There is a lot of talk about politics needing to tack to the centre if any party is to secure a win in 2020. This is, I think, called conventional wisdom.
Maybe that has been true in the past. But what if the centre ground is bereft of ideas on how to address the problems we face? And that centre ground is, in fact, simply the perpetuation of a status quo that many, even in that centre ground, are disenchanted with?
To put it another way, is it possible to reclaim political discourse that is suffering from dormancy from a position that is itself within the centre ground?
And can the necessary, even if gentle, disruption that must occur as the precursor of the new political era that we appear to need ever come from a point of consensus around the existing system that the centre ground is likely to embrace?
I ask the questions in all seriousness because I am not at all sure that embracing the centre ground is what politics really requires at present.
But if it requires something else who can, and how can they, communicate an alternative in a politically plausible way? Again, I ask in all seriousness because that, I think, is the ultimate political question of the moment.
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You hit the nail on the head, Richard! Andrew Rawnsley’s Observer article was typical in criticising the present Labour leadership and espousing a shift to the centre, whilst being completely devoid of idealogical discussion or policy ideas.
The candidates in the Labour leadership election had the opportunity to present an alternative economic vision, but offered watered-down austerity instead. If one of them took the reins now, promises of more spending and better services would soon unravel as a result of this economic choice.
Kevin, “You hit the nail on the head” was exactly what I was about to comment! Will now put on Facebook instead.
It seems to me that the centre of British politics has collapsed somewhat, mainly as a result of the capitulation of two of the main ideological groupings that could reasonably be called “centrist” – the Liberal Democrats and Blairite Labour – to the Tories. The Lib Dems destroyed themselves by entering into coalition with the Tories in 2010, after which their vote collapsed, as they could no longer reasonably be considered a progressive party. The right wing of the Labour party also threw in the towel in the summer of 2015 when (under Harriet Harman’s interim leadership) it decided not to oppose George Osborne’s £12bn of welfare cuts. This act of surrender was suicidal for the Labour Right as it was a major factor in the success of Jeremy Corbyn, as the only leadership candidate prepared to take on the Tories. Thus in British politics we are left with a Labour party under left-wing leadership and a Conservative party under right-wing leadership (the Tory “wets” having been reduced to irrelevance over 30 years ago.) Where is the centre in all of this? Nowhere!
Agreed
@ Howard Reed
Howard, I would add two – if not rejoinders, then observations, to what you say.
The first is to draw attention to the difference between the two Leadership positions of the Tory and Labour Parties, namely that, by comparison with the actuality of the current “Overton Window”, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party is indeed “left-wing”, but the reality is that what he has pronounced as his position is firmly “centrist” in terms of Harold Wilson’s Labour Party, so far has the Overton Window shifted to the Right.
The Tory Party’s “centre”, however, has hardly, if ever, been seen before in UK history. Heath’s “Selsdon man” would effectively be a “bleeding liberal” by contrast with the Ayn Randian cast of mind of the modern Nasty Party, in the heart of which sits Francis Maude declaring that “everything must go”, and that the State should not run ANYTHING apart from an army and a police force, with everything else in the hands of private capital.
There is, then, a world of difference between Corbyn’s “Left Centre”, which is eminently reasonable and Cameron’s “Right Centre”, which is incipiently antisocial and even sociopathic.
Which brings me to my second observation, the comment of the great poet, W.B.Yeats, in his prophetic poem “Second Coming”. You will all know his wonderful words there:
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
I feel that he is describing our current politics, even though he was actually addressing the situation of around 100 years ago, for there are similarities to the two periods – then a post World War 1 world, seeking to make sense of things after that bloody cataclysm, and now a post Great Crash world, seeking to make sense of things after that relatively bloodless, but in some ways equally great cataclysm.
The response of the 1920’s was the unbridled hedonism of the “Roaring 20’s”; the response of the 2010’s has been a retreat into the fantasy world of Ayn Randian austerity, where societies have blinded themselves into believing that they can “cure” themselves by successive amputations (“cuts”), without recognising that each amputation has actually worsened the situation, by leading to loss of blood and mobility.
