We don’t seem as far away from a Labour government as we did a month ago. UKIP is dividing the right-wing vote, the Tories are acrimoniously divided amongst themselves, some Tories have been publicly reminding everyone of their old ‘nasty party’ credentials, and the Government’s economic strategy continues to fail. The most likely outcome from the next general election must surely be Labour in office, even if only as a minority government or in coalition.
There is no rule which says that parties are only allowed to win elections on their own merits. Nevertheless it is important to look at what the merits of the Labour Party now actually are, in order to gain a realistic idea of what the next decade might be like. Luckily we have been helped in this by a recent well-informed article by Patrick Wintour in The Guardian (17.5.13).
He reassuringly pointed out that Labour has a serious policy review going on, and referred to the fact that it is being co-ordinated by Jon Cruddas, in my view one of Labour’s best MPs. 15 different policy areas were listed in the article as being under review – some by shadow cabinet groups, some by policy commissions, and some being dealt with independently. 15 in all.
Reading the list, however, shocked me. We all know that climate change and the environmental underpinnings of our lives are not Labour’s top priority. But they were not even mentioned in the list. This gives the impression that Labour has no sense even of what historical period we are living in – which is a time when the world economy is increasingly coming into collision with the limits of what the planet can sustain.
Ed Miliband remains virtually silent on this crucial overarching question. He cannot plead ignorance, because as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in the last Labour Government, he led some serious action and planning on climate. But he appears to accept some version of the George Osborne thesis that if you talk about the environment, it sends a signal that you are not concerned about the economy – ignoring the fact that all economies depend on the world’s physical and biological resources, including the maintenance of a relatively stable climate.
There were some other worrying points in the article. I will just pick out two. “The party wants … infrastructure investment decisions possibly farmed out to an independent commission.” What would that mean? Transport and energy policy are both largely about infrastructure investment decisions. An independent commission sounds like a proposal to remove transport and energy policy out of democratic control. That would be a dangerous move, as sensible policies in both those areas could make very important contributions to both sustainability and quality of life. The outcome would probably be more large-scale “boys’ toys” mega-projects steamrolled through at a time when more localised initiatives could be far more useful.
Another sentence in the article: “Clegg’s travails on constitutional reform have reduced Labour appetite for such changes.” I wonder what that means. The public’s sense that the UK (and particularly England) has a dysfunctional and unrepresentative political system is currently stronger than it has been for perhaps 100 years. The party system is increasingly out of touch with people’s moods and opinions, and membership is in rapid decline. All the large parties are increasingly professionalised and centralised. In most parts of the country, ‘local government’ is weak and isn’t even really local any more. And long-run sustainability problems make it urgent to find some mechanism for getting the rights of future generations reflected in the system somewhere. Is this really the right time for Labour to give up on constitutional change?
Of course it may be that Patrick Wintour, usually a pretty reliable journalist, has got the wrong end of the stick on some of these issues. It would be interesting to know whether other readers of this website think he has.
Victor Anderson
The Patrick Wintour article was in two parts –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/may/16/jon-cruddas-labour-policy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/may/16/one-nation-labour-policy-blueprint