I wrote the long note that follows because of something that Gary Stevenson had to say in a recent video, coupled with my own reaction to an event I attended more than two weeks ago, which, to be candid, I found to be quite shocking.
I am deliberately missing out many of the details of the event that I attended, from which I left early, but am in response to what Gary had to say, offering a broadly-based theory as to why so little of what supposed left-of-centre think-thanks do is in any way useful in tackling the problems that we, as a society, face.
I stress that the opinions offered are personal.
I also stress that I know that there are exceptions to the general observations I make, but in this case, the generality is crucial because it is that generality which is defining what these organisations do, and what their funders appear to expect of them.
The conclusion, for those who do not have time to read all that follows, is that you would be wise to presume very few of these think-tanks have almost anything helpful to say at present on any of the significant problems that we face.
Again, I can offer exceptions, like Common Weal in Scotland, but they are notable precisely for this reason and because they have a conviction that overrides the generality that I note.
My conclusion is one that I have felt for a long time. If we are to get change, it is independent thinkers who are going to provide it. Gary is one of them. I suggest I am another. There are others as well. Almost without exception, we have real-world experience to offer. That is what makes our approach different, and I suggest valuable. We also work as we do out of pure conviction. Of course, some in think-tanks share that conviction, but without real world experience, they do not have solutions. And that is the problem with these organisations and the politicians who graduate from them.
I mentioned recently that I had significant sympathy with Gary Stevenson when he mentioned the problems that he had encountered when volunteering with the New Economics Foundation (NEF), which is a left-of-centre think tank. He referred to the time when he did so in 2014. Things might be different now, but the point that he made was that at that time, his desire was to work on tackling the problem of inequality that he had observed and made a great deal of money from when working in the City of London. His hope was that NEF might provide him with a base for tackling this issue, and after six months, he left, somewhat disenchanted.
Gary explained the problem that he had observed in a quite straightforward way, as is his style.
He noted that there is a massive division within UK society. Approximately ten per cent of people in the UK are either fairly well off or are very financially comfortable.
Of these, approximately two per cent are very wealthy, and their life experience is so removed from the reality of the rest of the population that it is very hard for most of them to have any comprehension at all of what it might be to live in a precarious financial position, let alone one where ends simply cannot meet. Inequality is, then, beyond the comprehension of most of these people.
The other eight per cent or so of this group are well off. The likelihood that they will ever encounter a major financial difficulty is low. That might be because they have made sufficient income as a result of their own efforts, or these days, it is at least as likely that inheritance has played a significant part in achieving this outcome.
Some of these people could, if they put their mind to it, recall that they came from less fortunate financial positions, but once they have been to university, been exposed to the privilege that they now enjoy, and adopted a lifestyle which is of privilege, of which process many of them will be wholly unaware, it is most likely that the biggest influence on their behaviour and attitudes will be those people who are very wealthy. Most of this eight per cent aspire to be in that top two per cent group. The consequence is that they, wittingly or unwittingly, also find it very difficult to imagine what it is like to be part of what Guy Standing has called ‘the precariat', and as a result, they give the issue of inequality very little thought.
It is people from these groups that Gary found populating the think tank world that he encountered. It is very largely people from those groups that I have encountered in the work that I have done with NGOs over many years now.
I am not suggesting for a moment that everyone I have met is in this category, but a very large number have been. If there is one thing that has bound together many of those who seem to work for left-wing NGOs, it is that they are comfortable enough, or have parents who are secure enough to make them feel sufficiently comfortable that they can afford to spend the early part of their careers working in such organisations. There are exceptions, but this is what I have observed.
There is another very good reason why this is a young person's world. It seems to me that most of these campaigners might think that they are well-intentioned, but they share a number of characteristics in common. In particular, very few of them have any real-world skills. They might have degrees, often at master's level, and sometimes a PhD, but all that has prepared them to do is write an academic paper. Professional qualifications, most especially in the areas in which they campaign, are very rare.
Instead, if they have a career plan, it is, first of all, as an activist. They might this week be working on the environment, and next week on poverty, and the week after on gender equality. They have been persuaded that generic campaigning skills are all that are required to do such a thing.
Most of them also share another characteristic in common. This is that they wish to move on from the NGO world into politics, which is where many of those who are more successful do end up. Many former NGO personnel are now amongst the ranks of Labour MPs who are actively voting to make life worse for those on low incomes, about whose conditions they never thought of campaigning when in a think-tank.
This is Gary‘s description, to which I've had a little personal flavour, but I think things are actually much worse than this, partly as a consequence of having co-created some of the tax justice NGOs that operate in the UK, and having now parted company with all of them on the grounds that I now think most of them to be unable to deal with tax related issues that it seems to me none of them really understand because they are very largely staffed by people who have never worked in tax in anyway. They do, therefore, lack any form of understanding of the real world in which tax operates.
In addition, it would also seem that very few of them have the intellectual grasp or willingness to understand just how tax operates. As the current CEO of one of those organisations once put it to me, if he ever suggested that tax did not fund government spending but did instead, as he knew to be correct, say that tax was an instrument to control inflation he would never secure funding for his campaigns ever again, and so he stated his intention to continue perpetuating the untruth that tax funded government spending, which myth he knew supported his organisation and his own job.
That is the precise problem with these organisations. Not only do they not know what they're talking about, but when the truth is pointed out to them, they deny it. That is because what these organisations now primarily exist to do is to perpetuate the jobs of those who want to work in tax NGOs. The last thing that I think they want to do is to actually solve the problems surrounding tax.
