A Labour Party ‘Rudd’erless? could look to Australia’s recent PM for help    

I was standing at the tube one Saturday morning, during the recent General election, looking forward to a day campaigning for the Labour Party in East London. I noticed a local lad on his way, I presume to a day’s training at the relatively local David Beckham football academy. To many, David Beckham, will be a hero, an idol and possibly a role model. Indeed, in the World Cup in South Africa England sorely lacked a Beckham-like figure on the pitch. This reflection made me wonder, if, as Christians in politics can we have role models or heroes without them becoming idols? I am not sure, maybe we can see people as heroes of the faith; but there are certainly people we should take note of. Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Spurgeon would rank in my list.

  I believe our involvement in politics is a missional journey. As biblical, spirit-filled, Christians we are fulfilling our calling in the political space that cannot be separated from the building of the church and the extension of God’s Kingdom. On this journey, as we travel together, we need many people whom we can learn from and many more to become role models and mentors, rather than heroes per se. I have no doubt that Stephen Timms has been an inspiration to many on the Christian left, both in his character and his achievements. Someone, whom we should take note of, I believe, in this present time, is the recent Australian, Labor, Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. Though the Australian Labor Party will have their reasons for swiftly replacing Mr Rudd with Julia Gillard, there is much the Christian left can learn from the former Aussie premier.   I like Australians, generally, I think they are down to earth and have much in common with the British working-class. Yes, I admit that some of this is sentimental, I was brought up to be aware of the sacrifice that was made by many young men from Australia and New Zealand made in WW1 and WW2. I recently watched the film , Gallipoli again and it is deeply tragic, but watch the film and get my drift. In 2005 I visited Australia for the first time and like most British men who go there, I went surfing, drank beer, went to Bondi beech and….. read about the Australian Labour Party. Labour was then going through a trauma and the Liberal Party (centre-right party) was in full control, led by Prime Minister ‘Johnny’ Howard. who seemed to be popular and had captured large chunks of the working-class or ‘battler’ constituency for his own. Labor was not in a good place and this saddened me.   I once had the privilege of attending a meeting of the Labour Friends of Australia and heard the then leader of the Labour Party, Simon Crean talk about the political situation there. So the links between the two parties are relatively strong, both have a link to trade unions, there seem to have similar debates about ‘modernisation’ in the past twenty or so years. The former MP Robert Kilfoyle lived in Australia for a while, Jon Cruddas MP worked there and John Spellar MP enjoys regular visits to Australia that I am sure have a significant political content.   However, my specific interest is what we can learn from, Kevin Rudd, a committed Christian and who, it should not be forgotten, turned things around for the ALP, not the least winning an impressive General Election victory in 2007. In fact, I think there are a few things we can learn from Rudd and these insights, I submit are instructive to the Labour Party as it not only seeks to elect a new leader and begins the work of rebuilding within opposition.   Of tremendous importance, I believe is Rudd’s attempt to articulate an ethical critique of capitalism. For example, in an essay entitled, ‘The Global Financial Crisis’ in February 2009, he made a thoughtful and erudite case for social democrats to rise to the challenge of arguing for an active state to respond to the failure of the collapse of the financial markets and the limitations of the regulatory system.   ‘‘The current crisis is the culmination of a 30-year domination of economic policy by a free-market ideology that has been variously called neo-liberalism, economic liberalism, economic fundamentalism, Thatcherism or the Washington Consensus. The central thrust of this ideology has been that government activity should be constrained, and ultimately replaced, by market forces.’   (‘The Global Financial Crisis’,The Monthly, February 2009)   The essay, is a worthwhile read, as it reflects upon the sequence of events that led to the global credit-crunch and the self-confidence and contradictions of the neo-liberal economic order being exposed. Yet, it is the ability of Rudd to critique this system in ethical terms, that pulls no punches that perhaps is refreshing. He states:   ‘The time has come, off the back of the current crisis, to proclaim that the great neo-liberal experiment of the past 30 years has failed, that the emperor has no clothes. Neo-liberalism, and the free-market fundamentalism it has produced, has been revealed as little more than personal greed dressed up as an economic philosophy. And, ironically, it now falls to social democracy to prevent liberal capitalism from cannibalising itself’   (‘The Global Financial Crisis’,The Monthly, February 2009)   He locates the global economic failure in its true context, a moral tragedy, for it was greed ‘wot did it’. And he goes on to affirm the fact that the social democratic concept of social justice also to be rooted in an essentially ethical framework. Yet this is no cold, atheistic, materialism it appeals to fundamental beliefs about human, moral worth.   ‘Expressed more broadly, the pursuit of social justice is founded on the argument that all human beings have an intrinsic right to human dignity, equality of opportunity and the ability to lead a fulfilling life’   (‘The Global Financial Crisis’,The Monthly, February 2009)   This narrative is encouraging and coherent. Perhaps if Labour had such thinker and communicator we would not be in such a malaise now? Rudd proved able to explain the economic crisis from a social democratic perspective, underpinned by convictions that are social democratic and ethical and not based on a statism justified by a cold rationalism. How can you appeal to the common good without reference to Christian Socialism? How can you assert that we all have worth and dignity without appeal to transcendent and absolute truth?   ‘Government is not the intrinsic evil that neo-liberals have argued it is. Government, properly constituted and properly directed, is for the common good, embracing both individual freedom and fairness, a project designed for the many, not just the few   (‘’The Global Financial Crisis’,The Monthly, February 2009)   In the UK, we need to feel confident in critiquing capitalism from a Christian Socialist perspective. Perhaps Rudd may show the way. Indeed Labour needs to rediscover this appetite, language and ability soon. The days of a managerial accommodation with economic orthodoxy must end. We will hear a lot about Big Government being bad from the new coalition administration. Clearly Government and governance are good things, as long as they operate within their legitimate boundaries. In fact Labour’s Fabian statism surely must be queried, as it at times, runs counter to the ethical localism of the unions and Christian Socialists who birthed the party. However, somewhere we must heed Rudd’s affirmation of the need for a just and necessary state intervention, aware that many Labour traditions have been birthed and flourished apart from the state.
Rudd’s Christian faith was and still is clearly central to his identity and politics, indeed he has been described as the ‘mainstay’ of the Parliamentary Prayer fellowship in Canberra. He clearly understands the challenge of and needs to articulate a Christian discourse in the public square. Furthermore, he has thought though what it means to be a Christian engaged in public life, in the current context where secular humanism and post-modernism seem to be dominant. He reflects that:   ‘A Christian perspective on contemporary policy debates may not prevail. It must nonetheless be argued. And once heard, it must be weighed, together with other arguments from different philosophical traditions, in a fully contestable secular polity. A Christian perspective, informed by a social gospel or Christian socialist tradition, should not be rejected contemptuously by secular politicians as if these views are an unwelcome intrusion into the political sphere. If the churches are barred from participating in the great debates about the values that ultimately underpin our society, our economy and our polity, then we have reached a very strange place indeed’   (Faith in Politics, October 2006)   This is an important point, if we are to understand how our engagement does not mirror the aggression and misplaced agenda that seemed to characterise the Christian Right in the USA. It is not about winning arguments or unleashing culture wars. It is about speaking the truth to power and demonstrating a life and community that is commensurate with this high calling.   Importantly, Rudd reminds Christians about the bias for the poor, I cannot imagine him being ‘intensely relaxed’ about the grotesque accumulation of wealth or arrival of the ‘super-rich’ in our lexicon. Again, this should stand as a corrective to the UK Labour Party, we are either on the side of the poor or we are not Labour. Again, it is difficult to trace the lineage of the belief that we ‘stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves’ outwith a reference to the Christian tradition on the left.   ‘I argue that a core, continuing principle shaping this engagement should be that Christianity, consistent with Bonhoeffer's critique in the '30s, must always take the side of the marginalised, the vulnerable and the oppressed’   (Faith in Politics, October 2006).   Rudd did not say sometimes, on occasions, when we feel like it or when it is electorally expedient he said ‘always’.Always, Always, Always. This is non-negotiable. Think about it.   Rudd strikes me as a well-read intellectual who is grounded and rooted and inspired to practical action by what he believes. This could well be why he may be less prone to some of the vacuous, shallow and amoral statements that some politicians make in order to ‘connect’ with the electorate. In another essay he noted his admiration for the moral courage of the German pastor and theologian, Dietriech Bonhoeffer:   ‘Bonhoeffer is, without doubt, the man I admire most in the history of the twentieth century’.   (Faith in Politics, October 2006).   It is telling that Rudd cites Boenhoeffer in this vein. He honours that steadfast man of principle who did not compromise what was right in the face of the monstrosity of the Nazi regime and warned against ‘cheap grace’ and shallow discipleship. Rudd proceeds to reflect on Boenhoffer’s qualities and message.   ‘He was a man of faith. He was a man of reason. He was a man of letters who was as well read in history and literature as he was in the intensely academic Lutheran theology of the German university tradition. He was never a nationalist, always an internationalist. And above all, he was a man of action who wrote prophetically in 1937 that "when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." For Bonhoeffer, whatever the personal cost, there was no moral alternative other than to fight the Nazi state with whatever weapons were at his disposal’   (Faith in Politics, October 2006).   The Labour Party needs to refresh its intellectual traditions , respect for the love of learning, the imperative of an ethical worldview. Christians on the left, we are not to be bound by the mundane oppression of pragmatism. Boenhoffer, was a man of unquestionable and challenging courage, who pursued Christ and not a career.   Rudd is a rounded politician and thinker. To paraphrase English football fans, he hasn’t just ‘got one song’. Interestingly, Rudd has been described as a ‘social conservative’.   ‘I ‘have a pretty basic view on this, as reflected in the position adopted by our party, and that is, that marriage is between a man and a woman’ (AM ABC Radio, 18 October 2007)   It might be the ‘social conservatism’ of Rudd can help us in the UK Labour Party. In a truly plural party a socially liberal perspective should not be the dominant and solitary voice. We need room for the full breadth of ideas and people who though economically on the left are also socially conservative. As a friend commented to me, this category used to be called the working class. Furthermore, I might be so bold to suggest that as Phillip Blond, is arguing for a communitarian ‘Red Tory’ project on the centre-right of British politics we need a comparable narrative expressed and embedded on the left. Perhaps a good place to start would entail engaging with the ‘Blue Labour’ thesis, being articulated by Dr Maurice Glasman and elsewhere by John Millbank. This approach affirms the place of faith in public and political life, celebrates the role of family and the primacy of marriage, emphasises the ethic of hard work and personal responsibility and recognise the important of ‘place’ and community for working people.   Far be if for me to infer that Rudd is ‘Blue Labour’, he probably hasn’t heard of it, (and he certainly disavows a narrow focus on moral issues in the name of Christian faith) but unless we find a home for such sentiments and the values that many ordinary people hold dear then an overt and oppressive liberalism really could ‘do for’ the Labour Party. And we all know of the sinister forces willing to represent working-class communities who feel abandoned by the Labour tradition, don’t we? One way to begin to work out these themes would be the establishment of a campaigning think-tank on the centre-left that explores these themes in full, promoting policy and campaigning on the ground in communities. Such an initiative would be, if you like, be a Labour ‘version’ of the Centre for Social Justice. On the left too many think-tanks are metropolitan and liberal, I feel increasingly alienated by them, I suspect I am not alone. These issues need to be urgently worked out, indeed the comments of an ex-Labour Minister and MP sum this insight in a far better style than I can:   ‘Labour is best placed to govern because the tradition the times need is ours. We have strong roots in the liberal tradition but we are not a liberal party, our identity is rooted in the interests of working people and an analysis of capital. While there are deep conservative elements in the Labour tradition, and we should honour them – particularly in relation to the ethics of work, loyalty and love of place, family solidarity and a respect for the moral contribution of faith – we do not accept the distribution of assets as they are, we do not accept that inherited mega-wealth is deserved, and we do not accept that our rulers are always other people.’   James Purnell, (‘Where is the vitality and vision to win?’ 10 January 2010, Guardian).   Something in me reckons Rudd, might just agree with that. Rudd appears to be rooted in a thoughtful faith, mindful of the excesses of the Christian right, able to speak with ethical authority on asylum, economics, poverty, climate change, internationalism and also the importance of marriage and family. It is that compassionate, broad, intelligent and ethical approach that could begin to inform the Christian left as we seek to face the challenges ahead. It is irrelevant to me whether Rudd is or should be described as a ‘hero’ but what is relevant is what he represents and we should certainly note of that. I hope this is not the last we hear of Kevin Rudd, but perhaps it is a good a time as any to assess his contribution and political philosophy. (Author: Ian Geary)

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