Suppose Labour won the general election?
Two weeks ago that would have been an absurd suggestion. It is still very unlikely. Scotland makes it hard for Labour to win a majority. But the possibility that the Tories might not have a landslide and might even make few gains exists. What then? What if the assumption that the UK has moved right forever into some new era of free market, post migration, Commonwealth friendly, Darwinian nirvana proves misplaced?
First, we should celebrate. Just holding the Tories at bay would be fantastic: they're so riven with their own internal conflicts that May woukd be a complete lame duck in that case. She would promote John Major to the ranks of great Prime Ministers so bad will her prospects be.
And then? Then the hard work begins. If the right can be shown to be stoppable then it can be argued that there is no new normal that will come from them. But that requires an alternative.
An altrernative is not to be found in the recreation of 2006. Those in both the LubDems and Labour who think that need to realise that this is neither desirable or possible. 2006 was the year before the inherent instability of global capitalism finally became apparent. No one should want to take us back to that precipice.
That means that the alternative has to come from the left and it has to be green. At its core it has to speak to people's hopes and not fears. It's a tall order. And it is possible.
An interventionist state is essential.
Fair pay, union rights, and a social security safety net are necessary.
A state investment bank is vital.
Nationalisation that does not look like a state owned multinational enterprise has to be promoted.
A fair tax system beyond the control of the tax profession is key.
Using the power to create money for social good and not to prop up banks is at the heart of a new economics.
So too are universal benefits, of which a universal basic income may be a part, but not necessarily the end of provision.
But let's not forget, promoting a fair and level playing field for business is also essential, and a condition for the vital contribution it can bring to the economy.
And in all this an industrial policy for a sustainable country, and then world, is vital.
Labour has some elements of this in its plans, which helps. But no one has embraced the concerns of the country sufficiently to offer the real solution it does not yet know it's looking for.
That's what happens after the election, whatever happens. But rattling May woukd be a great first step.
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The first priority has to be electoral reform. We need a system that gives everyone a stake in it or we are doomed to repeat election campaigns that only focus on a narrow section of society.
Agreed
I should have said that
I don’t believe this country needs electoral reform, but it does need politicians to offer the people real change. For the past forty years both Labour and Tory have pursued policies of privatization and cutting public spending. So instead of looking at how to make the electoral system more fairer look at politicians who quite frankly offer much of the same. For example Labour has a reputation of increased public spending and taxation but if anyone cares to look at the figures you will notice there’s very little difference to the Tories. If one goes back to 2015 election Labour was offering spending cuts equal to what the Tories were proposing spread over five years instead of three. At the time the pay review body setup to set wages in the nhs proposed a 1% pay increase, now if Labour had said they would support such a pay increase it’s quite possible Labour would have won the election. Unfortunately Labour knew such a pay increase would have upset they plans to cut public spending so nothing was heard and the Tories were elected. To me and everyone I talk to their view is politicians don’t listen to us so why bother. So frankly you can reform the electoral system all you want but until we get politicians who listen a large majority of the electorate will just not bother. Thankfully Labour this time around have listened to us when it comes to pay in the nhs and are backed by nhs trusts who simply cannot recruit enough staff so things are changing.
only under the present system could the reactionary right take control with only just over a third of the electorate supporting them.
Ending first past the post would enable new voices to be heard in the debate.
Something also needs to be done about the reactionary dominance of the press.
Yes to all that. And to the development of a proper policy for the environment. Proper regulation, both in terms of taxation and enforcement of the polluter pays principle is desperately needed.
Some sort of land reform that promotes more sustainable land use would be desirable. We need to get a better balance between land use for agriculture, recreation and wildlife that understands the economics of service provision in a literate way. We could start with National Parks. The current ‘an Englishmans home is his castle’ approach to land ownership has been utterly disastrous for the environment.
I agree with your thoughts here Richard. I have heard the term ‘eco-socialism’ used quite a lot to describe this path.
Quite a detailed programme along these lines was recently put together for last month’s French presidential elections, by a group of reassembled left politicians called ‘La France Insoumise’, invooving significant public consultation, and run under the candidature of Jean-Luc Melanchon. They gained nearly 20% of the national vote, versus only 6.5% for the traditional left.
The programme contained many of the things you mention above. On the green side, there were very clear policies to restructure agriculture away from pesticides and supermarkets, into organic and permaculture approaches, using the buying power of the state (organic school dinners, essentially). They also proposed to spend 200€bn already earmarked for renovation of the current nuclear facilities, to build a renewables industry.
