Our unelected Queen must keep her views to herself

Nate Barker from ‘Labour for a Republic,’ on the Queen’s interference in affairs of state.

In this Age of Leveson, the media is keen to show how it can be a force for good and maintain its relevance in a world of ever-shrinking revenues. So I was heartily pleased to hear yesterday how the BBC had broken the news that the Queen had spoken to the Home Secretary in 2004 about Abu Hamza, telling him she was ‘aghast’ that he remained at large.

For years, republicans have been shouting about how the monarchy constantly lobbies to make known its thoughts and opinions on the matters of the day. This is despite being constitutionally-bound to remain neutral and above political affairs. Now, we had the authoritative voice of the BBC agreeing with us about the Queen’s attempts to influence policy.

I use the past tense because, in an utterly craven move, the Corporation has scrambled to assuage royal displeasure, issuing an apology for what they call a ‘breach of confidence,’ changing the focus of the story from a monarch overstepping their constitutional bounds to an apology for daring to draw attention to this. Make no mistake, I would rather the BBC had brought this to the public’s attention at the time, not eight years later – and I’m sure the Palace had a hand in its release – but it’s good to have evidence in the public domain of the Queen’s lobbying of government ministers.

Whether you agree with the Queen or not is irrelevant – constitutionally, there shouldn’t be any place in government for her views. Having grown up in palaces and castles with servants, never having to worry about money, it’s not a stretch to assume that her opinions may not be representative of the country at large. Yet, when she makes her opinions known to ministers, they carry considerably more weight than that of the average voter. We quite rightly have campaigned against media barons being able to influence the government, and there’s no reason why we should accept it when it comes from Buckingham Palace.

Instead of talking about whether the BBC should or shouldn’t apologise, we should be asking what else the Queen is talking to government ministers about and making it clear that, in a modern democracy, we simply won’t accept powerful unelected figures interfering in matters of state.

Nate P. Barker is Campaigns Officer for Labour for a Republic. You can find out more about the movement and sign up via www.labourforarepublic.org.uk or @Labour4Republic.

Fighting the far right

The battle appears to be won. In 2010, the BNP were routed in Barking and Dagenham. The number of BNP councillors has plummeted from a high of 56 to just 3. Britain’s most powerful, and most threatening, fascist party seems to be in a state of terminal decline.

Elsewhere, the English Defence League is also in retreat after a period when it seemed destined to replace the BNP as Britain’s foremost far right organisation.

The EDL’s appeal lies in its ‘anti-politics’ approach to campaigning. Members engage in marches and demonstrations, rather than debate and canvassing. However, leader Stephen Lennon is attempting to drive the organisation down the parliamentary route trod by the BNP in an alliance with the British Freedom Party. This has caused the movement to fracture and split as grassroots members rebel against the leadership’s striving to make the EDL a ‘respectable’ party.

However, while the threat of a fascist renaissance in Britain has subsided for now, the underlying attitudes and issues that nourish the far-right remain present in society.

Polling conducted by anti-fascist organisation ‘Hope not Hate’ revealed that 10% of the population can be classified as ‘latently hostile’ to those racially and culturally different from themselves, and 13% as exhibiting an ‘active enmity’ towards the ‘other.’

Insecurity about the future, and concern that British identity is being steadily eroded by a wave of foreign immigrants, are the key
drivers of such attitudes. While very few can summarise what Britishness means (besides drinking tea and queuing), it is something that is felt to be under attack by multiculturalism and the political doctrine of tolerance.

Cosmopolitan liberals may shrug their shoulders at this concern, rightly pointing out that ours is a nation of immigrants and that the freedoms Britons hold dear are protected by law and not about to wiped out by a radical Islamic agenda or a tidal wave of Polish plumbers. However, the fear that British society is evolving out of all recognition is deep-rooted in the sort of constituencies the BNP prey upon. One Londoner said:

“One of the problems of academics is that they don’t understand how local people feel…I get very wobbly when I get on a bus and there are fifteen people with burkhas on….[the growth of immigrant communities] does wind people up.”

Progressives would be foolish to ignore local people’s concerns and brand all those who fear immigrants as ignorant or racist.

Fortunately, Labour is in a unique position to help change attitudes and strengthen the campaign against fascism. Aimy Saunders, a campaigner with ‘Hope not Hate,’ says:

“The BNP has been more successful in areas where the Labour Party has taken people for granted. 49% of BNP voters used to vote Labour but felt disillusioned with the Labour party and what they stood for at that time.”

