LBC Radio called me this morning to discuss Ed Balls' suggestion that Jeremy Corbyn is peddling a left wing utopian fantasy. Because of family commitments I could not do the broadcast, but it left me thinking about the suggestion and what I might have said.
First, let me be clear, I may think Jeremy Corbyn is unable to lead Labour to an election victory but that's because he hasn't got the skills to organise his party or connect with much of society, and not because of his policies, where my criticism is that he has not gone far enough, or coherently enough.
Second, there really is not much in terms of policy to differentiate Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith, whatever Momentum might like to claim. What is quite clear is that Momentum is to the left of both of them, and Corbyn and McDonnell most especially.
Third, the chance that Labour will elect a leader who does not subscribe to left wing opinion or some time to come seems very remote indeed: whenever Jeremy Corbyn ceases to be leader (and it will happen) the chance that the party will then decide that anyone with opinion remotely close to those of Ed Balls is very limited indeed. In that case it seems like Ed Balls will, if he continues to think himself to be part of Labour, will feel very remote from the party for a long time to come.
Alternatively this suggests his comments do instead indicate three things. These are that he thinks that the party will split; then that the new party will back something other than a left wing utopian fantasy, which I suspect is other wise called neoliberalism; and, most importantly, this is what the public want. I have not read Balls' book, of course, and expect it is not this explicit, but I cannot really see what else might underpin his thinking. So the question then is, might be be right?
I do not think he is. Let me run through another list of reasons.
First, and most importantly, the people of this country did reject the Labour vision of Britain of which Balls was a key architect. That was not because it was too left wing but because it was wholly unclear what it actually was. It was a confusion that continued throughout the Miliband years. Small gestures (the most obvious being the one offered by Balls when he suggested that one of his five indeas for reviving the economy was little better than cutting the rate of VAT on replacement windows to 5%) were the order of the day. Only on rare moments did it really try to connect, for example on energy pricing, tackling the failure of markets (which was a theme that seemed to fade almost as soon as it arose) and on the domicile rule. And infighting was all too apparent: I well remember providing Ed Miliband's office with ideas on tackling tax havens and other tax issues in more than one January when they were desperate to put out a message to neutralise yet another Ed Balls attack on working people at a Fabian conference. Balls himself never once engaged with the tax abuse agenda in any way.
Second, although it was never said it was obvious Balls' Labour was neoliberal. That meant he, and those like him, were what I called cowardly politicians in my book The Courageous State. When faced with any challenge Balls did, and no doubt still does, think the market can provide the solution. So he outsourced economic policy to a quasi-independent Bank of England. And he outsourced infrastructure investment to PFI. And schools continued to become academies whilst the NHS internal market was developed as the foundation for all that the Tories did in 2012. They even wanted to sell the Royal Mail. What people realised was that if there was an issue requiring a decision Labour would find someone else to take it. In which case to choose a party that was explicitly made up of those drawn from the business groupings that Labour then believed in - otherwise called the Conservatives - became a logical choice for any electorate to make.
Third, because what Blair Brown, Balls, Miliband and others did was hand the agenda to the Right and then exit from the Left stage. In the process they built a political vacuum whilst giving the Tories the chance to resoundingly ring fence it - as the boundary changes will prove. If any part of Labour continues to think that working in the middle right is an answer to their problems then they are seriously deluded.
The reason for this is that, fourthly, neoliberalism has failed. It was always built on a fantasy, which was that markets allocate resources efficiently: they don't, because the conditions required for them to do so cannot exist. And neoliberalism presumed that because markets were inherently more efficient than the state it followed that shrinking the state was always the right thing to do. This was not a fantasy, it was just dangerously wrong. As the state withdrew from its responsibilities the vulnerable were left exposed, and without the support they needed. Tax abuse rose. Inequality began to increase. The power of people in employment to secure a fair share of the rewards from their labour was undermined. And division in society became more apparent. It's a trend still growing. And it is not chance. It was the result of policy, including the policy Balls believed in that handed power to those who thought controlling inflation to protect those with wealth was more important than protecting those in need and total GDP growth was, in utilitarian fashion, more important than worrying about whether those in need saw any benefit from it.
The result of all of this is that in a country which is supposedly one of the richest in the world 1 million people use food banks. I do not dispute that the Tories made things worse from 2010, but Labour's failure to take them on - most critically in the early summer of 2015 when it so pursued policies on benefits of which Balls would have no doubt approved - showed just how bankrupt his view of Labour had become. Labour was participating in a fantasy that it could not afford those on benefits or meet their needs. But for those who suffered this was not about fantasies: this was about brutal realities.