This is, again, clear from what is happening in the tax justice movement. After John Christensen and I had, surprisingly successfully, worked with the IMF, World Bank and, most especially, the OECD to advance understanding of the real problems with tax havens, which we renamed as secrecy jurisdictions in the process, we then persuaded the OECD of the merits of country-by-country reporting, which I had created in 2003, and of automatic information exchange, which John and I have been heavily promoting. We also explained the need for the disclosure of beneficial ownership of companies in tax havens and the need for all accounts to be placed on public record.
We secured the first two of these from the OECD and made progress with the last. But then, as John and I moved on after having taken the campaign to this point, those who followed us, some of whom we had recruited into the organisations in question, began to realise that their jobs might be under threat if these elements of the campaigns for tax justice were completed.
They did, as a consequence, change the whole focus of what they were talking about. Instead of continuing to work with the OECD, which has been so effective in creating change, they pursued an agenda which suggested that the OECD was, if anything, the enemy with regard to tax justice, rather than the agency that had done the most to facilitate it. Instead of wishing to continue the pattern of work that John Christensen and I had created, which had a solution focus to achieve quickest and best outcomes, not least by proposing answers to questions that the OECD then adopted as policy, they promoted the idea that the OECD should be removed from its position as the creator of the rules for world taxation, and that this task should be moved to the United Nations. This was because the OECD was considered by them to be a rich country club, and the UN is inclusive.
I get the principle that motivates this sentiment. I also suggest that the principle is, from the point of view of these campaigners, usefully within their field of comprehension, which comprehension is high on issues related to equality and low with regard to tax, and also usefully obstructive to any real progress, so perpetuating their roles.
As should have been obvious to these people, the slight problem with this plan is that the UN has almost no skills in this area, although it has had a tax committee for many years, employing about three people to deal with this issue. This lack of competence was not, however, seen as an obstacle – although it very clearly is. Instead, it was considered more important to include all of the nations in the world of tax negotiations.
Again, this sounds like an excellent idea until you realise two things.
The first is that most countries do not have the resources to engage in such discussions, and the UN has no track record of providing the means to let them do so. The discussions would, then, continue to be dominated by all those countries that dominate the OECD, with one obvious exception, which is the second problem. This is that this process would, by its very nature, if undertaken through the UN, also give a powerful voice to the world's tax havens, who these tax justice organisations now propose should engage in discussions on the future of the world's tax system as equal partners. The one thing that can be guaranteed is that these tax havens, which can command considerable financial resources, will definitely turn up to take part in the UN process, whilst many of the world's poorest nations will not. Inherently, therefore, I think that the solutions that people now in tax justice organisations have promoted are retrograde, likely to be unworkable, and impossible to deliver because the UN simply cannot take on this task.
The NGOs have, however, been successful over the last few years, getting many of the world's poorest countries to vote in the UN for this shift in power, even though it will almost certainly deliver results that may be worse for their tax wellbeing because tax havens will ensure that this is the case.
The consequence has been deadlock, which is precisely what these NGOs want, because as a consequence they can now campaign to their heart's content for decades to come, knowing that they have secure employment whilst doing nothing whatsoever to solve the tax haven problem that does still persist in the world, although not nearly so badly as when John and I first worked on the issue. These campaigners have destroyed a viable solution, to which they no longer had the competence to contribute, and abandoned a solution-focused approach to tax justice campaigning and adopted a process-focused approach instead, which ensures that they have jobs for life.
I am aware that the tax justice NGOs I am criticising will disagree with this narrative, and I respect their right to do so – although many of the stories they have created about John Christensen and myself are fanciful, or just downright wrong, whilst they are happy to claim our successes, when in my opinion the only claim that they can make is that they have stopped progress towards tax justice. We are just going to have to agree to differ on these issues. There is little common ground between us.
Importantly, though, a couple of weeks ago I observed the work of another NGO working in the economic sphere whose approach to their work can, I think, fairly be said to be broadly consistent with that of the tax justice movement's NGOs. I felt their work was also designed to take their cause nowhere, but would keep them in employment. I found that very troubling. What I realised is that this problem is disturbingly commonplace, as Gary Stevenson has also concluded. Without going into detail, let me put forward a proposition as to what a great many of the world's supposedly left-of-centre think-tanks and NGOs now do.
Firstly, they create a hypothesis that suits their convenience. This is very likely to be consistent with their own perception of the world, and most especially with their understanding of identity politics, to which subject they will dedicate a great deal of their time and effort without realising that, important as identity issues might be, the problems that are driving the world towards neo-fascism are created by poverty, gross inequality, and the failure to create effective mechanisms to tackle both.
Having created a false hypothesis to underpin their methodologies, they will then spend a great deal of time seeking to justify their approach. They will, for example, undertake extensive academic literature reviews to try to justify their position. They will also create statistical methodologies, many of which will lack theoretical justification and will try to prove hypotheses which are inherently obvious, and do not, as a result, require any such work to be undertaken. Lengthy and excruciatingly long reports will follow, often to be repeated at regular intervals.
In all of this, the key question of inequality will be very largely ignored because the focus will be upon the purity of process, and not the effectiveness of outcomes.
There is a simple explanation for all this. These people have been trained in the academic process, but so few of them have a real-world experience that they are unable to imagine what real-world outcomes might look like, or how they could be created, let alone be implemented.