The rest are typically first-time voters or non-voters, who cast their ballot for the BNP out of despair that mainstream parties simply don’t understand their concerns.

Labour activists need to take to the streets- as they did in Barking and Dagenham- to win that 49% back for the party and prevent non-voters from supporting fascists at election time.

Local parties should also forge alliances with campaigning groups like ‘Hope not Hate’ to promote ‘community resilience.’

“[At ‘Hope not Hate’] we’re building community links so that when times are hard and the BNP comes
knocking local residents will be able to respond and not be as influenced as much by their ideas,” says Aimy.

This means linking local schools, clubs, and religious collectives together in community-wide projects designed to strengthen a sense of fellowship. In Luton, Dagenham, and Croydon where the BNP have made inroads in the past, ‘Hope not Hate’ has founded community newspapers and sponsored local meetings and events to inspire a spirit of neighbourliness.

Local Constituency Labour Parties and Trade Union branches are well positioned to support such work in areas susceptible to the economic and social pressures that lure people to the far right.

Ignoring the threat of fascism and claiming that far right parties have been routed once and for all is arrogant at best and dangerous at worst. Parties like the BNP may rise, fall, then disappear, but the values they stand for endure.

There is, therefore, a strong moral case for Labour to jointhe struggle against fascism. If we claim to be the party of inclusiveness, we cannot turn a blind eye when attitudes toxic to the ideal of a free and equal society are allowed to find political expression.

Louie Woodall is Assistant Editor of the Young Fabians Blog

Intergenerational tensions must be resolved now

The struggle to achieve a fair distribution of resources across the generations will define politics over the next century.

Where in the post-war world the battle lines were drawn across class and social divisions, intergenerational cleavages will cause the greatest clashes of the 21st century.

Some are already in evidence. The trebling of tuition fees is rightly condemned by students as a cynical ploy by the government to load the burden of reducing the deficit onto the younger generation. However, it passed because the age group it affected is not a big enough an electoral threat to cause politicians to stay awake at night.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum politicians of all colours leaped to condemn Osborne’s so-called “granny tax,” which gnawed into the pensions of older people. However, scant debate was had over the fact that current arrangements mean many wealthy pensioners receive large benefits that the younger generation can only dream of: free bus travel, free prescriptions, and free TV to list a few.

In the last issue of ‘Anticipations’, Angus Hanton of the Intergenerational Foundation said: “The current younger generation will probably be the first in modern history to have lower living standards.” Meanwhile, graduates will find the promise of a job, a home, and happiness held out to their university-educated parents no longer applies to them.

What can be done? It is impossible to mobilise the young against the old, because this is one political division where faction-fighting won’t work. A student will not be moved to denounce his parents and grandparents for getting it easy while he or she struggles to get by- the bonds of family are too strong for campaigns to pit generation against generation.

Instead, the left needs to lay the groundwork for a grand bargain between age groups. The future of a sustainable welfare state depends on people of all ages negotiating compromises. We must stop viewing certain demographic groups as protected from economic and social realities and accept there will have to be a give-and-take between generations to acheive a future fair for all.

Olaf Cramme, director of the Policy Network, spoke to the Global Youth Challenge Policy Commission and set out this idea in clear terms:

“Surely at the moment the old live at the expense of the young, and unless this is accepted there’s nothing we can do [to change it]. The next step will then be not to polarise [generations] further, but construct an generational compact where you change [the direction of] distributional power,”

One way to do this is to change society’s perception of what constitutes an ’investment.’ At present, too much emphasis is given to what Olaf calls ‘tangible assets,’ those investments that exist as capital and can boost the economy now. The left should mobilise to redress the balance between these and ‘intangible assets,’ namely the money pumped into education, training and skills that is spent now, and reaps dividends in the future.

As long as society feels it is better to cut investment to early years care, education, and training schemes like apprenticeships, then the gulf between the young and old generations will grow and grow.

The intergenerational challenge is not one to be taken lightly. It will require a huge political mobilisaiton across national borders and age boundaries. As Olaf says,

“I don’t think one country alone will succeed, it will be a collective effort. It’s almost too much for one country or one party to organise and break through a recognition by people that there is something wrong with the system, and that young people are falling behind.”

However, to refuse the challenge altogether would be to condemn the younger generation to a future it did not help create, and does not deserve.