Whilst they did have some policies on changing the way the ECB works, and certainly campaigned on the principle of of dealing with ‘le roi finance’, they were not so bold as to make clear proposals on changes in monetary creation. I agree with you though that this is at the heart of the new economics. In fact, it is the key.
However, I get the impression there is still a long way to go before the general population, and even many of our politicians, realise how money is created today. How do you think think should be addressed, and what reaction do you expect from the banks that hold this power today?
Progressive Pulse is part of my answer to this
We are a long way from that understanding, I agree
Bank objection is inconsequential: they always object and so have limited power in some ways
I was talking to a friend of my brother’s yesterday at his barbecue. I had never met her before but since I don’t think a single friend of his is the least bit leftwing, I tried to control my big mouth. It didn’t work, of course. She was the same age as me, interesting and had held down an important job before retirement. I liked her. Don’t know how my resolution got forgotten but when I mentioned how awful the tories wer she suprised me by coming out with twaddle about the need to deal with the debt. She hadn’t the slightest knowledge of how money is created. Unfortunately just as I was trying to explain QE to her my brother shut me up.
It is a little maddening to look at the analysis of Labour’s manifesto and find that people are saying that they can only pay for it by raising more taxes than they own up to.
Labour does not really seem to embrace people’s QE which as you say is something that would be good to do. Labour are still cowed by public ignorance of how money really works and also what macro economics is (it is not micro economics – that is for sure). I do hope that Labour consider actually printing more money rather than just taking more tax in future polices.
I’ve still yet to hear anyone from Labour tell a member of the public that the last Labour government did NOT bankrupt the country and how impossible that was in the first place in a country that can print its own money.
Even if Labour do not win, I would like them to have at given May and here shoddy crew a bloody nose and made is clear that the country is not totally right wing.
But more than that I hope that Labour realise that with Corbyn they have put down a marker and that there is no going back to Blairism. Chasing the same narrow band of voters as the Tories is not just bad for democracy – it is also bad for those who need a voice. Because without a voice these people become are ripe to be exploited by the right-wing in this country. That is still the biggest lesson for Labour.
Would the PLP please note.
I know a lot of progressive economists who are deeply frustrated by the lack of economic insight coming form Labour’s economics team
James Meadway who heads it was at NEF and should know this stuff. I am clueless as to why it is so bad unless he encountered the same difficulty I did, which is John McDonnell’s refusal to campaign on it
I agree, it is difficult to know what is happening here. The NEF people should know their stuff.
It could be a case of keeping the language framing ‘mainstream’ whilst being aware that it is nonsense. Bernie Sanders, as far as I know, NEVER used any non-mainstream language even though Stephanie Kelton was advising him. A Labour doing the same ot am I imputing too much sophistication to them?
I think Bernie did it much better
Having had some contact with those mentioned I’d echo the frustration being experienced and offer a tentative explanation; they are swayed by the ‘political’ framing rather than the economic diagnosis they perform.
They have, in my opinion, failed to understand the central fact that too many people who lean leftwards have spent the last decades being unrepresented in their economic deliberations (that’s why Green QE and renationalisation and removing PFI have been ‘off the table as discussion subjects) because they believe the Overton Window will only allow a neoliberal framing of the topics.
By remaining convinced that you can’t speak outside that window they have missed the seismic shift that you and others have brought about where these things receive an airing. Their failure is not that they don’t see the same things we do, they do, but that they think it’s politically impossible to speak about them. They are wrong about that.
I confirm that is exactly the problem I faced in my brief period of a few days around the shadow cabinet office
Forgive me for pointing it out, but there IS a party which promotes all those policies, and you yourself used the word – The Green Party.
It’s also worth pointing out that Mr Corbyn’s new policies are drawn from the 2015 Green Party Manifesto. What’s frustrating is that he hasn’t gone the whole hog and taken ALL the policies.
But it’s a start.
Noted
Yes – indeed the Green Party are very much in there from a policy point of view and I voted for them in 2015.
But what is good about Labour at the moment is they are (1) our other largest mainstream party who could seriously threaten the Tories and (2) they are the largest of the parties to take a step closer to the Greens in terms of social and economic policy.
One thing I forgot to mention in my first contribution is what happens AFTER the election to Labour if they lose or win.
If they keep Corbyn that is fine by me.
But I would expect them to start thinking about alliances and taking their ideas further in order get away from their inherent tribalism and put clearer red water between them and the Tories. It is the only way they can recover those they have lost to UKIP and lately the Tories in my view.
You cannot set out to change a country if you do take on people’s lack of understanding about economic issues and the mythology about Labour at the time of the 2008 crash and its subsequent years.