It's not a left wing fantasy to say Labour has to care enough to ensure all can meet their basic needs.
And that it must house people.
Whilst delivering them employment on a living wage, inclduing by ensuring that they have the right to be represented by a trade union.
It's not fantasy to say markets exploit, when they do. It's not utopian to say that this abuse, whether on zero hours, pensions, executive pay, the environment, PFI lending, marketisation and privatisation of the NHS, the handing of school free holds to the private sector, student fees and so much more should be tackled.
And it's not utopian to say that beating tax abuse is a priority because unless it is big business will abuse small business and companies using tax havens will beat honest UK companies.
These things aren't even that left wing. They would leave a market in place. But a fairer, more honest, more effective and prosperous market (because that's what more honest markets are).
And it permits choice when choice is appropriate, but guarantees excellence when it is not possible.
But most of all it ensures there is a safety net that delivers the freedom from fear that lets people take the risk to innovate in all the ways we need if society is to develop to meet the real needs of the twenty first century.
The foundation of that is a Courageous State, which is the last thing Ed Balls believes in. He's still running away from such a notion when all the people of this country are asking for is a state that will step up to the mark and play the role that they know is demanded of it within a mixed economy in which all can prosper.
Ed Balls is right that Jeremy Corbyn cannot deliver this, which is a shame. But to think for one minute that what Corbyn, Smith or most of those now flocking to Labour want is some socialist utopia is not just daft, it's an insult to everything Labour once stood for. Ed Balls should hang his head in shame for suggesting such a thing. And it's he who needs to take his fantasies elsewhere, in which place they will remain as electorally unsuccessful as they were in 2010 and 2015.
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It’s Ed Balls’ neoliberalism that is utopian in its faith abolishing the state from markets (and by extension society) will lead to optimal outcomes.
Ed Balls was, and is, not a neoliberal.
There has been a real lack of colour in the left’s discussion of the legacies of Blair, Brown and others. And, with the greatest of respects to him as he often makes very nuanced arguments, Richard contributes to that.
Ed Balls, like Ed Miliband, is an ordoliberal.
He believes, unlike Blair and Brown, that the state should intervene BEFORE market transactions take place. He believes in the state stepping in to create optimal outcomes before they occur, whereas New Labour believed in letting the market do what it wants and then using tax revenue to try and even things out a little after the market’s done it’s work.
These are two very different things, yet current debate lacks this important nuance.
I do not agree with you
This is one of the those ‘which came first – the chicken or the egg?’ questions that usually leads to far too much energy being wasted solving it which should be spent on solving the consequences instead.
Balls is a non-interventionist – let us be very clear – he has no intellectual basis for intervention at all because he – like many of the PLP sups from the same poisoned economic well that Osbourne did.
It doesn’t matter when the state intervenes – it only matters that it does. And so far they have not intervened to help the many – just the rich.
Fact.
“Ordoliberal” and “neoliberal” are synonyms. The former is a little more archaic, but your terminology is misapplied.
Pedant, you are not correct. Ordoloberalism and classical liberalism are different in thr way I have described. Worsdorfer did a good paper called ‘Von Hayek and Ordoliberalism on Justice’, in which he compares the philosophies or neoliberalism and ordoliberalism, particularly with respect to distributive justice. You might read it.
Richard, why do you think I am wrong? You must surely have seen the differences between the New Labour ex-post approach to distribution and the Miliband-Balls approach of creating equitable outcomes before the market and taxation get involved?
I think the real differences very small indeed
Ed Balls
The name is enough to convince anyone that he just talks absolute…………testicular material.
You say that for some time to come Labour will not elect someone with opinions close to Ed Balls, and yet earlier this month you said you walked away from John McDonnell because he is “way to the right of [you] economically, and somewhere in the area Ed Balls once was”, largely because of Labour’s fiscal charter, which you previously called “re-heated neoliberal Balls”. A few weeks ago you also said McDonnell was in favour of Balls’ idea of an independent central bank and you could not convince him otherwise. So maybe the new leadership isn’t going to be so far away from Balls after all.
I hope not
Thankyou for this post. I heartily endorse all that you say. But were this piece to appear as an article in, say,the on-line Guardian, I believe it would be dismissed by many of the comment posters as the hard-left musings of a onetime adviser to Jeremy Corbyn.
I have no idea how ideas transition from alternative to the mainstream or how long it takes. I am not even sure who you need to persuade – the man/woman in the street, or Ed Balls and his ilk. But I am pretty sure that if you persuade the electorate, Ed Balls will not be far behind.