Then, after all this effort has been expended and they discover that nothing has changed as a result of their work, these campaigners then go back to their funders and ask for another grant, which will then keep them in employment for a few more years, which is precisely what their highest priority is.
For saying things like this, John Christensen and I were effectively thrown out of the tax justice movement, and I am, to be candid, quite pleased to be distanced from it when so little of what it does now is of any real value in my opinion, and in particular when a great deal of what it campaigns for is likely to be profoundly harmful to the achievement of the goal of tax justice around the world, again, in my opinion.
I drew the same conclusion with regard to the work of the NGO that I observed a couple of weeks ago, whose presentation I attended. But realising that this practice was so commonplace forced me to ask myself whether I might be mistaken, to which my resounding answer is that I am sure that I am not.
Let me, then, conclude this rather long post. The conclusion is broadly similar to that which Gary Stevenson reached, but maybe a little more structured.
Fundamentally, there is no reason to think that the vast majority of our supposed left-wing think-tanks are capable of generating any form of solution to the problems of gross inequality and economic failure that our world now faces. That is partly because far too many of the people working in those think tanks simply do not understand these issues or their consequences. That is because they might be so insulated from the problems of inequality that they cannot appreciate the issue. It is also because few have the necessary world experience to either ask the right questions, or formulate appropriate responses to the problems of inequality, and that is because all their training is in academic-style analysis, which is very unlikely to provide any appropriate solutions, not least because such styles of analysis are now invariably formulated to ensure that the status quo is always maintained, which is precisely what these NGOs now do.
Where does that leave us? There are three obvious things to say. The first is that just as much as our political parties are not where we should be looking for any answers to the problems that we face, largely because they are populated by the same type of people as left-of-centre NGOs are, nor should we think that those think tanks might provide answers either. This is because they neither want to find solutions, because that would make them redundant, and nor do they have the ability to create them in any case.
Second, this means that, given that the media thinks these think tanks are the voice of the left, little to do with left-wing thinking that ever has a chance of creating real change ever gets noticed by the media, which suits much of it very well, given it is right-wing inclined. It is almost as if there is a conspiracy to make sure that nothing happens to upset the neoliberal order.
Third, in that case, we have to look elsewhere for solutions to the problems of inequality and failed neoliberal economics. That's what I suspect both Gary and I think, and which is why we work as we do, as do some others. It is only by upsetting the status quo that we can create change, and if they are anything now, left-of-centre think tanks are very much perpetuators of the power structures within society, and so of the status quo. They are part of the problem, not the solution. I regret having to say that, but facing up to reality is a necessary part of finding solutions, and they are what we need.
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I like Gary Stevenson. He’s so rich he doesn’t need to bother with what he does. His explanation of how the Covid furlough money has made the rich richer and accelerated massive inequality is quite brilliant. However he often doesn’t communicate his ideas very effectively and maybe needs help with this.
He does
Agreed, Hazel
“However [Gary Stevenson] often doesn’t communicate his ideas very effectively and maybe needs help with this.”
I disagree, having come across his YT channel last year I asked for his book as an Xmas present in December and think it both very well written and highly articulate as to the problems we so desperately need to address.
Both his exposition of inequality and his proposals on taxing “wealth not work” have given me, a lay reader in the subject (my 1970s Economics Higher not really counting!) a great insight into what ails us and what might be done about it if we wish to avoid a drift into fascism and perhaps even war, as his brilliant video this Sunday (“Squeezed Out”) makes very clear.
Thanks also to Richard for his very insightful blog – I’m learning a lot from both you guys.
And that is the story with much of the details left out. JC on a bicycle.
That is very interesting. Quite an insight. I was not aware of the background of many in these ‘think tanks’ but often got the impression that they did not get it in terms of the problems facing the bulk of the population. It seems then that they are very similar to those staffing the free-market lobby groups who use issues like housing problems to push their own agendas which do not benefit the worse off at all. I also think that a number of those on twitter are very similar – lacking any knowledge of economics, the environment or housing. I have had academics with quals totally unrelated to these areas commenting on issues way outside their area of expertise. I find annoying that when I have spent years researching topics they seem to have worked out the answers in second. I think they often rely on reports from ‘Think tanks’ and lobby groups, but lack the knowledge to know whether they are right or not!
Thanks
I am by my own admittance, most certainly NOT one of those 2% described.
My own journey with NGOs and left-leaning think tanks has been a pendulum swing between hope and disillusionment. Years ago, (1980s) I volunteered with a climate advocacy group, drawn by their bold mission to address environmental inequality. What I found, however, was a room full of recent graduates—bright, passionate, but steeped in abstract theory. During a strategy meeting, someone proposed a “green gentrification” initiative to retrofit urban housing. When I asked how this would avoid displacing low-income residents, the response was a citation of a policy paper, not a conversation with the communities we aimed to serve. The disconnect was palpable: solutions were designed for people, not with them. This still happens today.
This pattern echoed later when I collaborated with an economic justice think tank. Many staffers came from elite universities, their resumes padded with internships at prestigious institutions but devoid of grassroots engagement. I’ll never forget a debate over universal basic income (UBI). The team spent months refining econometric models to “prove” poverty alleviation, yet dismissed local organisers who argued that UBI without healthcare or tenant protections was a half-measure. The goal seemed to be publishing, not transforming. When funding dried up, the project vanished—another case study for their next grant proposal.
