Every serious person can agree that, regarding political freedoms and rights, Britain is not Stalin’s Soviet Union. But because Britain is not a totalitarian society does not mean that democracy and personal freedom are not under threat.
The arrest and detention of the Conservative Parliamentarian, Green, is undoubtedly more serious for what it represents than the physical and psychological harm done to Green and his family. The two key issues are: the police causally violated MPs offices in Parliament; and it would appear that the Government prompted anti-terrorist police to intimidate the opposition. Neither to these things should happen in a liberal democracy.
3 December 2008
1 December 2008
Community Service Order vests
Punishments (the stocks, ‘community pay-back’ bibs) which are devised with the direct intention - whether admitted or not - of public humiliation are always wrong. Their only purpose is to feed the sadistic impulses in ordinary people and thereby to provide a means for an unprincipled government to be seen to be doing something – however wrong and ineffective – against crime.
That petty criminals lack respect and self-esteem is obvious. To humiliate and belittle them more can only further alienate these people from society and stoke up crime.
That petty criminals lack respect and self-esteem is obvious. To humiliate and belittle them more can only further alienate these people from society and stoke up crime.
26 November 2008
What Darling should do
Chancellor Darling is not wrong to increase government debt in this recession in an attempt to increase the money supply and demand in the British economy because today unprecedented levels of private debt, secured against collapsing asset prices, threatens wide scale bankruptcy and destitution for working people interlinked with mass insolvency for companies.
However Darling also threatens to reboot the economy with the same virus which inflicted the recession in the first place, namely private debt for consumer spending. Would you advise a vulnerable, but still solvent, neighbour in the present climate to spend to the hilt or save for the stormy days ahead? Yet Darling’s VAT reduction prompts such people to spend.
Instead, Darling should consider two steps. One is to be far bolder in promoting immediate direct government investment in the economy for which we need a National Enterprise Board. Second, he must consider a huge devaluation in sterling (and yes some inflation) to lessen the amount of debt.
However Darling also threatens to reboot the economy with the same virus which inflicted the recession in the first place, namely private debt for consumer spending. Would you advise a vulnerable, but still solvent, neighbour in the present climate to spend to the hilt or save for the stormy days ahead? Yet Darling’s VAT reduction prompts such people to spend.
Instead, Darling should consider two steps. One is to be far bolder in promoting immediate direct government investment in the economy for which we need a National Enterprise Board. Second, he must consider a huge devaluation in sterling (and yes some inflation) to lessen the amount of debt.
25 November 2008
21 November 2008
The BNP membership list
The online publication of the full membership list of the BNP with addresses, comments and other contact details provides an unaccustomed level of precision in politics. Behind the lists of bland English surnames on the spreadsheet, we have a precise cartography of the purveyors of hate dotted across the country. Now in our hands is concrete proof of the small, yet significant, hold of organised fascism throughout Britain.
I did what everyone else did: I scoured the list for the places where I had lived in England and where my family and friends live. Though necessary - the left needs to know the identity of these people - there is something unpleasant in this kind of voyeurism. The snooping resembles the searches in Eastern Europe to discover which neighbours, colleagues and acquaintances were informers. Vile though the ideas and purposes of these British fascists certainly are, we are nonetheless invading the privacy of neighbours who have personally done us no harm.
The key issue, though, is clear. The information is now in the public domain and the left needs it in the struggle against fascism.
I did what everyone else did: I scoured the list for the places where I had lived in England and where my family and friends live. Though necessary - the left needs to know the identity of these people - there is something unpleasant in this kind of voyeurism. The snooping resembles the searches in Eastern Europe to discover which neighbours, colleagues and acquaintances were informers. Vile though the ideas and purposes of these British fascists certainly are, we are nonetheless invading the privacy of neighbours who have personally done us no harm.
The key issue, though, is clear. The information is now in the public domain and the left needs it in the struggle against fascism.
18 November 2008
Economic Crisis in Britain
Newspaper commentators make a good job of explaining the current economic crisis, but they fail, naturally enough, to connect their explanations into a class analysis.
Even a reduction of ten percent of UK output would not of itself cause very much hardship in Britain if income and wealth were not so unequally distributed. Only by understanding working class debt can the dimensions of socio-economic crisis can be grasped.