The solution? I believe the only solution is for the Labour Party to gather round itself a “Progressive Front” of all those political forces that agree that an Ayn Randian solution is neither desirable, nor possible, and together to fashion a new “centre” based on the values and concerns that have been well expressed by Richard M in previous “general political “posts on this blog.
The Labour Party HAS done this before, in similar circumstances, after the Wall Street Crash, and the unnecessary nonsense of the National Government and its misguided policies of austerity (See http://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/labours-panicky-establishment-referencing-the-wrong-period-in-history
As to the “Progressive Front” idea, COMPASS, of course, supports this, as do I, but it is interesting that so does Paul Mason – see Recommendation 3, at the end of his very interesting take on the Local Elections in the following: https://medium.com/mosquito-ridge/elections-2016-the-scottish-earthquake-continues-f829864192b5#.uq8b29u6c
It’s up to Labour to fashion a NEW centre, and to argue for it sufficiently effectively to win people over to it: Lansbury and Atlee managed it in the 1930’s; it’s up to Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell to do the same now.
If they don’t, Yeats’ fears of “mere anarchy” will be fulfilled, and a possible replay of the “Age of Dictators” may occur:
“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
Thank you Andrew
Poetry appears here too rarely: it is the real language of change
Interesting you should mention Compass, Andrew, because I think that that has become an irrelevance. I left some time back because it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. This view was endorsed when I received the recent invitation to a whatever they call conferences now. None of the speakers attracted me.
I finally resigned from the Fabians last month after seeing their line up for the summer conference. A shame, since the last one I attended featured Jeremy Corbyn arriving just in time for the first unofficial hustings for leadership – to rapturous applause. But BJC (Before Jeremy Corbyn) these were the sort of conferences Labour members attended, with just John McDonnell’s LRC for confirmed lefties.
@Andrew Dickie.
I just now shrugged.
Andrew your reference to Ann Pettifor’s article is very useful and yet another example of the failure of some within the left leaning parties to acknowledge once and for all that their real battle must always be with the owners and managers of private and increasingly global financial capital, as this is the source of almost all the worlds economic problems.
“Blame for unemployment lies much more with finance than with industry. Mass unemployment is never the fault of the workers; often it is not the fault of the employers. All widespread trade depressions in modern times have financial causes; successive inflation and deflation, obstinate adherence to the gold standard, reckless speculation, and overinvestment in particular industries. …” (NEC, 1944)
Really good points there Andrew – I don’t disagree with any of that.
I think that is a very good question. not sure I know the answer myself, people have to try to find arguments and a rhetoric that will communicate and move people (easier said than done I know). The great danger of course is that the situation you describe will lead to demagogues of all colours filling the void.
The big question for Labour is ‘are right-wing economic ideas compatible with social progress?’ The answer as everyone can see is ‘no’ but the right-wing of Labour is in denial about this. Austerity is simply bad economics and Corbyn has gone out of his way to seek sound economic advice. Unfortunately for so-called ‘centrists’ half way been a sound policy and a bad policy is a half-baked policy. The other thing that if off-putting about the Labour advocates of austerity is that they seem entirely indifferent to the question of sound economics. The only thing that they seem to care about is how the idea is playing in the country. They are therefore always chasing public opinion rather than shaping it.
Your last point is key
Most of Labour politicians are in that space
‘They are therefore always chasing public opinion rather than shaping it.
This is the old mistake that Kahn is making. Politicians need to be educators and they are remarkably bad at that. Pandering to some abstracted ‘centre’ which I’m glad we are agreeing dose not exist is another example of ‘plastic politicians’ who lack real ideas and can face the challenge of our times, which is non other than revealing the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of our economic myths.
Labour needs to step up to this plate, and those M.P’s that can’t ought to, to put it bluntly, ‘piss off’ because they are letting us al down with their cringing, cowardly and fearful dancing to the overton window.
Yes, what a huge mistake khan must have made in winning a landslide victory last week.