I’ve also witnessed the seduction of careerism. At a tax fairness conference, I met a campaigner who privately admitted their NGO’s shift from advocating concrete reforms (like public registries for offshore trusts) to vague “systemic change” rhetoric. “Donors want buzzwords, not wonky fixes,” they shrugged. It struck me how easily moral urgency can morph into performative activism when paychecks depend on perpetual outrage rather than resolution.
Yet there are flickers of light. I once worked alongside a small housing rights collective led by formerly unhoused individuals. Their approach was scrappy: they disrupted city council meetings with testimonies, not policy briefs, and partnered with unions to train tenants in legal advocacy. They had no glossy reports or celebrity endorsements, but they stopped evictions. This group, underfunded and overlooked, embodied what many institutional NGOs lack: lived stakes in the fight.
These experiences crystallised a hard truth: expertise without empathy is inert. The most impactful voices I’ve encountered—like Gary Stevenson or the author of this piece—are those who bridge analysis with accountability to real people. They’re unafraid to name uncomfortable truths, even when it costs them institutional clout, or even their job.
The NGO complex isn’t irredeemable, but its salvation lies in humility. We need fewer saviours with saviour complexes and more allies who listen, who’ve felt the weight of the problems they’re tackling. Until then, I’ll channel my energy into supporting grassroots movements and independent thinkers—those who aren’t just speaking truth to power, but walking alongside those power has ignored.
Thank you for an importantly insightful article.
Might the submerged functionings of the think tanks, which you describe, also include what might be labelled “Control by Filtering”?
Such involves a potential power group sidelining, obstructing, “down putting” those with valid heterodox views, theories, research etc.
Unsurprising consequences of control by filtering appear to include those obstructed leaving or being rendered ineffectual.
Such seems to happen in other human activities, including those, which, as you explain, result in “Theory Only Function” or subversion.
Might the latter apply to the current version of the Labour Party?
Yes, in a word
[…] said, it is only a month since I left university employment, but as I note in another post today, attending an event for left-of-centre NGO's only proved to me just how unlikely it is that many of […]
I suggest that its all part of the issue we have with the UK Political and managerial class.
In effect a Soviet Style ‘Nomenklatura’ all in their jobs because they fit not because they might manage to do anything
Thanks Richard for a very thought provoking piece. Although I recognise myself in your description of the eight percent you describe (shame on me), and somewhat to the left, you have perfectly identified why I lose interest and drift away from these kind of groupings.
You made me think of Mother Theresa of Calcutta (I re-state something badly remembered from long ago – apologies if it is not accurate) whose dedication to the poor was founded on the principle that the poor will always be with us, which was god’s will, and alleviating their poverty and distress was her duty so that she could earn her place in heaven. If there were no poor, how would we earn our place in heaven?
Surely, these think tanks and NGO’s have arrived at the same point, even a step further, a sort of displacement activity to show that something is going on, without actually achieving anything effective.
Much to agree with
She was a disaster – and that was a total misreading of the Bible as well
Thank you, both.
This and other Catholics agree. John Paul II and Benedict XVI were similar and little better. Francis I, who lost by four votes to Benedict XVI first time round, is an improvement.
I have noticed, from Mauritius, as more of the clergy*, come from the Creole community, my lot, than from the Franco-Mauritian elite**, that is changing. *Including, for the first time, a Creole primate.
**Some years ago, the extended family of British soldier Robert Nairac, of Franco-Mauritian origin, led the Catholic church***, largest bank, largest insurer and fourth largest agribusiness on the island. ***Half a dozen priests, including one bishop and two cardinals, form part of that family.
I remember protesting outside the new Maximus office when they were handed the contract from ATOS back in 2015, I was approached by a young woman with a stack of papers or leaflets who started asking me who I was, and what was my profession? I was a bit wary, given the nature of undercover policing but told her my first name and that I worked in a call centre for British Gas (which was true), I asked her what she did, and she replied “I’m an activist” and I wondered what sort of job that actually was, and how did one get it?
You seem to have answered my question Richard
Thank you.
I would go beyond the police and even UK organisations with regard to who these people are working for. Some of the NGOs are of interest to organisations outside the UK.
A related frustration which has dogged projects I have been involved in (all very much embedded in communities) is that funding is available for ‘transformative change’, but dries up immediately thereafter, leaving little for publicity and dissemination of results, and nothing at all for longer-term evaluation of impacts. Funders inevitably look for dramatic action, and shy away from the hard grind which would give the projects real impact.
Do a search for ‘UBI pilot projects’ for many examples of this.
I have known that frustration.
Funders like a proven deliverable in most cases. The Taxing Wealth Report 2024 was one, but few provicde the freedom to do soemthing likle that. Uusally it’s as mundane as ‘hold a seminar’.
“I now think most of them to be unable to deal with tax related issues that it seems to me none of them really understand because they are very largely staffed by people who have never worked in tax in anyway. They do, therefore, lack any form of understanding of the real world in which tax operates.”
The blog could apply to almost any NGO on almost any subject. The “green” NGOs in Bx are staffed by people as you describe, with little technical understanding. Their policy proposals are, for the most part nonsense as a consequence – but they ignore the real world or reality-based comments. The head of AgoraEnergieWende in Bx cut me dead when I suggested at a public meeting that urban/suburban power networks could not support large numbers of heat pumps (or indeed elec vehicle charging).
I agree with the last statement: “left-of-centre think tanks are very much perpetuators of the power structures within society, and so of the status quo.” & Col Smithers has noted how upper echelons of charities such as Save the Children are now part of these power structures.