New Labour presided over a regime in which capital flowed into Britain, bolstering the value of sterling, to fund working class spending. The houses, cars, etc. were paid for only in part through wages, but, thanks to credit, the disposable income was much higher. One effect of this high expenditure was to drive up house prices leading many to re-mortgage in order to fund further expenditure, which in turn drove up house prices further.
The boom ended when finance capital saw the value of its security (the house, earning potential of the worker) could not guarantee the credit advanced. By the autumn of 2008 the withdrawal of credit (its sterling value secured by the tax payer through bank bailouts) led to a Britain characterised by recession, growing unemployment and falling house prices. Workers face mortgages and other credit bills they can’t pay as their income and assets decline. The end of the road is re-possession and destitution.
Let us be clear: today and in the coming years many working people have, and will continue to have, absolutely nothing, or less than nothing. How is any of this the outcome of Blair’s stakeholder society?
Credit for consumption makes little sense unless you believe that your income will keep on rising. The myth of eternal economic growth was peddled by New Labour in the 90s and early 2000s who argued that a flexible workforce and low wages were boosting the economy. What in fact was boosting Britain just as much was the inflow of capital to finance consumer credit. Two illusions of wealth were rising house prices and cheap holidays; Mediterranean holidays paid for by an overvalued pound caused by the purchase of sterling to lend to consumers. (Buying property at home and abroad along with foreign holiday were the topics of endless TV programmes ‘Brits abroad’ and the like)
Blair pulled it off for a while. Profits rose and capital had the additional ability to secure interest from workers as they bought their houses and partied on credit. For all but the poorest in Britain it seemed as if the country were booming. Everything could be had on the ‘never-never’ housing, education, holidays and through PFI even hospitals and the London Underground.
Even a reduction of ten percent of UK output would not of itself cause very much hardship in Britain if income and wealth were not so unequally distributed. Only by understanding working class debt can the dimensions of socio-economic crisis can be grasped.
New Labour presided over a regime in which capital flowed into Britain, bolstering the value of sterling, to fund working class spending. The houses, cars, etc. were paid for only in part through wages, but, thanks to credit, the disposable income was much higher. One effect of this high expenditure was to drive up house prices leading many to re-mortgage in order to fund further expenditure, which in turn drove up house prices further.
The boom ended when finance capital saw the value of its security (the house, earning potential of the worker) could not guarantee the credit advanced. By the autumn of 2008 the withdrawal of credit (its sterling value secured by the tax payer through bank bailouts) led to a Britain characterised by recession, growing unemployment and falling house prices. Workers face mortgages and other credit bills they can’t pay as their income and assets decline. The end of the road is re-possession and destitution.
Let us be clear: today and in the coming years many working people have, and will continue to have, absolutely nothing, or less than nothing. How is any of this the outcome of Blair’s stakeholder society?
Credit for consumption makes little sense unless you believe that your income will keep on rising. The myth of eternal economic growth was peddled by New Labour in the 90s and early 2000s who argued that a flexible workforce and low wages were boosting the economy. What in fact was boosting Britain just as much was the inflow of capital to finance consumer credit. Two illusions of wealth were rising house prices and cheap holidays; Mediterranean holidays paid for by an overvalued pound caused by the purchase of sterling to lend to consumers. (Buying property at home and abroad along with foreign holiday were the topics of endless TV programmes ‘Brits abroad’ and the like)
Blair pulled it off for a while. Profits rose and capital had the additional ability to secure interest from workers as they bought their houses and partied on credit. For all but the poorest in Britain it seemed as if the country were booming. Everything could be had on the ‘never-never’ housing, education, holidays and through PFI even hospitals and the London Underground.
7 November 2008
The Glenrothes by-election in Scotland
Labour’s success in the Glenrothes by-election signals a profound change in the configuration of British politics.
The summer of 2008 marked the nadir of the collapse of the New Labour coalition which came to office in 1997. I earlier analysed the death of that coalition in the following piece:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=d88xqxn_141dgqxtxhh&hl=en_GB
By the summer of 2008 Labour had relinquished much of its working class support, not simply on account of Brown’s continued focus on the concerns of Middle England, but because of hostile economic measures which directly impacted on the working class: removal of the ten pence tax band and inaction in the face of rising fuel bills and corporate profits. Across the working class the question was posed: what does New Labour stand for? Labour support plummeted and votes dissipated in all directions. The low point was another Scottish by-election, Glasgow East, lost in July to the SNP.
