I wrote this only a week or so ago, but it seems worth reiterating already:
I have suggested on many occasions that what Labour needs to do if it is to win a general election victory is to deliver a strong narrative that people can believe in. Candidly, I am bemused as to what is quite so difficult about this. Whilst people are complex as individuals what we want is often remarkably consistent, and so predictable.
I suggest:
- People want to work.
- They want fair pay.
- They want a home they can afford.
- They want education for their children if they have them.
- They want health care.
- Pensions matter to them personally, and for their relatives as they imply security in old age.
- They need security, physically and legally.
- They want to feel they are respected.
- They want to feel they are part of a community.
- Access to entertainment is important.
- For all these things transport is necessary.
What is needed beyond these things? Actually, remarkably little since if these conditions are met most people can live the life that they want. You could say I have omitted material needs — but I haven't: that is what fair pay is for, coupled with the choice it enables, which should be permitted and encouraged as markets very definitely have a role.
If tax assists and does not impede these goals then it is both tolerated and paid.
In exchange people expect economic stability and will vote against those who do not supply it.
And that's it: I am sure the list can be refined but in essence this is what people want.
And the difference in political philosophy should almost be as simple. Neoliberals say it's up to you to achieve these things and then provides an environment that preserves your claim to them against others who have yet to achieve them (this being true across party boundaries, as is now clear) whilst the left should say it is our job to make sure as many people as possible have access to these things because we are all, without doubt, better off when the benefit of them is shared as far as possible.
I am well aware of how naive I will be called for saying this.
My defence is a simple one: people want clear, straightforward messages. They don't want to know about VAT cuts on windows or enterprise investment schemes in Middlesborough. They don't even care about deficits if they believe those managing them know what they're doing. They want to know what people stand for in unambiguous, unchanging over time, terms. So you build your politics on conviction, on the assessment of what people really want, and how you can deliver it. The rest follows.
And right now since only UKIP is doing that.
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Keep reiterating this!
Labour’s issue is whether they are serious about making a real difference in people’s lives or simply tinker around with the neo-liberal status quo.
At the moment they will have as much difficulty explaining what One Nation Labour means as Cameron has had trying to explain the Big Society.
The problem we all face is that in less than two years time someone is going to form a Government and some one will “lead” the nation. At the moment it feels like we the people are sleep walking into a disaster that comes from assuming we have to look to existing models and parties (UKIP included)for answers.
What’s it going to take to shake us from our slumber? It’s time we took some responsibility for this.
Agreed
Everything you list is conceivable within a sustainable framework – but it can’t happen if the priorities in peoples’ lives don’t change. during the Thatcher era it was a case of you are either middle class or failed to be middle class; now it’s: super rich or failed to be super rich. Unless this hypnotic state ends a decent life for all is unattainable.
Interesting. With the exception of:
– They need security, physically and legally.
I can provide the laundry list for myself. Even more so if government got out of the way and its hands out of my pockets.
Respectfully, only a fool would think so
No thanks Charles…..Laissez faire doesn’t work and will never work and this lesson should have been learned by now. How many times do we have to make the same mistake? Look at the the railways in the early/mid nineteenth century if you want to ignore recent history.
Unless……all in the “free market” followed Adam Smith’s “Theory of Moral Sentiments” (thank you Tax Justice for highlighting this important work that is blanked by the Right). How likely is that? Until then the government has to take its place.
The Right want life in this country to resemble that on the African Savannah for all but the wealthiest.
They have already started “lighting fires in order to flush out Ralph” …. ie the most vulnerable in our society.