Thanks. Appreciated.
I agonised over this one.
It can be a lonely world for, say, people who work in campaigns against nuclear power who joined those campaigns following their experiences in the nuclear industry. Other campaigners often take the attitude “how could you ever have worked there?” I imagine it is similar in other areas. Is it like that in tax justice?
Yes, to some extent.
Some never believed I could be a chartered accountant (as I was) and a tax justice campaigner. That was their problem.
I had a bigger probloem with those who had (and probably still did, in my opionion) work for the security services. We had them.
The worst were those who wated to ‘professionalise’ processes. They tried to strangle initiative at birth.
An excellent piece Richard which Im afraid fits with my experience, whilst being careful not to generalise about everyone who works in NGOs or think tanks.
Ive worked across sectors – private, public, third – and each can think they have all the answers. After living, travelling and working in a number of developing countries I started working for NGOs on a pro bono basis (being lucky enough to be amongst the 10%). I was struck by just the points you made about the people and culture. I went and studied for a masters in international development to find out where these hyper-theoretical, deeply ideological ideas came from. People who have worked for years with and amongst some of the poorest, trying to make a difference on the ground, Id exclude from that judgement but so many amongst the world of policy and campaigning tend to be very distant from realities. The ones who went from uni to post grad to NGO …. and then into politics.
Strangely the culture and organisation of NGOs is weirdly similar to political parties, both being unlike any other types of organisation. (I did a lot of organisational consulting). Functions that you do not find elsewhere like policy (the high priests), campaigns, fund raising, supporters, volunteers – and then in some organisations, people working ‘on the ground’ whose important experiences may or may not feed back into their organisation. Too often not.
Gary Richardson’s analysis rings true for me even if he is not always the best at communicating. It’s a great book. In earlier years I saw the City close up and his descriptions of the trading world ring completely true. Fortunately he has not forgotten his roots. In trying to shift economic thinking one meets too many people for whom it’s just theory. It’s perhaps telling that Ive recently started to engage with an MP who is more like a Gary Stevenson. I think they might be more serious…
Thanks, Robin.
They are guilty of what Hannah Ardent called rationality of the truth. They have abandoned factual truth of measurement and have constructed their own formulations. New labour has been following this road for decades. Iraq war was a consequence of this. Austerity is another. So is their Brexit non-policy policy. Labour have lost the ability to tell the difference between truth and lies.
Morning Richard, fantastic post as usual, and completely on the money again. You outline the issues that 80% of the population are experiencing (either consciously or unconsciously).
My big question is, what do I do at election times? Local or national. There doesn’t seem to be any true centre of left political parties (economically). I feel like I am left with the options of not voting or going for a protest vote (Reform).
I acknowledge the latter option doesn’t make sense at face value, I am a social democrat (I voted JC in 2019), but the option of total destruction (e.g., what would likely happen with Reform) of the current system seems appealing when the system is failing the working class so badly.
I look to centre left leaders like yourself for guidance…
There is no coming back from Reform…
That is not an option
The other option is voting for the lesser evil.
That is not sustainable. One factor is that it encourages them to think their policies have support.
But Reform is, as Richard says, not an option.
Thank you.
I know what you mean and sympathise.
I know another City type who’s on the left, but tempted to vote Reform to blow it all up.
Have you seen the latest polling among the disabled? Labour and neck and neck with the Tories late teen %, half of what they used to get. Reform have come from nowhere to the late 20s.
Mandelson and his protege, McSweeney, still maintain left wing voters have nowhere to go.
Staggering
Reform will slash disability benefits.
Thank you all, seems I am not the only one in this political dilemma then. I guess just not voting may be the better option, but then does that also reward the current establishment?
I suspect a lot of people are in a similar boat. Problem is, we had a centre left option in 2019, and the establishment ensured he didn’t get elected.
I guess we know now know why history repeats itself (fascism) as the people don’t actually get a democratic choice (sigh)
I have no idea who I would vote for right now.
Maybe the LDs again because they won’t get in to government ((maybe)
Maybe Green for the same reason.
In my case both are ‘none of the above’ votes, rather than real endorsements. At least they are pro PR.
If you are thinking of a ‘blow it all up’ vote, or not voting at all, then just vote Green or Lib Dem. Neither will get in, but if they have enough seats, they can potentially influence policy. The Lib Dems may get us closer alignment with Europe, much needed now the US has gone full berserk mode. The Greens are firmly on the Left, and are currently going after the working class vote by concentrating on inequality and redistribution.
My only issue with the Greens, beyond their likely not having enough experience to form a government, is the same as mentioned in the above blog. Their obsession with identity politics. It’s an admirable cause, but people don’t care to be called racist or phobic or inclusive when it’s just a case of not being able to care because they have problems of their own. Make sure we are all secure financially, then the identity politics can sort itself out. That’s my view on it anyway. If Labour thinks the Left have nowhere to go, prove them wrong.
As for Reform, people think they are different because their messaging feels counter-elite. But they are just outsider elites trying to push their way into a crowded space. It’s the same billionaire money behind them as all the other political parties. They just hope to distract us with performative cruelty to “Out” groups while they rob us all blind and return the UK to Victorian levels of poverty.
Thank you.
With regard to the City type inclined to vote and blow it all up, the person comes from a well to do family. Not the family, but some of the circle includes people who are influential in Reform, well to do, if not elite. Far removed from their electorate.