The financial crisis of October 2008, ushering in recession, altered the pieces on the chessboard. Brown after his habitual dithering rose to the occasion and used public money to nationalise banking debt and reliquidify finance capital in order to prevent a financial meltdown, an act taken to bolster capitalism and in the immediate interest of all social classes.
Two consequences result. First, in the face of recession, rising unemployment and repossessions, the working class is moving in a pro-Labour direction for self-protection, though whether Labour will offer more than cold comfort is debatable. For vulnerable working people gambling with dandy Cameron in England or Salmond in Scotland is now less of an option. Hence Brown’s success in the Glenrothes election.
Second, the perception that the London government could ‘solve’ the banking crisis undercut the nationalism of the SNP. In the ongoing identification battle of Scotland whether a nation in its own right or a sub-unit of a greater Britain, it was the latter that was strengthen against the former. Hence Brown’s success in the Glenrothes election.
That Brown prevented a meltdown of support in the working class does not mean that he has yet convinced Middle England to vote for him over Cameron in 2010. Much depends on how Cameron re-orients his propaganda in the next two years of recession.
The summer of 2008 marked the nadir of the collapse of the New Labour coalition which came to office in 1997. I earlier analysed the death of that coalition in the following piece:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=d88xqxn_141dgqxtxhh&hl=en_GB
By the summer of 2008 Labour had relinquished much of its working class support, not simply on account of Brown’s continued focus on the concerns of Middle England, but because of hostile economic measures which directly impacted on the working class: removal of the ten pence tax band and inaction in the face of rising fuel bills and corporate profits. Across the working class the question was posed: what does New Labour stand for? Labour support plummeted and votes dissipated in all directions. The low point was another Scottish by-election, Glasgow East, lost in July to the SNP.
The financial crisis of October 2008, ushering in recession, altered the pieces on the chessboard. Brown after his habitual dithering rose to the occasion and used public money to nationalise banking debt and reliquidify finance capital in order to prevent a financial meltdown, an act taken to bolster capitalism and in the immediate interest of all social classes.
Two consequences result. First, in the face of recession, rising unemployment and repossessions, the working class is moving in a pro-Labour direction for self-protection, though whether Labour will offer more than cold comfort is debatable. For vulnerable working people gambling with dandy Cameron in England or Salmond in Scotland is now less of an option. Hence Brown’s success in the Glenrothes election.
Second, the perception that the London government could ‘solve’ the banking crisis undercut the nationalism of the SNP. In the ongoing identification battle of Scotland whether a nation in its own right or a sub-unit of a greater Britain, it was the latter that was strengthen against the former. Hence Brown’s success in the Glenrothes election.
That Brown prevented a meltdown of support in the working class does not mean that he has yet convinced Middle England to vote for him over Cameron in 2010. Much depends on how Cameron re-orients his propaganda in the next two years of recession.
9 October 2008
Brown, New Labour and the Banking Crisis
It is far easier to comment on the underlying structures of society than it is to predict the consequences of a crisis in the system.
The current disintegration of world banking is the most significant event in the history of capitalism since the collapse of historical communism in 1989. While 2008 may well be as influential as 1929 in reshaping the cartography of capitalism, one myth peddled by some on the left needs knocking down. A financial collapse, with whole layers of the population losing their savings and pensions, would do nothing to promote socialism; indeed, apart from being painful and heralding in bottomless recession, such a crisis would release the political forces of the nascent far right across Europe, just as it did in the 1930s.
Though complex, the basis of the current crisis is clear. Banks, as a consequence of lax regulation, lent money in return for dodgy securities; their lending produced a credit boom whose deceptive glow was the allure of first Thatcherism and then New Labour. Blair and Brown from 1994 onwards exchanged Labour’s social democracy for that gloss and so brought us down the road to where we are now.
That said, Brown’s resolute decision to acquire the power to part-nationalise British banks is a welcome and decisive measure to deal with the problem even though tougher restrictions could have been imposed. Chalking up this success (supposing it is successful) may save Brown from the potential meltdown awaiting both him and New Labour in 2010.
