I posted this video to YouTube this morning. In it I argue that politics should be about ideas. Instead, it's become about brands.
With both the Labour and Conservative Parties - and some others, come to that - wanting to offer almost identical core policy agendas at this election, the branding is what seems to count now. But as a result, big ideas - like the difference between parties representing people and wealth - have disappeared, and that is a massive loss to us all.
The audio version of this is available here:
The transcript is:
I recently recorded a video - the link's below - about the fact that politics is all about power. And of course, I'm not changing my opinion on that. Politics is all about power.
But it's about something more than that as well, because politics is a multifaceted subject. And politics is also about ideas.
The idea that you are serving certain interest groups in society is the most powerful idea in politics.
Let's make this simple. In the past, the Conservative Party served the interests of wealth. It served capital, as we would call it.
The Labour Party served the interests of the working person and the disadvantaged. It was all about people, in other words.
And, therefore, they both knew what they stood for, what policies they should endorse, and we understood that as well.
In between them, there were the Liberal Democrats. And they basically struck a middle ground, but emphasising personal freedoms, which is what liberal stands for in this sense. So we knew if we had a liberal view of society where personal freedoms mattered, they were the party for us.
Look at the Greens, and it's obvious what the idea that they're promoting is. They are interested in people and planet.
Now, this matters because that makes it easier for us to vote for a party. We can, at its core, identify what it's about.
Unless, and until, the moment arrives where both of our largest parties seem to have one single idea. And that has now happened. The Labour Party, once the party of the people, is now very clearly a party that is aligned with wealth.
How do I know? Look, it's obvious.
They say they will not increase taxes on wealth.
They won't increase taxes on high incomes.
They will not try to constrain the power of the City of London.
They support the Bank of England in its ludicrous policy of increasing interest rates to supposedly control inflation, but to in fact create a cost-of-living crisis for ordinary people either by putting up rents, which so many lower income people of course have to pay, or increasing mortgages.
All of this is about Labour for wealth, not Labour for people.
We now have the Conservative Party, and Labour, effectively in one space when it comes to ideas. And so instead of having a choice between ideas, when we look at our two parties, between whom government has been shared over the last century, we simply have a choice between brands.
It's as if we're choosing toothpaste. You can have Ultra Bright, or McLean's, or Colgate, or whoever, and that's the only difference. They're all mint flavoured, they've all got stripes in them, and that's about it. They all do the same job. Well, so do the Tories and Labour now.
I don't believe in politics as brands.
I believe in politics as ideas.
I believe that now we've reached the point where politics, at least as far as our two largest parties are concerned, is all about brands.
The whole basis on which first-past-the-post elections can take place in this country has failed. We now have to have proportional representation so that ideas can take their place in democracy again.
Unless Labour moves back to the left, and unless, let's be honest, the Tories can move back towards the centre ground because they've moved so far to the right that it is ludicrous with Labour only being slightly behind them; unless those things happen, we have no choice at all but a choice between two right wing brands of politics.
That's not democracy.
We need democracy.
We need politics that's about ideas and we haven't got it with two main parties.
We therefore need a small political revolution to give us the option to have that choice again.
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Tweedle-Dee creates mental constipation but Tweedle-Dum does the same the latter though has a go faster stripe on the wrapping!
What form should the political revolution take? With the exception of dyed- in- the -wool adherents, brand loyalty for the two main parties is definitely fraying at the edges as it becomes clear that neither party offers policies that are useful for most of the people in this country.
The support of independent candidates is already under way. Would it be helpful to: put posters up with information for young people re registering to vote and how to get acceptable ID; support independent candidates and our local Green Party by doing doorstep and marketplace canvassing (doing this ourselves and encouraging others); organise marches?
I think we need it
I am not sure I am organising it
Politics must involve differences that people are not content merely to agree to differ on. (Mouffe’s agonism).
Yes, it really has to be about ideas, and idealism in our visions for ourselves and our weans.
Yet undifferentiated neoliberalism is the only offer.
Nor should we kid ourselves that this is a shift away from adversarial politics towards consensus, as the latter is negotiated, and neoliberalism is a monolithic power structure.
NuNuLabour in particular are very lazy, as genuine political pluralism must accept, even relish, different positions that really are incompatible with one another. So argue it out.
Politicians must be capable of making their case – Socratic or otherwise.
I think Blairism was especially torpid in positioning – ‘we’ll do what works’ is actually very far from a pragmatic process as technocracies are pretty much identical.
Managerialism at its worst.
And SKS’ superficial headlining of ‘change’ or ‘stability’ represents non arguments.
That we are in a position in 2024 where there is agreement between supposedly competing political groupings over the underpinning macroeconomic dogma, is incredibly dangerous for both practical democracy and political economy.