Louie Woodall is Assistant Editor of the Young Fabians Blog

Young people need to talk about politics, and politicians need to listen

Hoor Pathan, project manager of LetsTAP (Let’s Talk About Politics) wowed the Fabian Summer Conference when she asked Ed Miliband directy to engage young people in political discourse. Here, she talks about the principle behind the project. 

Young people are often brushed off the political landscape as apathetic, unrealistic or just not bothered at all with politics as a whole.

However, the truth is far different. With the rapid changes for the worse that the Coalition has brought in, and the massive cuts taking place across all sectors which affect young people both directly and indirectly, the young are being forced to face challenges of a magnitude they have never imagined.

Tuition fees trebled. No guarantee of work after graduation. A Tory peer recently said “Britain’s never had it better.” As an 11-year-old in Britain today, I say: “Britain’s never had it worse.”

But the recent problems go far deeper than just university fees and cuts to services. The biggest problem today is that young people are trapped in a type of poverty which many have not noticed. It isn’t financial poverty, although this remains a huge problem which politicians have yet to face. No, the poverty I’m talking about is the poverty of aspiration, and the poverty of hope in politics.

You could blame the disappointment of ‘Clegg-Mania’ for this. However, the problem goes further than simple partisan excuses. Young people aren’t switched off; they just haven’t had the chance to get their voice across. The dissatisfaction isn’t about policy alone; it’s about being heard by those in power.

So what needs to be done? The good news is that Labour has already started taking steps in the right direction. Ed Miliband promised to focus on young people when he said “The work of a new generation has begun” in his acceptance speech after becoming leader. He’s already proved this isn’t just empty rhetoric, that he really means it, by holding talks with young people across the country.

But it doesn’t end there. Like in other walks in life, getting young people engaged in politics is a process of ‘Follow the leader.’ Members of the shadow cabinet, junior ministers, and local politicians including councillors, mayors and local cabinets need to go out and reach out to a generation who feels like they have been abandoned. A generation who feels as if a parent has left them and forgotten about them, a generation who feels that the government has lost love for them.

Both national and local politicians need to hold meaningful, rather than tokenistic, talks with young people where young people can actively raise their voice, put forward their concerns and feel as though they are being heard. Then we can move on to the bigger challenge, putting politicians into a position where they have to admit to the young where they’ve got it wrong and show how the ideas young people have are being used to shape policy.

As the political spectrum changes once again, the future of progressive politics lies with involving the young. The new centre ground is where the young who come from generations of non-voters feel inspired to go home and get their disenfranchised families out to the polling station come May 2015.

Hoor Pathan is project manager of ‘LetsTAP’

LetsTAP is a project aimed at involving young people in dialogue and debate with key local and national politicians, heads of services and decision makers in order to provide a safe platform for regular dialogue between decision makers and the young people.

LetsTAP aims to not only open channels of regular dialogue between decision makers and stakeholders, but also provide young people with a chance to actively scrutinize policy and services which affect them through various different methods, each relevant to the specific area of discussion.

Twitter: @Lets_TAP

Future of Finance Network: reforming the banks

Injecting virtue into our banking industry is at the heart of a progressive response to the financial crisis.

Young Fabian members of the Future of Finance Network, alongside guest experts Rachel Reeves MP, Lydia Prieg of the New Economics Foundation, and Melora Jezierska of the Charity Finance Group, gathered at the House of Commons this month to answer the biggest questions posed by the incoming reforms.

What can be done to protect depositors’ money from being placed as bets in ‘casino’ investment banks? Which policies will serve to safeguard London’s status as a world financial centre and defend the wider British economy from bank failure? How do we make banks servants of society instead of society servants of the banks?

The answers are threefold. First, new regulation has to be calibrated to maximise the public good. Ringfencing the high-street arms of banks from their risk taking investment operations is sound in principle. However, the rules need to ensure that the protected element has enough cash in reserve to act as a buffer in the event of a crisis. It is also important that policy recognises the rights of certain groups that warrant protection to access the ringfenced business- like charities and small businesses.

Second of all, we need to build a banking system founded on social values. Banking relies on trust, on mutual respect between people and institutions, and cooperation. Neo-liberalism birthed a different collection of values- market values- that stripped these qualities from the financial sector and divorced the purpose of banking from the social good.

