Foreword
Blue Labour’s thesis is that we need to return to the community based practices of the late 19th century Labour movement and that if we do we shall effect change in people’s lives building solidarity which has a real value to them, far greater than the abstract philosophical principles of equality and justice. This approach strikes a real note of relevance, because many people feel their lives are insecure and that social ties and obligations have been undermined by globalisation. Sometimes the state institutions set up to tackle problems descend into bossiness and bureaucracy, leaving people feeling frustrated and powerless.
I want to begin my response with two stories about communities in my constituency.
The Reeve’s Tale
The hill farmers of Teesdale are a paradigmatic co-operative community living in harmony with each other and with nature. They have rights of common grazing. This way of life goes back 600 years and the farmers exemplify what RH Tawney called “the doctrineless communism of the open field system”. The Reeve is the secretary of the farmers on each common.
Half the commons in this country are sites of special scientific interest because landowners have historically not had the same rights or financial incentives to exploit this land.
CAP payments are operated by the Rural Payments Agency which has a ludicrously over-complex system. Computer generated maps bear no relation to actual geography and payments are sometimes years late. But the fact is that we cannot end government involvement in this community. Without CAP support the farmers would not be able to make a living. We need to reform the way government administers the system.
Food markets are international and we belong to the European Union. Unless we want to go over to a ultra-green self-sufficiency model of production. We have to have democratically accountable institutions to represent out interests and negotiate solutions with other countries – this is called government – or the state if you like.
The Miner’s Tale
The Miner’s Gala is rooted in the history and traditions of mining in Durham. It begins early in the morning, when people in villages across the county march behind their own banner and band and listen to the miners’ hymn in commemoration of miners who died in their villages in years gone by. Then they get on the bus and go into Durham for the Big Meeting. The whole day is an affirmation of the human spirit.
But the local village marches like other community events are threatened by the dreaded compensation culture. A so-called health and safety expert is demanding expensive road closure notices.
The County Durham Association of Local Councils carried out a survey, which found that the costs ranging from £294 to a staggering £1,580 and 70% of villages have said that the costs involved might dissuade them from holding an event in the future.
We are destroying not only enjoyable days, but communities. Communities are like families, they need to do things together- they need to maintain social cohesion. We are in a crazy situation where we are paying people to set up community development offices and to run initiatives, while we are destroying the home-grown ones, that produce the social capital, trust and local knowledge that people enjoy and gives security.
If you were to ask the former miners what realistic hopes they have for their grandchildren and their futures they would see three possibilities:-
(1) The first is get educated and join the middle class. The coalition’s policies on tuition fees demonstrate how dependent this is on a benign, socially concerned, active government.
(2) But let’s be honest – not everybody’s child is going to be a university lecturer, the fact is there will also always be jobs like cleaning hospitals or being a bus driver which need to be done properly and competently but don’t “lead” anywhere. People who do these jobs are perfectly entitled to proper pay, pensions, terms and conditions, decent homes and neighbourhoods. It’s difficult to see how this fair distribution of resources can be achieved without free trade unions, a strong legal framework and active government.
(3) The third option – and one which Labour pursued successfully, though not on a sufficiently large scale is “modern manufacturing”. It requires a strong science base; a high-skilled workforce and partnerships between universities; public and private sectors.
All three options require effective government. I agree with Blue Labour we need reformed company law and more tax breaks for people to set up co-ops, mutuals and employee share ownership schemes. We need regional banks and stronger industrial democracy like our European neighbours.
But as far as I can tell capitalism isn’t going away. We have to channel it and regulate and keep up with it.
Government is needed both to attract foreign investment, but also to negotiate a level playing field at multilateral level, so we have proper environmental and labour standards and a fair trading environment across the world.
The Mother’s Tale
I am sitting in the front room of a council house with a constituent, a single mum, who wants to talk to me. Sharon has three jobs: as a teaching assistant, as a dinner lady and finally as the school cleaner to keep her 3 teenage sons. She wants them to go to a good local school and came to me, because she couldn’t afford the bus fares which are going up by £540 this year. She is not to blame, she is to be applauded. She is not the culprit, she is the victim.
In The Politics of Paradox Glasman characterises as female all the aspects of New Labour he dislikes, whereas all the characteristics he applauds he draws as male. This rhetorical device was of course famously used by the author Genesis.
If Glasman thinks that we will all greet this with an ironic post-feminist smile he is wrong. How can we in a country where 1,000 women are raped each week, usually by a partner or ex-partner; where the gender pay gap is some 20%; and fewer than one judge in five is a woman?
In a quite extraordinary passage on family life, Jonathan Rutherford writes, “The patrimony has now been fragmented and disrupted by the growing independence of women.”
Not only does blaming working women raise serious ethical questions. It is not based on any facts.
According to UNICEF British children are at the bottom of the wellbeing index, while Scandinavian children are at the top. Yet in Denmark the rate of lone parenthood is the highest. On the POP analysis this is inexplicable. The reason of course is that in Denmark there is an excellent social support system and much lower levels of child poverty. The welfare state, far from being part of the problem, is part of the solution.
In criticising women’s independence and the role of the welfare state POP ignore some other powerful actors.
No mention is made of the role of the media in influencing attitudes and hence behaviour. In the area of gender relations – the insidious pornification of the media which warps expectations and normalises sexual violence is ignored.
All of this is a great shame, because the living wage would really benefit Sharon and the cuts to public services, public sector jobs and terms and conditions will affect her badly. She needs to be defended both as a worker by her trade union, but also by us as Labour, since we have found out that the lion’s share of the deficit reduction will be borne by women.
The Legacy of Empire
In another extraordinary outburst Rutherford writes;
“Individual self control, hard work and willingness to delay or forego reward and gratification provided social glue and the purposefulness of a national, imperial destiny!”
This is drum and trumpet jingoism at its worst.
It is true that globalisation benefits both poor countries and the rich in rich countries at the expense of the poor and badly educated in rich countries. It is also true that this is a problem we urgently need to address, but not by an absurd hankering for colonial relationships.
The Priest’s Tale
The young priest who has a poor parish in a multi-cultural community in Central London is telling me about his dilemma. Because of the cuts, the local council is having to close its day centre for old people. He has been thinking about setting up a lunch club to take its place, which would be staffed by volunteers, he thinks it can run two days a week: his bishop thinks it is a marvellous idea. But he is furious at being co-opted into Cameron’s Big Society. He wants to speak out about the injustice: “It just won’t be the same”.
One of the rather grating things which politicians of all stripes do is to wheel on churches and mosques when it is convenient as examples of community-building but then close their ears to the messages the faith groups bring.
Justice
The justice tradition is an ancient Old Testament tradition one might say the gift of the Jewish faith to western thought. St Paul’s approach involved a radical change, the invitation to redemption was extended from a select few to all – a new principle of equality.
And ideas of justice naturally lead to claims for equality and universal rights. As Barack Obama said when he came to London: “Through the struggles...we have learned that the longing for freedom and human dignity is not English or American – it is universal and every citizen deserves a basic measure of security, healthcare, unemployment insurance, a dignified retirement”.
We need to weave a much richer fabric from many threads – solidarity, justice, equality, liberty, democracy, the needs of communities and the rights of individuals. I believe that this way we will be able to set out a far more optimistic open and inclusive approach to the future.