Well put Richard – and Howard too.
Did you read the piece by Ian Birrel in i yesterday? Nasty stuff.
When Blair went towards the centre, instead of stopping there he kept going. And with tripe about the ‘third way’ from Anthony Giddens, who could blame him?
The sad fact in my view is that British politics needs to be dragged to the Left somewhat – a sort of ‘ideological correction’ needs to take place – never mind a financial or market correction. There is no way that we are in the centre now anyway. We are well to the right in my view.
We seem to have a system that says to markets ‘do what you want’. Never mind the tosh about Parliament losing its sovereignty to the EU; it has been ceding its sovereignty to unaccountable markets for 30-40 years! In fact you could say that it surrendering its sovereignty (OUR sovereignty) to North American expansionist capitalism. That to my mind is what is actually happening. And as long as the elite in this country get a share of the spoils, they do not care.
Again I think Khan needs to realise that what works for London may not work for elsewhere in the country at large for Labour. Yes, UKIP is growing but there is still compelling evidence that people are fed up with politics not meeting their needs and not voting. We need to ask why. Not just leave it at that and just fight over Tory voters.
It is Khan and his political kin who need to accept the new reality; Corbyn is viable – he represents something that can be harnessed in order to get rid of this most nasty of administrations.
However, the Labour tribalists want to paint Corbyn as the problem, ignoring the problems they create by being seen to question his validity. As result, Corbyn feels threatened, undermined (who wouldn’t?) and is less likely to reach out and surround himself with supporters and we get citadel politics instead.
Khan should know better – as should many in the PLP. The Tories are loving it.
But people are suffering – real people. And a Labour party that forgets that might as well not exist at all.
‘But people are suffering — real people. And a Labour party that forgets that might as well not exist at all. ‘
Spot on PSR. Strangely, all Labour needs to do is make this courageous leap over the moral abyss and remember not to look down.
The majority of the population want –
1. a publicly owned, well funded NHS
2. publicly owned railways
3. decent, publicly owned education, under local authority control
4. corporations and the rich paying their taxes
5. Decent local services
6. nonreplacement ofTrident nuclear weapons to make us safer
I could go on.
This is what poll after poll has shown,
Sounds a bit like Jeremy Corbin’s manifesto, so he must be the leader of new Middle Ground.
You may well be right David Lucas, in a democratic state we would put all of these important long-term societal issues to the public for a vote after well informed debate and information sharing.
The fact we are not allowed to have our say and instead have to put our trust in a group of partisan non-representative individuals in both houses of parliament (in most cases looking after their own careers and interests more than anyone else’s) shows just how non-democratic this country is (and almost every so called western democracy).
The middle ground can only be found by letting the people vote on all major societal issues.
You’ve summed it up well Howard:
“Thus in British politics we are left with a Labour party under left-wing leadership and a Conservative party under right-wing leadership (the Tory “wets” having been reduced to irrelevance over 30 years ago.) Where is the centre in all of this? Nowhere!”
Some would say that the centre was only ever good for convincing the lower orders (and that means me) that the “masters of mankind” are acting in our best interests. Now that inequality is reaching unsustainable proportions, as a result of the unrestrained greed of the wealthy and powerful over the past several decades, the centre can no longer persuade us that this is the best of all possible worlds.
There really are only two sides in this deadly serious game of politics, and I know which side I am on. Our challenge is to educate and inform, in the face of media manipulation.
Richard is doing his best, but just like Corbyn, speaking for the losing side in this game, the more successful he becomes, the more he will be vilified and maligned, by the wealthy and powerful who are being exposed. Quiet revolutionaries have a hard job. The centre keeps calling us with its seductive overtones of civility, reasonableness, fairness. But revolutions are not won from the centre.
I am not quiet!
Maybe not, but you are revolutionary!
OK, in my own way
Peacefully, that is
I’m not sure “the centre” really exists. It seems to be invoked with greater frequency the further to the right the speaker is. As the Political Compass website shows, British political parties have shifted dramatically rightwards in my lifetime (http://www.politicalcompass.org/ukparties2010), while all the time banging on about the centre ground, the silent majority, and so on. It seems the parties keep hunting the snark and catching boojums instead.