I used to live in a LD/Con marginal so voted LD “to keep the Tories out KTTO” and got a good MP as a result. But then come 2010 and The Coalition (austerity was okay cos the LDs got their plastic bag tax, Nick Clegg got to be Deputy PM, and in 2015 I got a Tory MP, a senior ERG member who became Solicitor General) and then backed the Brexit lying Buffoon for PM.
Never again will I be caught by the “lesser evil” or KTTO argument. It’s either a party I can believe in (even though they aren’t perfect) or its a spoiled “none of the above” write-in vote.
The behaviour of LINO in the leadup to 2024, was a major factor in hardening my heart against Labour as the “lesser evil”. Seeing how Corbyn was betrayed and his supporters viciously purged, listening to Starmer openly telling us to go away, then being told to vote LINO “to KTTO” was intolerable. I’ve been totally immunised for life against LINO, and I have Starmer & MacSweeney et al to thank for that.
Well Said Richard.
The Left – like the upper echelons of the church (talk to any proactive local reverend or priest about how out of touch their leadership is) is well out of touch.
I’ve had my fill of so-called Lefties banging on about the evils of tax whilst they nip over the channel in their high end 4×4 BMW /Audi tank for a couple of cases of wine from some chateaux in France or proactively under report their taxes, and whom employ people on shit wages.
What it reminds me of is what I see here at work in this new team I have been TUPE’d into. They simply lack operational nous or experience. Theirs is a world of contracts, specifications and processes. All these create a hubris around their expectations and if something fails it must be YOUR (or someone else’s) fault.
What they don’t know is as famous and capable German general put it once ‘No plan, no matter how thorough – survives first contact with the enemy’.
No one plans to be poor or disabled, many do not plan not to work. But then life happens and your plans go to shit. That is where the state could help out, but apparently increasingly, not now. Big mistake, let me tell you.
The other issue is that of course the Left has become just as materialistic as the people it says it opposes. This is a fundamental problem with the Left. It judges happiness in terms of things, not the human condition
Socialism was in my view always meant to be a spiritual project (it ignored religion and focused on the here and now) – all it did really was to tap into human traits that made us so successful as a species (and dangerous to the planet – another Left blind spot) – empathy, kindness, togetherness, co-operation, reciprocity (debts or obligations created by just being nice to each other for we are rather puny on our own).
And instead we get Blue Labour!!
The Left has utterly failed to re-invent itself. It is also angry because it feels rejected and looks down on the people it says it cares about and has taken its ball home. It probably has not got a clue as to where it has gone wrong.
It’s a basket case – also because the Liberalism that helped to create it by thinking that egalitarianism as a principle was more important than egalitarianism in practice. Blindly given equal weight to the already rich and powerful was always going to be a ruinous misapplication that would end up where we are today.
Please note.
Noted
Thank you and well said, Richard and Bryan R. I can’t add to what you have written other than “performative activism” often extends to identity politics and issues that barely resonate with, but may well alienate, locals. They also act as gatekeepers, one reason why we don’t see Richard on air and in print enough. I reckon that some of the hit pieces on Stevenson originate from that quarter.
City and Whitehall insider sympathisers, including my friends and parents, and I have encountered similar and soon given up, often in disgust. I won’t name and shame the public policy arms of the three leading charities other than say they produce some Labour MPs and special advisers.
Aurelien and Craig Murray have observed overseas and written about, too. The former about their malign impact in some war zones. The latter about how much of the aid money is spent on salaries etc. here.
Third world recipients are wising up to that complex. It’s one reason why the loss of USAID help barely registered among recipients. It’s also why efforts by the likes of China and Russia and south south cooperation, including Cuban, are often belittled in the western MSM.
It’s interesting that Richard mentions Guy Standing. I have long admired his work and that of Heiner Flassbeck. A year or two before covid, some friends and I sponsored Standing, then based in Geneva, to give a talk in London. One of them, another Stevenson type, but older, funded a series of talks on such matters in Islington. We were stunned by how many of the Islington Labour Party invited to attend did not do so and even expressed hostility. Years later, there was a correlation between these refuseniks and supporters of Starmer.
Let me conclude with “saviours”. One can often spot them in the genteel, often former colonial, clubs or hotel lobbies of Africa. Often, an attractive and well spoken woman is cynically put in front of the cameras with some desperate locals in the background to tug at heart strings and wallets.
Guy is a great guy, to use a deliberate pun. Good company and a very good thinker.
Agree 100%.
The problem is replicated at a local level in “community” organisations with some exceptions.
Local groups with “lived experience” often aren’t well equipped for administration, navigating bureacracy, or even handling charity admin and grant application. It isn’t ability or intelligence they lack, but what we term “education” in bureaucratic skills. The result is a high failure rate of local charities and community groups, often because of financial maladministration.(I have very local recent examples in mind).
Groups with lots of middle-class graduates who come to an area as professionals, tend not to listen to (let alone involve) those with lived experience but they are good at getting grants. Same problem you describe with think tanks but at community level.
Very rarely, you get local groups that get BOTH things right. The people with organising and communication skills are committed to listening and learning, and serving not leading, as incomers they put local people first, they don’t impose, they mobilise, involve, facilitate, the ideas come FROM local people, rather than being promoted TO them. The skills of the “professionals” are put at the service of the local community and used to promote LOCALLY SOURCED ideas up to the local government bureacracy, so the change occurs there as they see the sense and praticality of local people’s solutions.