As a result, the industry was swallowed up by a small group of corporate giants and our banks destroyed more economic value than they created. In the post-crisis age, banks need to be more responsive to the needs of communities. We need to cultivate new ‘challenger banks’ to boost competition in the sector, encourage the growth of different types of financial institutions like credit unions and mutuals, and compel a devolution of power away from corporate multinationals and into smaller, local institutions.

Thirdly and finally, there needs to be a change of culture within the financial sector. This makes demands of society as well as banks. A powerful financial policing authority, established by the state, could patrol the sector for instances of white collar crime and corporate misconduct. Incentive structures that teach salesman to treat clients as cash cows can be ripped up and replaced.

However, citizens also need to take control of their own financial lives so that they can be more selective about where they put their money. Children should be taught about the different ways they can manage their money at school, while the government could sponsor a massive publicity drive to raise awareness of the various institutions apart from banks they can use to achieve financial peace of mind.

Changing the way banks operate and control their assets will be expensive. Estimates based on the Vickers Report suggest the economy will suffer by £600 million to £1.4 billion a year for the next 30 years. However, it’s important to remember that in 2007-2009 the crisis cost the UK £140 billion. If a transformation doesn’t occur, who would bet against an even more destructive crisis engulfing the world fifty years from now?

This is the question progressives ask of an industry reluctant to change its ways. Fabians, Labour members, and socialists must continue to ask it if reform is to be saved from becoming stuck in the mud.

Louie Woodall is Assistant Editor of the Young Fabians Blog

Policy Commissions 2012: What is Community?

At our first roundtable policy discussion for the Better, Stronger, Closer Communities Policy Commission, we went – to borrow Sir John Major’s ill-advised phrase – back to basics.

 As part of the Young Fabians research on ‘Generation Crisis’, we’re exploring ways to try and strengthen our communities, ensuring they are places where different generations come together and integrate.

This is not so much Sir John’s infamous ‘country of long shadows on county cricket grounds, warm beer, green suburbs, dog lovers, and old maids cycling to holy communion through the morning mist’ (that would probably require the Doc’s DeLorean to recreate), more Tony Blair’s vision of a stakeholder society, ensuring everyone has a stake in their local community.

Before we could get on to questions of how to (re)create this, though, we had to establish what a 21st century community looks like, and how it has evolved over the past fifty years, fuelled by an increasing number of younger people moving away from home for education or employment, and aided by social media and the exorbitant price of property, which means many younger people are now well into to their thirties before buying their first home and settling down in one place.

The fact is, for whatever reason, communities have changed, and from our discussion, it was clear that the very concept of what constitutes a community has evolved. Whereas in decades past communities were traditionally based upon geographical links, that is not necessarily the case nowadays. As long as there is some sort of shared entity or passion amongst members – be that a sport, hobby, political party or band – communities can exist where members have no geographical ties.

Of course, some communities are still based upon where we live, but these tend to be very specific, and often dominated by one age group. Communities based on university friends, for example, whilst ostensibly set around a shared geographical link, lack the sort of inter-generational integration that would exist in many neighbourhood communities. Furthermore, communities established at university are prolonged with the advent of social media, so four friends who study together but end up in different parts of the country can ensure their community survives through Facebook, and Twitter, long after they have ceased living near one another.

Indeed, 21st century communities do not even require a physical presence. Some will have one, such as a regular meeting place or activity, but others might exist purely online, conglomerates of like-minded people united through their broadband cables.

What was also clear from our discussions, is that we all belong to many different communities, and these can overlap, and even clash, the reconciliation of which sometimes necessitates a member leaving a group – or being forcibly removed from it! Fluidity, though, is a key component to our communities, and means that people are constantly moving between different groups.

In certain communities, there are a clear set of rules which members must sign up to. Sometimes these will be written rules, sometimes merely implied. Sometimes the rules will dictate to what extent members can play an active role in the community, sometimes they will prohibit membership entirely if they are not adhered to. Sometimes the unwritten rules might preclude people from joining the community without them even knowing it.

Most communities will have one element that all members must subscribe to – one central belief, value, ideal or interest that unites all who are part of the community – but aside from that (and a regular monetary contribution to enable membership to continue in some cases) members can generally dictate their level of involvement in the community.