Yet another good example of the failure of the two party state and FPTP elections in my view.
The political centre ground in the UK, by definition is a compromise which accepts to a large extent the maintenance of the existing political and economic establishment, as if this in some way represents the best interests of the people of these lands as a whole. It will be mildly progressive at best, with a minor tussle between capital and labour going on for theatrical effect, but no great seismic changes either way.
2008 has changed that for this generation forever in my view, just as 1929 did for that generation at the time. The political and economic warfare that is now underway is for (on the right) the survival of destructive capitalism in its current financialised form and (on the left) the reformation of private financial capitalism into a social financial capitalism (i.e. economic, financial and political democracy)
And therefore the current right leaning middle ground and centre politics is truly bereft of ideas and deserves to be punished, because it was the reason that the current economic and financial system has been allowed to rape and pillage society for its own benefit across the world for many decades since WW2.
When a time for real social, political and economic change comes along (as they occasionally do), it is time for strong and positive action in the direction that those who have suffered years of injustice and exploitation truly deserve. Because without that, society makes little or no real progress and we will instead revert to an increasingly regressive stage of humanity once again.
I think there are two issues here: policy and strategy. I have seen much criticism of strategy, and I think it is fair to say that the strategy of Jeremy Corbyn has had, what, 8 months so far. Of policy, there has been no discussion whatsoever and that, in my view, was the main disgrace of Andrew Rawnsley’s column in the Observer. I guess the reason for this is because there is nothing wrong with the policy!
It’s happened not by accident nor are the roots of the problem recent. For those interested in how and when it happened I would recommend Bill Mitchell’s current analysis of how (and when) the Labour Party became ‘seduced’ by the neo-liberal agenda. The latest chapter in his on-going analysis can be found on his blog http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=33475#more-33475. Contrary to popular myth Callaghan presided over the UK’s first neo-liberal government not Margaret Thatcher.
However, that is now history. The $64,000 – or rather £850 billion – question is how to advance a socio-economic governmental programme that will reverse the current embedded dogma / ideology and win a General Election on such a manifesto.
It’s the perennial question that almost all political comment comes back to. There is no shortage of information, advice, scholarly articles, books, presentations, movies even, that offer solutions but we’ve yet to see a major western political party, with any significant popular mandate, dare to offer a radical new economic policy for fear of alienating the so-called ‘middle ground’. It’s the old chestnut of ‘Overton’s Window’.
My fear is that change will only come about when at least 51% of the 99% are really feeling some pain. Most progressives & heterodox commentators predict growing unrest but, thus far at least, the neo-cons have maintained the status quo via increased debt and control of the MSM. For the majority in the west, life just isn’t that tough … yet.
The Green Party has always offered the electorate sustainable long-term solutions but it has little credibility as refelected by its share of the vote (albeit increasing very slowly). I’d like to believe that the PLP has a new agenda on the back-burner, so to speak, but there seems to be little appetite among the leadership to shout it from the roof-top, for the reason given. They’re scared of ‘upsetting’ the centre ground. It’s a classic Catch 22 situation, isn’t it?
For the past 40-odd years the Centre Ground you refer to is a construct of a US neo-liberal agenda that has been successfully sold to the west – and now the world – as the only feasible way to manage the economic complexities of society. To replace their ideology is like eliminating McDonald’s from the high street.
Analogies don’t really work. One goes round and around in circles trying to explain to people that there is an alternative, but not enough people are either interested or believe it. Either they’re too busy struggling to keep body & soul together or else they’re comfortably just getting on with their lives as they always have. I have no scientific evidence as proof but I’d guess that they mostly believe intuitively the country has to balance its books like any household or company and should be run by people who know how to do that. And when one Chancellor fails, he (never a woman) is replaced by another from the same economic stable. And so on and so on ….