My philosophy (as one of those middle class types) was to keep my mouth shut and listen, until I understood where and how I might help supply a local need with a skill that I had (eg: knowing how to fill in an online grant application), but NOT to impose my own ideas from an alien perspective or take over as “chairperson” (been there, done that, no longer appropriate).
In retirement, I took the next step and moved into the heart of a deprived community, but it’s only after 7 years that I’ve begun to feel I have something to offer (and it isn’t leadership, been there done that, no longer appropriate). The total immersion and relationships have to come first.
It’s joyous when it works, but I’m not sure how to make it happen more often. It doesn’t happen with many LINO MPs, especially if their staffers do their casework for them which especially happens with government ministers.
No apology for repeating this link as an example of how this can work locally.
If you are depressed or disillusioned, then here is some hope.
https://wecanmake.org/approach/
https://youtu.be/UZdGnM8BdRw
It’s the principles and ethos that excite me, and those ARE transferable, in local situations AND at scale.
But how (ask those affected)?
Where (everywhere)?
Who (NB not just one single person)?
When (Now)?
Thanks
Appreciated
And much to agree with
Much to recognise. In particular the shift that we often see happen from an initial solutions orientated approach to a process-focused approach this can happen in successful companies as they grow.
There appear to be two thought styles. Very often one does to recognise the other as they are so different. Solutions focussed thinking is all about defining problems, setting outcomes and achieving them – whatever the obstacles. These ‘troublesome’ people what change which is worth the necessary disruption. They are a minority overall. It’s where we find the ‘warriors’ always applying themselves towards the next battle. The neurodivergent are overrepresented.
For the processed-focus thinkers the quality of the outcome is viewed in terms the quality of the process. Success looks like conformity and Swiss Railway perfection. They seek first to serve and make for good administrations especially when charged with finding the ways and means to make systems function.
The balance between the two is crucial to sustaining good function.
Excellent article. I’m wondering if the best word that describes this situation is “corruption”, whether intentional or not. Humans seem to be driven by narratives, or perhaps they are better described as myths. To me the most obvious myth is the idea that we can have perpetual growth in a finite world, one that you have pointed out before. Its an important myth, because without it capitalism, or the accumulation of wealth, comes to a crashing halt when too much has been accumulated in too few hands and demand dies. Most of these organisations simply exist to maintain the status quo. Change will never come from these organisations, it has to come from the bottom up as a result of the tensions in society to the rigid structures imposed by the leadership get too much and change is forced upon the ruling elite whether they like it or not. This can happen peacefully, but sometimes it’s quite violent change. Does this change guarantee a better outcome? No, not necessarily. But what is definitely the case, is that the ruling elite bring it upon themselves, by ignoring the fact that what suits them does not suit everyone else, and that punishing people for not believing in their chosen narratives, is ultimately doomed to failure.
Thank you, Joe.
Corrupt is very appropriate.
Save The Children’s HQ is walkable from where I’m typing, near London Wall. The office is rather comfortable and appears designed and located, bohemian Clerkenwell, for exactly the type of people this post is about. A former CEO, married into a Labour dynasty, is called Gucci and Grace Mugabe. The Labour MPs from that production line lived rather well, too.
Its not necessarily that individual think tankers havent had direct ‘real world’ experience, but that think tanks have to seek funding and are very much part of the ‘system’.
You don’t need direct experience of starvation and being bombed to be against genocide. You don’t need to have experienced poverty to be against inequality – or to do effective research on how to reduce inequality.
There are quite a few independent researchers who would be a good virtual think tank – Murphy, Pettifor, Sikka, Mazzucato, Varoufakis, Gabor, Meadway , Blanchflower etc etc
I know one of those would not sit down with me
He spent too long in think tanks and then Westminster
I hope it is not The Greek, whom I have a lot of time for.
The only person I have met who has that effect on people is John Seddon of Vanguard. I’ve seen lazy CEOs and project tool heads shit their pants when he’s walked into a room.
He either invokes respect (from those who open mindedly adopted his methods) or fear wherever he goes – nothing in between and my trust in his thinking is marrow deep. It was a shame he threw in his lot with Respublica in the early bullshit days of the Cameron government but he did not stand a chance with the managerialism adopted by New Labour.
Food for thought, thank you.
Questions:
AI is fed with information. Who are the gatekeepers? How can the providers of “good” information rush the gates?
Have you ever been invited to speak to Novara media?
Yes
I have done it a few times
That’s interesting.
I wouldn’t trust Aaron Bastani as far as I could throw him.
Why?
I have never spoken to him and admit I rarely watch their ouput. What is you issue?
Typical middle class graduate: never talks about food banks, unemployment, the sick, the disabled, agency work etc etc
Only mentions poverty in relation to in-work poverty, advocates breaking the Triple Lock etc etc.
In other words, he’s not a socialist, he’s a me-ist. He wants what’s good for him and people of his background. Media types. He’ll be a Tory when he’s in his 60s
I just looked up their funding. They get grants from the likes of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation which in turn gets much of its money from the German state. Hardly likely to be actual radicals are they
Noted
The insight that some NGOs are primarily driven not by their mission, but by trying to perpetuate their own organisation or individual career prospects rang many bells with my experience of the UK social enterprise movement – where, for example, some key national bodies spent a lot of time and money delineating and accrediting a narrowly defined sector – which they could then, of course, claim to represent to government, etc – rather than doing precisely the opposite: promoting the idea that using business models and methods for public benefit, not private gain (which is what social enterprise is really about) is not a separate ‘sector’ – it’s just good business, that anybody can do.
