I spent last night discussing the election. Who with and where does not matter.
What I argued (amongst other things) was something I have said many times before. This is that contrary to perceived wisdom elections do not really come down to the economy, but to something much more primal than that, which is freedom from fear.
What people want most from politicians is not the promise of economic nirvana, because they know that won't be delivered (whatever is said). What they want instead is a deep seated sense of security.
They want a home, and a chance to build a place in a community.
They want an education for their children which delivers the skills they need and the chance of equipping them for life. They don't want that disrupted by having to move.
They want security nationally, of course, but much more importantly they want security at the local level. This is not just physical security for them and their property; it is the protection of their right to be the person they are.
They want work. Most do not have unreasonable expectations as to pay or conditions, but equally they hate the idea of being exploited.
They want to know when things go wrong they won't face ruin, whether that be because of ill health or economic or social misfortune for them or their family.
They need to know that if they live to an old age it will be in dignity.
And they want to be able to pass a better world, and a sustainable world, to their children.
These issues are what people worry about. It is why they lie awake at night. They are the things that they know they cannot always control. And so it is what they want politicians to deliver for them for precisely that reason. It is this fear that creates the fundamental dividing line between private and pubic concern, between necessary personal control of individual destiny and the appropriateness of state action.
Politicians have forgotten these facts, by and large. There is good reason. Most politicians are more immune from these fears than the average person. They have greater security than most so these issues do not seem as important them as they are to most other people. That is why politicians prioritise economic narratives of choice when they should realise that most people know these choices are either not available to them or do not address their real issues of concern. That is precisely why so many people say politicians don't understand them.
And what is absurd is that all these most basic and important of things that I have noted could be made available to all but politicians don't deliver them because they have forgotten that without that freedom from fear for everyone none of us can eventually prosper.
Worse, because some politicians are so remote from the reality of these issues they actually set out to increase these fears in the belief that this provides some sort of perverse incentive for change.
It's my belief that it is delivery of this most basic freedom - the right to sleep at night - that defines the proper role of the state, and of those who put themselves forward for public office. The state and its politicians must deliver this sense of security above all else.
It's also my belief that if only that was understood and communicated then the re-engagement with politics that Scotland is seeing might spread more widely.
But that does require Westminster to see beyond its bubble. And it does require a political narrative far removed from that dictated by wealth and the issues it prioritises.
It means going back to fundamentals. But is there anything more important that offering the people of this country the security they need to live lives where thy can feel confident that they can cope? If that's not a vision big enough to inspire politics, what is?
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The above could be a summary of labour’s 1945 manifesto.
Maybe not a coincidence
Maybe we are back there now
You are right, as usual.
Supply side economics is fairly clear in its aims. Institutions like unions are a ‘friction’ to the ‘smooth working of the economy’. Thus a docile workforce is an aim. It can be done by keeping wages down, making it easier to dismiss people and harder for them to appeal, targets which are barely achievable, reduced social security and globalisation. This govt. made it harder to appeal and trade union officials in the civil service have had time for union activities cut. The TTIP looms and the threat of privatisation hangs over many in public service.
New IMF research: No evidence that labour market deregulation increases growth: http://www.equaltimes.org/new-imf-research-no-evidence-that?lang=en#.VSrgDZPLnQH
What do you think is the cause of the current predicament? Is it that the state is too small, doesn’t have enough resources to do all this? Would a state at say 60% of GDP be needed? Is it that it is organised the wrong way – too centralised in tbe Westminster bubble? Or is it simply down to poor politicians? You say going back to fundamentals but what needs to change to achieve this? Normally when a project is failing you either increase resources, change the model, or replace the people.
I do not think ratios help
What we need is a change of attitudes
The attitude has been wealth will trickle down
It hasn’t
So we need to change that logic and positively address issues – the ones I note – instead
That’s a change in model
With a changed model the existing people will probably do just fine
Will it cost more? Maybe, but it would more than pay back through growth because secure people can take risk
A good list of Green values there, Richard.
There is no shortage of applicants for MP jobs, so by standard economics no need to offer a high salary. Let them have to get by on a Living Wage, to enhance their understanding of the challenges most people face.