That is the long term test for me.
A lot to agree with there
“No one has embraced the concerns of the country sufficiently to offer the real solution it does not yet know it’s looking for.” Really hits the nail on the head.
What frightens me most is the realisation that a government we elect next week will be in power for the next 5 years until 2022. By this time we will need solutions to unprecedented social changes which are being completely overlooked by almost all economists, journalists, and politicians in the current campaign – your list being a rare exception !
Perhaps the single most challenging policy – that of Universal Basic Income – is the biggest shift in social and economic policy since 1945, and will require an unprecedented exercise in national research and planning to be a success. Yet, if we do not make a start on this within the next parliament the likely impacts of automation on employment will overtake us before we have any mechanisms in place to deal with it. Already we have almost a million people in Britain on zero hours contracts, but accelerating changes in employment over the next 5 years are likely to bring far greater challenges.
For the future of our country, and our World, we need real public forums for informed debate at a totally different level to what is currently being reflected in either academic or political life. So perhaps the one addition we should make to your list is to develop radically different approaches to public debate and consultation, in ways that will inform pro-active government policy. In an age of unprecedented Global change we can no longer afford to rely on the ideologies and narratives of established political parties. The future offers unprecedented opportunities and challenges in equal measure, but we will have to be much better prepared to deal with them.
Robert P Bruce – author http://www.TheGlobalRace.net
I’m all for inovative thinking and a move economically to the left and a move towards a more liberal and less authoritarian social agenda,
but I would caution against too dramatic a swing that would alienate Liberals, soft conservatives and the least xenophobic Kippers,
the balance of private and public does need to be corrected, but a balance is the objective,
I recall Richard Branson selling off parts of business’s he had created to finance the next ones but always retaining a controlling interest,
renationalisation need not be total, so long as the state has a controlling interest so as to guard against subversion there is still scope for a minority private interest that would serve as a critique against inefficiency and profligacy,
I agree that the state should fund college and university education and recoup the costs at a later date from the resultant expansion of middle class tax revenues, but I also recall during the Blair years a multiplication of fairly ridiculous degree courses that were really only pandering to the less bright who wished to obtain a trophy degree,
could the free courses be concentrated amongst subjects that there is a genuine demand for graduates of?
we certainly need doctors, engineers, scientists, mathematicians etc but do we really want to subsidise more advertising and marketing executives, PR experts, media analysts etc.?
if you desperately want your stupid child to have a degree but he isn’t smart enough to qualify for a free course you would still be able to buy him a place on a vanity degree course,
I would like to see a firewall created between the speculative casino style financial system and the real economy’s financial services such as pensions, investment, mortgages and high street banking,
if anything to control contagion from the next speculative crash that would currently take the beneficial aspects of the financial system with it,
a national investment bank would be great, it could also provide many of the more sober financial services to the domestic market, it could provide unflashy yet stable investment opportunities for pension funds but they shouldn’t be allowed to escape into the casino and get daisy chained into the speculative financial world,
moves towards the public sphere should be tempered with the pragmatism of the private sphere,
exotic financial engineering should be shunned when it is so complex it is impossible to understand easily,
simple, explainable, stable, predictable, down to earth solutions based on only an ideology of common sense would have the broadest appeal to the widest majority,
in reality most sensible people are somewhat conservative with a little ‘c’, it isn’t a failing… it’s prudence,
is there such a thing as a Quaker Manifesto for Government?
The Quakerx have done a commentary on the manifestos
I admit I have not read it
‘Just holding the Tories at bay would be fantastic’
Absolutely! The ghastly overweening pride has already been shaken which is a good result in itself. Also: the press has realised that its hegemony over the public (Grauniad included) is breaking as the rubbishing of Corbyn clearly has not entirely worked.
There is still time for a further Labour surge but I’m not hopeful as the Tories benefit from the ‘secrecy of the voting booth’ phenomenon where those who might vote Labour become fearful of change and go for the status quo at the last moment.
If Labour win we will have witnessed a historic shift that will echo all over Europe and further. Will the youth a vote do it combined with some recharging of the apathetic. I haven’t looked into the numbers here (anyone out there who has?) so am not sure of how this might play out.
Labour is at 8/1 at present and as a Quaker (and semi-skint!) I don’t gamble! But could the person who put 10,000 on a Corbyn win when the odds were something like 30/1 be claiming their £300,000?
I would laugh if they did
But I don’t gamble either
I had a private £10.00 bet with a friend of mine pretty soon after the election was called – at most a week – that Corbyn was going to do far better than people expected, and predicted that he could deny May a working majority.