Thus they suppress the best selling-point of the wider movement in order to build their own constituency and profile.
I am surprised how much this has resonated.
Mmm…not sure about your dismissal of leftwing think tanks. The following organisations are all concerned with inequality in the round and do good work: Fairness Foundation, Equality Trust, Compass, Commonwealth and I note that the NEF website makes it quite clear that it too has plenty of ideas for addressing inequality eg Living Income project. Wouldn’t it be better to reach out and build understanding amongst left organisations rather than otherwise ? We are all on the same side.
Did you read my piece?
I was involved with the Equality Trust along with a very experienced old Labour hand and two very savvy businessmen.
We all gave up within a year of each other. They were ineffective and quite wrong on certain issues. Their paper denying the existence of regional inequality led one of my businessmen colleagues to accuse them of “policy based evidence making”.
Let’s be honest, there was lots of energy around these issues from 2011 to 2019. Some ground was made but ultimately things are now worse and are likely to get deteriorate even further.
This is the progression of think tanks, it seems to me
There has been some discussion of voting intentions in this post. My own views on that subject have changed quite radically recently. For many years I have been an ardent supporter of tactical voting, to ensure the lesser evil. LINO has now tacked so far right that the distance between the two main evils is almost invisible (I’m not one of those who claim there is no difference, Labour is still doing some things that the Tories would never countenance, but be that as it may…)
I now believe that tactical voting is badly distorting reality. It has certainly kept the smaller parties down in many constituencies. So, from now on I will vote only with my heart and my conscience. If more of us take that approach, perhaps we will begin to see polling figures which accurately reflect voters’ true preferences. And maybe the mainstream parties will begin to realise that ‘not the other lot’ is a deeply inadequate policy platform to stand on; they might even think harder about what they actually stand for.
In my case, that means I shall likely vote Green from now on.
I think that is really interesting
Hi Richard,
I loved this blog!
As a well-intentioned middle-class student who is just finishing his master’s but lacks real-world skills. Do you have any career advice on how to avoid becoming one of these activist / generic campaigners? And how can I instead contribute in a genuinely meaningful way?
Thanks
What is your real world experience?
If you have not got any, go and work on the issue you are concerned about. Only then will you have something serious to say.
It seems to me that this problem of essentially navel gazing by the left (or in reality centre-left) is of a piece with an excellent essay today by Thom Hartman on Substack.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thomhartmann/p/one-partys-selling-a-big-lie-the-ccd
Reading it clarified for me something I’ve been trying to get clear in my own mind, which is that the populist right promote an ideology and get people to buy into it, whereas the left use endless focus groups to construct a pseudo-ideology around what they think people want. As a result they fail to stand for anything.
The only left/liberal politician who is showing a spine and standing for something among the current mayhem appears to be Mark Carney. Starmer should take a leaf out of his book.
Is Mark Carney on the left? Really? Ate you sure?
Thank you, Richard.
I was equally stunned.
@ Rick: Do you know who Carnage fraternises with and how he got these top jobs? I’ve had some dealings with him.
Well, I’m equally concerned about democracy v. oligarchy, and although it’s conflating somewhat different issues, the oligarchs are always far-right. So in that sense I support anyone who opposes people like Trump and provides a chance to bring him down.
Carney had the guts to say, calmly and firmly, “it’s over, finished, Canada no longer needs the USA”. A matter of principle. Meanwhile, Starmer and the rest of govt are equivocating, muttering “special relationship”, “USA is still important to us”, pretending Trump will treat us favourably when the reality is he just despises us and takes advantage. There’s no sense of taking a principled stand, just of avoiding conflict and taking the easiest route short-term.
Thom Hartman expressed the right / left issue much more eloquently than I can.
Carney, I agree is way to the left of Starmer.
And more competent.
But 99% are in both cases.
To get down to basics,where do you put organisations like Citizens Advice and charities like Alzheimer’s society, both of which I have a little to do with but I have some doubts about the practical outcome in terms of actually physically helping people……
CA is OK, I think.
I do not know the AS, but they do need to wake up to diet issues. Alzheimer’s is now being shown to be reversible on carbohydrate free diets.
I do have considerable concern about MacMillan’s. What are they for? My experiences of them have always been poor, and I have had too much experience of them.
A very informative post Richard.
Regarding Gary Stevenson, he is a likeable young man but is it only me that thinks his message lacks the sort of breadth and depth that you can provide?
I have never heard Gary mention anything connected with Modern Monetary Theory, perhaps he doesn’t know about it, or, doesn’t agree with it?
His introduction to academic economics came after his financial success as a trader so I’m guessing he learnt about Keynes and Monetarism at university and probably not MMT.
Whereas you post articles on a wide variety of issues and approach the issues from a broad perspective, I must confess that I find Gary’s appearances as all appearing very much the same and even a little bit repetitive.
Apologies to his many fans for saying that.
I am planning to contact him – it’s been hectic for the last week
I would imagine that the problem is far worse in right wing think tanks!
In addition to having little idea of people’s problems and difficulties the general attitude is that poor people are poor because it’s their own fault! They don’t realise that it’s the fault of the current system, which seems to be designed to make the rich richer whilst crushing everyone else.
Maybe, but they are incredibly successful at delivering their arguments.