It’s a view
But it’s not one I share
I do not expect everyone to earn the same
But nor do I promote large differentials
This is spot on Richard and the implications of what you say are massive in terms of:
1) Substantial reform of the banking system and money creation
2) breaking up the power of transnational corporations.
3) Creating a different international trading arrangement that sees thy eco system as its real constraint rather than rent maximisation.
4) The end of syphoning rents from land and property.
5) An end to the IMF (an acronym for “I’m fired”) which is the main vehicle for the perpetuation of rent seeking from public assets.
6) And end to irrelevant partisan politics and a new coalition based on the realities of fairness and social justice.
The list could go on and is rather utopian (the warm weather has got to me!). The present economic ideology destroys lives and hopes and promotes the survival of those with sociopathic tendencies (who then see themselves as the winners in a Darwinian race).
Reading a blog like this one in the morning is ‘positive news’. Thanks, Richard
That would be nice. In Scotland, for the second election in a row, Labour telling pensions and anyone who’ll listen that we’ll lose our pensions if we don’t vote for them. I’ve had them banging on my door at 11pm at night to try and “warn” me.
http://t.co/yx0a2kqUyx
You are of course correct Richard but we are in a real world of ‘manipulation’ as illustrated again today by ugly stories on the Labour Leader especially the Daily ‘hate’ Mail run by a non-dom I believe. The Tory press do this to stop the ‘swing voters’. In this election the Tory Media will be nastier than ever before to stop the progressive parties winning. Every seat will count and the bookies currently believe the Tories will get more seats mainly because thats the way previous elections run with voters returning back to the incumbents helped by negative anti-Labour press.
The challenge to the Left, Centre Left and all progressives even LibDems is how to try to block this massive manipulation of our political system by a bunch of newspapers. I despair as to the answer. But can only hope our campaigners keep reminding the voters what another 5 Tory years will look like by 2020.
Yes, Rothermere is a non-dom, status inherited from his father. Our national press is a disgrace and I hope that Labour will do something about it if elected.
Hi Richard
From the LDA (Learning Disability Alliance). Disabled people have been deliberately targeted by the coalition during the last 5 years and I hope families will use the election to begin to repair the damage done.The Conservatives were the only party not represented.
Marking the Political Parties
LDA England’s Citizen Jury met on 2nd April in London.
http://learningdisabilityalliance.org/marking-the-political-parties/
On 2nd April LDA England measured how well each political party will stick up for the rights of people with learning disabilities.
We wrote to all 5 main political parties in England and all parties sent along appropriate representatives — all except one, The Conservative Party. The Conservatives ignored both the formal invitation and numerous requests to respond by both phone and email.
I still think that response was staggering
Good luck with what you do
The Tories have propagated a foul marginalising of the poor ill/disabled reminiscent of the 19th Century minus the patronising but useful Victorian philanthropy. They have, by implication, developed a theory of ‘excess population’. The bedroom tax together with cuts in personal independence allowances have created significant individual suffering and a callousing of the public sensibility to this issue -not our country’s ‘finest hour’ by a long chalk.
Scrooge after being asked by two gentlemen for a donation ‘for the poor and destitute’.
‘ I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned-they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.”
‘Many can’t go there: and many would rather die.”
‘If they would rather die,’said Scrooge,”they had better do it and decrease the surplus population.”
The other fears that are created are to do with accusations that certain politicians will ‘stab the country in the back’ by doing deals here and there.
And the fact that Cameron felt that it was OK for Fallon the talk ‘frankly’!!
And this from a party who are ‘doing deals’ on the TIPP and with American based health care companies about the future of the NHS!!
Well if I were to be so ‘frank’ about Cameron & Co, I don’t think Richard could post what I’d have to say about the Tory party! But I know what I’d say in public to Cameron’s face if I ever got the chance.
My biggest fear now is that Labour will now form a coalition with the capricious Lib Dems to from a sort of ‘progressive-lite’ Government. Oh dear!!
I’d love Labour to embrace the Greens/Plaid Cymru & the SNP and try to bring this country back to the real centre ground. We are deep in right-wing territory at the moment.