The current disintegration of world banking is the most significant event in the history of capitalism since the collapse of historical communism in 1989. While 2008 may well be as influential as 1929 in reshaping the cartography of capitalism, one myth peddled by some on the left needs knocking down. A financial collapse, with whole layers of the population losing their savings and pensions, would do nothing to promote socialism; indeed, apart from being painful and heralding in bottomless recession, such a crisis would release the political forces of the nascent far right across Europe, just as it did in the 1930s.
Though complex, the basis of the current crisis is clear. Banks, as a consequence of lax regulation, lent money in return for dodgy securities; their lending produced a credit boom whose deceptive glow was the allure of first Thatcherism and then New Labour. Blair and Brown from 1994 onwards exchanged Labour’s social democracy for that gloss and so brought us down the road to where we are now.
That said, Brown’s resolute decision to acquire the power to part-nationalise British banks is a welcome and decisive measure to deal with the problem even though tougher restrictions could have been imposed. Chalking up this success (supposing it is successful) may save Brown from the potential meltdown awaiting both him and New Labour in 2010.
6 October 2008
Burik arrives in America
It is axiomatic for American neo-cons that the US is God’s own country; and that if only they could exculpate liberalism, social welfare and atheism, as well as remoulding the rest of the world in their own image, they could create heaven on earth. On the web it was always possible to run into these New World zealots, and in reply on one such website I wrote the story below in response to their vacuous moralising and historical distortions.
The ten-year-old Burik is a refugee arriving with Ma and Pa on US soil for the first time. In a world, blending hope with despair, the family are about to alight from some anonymous ship on a drizzly nineteenth century morning. Imagine Burik as a child version of the ‘good soldier Svejk’ with the peaked cap, trench coat and the face of the fool attempting to understand what is beyond him. He feels painfully strongly about everything, but can express nothing. The ship is now approaching New York. Burik with his mother and father had occupied a place under the stairs leading to the third class cabins on the transatlantic steamer. It is dawn and the first rays of sunlight are falling on the boat.
“Now, Ma,” said his father, “Lets take young Burik here up on deck, so his young eyes will fall on the land of the free.”
“Yes, dear” she replied obediently. For to tell the truth she had little idea of what America was or why indeed they were going there.
Stepping over many still sleeping bodies they made their way to the deck. Brilliant sunlight now reflected from the towering statue of liberty. Young Burik’s eyes widened in awe. Suddenly his father lifted him aloft.
“Son, my dearest son, breathe the air of freedom, like you have never taken air before.”
Burik started to cough in the morning cold.
As the boat approached the dock the passengers rushed to deck, Burik and his family among them.
“In a few minutes, son, you’ll be stepping onto the soil of freedom itself” said his father gazing over the New York skyline.
The mass of impatient passengers were huddled together in a group but were prevented from disembarking by uniformed crew while the first class passengers were escorted to the gangplank. Burik’s eyes widened as he watched four Negroes carry an elderly corpulent Jewess down the gangplank on a sedan chair.
Burik grew restless in the crowd, so he pulled an onion from his pocket and bit into it as he looked around. His eyes rested on the many ponies on the dock pulling wares just offloaded from ships. He tried not to breathe as waves of vile stench floated through the air. Peering over the deck rails Burik could see any number of dead animals floating in the water between the dock and the ship. The rotting carcass of a dead horse had become the focus of the attention of rats which balanced precariously on the rotting flesh.
“Now son,” said his father grasping his hand, “hold your head up high as you step onto American soil.” Father and son moved off first and mother came behind carrying their one sack of worldly belongings.
“Just look where you’re putting your feet, darling” she begged her son as they negotiated the clumps of manure on the quay. Twenty metres from the boat they stopped to take their bearings.
The family stood for a few minutes taking in the new environment around them. A fine drizzle had set in and Burik began to shiver. At the edge of the quay was a small soap shop. “Mr Oscar’s Soap”
“Let us just relish for a few minutes being in the land of the free,” said Burik’s father patting his son’s head.
“I don’t know about that,’ said his mother, “I think Burik needs the bathroom quite urgently.”
Burik pushed to hold it back. The working ponies on the quay had left piles everywhere and a few metres away a group of chained prisoners were relieving themselves in the open. On the other side an elderly man held a coat while his wife defecated behind it.