I’d intended giving him and Richard a sealed letter to that effect, duly dated, to be opened on June 9th, but never got round to doing it. I did respond to my friend’s challenge, however, and hand him over a tenner, even though I’ve never gambled since losing ALL the 2/6d gift I’d received from an Aunt in a Redcar penny arcade at the age of 10 – cured me for life!
However, if my prediction turns out to be right, there will be a wonderful chance to use the Tories’ malign Fixed Term Parliament Act to punish Tory hubris with their own anti-democratic instrument.
For if May comes back as Leader of the largest Party, but without a majority, then the Parliamentary majority will be able to pass motion of “No Confidence” in May’s Government, for May will be de facto caretaker PM.
Once that happens, May’s Government will fall, though she’ll still be caretaker PM, and Corbyn should be able to put together a “rainbow coalition” of anti-Tory MP’s, and win a Confidence Motion within the 14 days stipulated under the Act, and May, as caretaker PM, would have to grit her teeth and go to the Palace to advise the Queen to invite whoever that “rainbow coalition” had designated as their Leader, which would probably be Jeremy Corbyn, but need not be.
I just hope Corbyn is sufficiently fleet of foot and agile of mind to start implementing this strategy from about 4 am on June 9th, when the way things are going becomes clear, and that he invites Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru and Lib-Dems to a council of war for Friday morning.
That is because the VERY first piece of legislation – likely to be a “red line” requirement for collaboration by non-Labour Parties – that new Government should pass should be to transform the Westminster voting system into STV, pending a full Speaker’s Conference (with full public consultation as happened in Scotland with their Constitutional Convention) on all aspects of the Constitution, prior to implementation of lasting change: that MIGHT mean adopting the Jenkins Report at last, or something else, and MUST encompass a written Constitution, REAL Lords’ reform/establishment of a Senate etc., and MIGHT be put to a Referendum, though having seen the mendacity at the heart of the IndyRef and BREXIT Referenda, I’d be inclined to leave the decision to a future General Election fought on competing Manifestos offering competing constitutional visions, and leave Parliament to make the final decision.
Of course, such a General Election could NOT be held on Party lines, but would have to consist of one “coalition” from ALL Parties in favour of the constitutional changes, and one opposed, and the electorate would have to exercise real choice and judgement on the basis of real argument and evidence – quite a departure from the normal way of things, but it really is time the politicians started treated the electorate as mature adults, every bit as much as it is time the electorate started acting as mature adults.
Fingers crossed for that Andrew
And £10 to a charity if it happens
Responding to Andrew Dickie, and risking accusations of wandering a little off topic!…I grew up in Redcar. I was 10 in 1963. And I too learned those hard lessons about gambling in the penny arcades, tho’ in my case it would have been my week’s pocket money gone in minutes or hours….and then guilt/ fear of Mum finding out.
The bitter taste of those old pennies on nervous, sweaty fingers is a Proustian memory, Thank you Andrew – it was a delight to find that the numbers of those who graduated from the Redcar School of Hard Knocks has swollen to two!
(It occurs to me that with hardly any effort I could drag this back to some sort of relevance by talking about closing the steel works, selling off ICI, leaving people without hope, abandoning your core vote and opening the door to UKIP, Brexit and the Tories but there’d be very few whistful smiles in it…)
I too learned that lesson on old pennies and fruit machines
My dad gave each of us (me and my brothers) half a crown in Margate (if I recall correctly). We rapidly learned regret. I suspect it was some of his best spent money: none of us have ever gambled
http://election.quaker.org.uk/
for Quaker contributions to Election discussions – re questions to candidates abd burning issues etc.
Also need to address the economic, political and cultural centralisation of Britain – and in particular England. Can’t think of any other wealthy country where the economy and national and political institutions are so intensively concentrated in one place and where the capital is so dominant.
Can’t help but think that multi-faceted marginalisation was largely responsible for Brexit – regions with meaningful devolution of power (NI and Scotland) were solidly Remain, for example.
Maybe time to abolish London – by which I mean moving the country’s national political institutions (the civil service, ministries, Parliament) elsewhere. On one level, this would help create jobs and an economic base in other regions, but – more importantly – it would result in other interests other than those of the south and the City getting more of a look-in. Things have been dominated by an elite gliding along a gilded Thames corridor stretching between Oxford, Eton and Westminster for too long. It would also correct some of the distortions in the UK’s awful housing market and all the pernicious consequences of that.
Couldn’t agree more.