In the Labour Party, for example, there is an implicit rule that members subscribe to some form a centre left or left-leaning progressive politics, and members must pay their membership fee. After that, however, members can choose their level of involvement. If they can resist the constant cajoling of their CLP secretary, they can choose to do no more; they may decide to leaflet, canvass, run a street stall or hold a fund-raiser; they may seek elected office as a councillor, MEP or MP; they might even seek election as leader of the Labour Party. But it is their choice. As long as they adhere to the basic requirements, the level of involvement they have is entirely up to them.

At times, our discussion felt more philosophical than policy-based, but what was clear is that our attachment to groups within society remains as strong as ever, it is just that societal and technological change has shifted our concept of what constitutes a community, so most people could name numerous communities to which they belong without mentioning their own neighbourhood.

The challenge for policy makers is to harness this attachment to our own geographical communities, strengthening our neighbourhood communities and bringing different generations together in a way that few other communities do. These are the challenges our policy commission will be considering in forthcoming discussions.

Tobin Byers is a Young Fabians member and Co-Chair of the Better, Stronger, Closer Communities Policy Commission

The importance of trust

All manner of relationships, whether in the local community, in the workplace, or in politics, rely on trust to function successfully.

Trust is a valuable social lubricant, facilitating cooperation between individuals and regulating dealings between corporations and governments. It is also increasingly seen as an important economic resource that may help explain the differences in GDP growth between countries.

Stephen Knack, a scholar whose work involves probing the mysterious qualities of trust, even goes so far as to suggest that the entire difference between the per capita income of the US and Somalia is down to the different levels of trust in each country.

Knack’s claim reflects one extreme view of the utility of trust to economic and social relations. The truth is that no-one agrees on the added value that trust brings to balance sheets or “community spirit.” The basic argument is quite straightforward: trust, or ‘social capital’ as the economists call it, is an invisible asset made up of the “networks, norms, relationships, values and  informal sanctions” that help “shape the quantity and co-operative quality of a society’s social interactions.”

High levels of social capital in a country boosts the economy by reducing the likelihood of fraud and theft eating into revenues and saving managers thousands of working hours on supervisory duties.  In an environment where bosses trust their workers, they are less likely to devote time and resources policing their activities. These savings in so-called ‘transaction costs’ could run into millions of pounds.

Could the UK economy be depressed by a deficit of trust? By linking together the research of academics like Knack with the findings of Wilkinson and Pickett in their groundbreaking book on the benefits of equality, The Spirit Level, it becomes clear that low levels of trust among Britons could be partially responsible for both the business and social problems blighting the country. Wilkinson and Pickett say “high levels of trust mean that people feel secure, they have less to worry about, [and] they see others as co-operative rather than competitive.”

The Spirit Level reveals that the UK ranks fourth lowest among the developed countries for levels of trust, behind Portugal, the US, and Singapore. Not only this, but academic studies suggest trust has been in decline in the UK for a long time now. Surveys taken in the immediate post-war period reported that between 50-60% of Britons felt they could trust their fellow countrymen. However, by 1981 this percentage had fallen to 42.5%, and by the time of New Labour, was at a historic low of 30.4%.

These figures suggest that over time individuals have become more suspicious of, and even hostile to, other people. This change in attitudes naturally has a corrosive effect on social and business relations, and may have some part to play in explaining declining levels of economic growth since the 1980s and, by extension, the current difficulties getting out of recession.

The reasons why trust levels have fallen through the floor are debateable. However, the evidence provided by Wilkinson and Pickett makes a compelling case for blaming it on the exploding economic inequalities Britain has experienced over the last few decades.

Utilising the research of Eric Uslaner in his book The Moral Foundations of Trust, they claim that “income inequality is the ‘prime mover’ of trust, with a stronger impact on trust than rates of unemployment, inflation or
economic growth.”

Why should restoring trust within society be a priority now? Because a lack of social capital harms the prospects of young people most of all. A Cabinet Office report in 2002 stated that trust and fellow-feeling helps young adults acquire the wide network of contacts and links with associations that help them to find work. In a world where the key to satisfying employment is still who you know, not what you know, young people are disadvantaged by living in a society where people don’t trust each other enough to reach out beyond their own little worlds.

We must act now to stop trust draining out of our country. As Project M argues, there is no reason to be complacent about a depletion of social capital. “When trust is used it can foster greater trust, but it can also be dissipated, particularly when inequality grows within society.” Boosting levels of trust in society may not solve all society’s problems, but it would certainly help foster an environment where people, and businesses, are better able to work in harmony with one another.

Louie Woodall is Assistant Editor of the Young Fabians Blog