The door of “Mr Oscar’s Soap” opened and the proprietor emerged. He was small fat man in a black suit with an untidy red beard. He chewed on an unlit cigar, “What do you want, you dirty scum?’ Burik moved closer to his mother.
“We’ve come to be part of the American dream,” his father replied, “ any chance of a job to get us started?”
Mr Oscar spat. “I’ll give you a penny to clear the shit from in front of the shop.” He tossed a cent onto the ground in front of Burik’s father. His father picked up the penny, went down onto his hands and knees and started to pick up the droppings.
Burik looked at his father in wonder. He felt more excited than he had ever done in life and blood raced through his veins. For what he was looking at was the most beautiful thing he had seen in his life: the contract of employment, free labour. America was beautiful.
His father worked hard, so after a couple of hours the whole area around Mr Oscar’s shop was clear. “Well, that’s a job well done,” said his father with satisfaction, wiping his hands under his armpits. “This, son, is the American dream. Let me tell you my dream, Burik. One day you will go to school wearing silk stockings and nobody can take that dream away from us. Isn’t that right, Ma?”
Ma looked worried. “I don’t know about silk stockings, but Burik urgently needs the men’s room.”
Burik looked uncomfortable. “It’s too late, Ma. I had the runs. I just couldn’t hold it back. It’s down my legs and everywhere.”
Pa looked severe. “Couldn’t you hold it back, son? I hope it really was an accident and you weren’t giving yourself an auto-erotic experience.”
Burik stared at the ground. Ma looked around for the family sack which contained a spare pair of pants for Burik. She let out a cry; their sack which she had put down behind her had been stolen. They were in America and had nothing save one cent.
2005
The ten-year-old Burik is a refugee arriving with Ma and Pa on US soil for the first time. In a world, blending hope with despair, the family are about to alight from some anonymous ship on a drizzly nineteenth century morning. Imagine Burik as a child version of the ‘good soldier Svejk’ with the peaked cap, trench coat and the face of the fool attempting to understand what is beyond him. He feels painfully strongly about everything, but can express nothing. The ship is now approaching New York. Burik with his mother and father had occupied a place under the stairs leading to the third class cabins on the transatlantic steamer. It is dawn and the first rays of sunlight are falling on the boat.
“Now, Ma,” said his father, “Lets take young Burik here up on deck, so his young eyes will fall on the land of the free.”
“Yes, dear” she replied obediently. For to tell the truth she had little idea of what America was or why indeed they were going there.
Stepping over many still sleeping bodies they made their way to the deck. Brilliant sunlight now reflected from the towering statue of liberty. Young Burik’s eyes widened in awe. Suddenly his father lifted him aloft.
“Son, my dearest son, breathe the air of freedom, like you have never taken air before.”
Burik started to cough in the morning cold.
As the boat approached the dock the passengers rushed to deck, Burik and his family among them.
“In a few minutes, son, you’ll be stepping onto the soil of freedom itself” said his father gazing over the New York skyline.
The mass of impatient passengers were huddled together in a group but were prevented from disembarking by uniformed crew while the first class passengers were escorted to the gangplank. Burik’s eyes widened as he watched four Negroes carry an elderly corpulent Jewess down the gangplank on a sedan chair.
Burik grew restless in the crowd, so he pulled an onion from his pocket and bit into it as he looked around. His eyes rested on the many ponies on the dock pulling wares just offloaded from ships. He tried not to breathe as waves of vile stench floated through the air. Peering over the deck rails Burik could see any number of dead animals floating in the water between the dock and the ship. The rotting carcass of a dead horse had become the focus of the attention of rats which balanced precariously on the rotting flesh.
“Now son,” said his father grasping his hand, “hold your head up high as you step onto American soil.” Father and son moved off first and mother came behind carrying their one sack of worldly belongings.
“Just look where you’re putting your feet, darling” she begged her son as they negotiated the clumps of manure on the quay. Twenty metres from the boat they stopped to take their bearings.
The family stood for a few minutes taking in the new environment around them. A fine drizzle had set in and Burik began to shiver. At the edge of the quay was a small soap shop. “Mr Oscar’s Soap”
“Let us just relish for a few minutes being in the land of the free,” said Burik’s father patting his son’s head.
