21 Questions For: Tom Harris MP

The Labour MP and prospective Labour leader in Scotland answers some quick-fire questions for the Young Fabians.

What does politics mean to you?
Politics is an obsession to me, probably to an unhealthy extent. But that’s because nothing is more important than a debate that leads to one party or another gaining control of government and being able to affect people’s lives, I hope for the better.

Why Labour?
The Labour Party drives me nuts much of the time, but there’s no doubt in my mind that its instincts and history define it as the best vehicle for progressive reform in our country.

Why not the Tories?
Seriously?

Why not the Lib Dems?
Oh, where to start, where to start…? I acknowledge that many LibDems have their hearts in the right place. But why does that place always have to be on their sleeves? Pious self-righteousness leaves me cold, especially when I know that that sanctimony, as expressed by the likes of Clegg, has no moral foundation. We all know that politics is occasionally and necessarily cynical. So just accept that and get on with the job, don’t wring your hands about it and bemoan others for not being as perfect as you.

What was the best thing Labour achieved in Government?
The Scottish Parliament.

And what was the greatest missed opportunity?
That we kept putting off real welfare reform, allowing the Tories to step in and do it the wrong way for the wrong reasons.

What’s the best political advice you’ve received?
It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

How would you define your politics?
Progressive with a tinge of common sense. Or maybe the other way round.

How would others define your politics?
Unjustifiably right wing. Probably.

What are you most passionate about?
Children. I am never angrier than when I read of the latest case where the authorities have allowed useless, selfish parents a third, fourth or fifth chance to look after their own kids and it’s ended tragically.

What’s been your biggest achievement?
I was the railway minister who saved the Blackpool tram.

What’s been your biggest disappointment?
Being sacked by Gordon Brown as a transport minister.

What is your favourite political moment?
Being appointed by Tony Blair as a transport minister.

What is your favourite political quote?
Mario Cuomo: “We campaign in poetry but we govern in prose.” True and perfectly put.

Who is your political hero?
David Cairns. A perfect combination of wisdom, humour and compassion. And he had the irritating habit of always being right.

Who is your political villain?
Alex Salmond.

If you weren’t a politician what would you be?
A writer.

How would you like to be remembered?
As a good dad, a good husband and a good man.

What do you most dislike about British politics?
Virtually nothing. It’s wonderful.

What do you most like about British politics?
Probably the House of Commons: a much misunderstood and unjustifiably denigrated institution.

How can Labour win the next election?
By appealing to every voter who supported us in 97 and by giving them a reason to support us again. You could do worse than ask Tony . . .

Editor’s note: The Young Fabians welcome posts from other candidates in the Scottish Labour leadership election. Email mzarb@youngfabians.org.uk if you would like to contribute.

Why I Marched

On November 9^th, approximately 10,000 students, lecturers, and members of the public marched through central London in protest against the government’s white paper on education.

I marched because the proposed legislation comprises a fundamental attack on the principle of the public university. The White Paper, shamefully entitled ‘students at the heart of the system’, in reality has corporate interests first in mind. It contains provisions allowing for-profit companies to infiltrate higher education and undermine existing universities. Corporate interests will be given licence to develop and market courses with an eye on the financial bottom line, rather than the social good. By surrendering universities to the private sector, future students will be confronted with low quality, ‘off-the-shelf’ degrees as corporations compete to offer popular courses at discount rates.

Public institutions will struggle to stay in the game, as the government has withdrawn all central funding for arts, humanities and social science departments and slashed expenditure on many others. These losses will barely be made up for by the tripling of tuition fees, and commercial pressures will inevitably lead universities to conserve resources by cutting departments. This is already threatened at my university, Royal Holloway, where the Classics, Modern Languages and Computer Science departments are facing significant cuts over the next few years. 

