The Progressive fightback? Start by abandoning the word ‘progressive’

This weekend, the great and the good of the centre-left will converge on London to perform a post-mortem on elections and of Labour’s year in Opposition. Huzzah! It’s Fabian Society Conference time.

Sadly I won’t be there. It’s my birthday this weekend, so I can think of a gazillion better things to do on Saturday than debate Labour Party strategy.

And I suspect it won’t really matter not being there. It’s highly likely that some or all of the following will be discussed as reasons for a rather limp twelve months for the left: length and timing of leadership election; strength of opposition narrative; focus on Lib Dems rather than Tories; complacency; Ed Miliband failing to find his voice quickly enough; trust on economic issues; lack of policies; Murdoch press etc etc.

So, for what it’s worth, here is my two-penneth on how to mount a ‘Progressive fightback’: start by abandoning words like ‘progressive’. Bin them. No seriously. ‘Progressive’ is meaningless. It’s bunkum. And, more importantly, using it as a badge of honour isn’t going to win votes.

Time was when to be a progressive meant something. In the 90s they were the sparkly New Labour types. Trendy. Cool. Progressives fought against the loony left whose wet dream was for complete nationalisation of all industry. And against those on the right who lamented the collapse of the Empire. And against those beardy weirdies in the Liberals who couldn’t make their mind up on anything.

Progressives even had their own colour: purple. What colour are you? Blood red? Too Soviet! Puke yellow? No thank you! Royal blue? Off with your head! They’re not progressive. Purple is progressive.

Voters could spot progressives. And they liked them.

But in Coalition Britain, we’re all progressive now. David Cameron is a ‘progressive Conservative’. Nick Clegg is a ‘new-fashioned progressive’. And the left is working out how to mount a ‘progressive fightback’.

I guess you’d know if you’re not progressive. Non-progressives are the sort who would make people sell a kidney just to be able to afford kidney treatment. Or the sort who would euthanase immigrants to keep their numbers down. Or the sort who would reintroduce tongue clamps for women. They’re not progressive.

Not you? Then well done! You’re progressive! Bravo.

Except the term, by being appropriated by parties across the political spectrum, has become devoid of any meaning. It is a huge canvas onto which you can project almost any ideal.

But there are other problems with the term too.

Take the AV referendum as an example. As Jessica Asato, Director of Labour Yes to AV, has now admitted, the Yes to AV campaign should have had the slogan “a small change that will make a small difference”. Yet the more fervent supporters of AV whipped themselves into an orgasmic frenzy, arguing that those who didn’t see the point of AV (68% of those who voted, as it turned out) were heathens opposed to the betterment of society. AV was change. It was progress. If you opposed AV then you weren’t progressive. You were conservative. Or stupid. Or Rupert Murdoch. Or a stupid conservative Rupert Murdoch.

So terms like progressive alter the terms of the debate in an unhelpful way. Opposing specific forms of change doesn’t mean you don’t share ideals, necessarily. It might just mean you disagree about means. Labels like progressive put an impetus on those who describe themselves thus to constantly agitate for change. But change for its own sake is pointless.

And for voters terms like ‘progressive’ have probably always been meaningless. But now they look increasingly patronising too. It’s the sort of term that might have resonance in a small band of intellectual and political elite – the denizens of the People’s Republic of Islington – but it in no way meaningfully relates to what punters on the doorstep give a crap about. Like paying the bills, or what’s best for the kids, or how annoying the neighbours are.

In short, it’s not a term that will help Ed Miliband look and sound like a fully paid-up member of the human race. And based on the last few months, that is looking like an uphill challenge.

To be ‘progressive’ is now completely, utterly, totally devoid of meaning. It is to be anything and everything, and absolutely nothing all at the same time.

So my suggestion is to jettison it. To use simple language that has real meaning to the sorts of voters Labour needs to win back. Maybe then they might be more willing to get involved with the Party and its work.

Or, at the very least, to vote for it in future elections.

Alex Baker is Secretary of the Young Fabians.