Stuart, I think the answer to your question as to who Richard (and we!) need to persuade, is those in control of the Labour Party. I too am glad to see Richard making excellent points, and would dearly love to see Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell take up his challenge and put this agenda right up front. They are the ones who have the constituency at the moment in the party and in the country which is most likely to listen and learn. The commenters in the Guardian and part of a mutual trolling and astro-turfing activity that has rendered itself completely uselss in my view, and is not worth reading or participating in.
Of course, family must always come first but a shame you weren’t able to broadcast your analysis which is absolutely spot on. Totally agree with everything said. Unfortunately, there is no immediate nor easy solution to Stuart B’s question as to how reach the mainstream. The neo-liberal mindset is so rigidly ensconced in the public domain it will take a generation of ‘soft’ persuasion to effect systemic change. The other possibility is a crisis on the scale of 2007/8, which would finally shatter the illusion that neo-liberalism offers any sort of credible and sustainable solution to society’s problems. Nobody likes to admit they’ve been conned for 40-odd years, least of all those in positions of authority and academic prominence.
Richard you say “there really is not much in terms of policy to differentiate Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith” so do you really believe that the majority of MPs who support Owen Smith are left wing socialists and will if Mr smith became leader follow these policies through to an election? These MPs are right wing and would not adopt a left wing agenda else why not support Jeremy Corbyn? If Mr Smith was leader he would be replaced by a more right wing leader before any election was called. This is nor about leaders this is about membership control of its MPs and the Labour Party holding to account the MPs it elects and following through with their election promises.
I believe most in Labour have smelt the coffee and realise they really do need to change
And will back that change
Why don’t you?
Or are you just interested in culling?
This is the crux of the leadership matter right now. Do we believe that the PLP who support Smith are critical of Corbyn’s leadership and management skills alone, as they say (and they may be right)? Or are they opposed to his policies, regardless of his competence?
We cannot know the answer to these questions until after 24th September.
As Corbyn cannot win I have to take the risk that the alternative is better
I am not saying it is without risk
But Corbyn will never win
Ed Balls was (IMHO) the worst Shadow Chancellor Labour have ever had (until the brief tenure of Chris Leslie over the summer of 2015). Interestingly enough, in the 2010 Leadership election Balls was the only candidate (apart from Diane Abbott) to make a serious challenge to austerity (in his Bloomberg speech of August 2010). But, having delivered that broadside, he then decided to sign up to most of the ConDem austerity measures. In the 2015 election, of all the ConDem austerity measures over the previous 5 years, Labour only pledged to reverse the Bedroom Tax – which was only around 2% of total cuts to the social security budget. In other words they were 98% committed to ConDem austerity (although they did not sign up to the further £12 billion of benefit cuts which the Tories pledged to implement after the 2015 election: that particular sell-out would come later, under Harriet Harman’s temporary leadership.) I think the voters did Labour a great favour by voting Ed Balls out of office in 2015 as the less of this kind of “Tory-lite” ideology is circulating within the PLP, the better!
Agreed Howard
Including that Chris Leslie was worse
I also forgot to say that Ed Balls’s response to the tax justice agenda was to fill his advisory team with secondees from KPMG… you really couldn’t make it up!!
You are right
He never once showed any interest in it, at all
You are right of course but the British public have been misled for so long it is an uphill struggle to get an alternative narrative out there. I was shocked by the circulation figures for British Press 35 years ago when I came to England in particular the almost inverse correlation between quality and circulation of the major dailys.
Over the past six months however in particular I get the feeling that the public are being brainwashed to a 1984 level by the drivel appearing in the Mail Sun, Express and Telegraph.
Despite what Stuart B says I think this piece needs a wider audience and polishing it up to an opinion piece in the Guardian would be worthwhile.
You assume that they take hat I offer
That’s rare
Most of CiF is commissioned now, not submitted
A very powerful piece of writing. You are on fire!
Seconded, Vernon.
Oh, bloody well said! ‘Cowardly’ of course, pompous, full of his own self importance but glib, lacking in rigour and, as you say, lacking in ‘the vision thing’ so it was never clear what he believed in other than the last big idea written on a fag packet or thrashed out in a kitchen until enough people thought it might do.