“I don’t know about that,’ said his mother, “I think Burik needs the bathroom quite urgently.”
Burik pushed to hold it back. The working ponies on the quay had left piles everywhere and a few metres away a group of chained prisoners were relieving themselves in the open. On the other side an elderly man held a coat while his wife defecated behind it.
The door of “Mr Oscar’s Soap” opened and the proprietor emerged. He was small fat man in a black suit with an untidy red beard. He chewed on an unlit cigar, “What do you want, you dirty scum?’ Burik moved closer to his mother.
“We’ve come to be part of the American dream,” his father replied, “ any chance of a job to get us started?”
Mr Oscar spat. “I’ll give you a penny to clear the shit from in front of the shop.” He tossed a cent onto the ground in front of Burik’s father. His father picked up the penny, went down onto his hands and knees and started to pick up the droppings.
Burik looked at his father in wonder. He felt more excited than he had ever done in life and blood raced through his veins. For what he was looking at was the most beautiful thing he had seen in his life: the contract of employment, free labour. America was beautiful.
His father worked hard, so after a couple of hours the whole area around Mr Oscar’s shop was clear. “Well, that’s a job well done,” said his father with satisfaction, wiping his hands under his armpits. “This, son, is the American dream. Let me tell you my dream, Burik. One day you will go to school wearing silk stockings and nobody can take that dream away from us. Isn’t that right, Ma?”
Ma looked worried. “I don’t know about silk stockings, but Burik urgently needs the men’s room.”
Burik looked uncomfortable. “It’s too late, Ma. I had the runs. I just couldn’t hold it back. It’s down my legs and everywhere.”
Pa looked severe. “Couldn’t you hold it back, son? I hope it really was an accident and you weren’t giving yourself an auto-erotic experience.”
Burik stared at the ground. Ma looked around for the family sack which contained a spare pair of pants for Burik. She let out a cry; their sack which she had put down behind her had been stolen. They were in America and had nothing save one cent.
2005
24 September 2008
New Labour's Missed Constitutional Opportunities
When New Labour electorally crushed the Tories in 1997, one thing was foreseeable another was not. Not predictable was just how rotten from a progressive perspective Blair’s government would turn out to be: reactionary polices ranged from the Iraq War, privatisation and benefit cuts to the promotion of religious schools. Foreseeable to everybody, however, was that at some point – and it now appears to be 2010 – Labour would lose office.
Progressive political discourse in the eighties and nineties had centred on building an anti-Tory alliance for constitutional reform to bury the re-occurrence of another eighteen years of centralised and reactionary Tory rule on the strength of a minority of votes. The two key progressive reform proposals were proportional representation and decentralisation. With the significant exception of Scottish and Welsh devolution – achieved despite Blair’s personal misgivings – little happened.
Following Labour’s 1997 election victory, the new government set up the Jenkins’ Commission to consider PR for Westminster elections. In the absence of support and direction from the government it dragged on and finally recommended a bizarre PR system, reflecting only a muddled compromise of the divergent opinions of the commission members. Its findings were quietly forgotten. On regional autonomy, John Prescott pressed ahead with an emaciated form of devolution for the micro-region of the north-east. In 2004 a majority of 78 percent of the residents of the area voted against the assembly; the plan was sunk by a coalition of centralisers and those who saw the proposed assembly as little more than a talking shop and an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. In truth, by the early 2000s all meaningful constitutional reform was over. New Labour in London inaugurated an era of constitutional conservatism.
What then are the consequences? New Labour’s 2008 meltdown means that in two year’s time there will in all probability be yet again a majority Tory government at Westminster. Surely one small thing that Blair and Brown could have achieved was PR? After all, the Welsh and Scottish Parliaments as well as the Greater London Assembly are elected by proportional representation. True, if Labour had introduced PR after the 1997 or 2001 elections, the whole political map would be different, probably with a Labour-led coalition, instead of a majority government, in office today. But so what? It was not as if Blair planned to do anything socialist or left wing! Nearly all of his agenda had the support of the Tories or Liberal Democrats – or often both.
