Proper Labour like wot I speak

Antonia (on whose blog I can no longer comment — "Shame!", as they cry in the Commons) comments in a recent post on the "breadth" of the Labour Party these days. Actually, she calls it "the sad breadth of my party these days", naming Stephen Pollard as a man who isn't really Labour; he's just anti-Conservative. While I agree with Pollard about Iraq and the Islamofacism we're currently facing, and find that he often points out what needs to be pointed out, I share Antonia's discomfort with some of his more centre-right leanings. Meanwhile, she labels Neil Harding, with whom I've been sharing some interesting commentary, as "undoubtedly proper Labour". (She does, though, question his views on proportional representation, an electoral system I wholly oppose — and I completely disagree with Neil's recent assertion that the Liberal Democrats "will not survive" under it.)

At my first Labour Party Conference I was in the queue for accreditation when I was asked by some Party members who were older than myself whether I was a supporter of the leadership. When I replied that I was, I was told sagely, "You'll learn." This has stuck with me as an amusing caricature of the archetypal constituency Labour activist — reacting against the leadership, yes, but also, in a phenomenon I have subsequently found repeated in others, all too ready to dismiss the views of young people who have entered the Party by virtue of their age. (The fact that those members in that queue beside me only seemed prepared to accept new people into the Party if they were opposed to Tony Blair was also kind of worrying.) At Conference 2004, this happened again when a prominent trade unionist approached the Labour Students stall and proceeding to demonstrate his capacity for rather rude words at the top of his voice at me, simply because Labour Students had supported a motion to Conference the year before in support of foundation hospitals. (I wasn't there, and had had nothing to do with it.) "You're all only interested in getting on and getting nice safe seats," he proclaimed, before a nice lady from the Labour Women's Network dragged him away and I went back to giving out badges.

It turns out that he was wrong, and that there are many young people in Labour Students who do very important work in the National Union of Students, fighting to keep that organisation out of the hands of the Socialist Workers and the Trotskyites. But again, his attitude was a demonstration of the fact that young members of the Party are viewed by the older members as Blair fodder. This is a curious tack to take when you consider that Labour Students were among those leading the charge against variable tuition fees in 2004 (indeed, Mandy Telford, the President of the NUS at the time, was a Labour Student). I will happily admit to being a supporter of the current Government and hope that Tony Blair stays in No 10 as long as possible; but I don't believe that this makes me any less "proper Labour" than Neil Harding. I'm sure Antonia would agree with this; Neil may disagree.

The key to my quite comfortably defining myself as "new Labour" is because I believe this: that socialism is about ends as much as about means. If our goal as socialists is a classless society, where opportunity exists for everyone and wealth is evenly distributed, then if there is a programme which can bring that goal closer I don't object on principle if it involves the private sector. I don't have kneejerk reactions along the lines of "public good, private bad", and I consider responses like that to Government initiatives to be betrayals of the very people in society Labour has historically represented. Yes, I believe that public services must be delivered by public servants; but if a hospital can be built by the private sector and that means that patients who are in excruciating pain won't have to wait five more years for their operation then who am I to tell them their treatment is "wrong"? For a stark illustration of this, we only have to compare the NHS's performance in England with that in Wales, where Welsh Labour has deep-rooted ideological objections to the type of reforms which are happening in the English NHS, like privately built walk-in or treatment centres, or the principle of foundation hospitals themselves. People in Cardiff are screaming blue murder at the treatment currently offered (or not) by the Heath and Whitchurch hospitals. If private investment could build a new wing for one of these hospitals, I'll be damned if I'd be the one to stand up and oppose it.

It's very easy in the current climate to damn Blair and all his works. But we should remember that we have won three elections — two with landslide majorities, one with a healthy one — on the back of a coalition of interests which stretches across the whole of society, not merely our traditional base. This doesn't mean that we abandon the historic principles that Labour is built on; quite the opposite, it means that we forge a socially progressive consensus across all groups in Britain. But I have yet to be convinced that the Blair Government has moved away from those principles, or is planning to. As the man himself said in his first Conference speech as leader in 1994:

Market forces cannot educate us or equip us for this world of rapid technological and economic change. We must do it together. We cannot buy our way to a safe society. We must work for it together. We cannot purchase an option on whether we grow old. We must plan for it together. We can't protect the ordinary against the abuse of power by leaving them to it; we must protect each other.