The Future of the Fabians – let us know your thoughts

Amidst the election campaigning last month, the news that Sunder Katwala, the long-serving General Secretary of the Fabian Society, is moving to pastures new may have passed you by. At our monthly Executive Committee meeting yesterday, the Young Fabian Executive discussed the search for a replacement for Sunder (the deadline for applications is May 27, in case you’re interested) and what we hoped for from a new General Secretary.

But our discussion went further than that. We agreed that it was just as important for the Young Fabians to pro-actively ensure the Fabians continue well into the future as it was to discuss policy and politics of the day; that it was our responsibility to support the Fabians in ensuring active Young Fabians become active Fabians well past their 31st birthday.

So we agreed that the appointment of a new General Secretary of the Fabian Society provided a good opportunity for Young Fabians to think about how the Society can continue to ensure its relevance to Labour and to broader policy debate, particularly at a time when Labour itself is thinking hard about how best to navigate a course back to power.

And we’d like to know what you think.

So please click here and send us your thoughts on, for example, what things the Fabians should continue to do, what things they might do differently, and your thoughts for the new General Secretary, who is likely to take up the role towards the end of the summer.

We plan on publishing responses on our website, and distilling the responses into an open letter to the new General Secretary later in the year, which we hope might be useful to them as they pick up the baton from Sunder.

Alex Baker is Secretary of the Young Fabians.

The trouble with G.O’D.

The Guardian reports today that Sir Gus O’Donnell – head of the Civil Service – blocked an attempt by Gordon Brown to launch a judicial inquiry into the phone hacking affair because of the general election.

Given recent revelations, that looks like particularly poor judgement.

And it raises another important question: is Sir Gus O’Donnell too political to be head of the Civil Service?

On the one hand, you might agree with his analysis that it would “inappropriate to hold a judicial inquiry so close to a general election”, as the Guardian reports – any such inquiry would likely have become a campaigning issue due to (a) the fact former Editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson , was a key part of David Cameron’s so-called ‘inner circle’ and (b) Labour had lost the support of the News of the World (and the Sun).

On the other hand, the appointment of Andy Coulson – and his retention even when the evidence of widespread phone hacking continued to drip into the public sphere – calls into question Cameron’s judgement. It is entirely appropriate for political opponents to highlight this.

More fundamentally, the proximity or otherwise of elections should not be used to insulate politicians from poor decision making, and nor should it be used to obfuscate the judicial process – remember, victims of phone hacking were subject to illegal acts for which some reporters have already been imprisoned.

This is the second time in 10 months that Sir Gus O’Donnell’s advice has been called into question – the first related to his role in the coalition negotiations last summer.

Is it now time for him to go?

Alex Baker is Secretary of the Young Fabians.

Recessionary paradoxes

The global recession has highlighted two paradoxes at the heart of government policy (old and new) – I’ve been reminded of this by two articles I’ve read this week.

Firstly, why are we so concerned about retaining the parts of the financial services sector whose reckless practices resulted in one of the worst contractions in UK economic output in history?

On the one hand bankers are vilified for their part in the recession and the attendant increases in unemployment and reductions in tax revenues; on the other we are reticent to do much about them for fear of losing jobs and tax revenues.

Secondly, why are politicians of all colours at pains to ensure that interest rates remain low primarily to ensure that houses (by which, strictly speaking, they mean mortgage debt) remain affordable when overleveraging of households both contributed to and compounded the effects of the financial crisis?*

On the one hand we are concerned by over-indebtedness of households; on the other we want household debt to be affordable.

I suppose you could argue these are consistent positions to hold by appealing to practical issues of addressing the issues in the short term.

While parts of the financial services sector contributed to the global financial crisis, it is difficult for the UK to wean itself of them in the short term – how would you replace foregone tax revenues? If this isn’t possible, would it result in steeper and faster fiscal contraction? Would this make recessionary pressures worse?

As for household debt, it’s reasonable to have a short-term concern about the potential impact of rapid household de-leveraging: the potential for a vicious downward spiral of consumer expenditure. (See The Economist this week on the related issue of interest rates).