In 2010 Labour will still be the leading party in one English region, the north, defined as Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire and the historic counties up to the Scottish border; in the other English regions, though, Labour will probably achieve second place or worse. The north, consisting mainly of cities and former industrial towns, has about a quarter of England’s population and is its poorest region. Yet unlike Scotland and Wales, the north will have no elected institution to fight for it. Despite the north consistently voting Labour, Blair focused New Labour on the concerns of Middle England, geographically centred in the south and Midlands; northern Labour voters were largely taken for granted and were ignored. Cameron, though, after 2110 will have even less cause to worry about the industrial towns and inner-cities of the north. He wins no seats there, and probably never will.
So déjà vu. Welcome back to the eighties: majority Tory government in London and the non-Tory voting north is left naked. However both these outcomes were easily avoidable: PR to stop a majority Tory government; and decentralisation so as not to leave the Labour voting north uninsulated from a non-Labour government in London. Why was constitutional reform abandoned?
No doubt there are several reasons, but not least among them were the preferences of Tony Blair. Behind Blair’s US-style déclassé persona is a deeply conservative and anti-democratic politician. Having killed democracy inside his own party, he had no taste for injecting it into the British constitution. Using Britain’s centralised state he carried out his own brand conservatism (called New Labour), and when that had run its course he was happy to hand the UK back to the Conservative Party.
.
Progressive political discourse in the eighties and nineties had centred on building an anti-Tory alliance for constitutional reform to bury the re-occurrence of another eighteen years of centralised and reactionary Tory rule on the strength of a minority of votes. The two key progressive reform proposals were proportional representation and decentralisation. With the significant exception of Scottish and Welsh devolution – achieved despite Blair’s personal misgivings – little happened.
Following Labour’s 1997 election victory, the new government set up the Jenkins’ Commission to consider PR for Westminster elections. In the absence of support and direction from the government it dragged on and finally recommended a bizarre PR system, reflecting only a muddled compromise of the divergent opinions of the commission members. Its findings were quietly forgotten. On regional autonomy, John Prescott pressed ahead with an emaciated form of devolution for the micro-region of the north-east. In 2004 a majority of 78 percent of the residents of the area voted against the assembly; the plan was sunk by a coalition of centralisers and those who saw the proposed assembly as little more than a talking shop and an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. In truth, by the early 2000s all meaningful constitutional reform was over. New Labour in London inaugurated an era of constitutional conservatism.
What then are the consequences? New Labour’s 2008 meltdown means that in two year’s time there will in all probability be yet again a majority Tory government at Westminster. Surely one small thing that Blair and Brown could have achieved was PR? After all, the Welsh and Scottish Parliaments as well as the Greater London Assembly are elected by proportional representation. True, if Labour had introduced PR after the 1997 or 2001 elections, the whole political map would be different, probably with a Labour-led coalition, instead of a majority government, in office today. But so what? It was not as if Blair planned to do anything socialist or left wing! Nearly all of his agenda had the support of the Tories or Liberal Democrats – or often both.
In 2010 Labour will still be the leading party in one English region, the north, defined as Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire and the historic counties up to the Scottish border; in the other English regions, though, Labour will probably achieve second place or worse. The north, consisting mainly of cities and former industrial towns, has about a quarter of England’s population and is its poorest region. Yet unlike Scotland and Wales, the north will have no elected institution to fight for it. Despite the north consistently voting Labour, Blair focused New Labour on the concerns of Middle England, geographically centred in the south and Midlands; northern Labour voters were largely taken for granted and were ignored. Cameron, though, after 2110 will have even less cause to worry about the industrial towns and inner-cities of the north. He wins no seats there, and probably never will.
So déjà vu. Welcome back to the eighties: majority Tory government in London and the non-Tory voting north is left naked. However both these outcomes were easily avoidable: PR to stop a majority Tory government; and decentralisation so as not to leave the Labour voting north uninsulated from a non-Labour government in London. Why was constitutional reform abandoned?
No doubt there are several reasons, but not least among them were the preferences of Tony Blair. Behind Blair’s US-style déclassé persona is a deeply conservative and anti-democratic politician. Having killed democracy inside his own party, he had no taste for injecting it into the British constitution. Using Britain’s centralised state he carried out his own brand conservatism (called New Labour), and when that had run its course he was happy to hand the UK back to the Conservative Party.
.
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