Whenever he appeared on radio or tv he was hopeless, easily speared and ripped to pieces by a Paxo or a Naughtie…and of course his biggest contribution to the Labour rout was failing to nail the ‘Labour’s economic mess’ lie from day 1 of the Coallition because he thought the voters wouldn’t understand it, because he thought if tLabour said nothing about it it would just go away, voters would ‘ forget’…harping on about it would only reinforce the message that Labour couldn’t be trusted on the economy. So there it sat until they were beaten around the head with it again, and the voters believed it not least because he always LOOKED as tho’ he couldn’t be trusted!
And then there was the failure to hold the government/Cameron to account on the ‘Paying down the debt’ lie…allowing them to wrap themselves in a cloak of competence as the debt lumbered towards £1.5 trillion.
The current state…mess…of the Labour Party is entirely of Balls making, and he should indeed hang his head in shame.
Ed Balls like most of the PLP, seem to suffer from cognitive dissonance to me.
If you look at the manifestos of Corbyn and Smith, you cannot place a bubble film between them, some say that this is because Corbyns massive rally followings of hundreds of thousands mean that Owen needs to take on the issues that people want – fair enough.
Yet, inspite of this, Corbyn’s policies are a Utopian fantasy, but Ed Balls, along with many other MPs find Corbyn an anathema.
Another piece of information that came out in the past few days was articles and letters rom two MPs that I respect, Caroline Lucas and Emily Thornberry.
Firstly, it came out in Caroline Lucas’s report that Heidi Alexanders complaints about Corbyn were based on the fact that she felt he was undermining her when he supported the NHS reinstatement bill and went on the doctors strikes – none of which she supported.
Emily describes a different situation – without adulation for Corbyn, (she says he is not perfect), but he was always prepared to sit and listen.
I feel for Owen Smith therefore, if he were to win the leadership, that if he is proposing a left wing agenda as he promises, in competition with Corbyn, that he would face the same struggles, as did Miliband, and would therefore move to the right or be shoved off ruthlessly like his predecessors.
Many in the PLP are neoliberals, and as ED Balls says, find Corbyns policies, and therefore Owens, a fantasy that does not fit their career prospects either.
I agree with this analysis Sandra. I will go further and say that all the PLP want to do is be in power in my opinion. And they are too readily prepared to wear the soiled underwear of the Tory party to do that. In fact anyone’s pants would do for most of them – as long as they could still pick up the wage, enjoy all the benefits of the exclusive parliamentary club they belong to in order to keep them in the manner to which they have become accustomed.
That is what I think. And I think that I am right. Sadly. Sod them.
One of those occasions when I have to disagree
I am not saying there aren’t some like that
But most aren’t
I trust your judgement Richard – fair enough – but I’m hard pressed to totally agree with you.
Lacking the up close and personal view you may have, if you have a list of PLP people whom you think the voter could trust please pass it on one day and I will give it serious consideration.
Unfortunately I’m that annoyed with Labour I cannot see straight at the moment!!
Most back benchers are pretty decent people
And I met Owen Smith in 2011, long before I was him as a leader, and liked him immediately, sending he was a real left winger I could work with
Forget Ed Balls. Let him stick to ballroom dancing (for as long as he lasts) and selling his book (before it is remaindered).
You rightly say that to give everyone a decent chance in life the state has to be much more active in the economy. You give some of the ways that needs to happen – like stopping wealthy individuals and big corporation not paying their fair share of taxes.
Sorry to be a bore but you do not mention the international dimension thereby leaving the implication that all these things can be accomplished with a different form of economic nationalism. I raised this point with you before and you assured me you were an internationalist.With all due respect I do not think this has really penetrated your thinking.
I believe this to be highly relevant because one of the major differences it seems to me between Corbyn and Smith is the recognition of that need to act internationally.
Public debate has a default nationalist position – e.g. if there is an earth quake somewhere far more attention will be given to one or two British casualties than to hundreds of locals. Therefore those if us who see beyond national boundaries need to keep pushing the idea to the front.
You need to read some more of what i say and notice a little more of what I have done
I am not talking about what you have done which by argument is inherently internationalist. In regard to what you have said you did not point to one sentence that refuted my contention.
This is not some point scoring exercise or test of internationalism that you think you have passed and I am failing you on.
Political ideas take a long time to change and to really penetrate the public mind they need a clear vocabulary and to be emphasised again and again. Basic issues need to be absolutely clear and the question of economic nationalism is one of those basic issues that we cannot avoid.
In other words – far from seeking to criticise you I want your ideas to have a wider and more powerful resonance. That includes the nationalism/internationalism issue. All the cowardly politicians are espousing nationalism. Someone of your intellectual courage needs to help the brave souls who are maintaining the international dimension in thought.
All politics starts at national level