I despair. But I pray that people like you Richard are sowing seeds that will eventually take root and bear fruit in spite of the toxic weeds that have taken over the garden (of Eden?). Another poor analogy – hehe.
I hope I’m doing more than planting seeds
I want to see the darned things grow!
‘For the majority in the west, life just isn’t that tough … yet. ‘
That’s true but there is a sense that the young are wakening up to the reality of a life of debt servicing to rentiers and this will be the spark.
I also suspect that the intolerable strain on the Greek people can be born no further-a realisation that even the hideous Lagarde is partially acknowledging at the IMF.
These factors may well be signaling the beginning of the end which means things will have to get worse before they can improve-it’s perhaps a bit like the concept of ‘aggravated healing’ in holistic medicine.
I think we could usefully re-define the ‘centre ground’ as being pragmatic evidence-based policy. We could then view deviations from this caused by left-wing ideology as ‘left-wing’ and deviations from this caused by ‘right-wing’ ideology as ‘right-wing’. I think it is totally misleading for the media to abuse the terms left-wing and ‘socialist’ to describe anyone to the left of the Blairiite wing of the Labour Party. This is because historically the current Blairite position is in my opinion to the right of pre-Thatcher Conservatives. The trivialising of issues and mangling of the English language is a serious problem in political punditry.
In terms of “the left” I note that the evisceration of Syriza by the EC/troika is now complete (see Paul Mason’s superb piece in The Guardian). No doubt part of the plan/trap – into which Tsipras and his allies walked – was to paint a progressive left party into a corner from which they couldn’t escape but which can now be used as an example of how useless progressive left parties are. Opening the door to what? No doubt the outcome of the presidential election in Austria points the way.
Additionally, assuming Greece implodes over the next few weeks – as seems likely – could this be the biggest gift to the Brexit campaign? A once proud sovereign state destroyed by the EU. Certainly, if I were the odious Johnson, or the equally appalling Farage, I’d make sure it were.
Possible….
I agree
The growth of the right wing in Europe is precisely why there should be no BREXIT in my view.
Once Britain walks, I feel that others will follow and then what?
Conflict is a nice little earner these days.
PSR-but it’s the economic policies of the EU that have brought about the rise of the Right-how more of the same will nip that in the bud beats me.
Some of the Brexiters I’ve heard or read in the last few days almost seem to be salivating for the return of the Cold War.
Incidentally,, I am now about to read Tom Bower’s ‘Broken Vows: Tony Blair: The Tragedy of Power.
I wonder if Mr Kahn will be reading this too? I would if I were him.
Agree, PSR, and with the greatest respect to Richard, who I know is a friend of Khan, on the evidence of his statements over the few brief days since his election he should read it very much sooner than later. Having been impressed by his win (given Goldsmith’s gutter-scraping campaign) I’ve not been impressed since. Much to quick to set himself up as the real king over the water to Corbyn.
I can disagree with friends
Awful appointment for TfL. Adonis – whatever has he done successfully with all the jobs he’s had?
I also mourn the fact that such ideas as there are are rarely properly discussed. This seems to be partly the fact that the newsprint media is mostly owned by billionaires and partly that the BBC is so spineless in the face of Conservative crticsm.
But we know that the people now running the government are the proxies of the people who print the money. So my small idea would be for radical local authorities to start to take the financiers on at their own game. First by promoting their own complementary currencies (the Bristol £ is reckoned to be the most comprehensive local currency in the EU, so there is a bit of a template). Second by starting a local bank, because in housing they all have a source of, well, rent. When local banking started to impact on the local authority housing crises that are so pervasive, the dreaded Overton window would be smashed – or at least moved significantly. The idea would have been made concrete as it were, and, it is to be hoped, could not be ignored any longer.
It wouldn’t be quick but it would be a start.
And surely starting a bank is not a crackpot socialist idea – quite centrist really…
I think you are right MayP, the only way real and lasting social change will occur is if the monetary and financial systems themselves (including the banks that function as a key part of it) are re-organised along democratic socialist principles.
