only feel involved but are subject to in its broadest sense, political education. ey are

learning about the world as well as themselves. ey are engaged in opening up their own ideas

and working through how they might be carried into practice.

But as well as pioneering a new approach to community development and service delivery,

we also need new finance mechanisms at the root of it all, to help tackle the widening gap

between rich and poor and to assist people through difficult transitions in life.

Something I have been urging since is the development of city and regional banks,

based on the early days of the CLP (Caja Laboral Popular) in the Basque country, when theyconcentrated on savings going into local investment in business, rather than the later mirroring

of the wider banking system with over-lending for house building and the property boom. e

best of the experience of German City/Lander Banks is another good example, whic

In Defence of Politics Revisited

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