The reforms also threaten to choke off access to higher education for thousands of young people by creating an artificial market in student numbers. The government has altered regulations, now allowing universities to snap up as many top-performing students as they like (those achieving grades of AAB and above) while imposing a new cap on the recruitment of all other students. The expected result of these measures is the evolution of a two-tier system, where elite universities hoard the highest performing students while those that fail to attract enough AAB students find themselves out of pocket, unable to make up numbers as they used to. The prize institutions will be able to be more selective in recruitment, while middling universities compete tooth and nail in a battle to attract students. Some will inevitably succumb to a dearth in funding and collapse, while others will be forced to offer second-rate courses at knock-down prices.

I marched because this legislation will corrode the very foundations on which higher education is built and put a rapacious commercial system in its place. I marched to stop it.

Louie Woodall is a member of the Young Fabians and Assistant Editor of the Young Fabians Blog

Moving on

After five years on the Young Fabian Executive, I decided earlier this year not to re-stand. In recent days, the election results have been published and the question of which elected executive members take on which tasks has been resolved. Today, co-opted members of the Young Fabian Executive will be chosen.

All of which means it’s time for me to move on and hand over editorship of this blog.

Matt Zarb-Cousin, who has blogged for the likes of Political Scrapbook and the Huffington Post, will be taking over. Like me last year, he holds the position of Secretary of the Young Fabians.

When I first joined the Young Fabian Executive in 2006/7, our new media offer was relatively light. This blog didn’t exist.  Sam Strudwick, then Web Officer, set one up when he redesigned the Young Fabian website a year or so later. But it wasn’t until I took on Editorship of the blog that we started getting the quality and frequency of content that you need to make any blog viable.

The editorial direction of the blog has grown organically. Originally, just executive committee members and the odd guest author would post. Now it has broadened into a space for Young Fabian members to share their ideas and develop their writing, alongside contributions from guest authors.

Colleagues on previous Young Fabian executive committees will know how much I’ve nagged to get blog content built into their other work. Not only is it a timely way of sharing ideas and thoughts, but it also provides content for members and supporters wherever they’re located and at whatever time is convenient for them. It is also a great way for members to get involved in Young Fabian work.

All the effort put into the blog since it launched two years ago has yielded encouraging results. Our readership continues to grow and we’ve been recognised in the Total Politics blog awards in several different blog categories this year. Our content is also being read by key opinion formers – our Middle East Programme travellog generated significant amounts of interest in the blogosphere earlier this year, resulting in our highest ever daily readership since the blog began.

But we shouldn’t rest on our laurels. I remember a little over a year ago having a conversation with a Young Fabian member who was criticising the way the blog was managed. He felt it wasn’t open enough and wanted more opportunities for members to be able to write. It was heartening that even then the blog was considered a central part of our published output. But, while I took on board the criticism, I remember thinking how irritating progressives can be – always focusing on improvements yet to make, rather than recognising what has already been achieved (at the time of our conversation, the blog had only been in existence for a year).

It is difficult for any one individual to meet that desire for constant progress and improvement indefinitely. Continued progress relies on continued renewal of ideas and of people.

In terms of published output, I’ve had two key roles with the Young Fabians – Editor of Anticipations, and Editor of the its blog. With both, I felt two years was more than enough time to make changes and improve their standing and content before allowing others to develop them further. I’d like to think I’ve made a difference to the way the Young Fabians think about publications and to the way its executive serves the membership.

Matt is well placed to pick up the baton. And I wish him well. I look forward to seeing the blog evolve further and writing for it again in future.

I’d like to thank the many people who have contributed to this blog over the last two years and to my executive committee colleagues whose ears I’ve bent repeatedly. I’m also particularly grateful to Louie Woodall who has ably assisted me with the editing of this blog over the last six months or so.

And to you for reading the blog, thus making all the effort worthwhile.

Alex Baker was a member of the Young Fabian executive between 2006-7 and 2010-11. He is a former Editor of the Young Fabians Blog and Anticipations, the journal of the Young Fabians.