As Mouffe suggests, it allows extreme fringe groups to emerge to left and right who then gain traction merely because they are making forceful arguments that appeal to people’s notions of identity. (apologies for gross oversimplification of Mouffe’s position).
In Germany the neo-fascists have risen to reach the giddy heights of 20%+ electoral support after a long period of virtually indistinguishable centrism. And we have our own jackbooted nutjobs, though many are still wearing Tory blue.
In the case of the current centre/right Labour party, the blind acceptance of tinkering with neoliberalism, instead of challenging it robustly, is anti-democratic.
It is obvious to voters of all inclinations can see that only one agenda is being served by this, and the criticism that ‘they’re all the same’ is true. This has to affect GE turnout as it is disillusioning. I can see it falling to below even the 2005 level.
Choosing a technocracy is very much like the toothpaste analogy.
A good distinction – ideas vs brands.
Down the years Tories have always been good at linking people’s underlying prejudices or fears with brand Labour. Always helped by their media friends – ‘Tax bombshell’, ‘demon eyes’ etc etc ,
But the ideas should be about ‘understanding’ or ‘knowledge’ on how the economy and society actually works.
I suppose Sunak’s stopping rubbish degrees and replacing them with apprenticeships sort of counts as an ‘idea’ .
If people feel Labour had a genuine empathy with people in their daily experiences and struggles – as you often do Richard – that would be a very powerful appeal – whether thats branding or ideas – maybe a combination of both?
Goes back to Blair/Brown.
Tories = full-bore neoliberalism, ‘Labour’ = neoliberalism-lite.
Starmer is just moving the party even further to the right, removing the ‘lite’ part.
I would argue it goes back to – at least – Thatcher.
Thatcher sought to take the responsibility we vested in the government out of the electorate’s hands. Her policies were designed to change society, as she said, through economics.
We have all the money, not government, we were told. We shall decide where we spend our money – schools, water, power, health… Our family matters, not our society. Government doesn’t need to be involved in our lives.
The more we *had to* take over society’s functions, the less we bothered about Westminster. Then we woke up to their endgame and realised the Road to Serfdom begins on the Right Wing, and we’ve lost the vocabulary to fight against it.
I concur with the post and the majority of the comments. A retail offer isn’t politics but it is the logical end point of professionalised politics – targeting and concentrating on marginals. However there is a lot more going on…
In 2019 this was part of my attempt to summarise the problem
https://brianfishhope.com/preface/372-why-change-is-needed
A ruling idea is something Gramsci would have recognised and we also can talk about framing (Lakoff) and windows (Overton).
To fully approaciate the issues I think a fairly long historical perspective is needed.
One long term historical trend it the change in the nature of warfare – the social contract, however you put it (homes for hero’s) was based on realpolitik – keep the cannon fodder happy. I’m sure that as warfare changed it’s no coincidence that a taking back process by the ruling and powerful occurred. They just don’t need to be nice any more.
If you are on the left of a certain age – you thought the battle was won (or maybe that is just me). I agree with John Cruddas; we had free education, SERPS was on the way, benefits were more generous, by and large services worked) I don’t was to look back with rose tinted specs but materialism alone is not sufficient. Why cant the current generation have what we had, why didn’t we protect it?
Another historical factor is the collapse of the communist block (I’m not saying it wasn’t cruel, rotten and corrupt by the way), I merely note that it caused the alternative brand damage and when the whole thing collapsed it looked final – remember Fukuyama. There was an element of throwing the baby out with the bath water – read The Patriarchs by Angela Saini to see how child care and housework was dealt with in the GDR leading to an 80% participation of women in the workforce, it slumped back very quickly to 20% immediately after reunification.
Add all this together with good old hubris (or triumphalism) and there really was no alternative.
And since the supposed alternative had collapsed capitalism could let rip – no alternative on view to tempt the plebs. If you doubt that the mere existence of the eastern block had a moderating effect (even though they were horrible totalitarian states) look back at the Nixon-Khrushev debates.
The emperor was show to have no clothes in 2008. The issue is we don’t seem to have learned since then and it’s now 17 years ago!
What accounts for this?
Think of the miners strike as a civil war, organised labour lost. After the miners all the others were picked off as Mike Lynch explains.
So I think it a massively difficult thing to fix; we have lost the language, institutions and habits that accompanied organised labour, we are pretty much staring over with the whole argument.
What makes it worse is that we don’t have a good base to start rebuilding from.
Money = Power. Hidden (dark) money is filling politics and buying influence, its power is magnified by technology (and the underfunded electoral commission reports to a minster). Even shown to be corrupt and incapable of dealing with the issues we face global capital isn’t going t to let go its grip easily. Follow posts on Open Democracy and Democacy for Sale; we all need to be worried.
It should now be very obvious letting Neoliberals run your country is effectively putting a Remedial Class in charge!