So far I have found the work of Richard Werner and Richard Douthwaite to be most helpful in setting out the basis for a number of sustainable community, national and global banking and monetary alternatives to the current stranglehold that the private financial system has over most people’s lives.
Such changes will not happen from any top-down thinking or action, as it goes against the grain of everything the private financial establishment strives to achieve in power and control over every economy and society.
But with the creation of a broad range of bottom up socialist solutions, this will form the financial foundations from which a new and much more powerful democratic economy will replace the broken wreck of private financial capitalism when it is eventually dashed upon the rocks for one last time.
Another deeply interesting item including the comments. I shared this post with Dan, my Californian friend of over 40 years, and he remarked how it resonated with the current sad state of politics in the USA. I hope for all our sakes, but especially for those of younger years, that these troubled times are a natural part of our political evolution. An evolution to a much more democratic society.
Now if you listen closely, l,ll tell you what I know,
Storm clouds are gathering, the wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering and I can hear the moan.
Cause nobody, but nobody can make it out here alone.
Maya Angelou.
Your mixed economy Mr Murphy, got to have it.
Indeed
Having listened to your friend and colleague, Andrew Simms, and Melanie Smallman of SERA speak last night, I am particularly aware that the imperative to mitigate climate warming also seems to lie outside the Overton Window… (let alone a putative centre ground which I have never believed existed).
As far as I’m concerned, this is ‘the ultimate political question of the moment’… and it is certainly not being addressed by the Right who are vested in maintaining the power of the fossil fuel producers and the global over-class. However, as the New Green Deal and ZeroCarbon2030 propose, ‘powering up and powering down’ provides a lot of the political answers. And capitalism in its current form is the anti-thesis of a solution.. ‘Green capitalism’ is an oxymoron.
Ed Miliband was the only bright hope at the end of the Blair/Brown years. Until his appointment at DECC, seriously addressing climate change, species extinctions and resource depletion was a non-issue. My fear is that the Labour Right will prevent Corbyn’s LP fully grasping the nettle. For example, a massive house building project without inbuilt ‘sustainability’ would be a travesty. Continuing with nuclear and Fracking will prevent investment into renewables, and we simply cannot rely on the private sector to build a national HVDC grid capable of linking together micro-renewables when it would be against their own interests.
As far as I’m concerned, at the very minimum, mitigating climate warming should be the new centre ground. And that means that the consensus embracing the existing system must be firmly rejected.
Agreed
I was having discussion on this issue until late last night
I found Richard Douthwaite’s book about Ecology and Money a very good insight into why the current private financial and monetary system just cannot (or at least not voluntarily) be adapted to a low-carbon world, because it has become totally reliant on the continued exploitation of all natural resources without paying in full for any of its externalities.
And so the solution to climate change in my view requires a new social financial and monetary system, because without it there will be no (or at least insufficient) reduction in CO2 or many other major environmental pollutants.
Douthwaite was writing this in 1999 (not sure he got much of audience at the time?). Since then the situation has got so much worse both financially and environmentally for the world as a whole.
As we now know, nobody in political power was listening or acting on the underlying private financial and monetary system itself, despite the increasing concerns being raised in public for the environment.
Perhaps this is a better focus for the world’s environmental movement to target political pressure in future.
http://www.feasta.org/documents/moneyecology/contents.htm
Richard was well known
In small circles
And from small circles, large movements can begin!
Hopefully the time will come for many of his very prescient thoughts and ideas to be considered more widely. I have been impressed with this book and now moved onto Short Circuit.
http://www.feasta.org/documents/shortcircuit/contents.html
Many thanks, Keith Fletcher, for the link. More reading!
I know Richard Werner has done research that shows that lots of small banks rather than a few large ones makes for a more stable economy overall so just for that reason alone we ought to be starting some local banks!
Hi all,
A bit late to the party on this but below are some thoughts I posted in a comment on the polling report blog and I wanted to share them here too. The germ of this was my reading the following article on the BBC Projected Vote Share in the wake of the ‘unexpected’ council election results. Take particular note of the graph over time of the projected national share of the vote.
https://electionsetc.com/2016/05/06/bbc-projected-national-share-pns-of-the-vote-2016/
In the back of my head was also Richard’s recent post about the shape of British politics and I wonder if the graph in the article provides evidence for that theory.
