There is
something very attractive about the view that greater consensus will lead to a
more civilised approach to politics. Negotiation, accepting differences and
coming to agreement lies at the heart of good relationships, so why not good
politics?
But there
are dangers in consensus, particularly if you are committed to an ethical
vision of a politics that can affect real social change. We’ve been reflecting on the reality of these
dangers for the Labour party since they came more clearly into focus about 10
days ago.
Tim
Montgomerie of Conservative Home claimed that ‘we all’ now accept that
compassion has to be limited, focused towards the ‘deserving’ rather than the
‘undeserving’ poor. (Of course, who decides who are deserving and who
are not, as well as the ramifications of this approach, he was not prepared to
say.)
Demonising
one group in society as ‘undeserving’ is troubling, and usually involves
assumptions about people claiming benefit. In practice, those claiming benefits
are a very diverse group of people. Such cultures did not spring out of
nowhere: they were created under the last Tory government when it failed to
develop new industries as it ripped out the old. And, to our pain, the Labour government
did not do enough to support new businesses in those stricken areas.
Montgomerie’s
argument reflects the neo-liberal consensus of the last thirty years. Success
or failure is something that can be identified solely with the actions of the
individual. This is far from an adequate way of analysing the complex roots of
poverty, both of wealth and aspiration. It is not surprising to hear
conservatives make simplistic statements about the nature of poverty. It is
more upsetting to hear parts of the Labour Party expressing similar views.
Tristram Hunt
MP on Question Time recently offered a case in point. He suggested that to
raise welfare pay outs in line with inflation was a mistake: “I think the
system is flawed. What they’ve done is taken one month’s inflation figure of
5.2% and they will apply it across the year - instead of taking the year-long
average.” David Dimbleby asked him: “You would have endorsed a lower figure to
unemployment benefit and pensions? Hunt
replied, “Yes, I would have”.
Cutting tax
credits is undoubtedly putting a real strain on working families up and down
the land. A woman in the same audience
made that abundantly clear: “It isn’t about unemployment benefits so much, it’s
housing costs…Most people who work in this town earn between £12,000 to £15,000
per year.. Housing Benefit cuts are hitting families hard. We have rents of
£400-£500 per week.” You don’t have to be a mathematician to work out what this
means for people’s lives.
But pitting
the working poor against the unemployed is a recipe for ethical disaster. It
creates scapegoats who can be marginalised and treated as less than human. It’s
not healthy, and, more importantly, it isn’t fair. A better approach is to
argue for the living wage, and interventions that actively narrow the gap
between top and bottom earners.
Jumping on
the populist bandwagon that believes all claimants are scroungers is an
abnegation of Labour’s responsibility to challenge these increasingly common
myths of the feckless poor who are reaping the whirlwind of their own
irresponsibility. Such myths must be tackled head on, and this necessitates
spelling out the complex interlinking factors of poverty and welfare
dependency. We should not be simplifying the argument in order to satisfy an unthinking
and uncaring approach to social deprivation.
So Labour is
confronted by three urgent questions that require an answer:
The first:
who represents the Labour Party? And, conversely
The second :
who does the Labour Party represent ?
The third :
Can you only get elected if you appeal to the prejudices of middle England?
The first
question raises the importance of broadening the party’s base and,
particularly, getting people from non-middle class and professional backgrounds
into representative politics. And we certainly need people in there who have
some life experience in various walks of life. Alan Johnson is a great example
both in his background and in the way he practices his politics. There are
such people out there and we need them at the forefront of our politics. Only
by allowing their experiences and voices to challenge and shape our policies
can we hope to address the malaise in social and political life. Although Labour won the by-election last week
the overall turn-out was very poor.
The second
question raises the fundamental question of what the Labour Party is for. We
need to reengage with our history, recognising what brought us into being and
why it was necessary to create a party that spoke for ordinary working people.
And that means thinking about who we represent today.
Thirdly, to
gain power again, we have to put forward positive policies that speak to the
kind of society we want to create; policies that are appealing and,
importantly, that have broad appeal to those people we meet on the
doorstep. We must bear in mind that
their needs are quite different today as a consequence of living in Cameron’s
Britain of austerity. Therefore we need to examine Labour’s agenda critically
and compassionately.
Thank
goodness Mehdi Hasan of the New Statesman was on the Question Time panel and
able to talk about the facts of poverty and welfare dependence. It is
this kind of solid, informed response that we need. In response to a recent
poll that found 54 %
thought unemployment benefits were too generous, he asked whether those people
would still think that if they knew the average claimant received £67.50 per
week. He also elaborated on realities of a labour market where five people are
chasing every job. In such a climate, can the narrative of the lazy unemployed
really be maintained?
To his
credit, Tristram Hunt did refer to people losing their jobs in steel
manufacturing and mining in the 1980s.
“Where are those manufacturing jobs now?” he asked. Indeed. We only have to refer to the Sheffield
Forgemasters fiasco that occurred immediately after the General Election. Under
Labour, public money was utilised to bail out the banks, and simultaneously
Labour was concerned that jobs were maintained. It made economic sense. But
this Tory-led government would not take similar steps to support manufacturing.
Those jobs were lost and as a consequence we have more people on benefit.
The Labour
government’s strategy to keep people working was right. At the time of the last
general election the economy was starting to recover, and the debt we incurred
in bailing out the banks would, eventually, have been recovered too. The Eds
are therefore right to resist the consensus behind Osborne’s failed Plan A and
they deserve more support for pursuing this strategy than they are currently
getting from some sections of the party.
It’s time to
dispel some of the myths in order for us to state clearly that we are the party
of compassion. The majority of people, we believe, would welcome this. Many are
asking about the direction of the Party at the moment, and we need a renewed
commitment to the core Labour values of justice, compassion and inclusion. That means re-establishing the party as the voice for the
voiceless. And nothing could be more important, given that we are looking at a
whole new struggling population – the squeezed middle – whose voices are not
being heard.
It’s time
for Labour to question the voices of consensus who espouse compassionate
conservatism. It is time to stand up for the values that brought so many people
into the Labour party in the first place.
It’s time
for Labour to enter the fight for Britain’s soul.
I co-wrote this with Bev Clack and it was recently posted on The Green Benches