That is our insight. A belief in society. Working together. Solidarity. Cooperation. Partnership. These are our words. This is my socialism. And we should stop apologising for using the word.

It is not the socialism of Marx or state control. It is rooted in a straight forward view of society. In the understanding that the individual does best in a strong and decent community of people with principles and standards and common aims and values.

We are the party of the individual because we are the Party of community. It is social-ism.

Our task is to apply those values to the modern world. It will change the traditional dividing lines between Right and Left. And it calls for a new politics.

Comments

[Neil Harding]

You may have read me a bit wrong Rob, I am actually an admirer of Blair. As I have clearly shown with my post on my site on July 12th agreeing with Martin Kettle article: "The leading statesman — Blair".

Even over Iraq I was a reluctant "wait and see" person. I reasoned that Blair must have some good reason for supporting it and put aside my niggling worries about it fostering terrorism and the fairly obvious fact that Iraq had no weapons to threaten us with. (They had no rockets that could even reach Israel, let alone the UK. We all knew their nuclear capabilities where kaput, ditto chemical, and as for the chemical weapons we sold them, they were long past their sell by date. These weapons thankfully quickly deteriate. It was obvious oil was the motivation, but I reasoned the war is going to happen anyway, so maybe we can moderate US policy by backing them.)

But after the G8 and the bombings, it is very obvious that backing Bush was a mistake. Did the influence that Blair has amongst the US public and therefore Bush, get us many concessions on climate change and debt? I'm really not sure Iraq was worth the price!

I think you are wrong to back Pollard on anything, but I'm glad to hear you recognise his right wing tendencies.

[Rob]

Again Neil, we fundamentally disagree here. I'm glad you're not totally opposed to the Blairite project, but I find it difficult how you can say in one breath that you think he is a statesman while in the next you brand him a liar, which is effectively what you do when you repeat the nonsense that the Iraq war was "all about oil". Why is it so difficult to believe that Blair (and Bush, incidentally) simply think that the prominent security threat of our time is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, linked with global fundamentalist terror? Sometimes the easiest answer is the correct one, rather than the conspiracy theory.

I also don't particularly hold to the view that there has to be some kind of "pay-off" from America for our participation in the Iraq war, but I think it's certainly the case that Bush has moved on climate change and significantly increased debt with less ties to aid of late. Whether this amounts to any kind of quid pro quo I don't know, but I doubt that Blair would demand or expect one beyond the fact that morally, he has the right arguments and he would want the American President along for the ride - if only because no global problem can be adequately addressed without the participation of the world's only superpower.

[Neil Harding]

Politics is poker I'm afraid. Blair is a master and there is nothing wrong in that. I wouldn't label it lying as such, unfortunately it's essential to play the game with the press we have.

A good example is when the press asked Blair the other day if he had 'ever lied'. Well of course he has, (assuming he's human), but being politics he had to say he never had. Is this lying, I don't really think it is. Like I say I believe Blair's heart is in the right place and he genuinely thought the Iraq decision was right, but not necessarily for the reasons they used. There is no shame in this, it's just the sad way we have to persuade the public when our press distort the truth so much.

[Antonia]

Hello Rob,

Thanks for the link - and just for you I have opened the comments section at my place back up to all comers (though why you couldn't just get a Blogger profile I don't know!)

I'd agree with your comments about young Labour types, though I don't think Labour students have always helped themselves by their willingness to dress up in stupid costumes to highlight the flaws of particular Tories under the direction of those bright sparks - nearly all former nolsies - at HQ. Amongst many things that I hate about being a youngish person in the party is the embarassment I would feel if any of my normal non-political friends were to join and pitch up at your average branch meeting - they'd either be patronised into the floor or ignored totally while the slightly dotty chair went into a well-rehearsed rant about Iraq and oil or the new housing estate or some other such well-worn topic.

You're clearly lucky enough not to feel slightly incredulous at anyone's decision to join the LP at a time like this, as the people in the queue ahead of you were. I can't agree that that the extent of the involvement of the private sector is somehow socialist - at best it's a grubby little compromise for the right ends. And I don't believe that the sacrifices we've made to keep on board the voters of Muswell Hill and Atlantic Wharf and all those other places have been worth in the end, when we lost them anyway this time.