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/04/17/the-shape-of-politics/
Please bear with me this goes on a bit.
Between 1982 and 2009 the rise and fall in the two main parties’ PNS is, as would be expected, largely a mirror image of the other. A Labour rise mirrors a Tory fall and vice versa. We all know the importance a handful of centrist swing voters have held across this period. However, since 2009 that pattern appears to have been broken.
First 2009-10 sees the beginning of a sharp rise for Labour but with no corresponding fall in the Tory or Lib Dem votes. From where then? Nationalists and Greens? 2010-11 sees the continuation of the sharp rise in the Labour vote but again there is no corresponding Tory decline, instead we see a sharp decline for the Lib Dem vote share. No doubt this is left leaners deserting the Lib Dems after the formation of the coalition government. So no actual growth in the ‘progressive’ vote, just a significant defection to a more definitely anti-conservative party.
In 2011-12 Labour is still climbing but now much more slowly and seemingly still mirroring the Lib Dem decline not that of the Tory share, which is by now falling sharply. As Labour aren’t gaining from a Tory fall someone else must be and that seems to have been UKIP, whose sharp rise isn’t on the graph but began about this time. So perhaps again no really significant change in the country’s overall political outlook just the defection from one right wing party to another.
2012-13 is a situation that appears unique in the graph in that Labour, Tories and Lib Dems are all falling, presumably many still moving to UKIP but I think also PC and the SNP were on the rise by this stage. A split in the right and a drain away from the Celtic fringes on the left. So perhaps still not much of an overall change from right to left nationally just more churn at a roughly 50:50 equilibrium with localised variations.
After 2013 UKIP’s share falls sharply as the Tories’ rises correspondingly and Labour’s remains quite static. I assume you see the pattern I’m driving at now, this is another net switch from one right wing party to another. I don’t pretend there is no mixing but at a macro net level this is the trend.
What is then interesting is that after 2015 the post GE fall in the Tory vote is not mirrored by Labour or UKIP gains but by the Lib Dems. I wonder, have the Lib Dems now become a centre right party of social and economic liberals, one nation Tories in all but name, instead of the centre left party they appeared since the SDP merger. Has English Labour reunited without anyone noticing?
Further, do we now have two peaks in a dromedary-like non-bell curve as previously discussed? One on the left and one on the right. A social democratic centre ground and a neo-liberal centre ground perhaps? If so, the true ‘centre’ ground may not be the political nirvana it is still painted to be and trying to attract voters from across that divide may be more difficult that pinching them from your closer comrades. Is unity on the left or right now the key to success? Is this why New Labour were forced to move so far to the right that they prompted rebellion from their own left?
Any thoughts?
Interesting
Simon
I’m sorry but I see no point in discussing our problems with the EU unless we also discuss problems that also exist with America.
What the utter failure of the American capitalism and so called governance of its financial system did was to exacerbate any underlying problems there were in the EU and member states already.
The American financial system has done this sort of thing before – also creating crises in Japan and then SE Asia.
And yet somehow we remain blind to this. America as presently managed by its elites remains a rogue state I’m afraid.
As for the so-called centre ground – I do not believe that this exists.
We are a global world of divided needs – encouraged by 40 years or so of market thinking. The global warming crises has the potential to just create a trouble as we fall out amongst ourselves about where people displaced by rising seas will live. Think about how those fleeing war and fear have been treated recently?
The decline in natural resources will only I’m afraid encourage more land grabbing and conflict.
I don’t see a great coming together; I just see more trouble as the cognitive dissonance created by market thinking (that we are entitled to what WE ourselves want) collides with our needs to thinking about what WE (the collective ‘we’) need to do as a species and as custodians of the planet.
The ‘politics of our differences’ (used to win votes) that we have lived with for so long is just not prepared to lead us into any sort of common ground to address mankind’s biggest challenges.
Sorry to be dour but I’m deeply concerned about this.
And again I say that it is the USA that is the elephant in the room – not the EU. We must really begin to adopt a much more critical approach to this country as it is technically out of control in my view.
We may take some comfort from the success of Bernie Sanders in articulating the problem you describe.
I largely agree PSR and Trump represents that ‘out of control state with a crumbling Democratic Party and a rudderless Republican. The game is over but the death throes could be very dangerous. Grassroots organisations need to build the alternative which is why I will vote Brexit ( despite that side being dominated by buffoons) because the more we can hasten the break up of the globalised capital channels and structures of financialisation the better we can build something new.
America is in deep trouble and behind the white-toothed grins Clinton knows this.
In that case Simon as far as I’m concerned you are signing up to disaster capitalism. Are you a Tory by any chance?
The EU will fragment and not necessarily start reaching out to other countries because we know that in all these countries there are right wing groups waiting to make the most of the confusion and political vacuum created by such fragmentation.
Be careful with what you wish for is my advice.
As for US intervention in the ‘debate’ how do we know that Obama’s statement wasn’t meant to create more anti-EU feeling as a means to start that break up?
That means then that the US can negotiate with each EU (or former EU state) on an individual basis creating of course more competition amongst states to get the best deal from the USA. Result? More potential for conflict in the region which given the way in which US corporations seize such opportunities to provide services (think about Haliburton in Iraq – amongst others) is worth thinking about.
Remember that the USA became a true global power from about WWII. It earned a lot of money from all those weapons it built for the Allies and also – when many of the those countries were having to rebuild their industrial capacity – it had a golden age of prosperity because many countries were in no fit state to compete. An ideal state under which the USA can expand even now perhaps?
I could be wrong of course. But I wouldn’t put it past them.
Change in the EU can be done by using the treaties we have now – not by breaking up.
Just some feedback on the book I’m reading ‘Broken Vows’ by /Tom Bower – an unofficial biography of Tony Blair.
I’m about 70 pages in and these are my first impressions:
Bower seems a little prejudiced towards members of the New Labour administration introducing them with what seem like personal character judgements. This rather undermines his introduction where he says that he wrote the book because he was one of the very disappointed people who believed in Blair initially. If that’s the case, why assassinate other characters in Labour at the time who seemed more principled than Blair? They were not all bad – some were very sincere and capable – and then shoved aside.
Bower emerges as somewhat anti-Labour / pro-Tory anyway which undermines the whole book to be honest. He talks for example as if the internal market in the NHS was a good thing without any negative implications as choice would be used to make NHS practitioners think about cost and compete on excellence (I do not believe this to be true at all).
So all in all the book needs to be approached with caution.
However, Bowers description of how Blair worked whilst in power is very interesting and Bower wastes no time in asserting Blair’s modus operendi.
The accounts remind a lot of what I have seen in local government since 2000; very powerful and overpaid people who are not necessarily well trained or even knowledgeable strategically about their job but are driven by charm, rhetoric, political support and supported by a small cabal of loyalists who drive things through on the back of ………fag packets basically.
So already the accusation that New Labour did not do enough during its time in power is beginning to be fleshed out by this book and justified. Blair seems like a bloke who got lucky and then got bored dead quickly with what he had to do because essentially he did not believe in anything……….but himself.
Bizarre and deeply troubling but also compelling.
And while the politicians fail to understand and/or act on the gross banking perversion of turning a home into an investment asset, this is what happens in a free market for property irrespective of little or no increase in the average wage for those living in London and many other parts of the country.
Yet another unsustainable bubble waiting to be burst by yet another financial reality shock! Clearly nothing learned at all by politicians or financiers from the real lessons of 2008.
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/may/11/average-london-home-doubles-price-house-property
Very interesting cross Atlantic political and economic debate of the current left/right/centre schisms, including Richard Wolff and Inderjeet Parmar of London City University.
http://www.rdwolff.com/content/prof-wolff-crosstalk-social-justice
Inderjeet is my head of department