And yet. And yet.

Arguments about the forgone taxes bank relocations would cause seem overblown to me. A Reuters special report argues that it would be harder for banks to relocate than they would have you believe.

And I sense politicians – like most of the country – have an irrational love of home-ownership; affordable mortgages are at least as desirable as a means of allowing first-time buyers onto the housing market, or existing home-owners to trade up, as they are of reducing recessionary pressures.

If we prioritise short term imperatives over longer term considerations, then we are unlikely to find much reason to change at all.

Alex Baker is Secretary of the Young Fabians.

* A related issue is supply of new homes – other things equal, home ownership would be more affordable if the government built more houses. If that’s the policy goal, then you’ve got to ask why successive governments have shied away from building more homes.

What is THE alternative?

Tomorrow, tens of thousands of people will descend on London to “March for the Alternative” – an anti-cuts demonstration organised by the TUC, but which is likely to draw broad support amongst the left.

In my mind, the name of the event – “March for the Alternative” – encapsulates two strategic issues for the left when opposing the cuts.

1. What is THE alternative? Does it even exist?

I’d wager that there will be a multitude of different reasons for people attending the march – they are a public sector worker facing redundancy, their local library is being closed, an elderly relative is seeing their care reduced.

And it is entirely rational for these individuals to oppose cuts in government spending for these personal reasons.

But as Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem implies, you are unlikely to achieve a coherent macro-policy simply by aggregating individual preferences – if you agree that government spending will need to be reduced, then at some point you will have to make choices as to how this is achieved.

So I don’t agree there is one alternative – THE alternative. March for AN alternative might have been a better slogan.

This isn’t a trivial point, and links to a potentially more significant issue for the left and Labour in particular in opposing the government.

2. Focusing on THE (or AN) alternative is a strategic error.

By defining clearly what you stand for, you take the focus off what you are against. Opposition should, by definition, be primarily about opposition.

But if Labour pretends to be in government* by setting out specific alternatives, rather than general guiding principles, it will become a hostage to fortune; a lot will change between now and 2015.

*Something Ed Balls is more than a little guilty of. For example, in yesterday’s Commons debates he said:

“Under Labour’s plan, the economy was set to grow strongly, unemployment was falling, and we were on track to halve the deficit in four years.”

But Labour lost an election on their plan. So it’s probably time to reflect on alternatives, while opposing the only plan being implemented – the government’s.

Alex Baker is Secretary of the Young Fabians.

Budget – Webchat LIVE

We’re teaming up with Left Foot Forward, Labourlist, Liberal Conspiracy and others to bring you a live Budget webchat from midday on Budget Day 2011.

To take part, simply log into the console below.

Labour and tax simplification

We’re told the budget will contain no new tax increases or spending cuts this week. Little wonder that the weekend’s papers were full of stories about duty tinkering, or reform of the tax system.

But the proposal to simplify personal taxes by merging National Insurance and Income Tax is a potentially significant reform in the long run, and poses some strategic questions for Labour.

1. The most obvious problem for Labour if National Insurance is abolished is that it removes the semantic tie between a form of personal taxation and the notion of the State as safety-net. National Insurance as a concept is probably more psychologically appealing to a plurality of the electorate than income tax; one is a safety net tied to a specific benefit, the other an imposition whose use is less tangible. Abolishing National Insurance will make it harder to sell tax increases for welfare reasons.
2. Yet it is questionable whether National Insurance is anything of the sort anymore – while government receipts are in theory hypothecated towards pension payments, other benefits and the National Health Service, the income in any given year is nowhere near enough to meet spending on the NHS, let alone other calls on the funds. In other words, there is already a blurring between general taxation and National Insurance in terms of what services they fund.
3. This goes to the heart of a broader issues which I think Labour needs to address – what should the role of the State be in Britain today, and in future? As I have argued previously, it is this question which should inform decisions about taxation and spending, not the other way round. When the National Insurance fund was established in 1948, there was a clear idea about its purpose. Today, Labour lacks a coherent vision as to how tax receipts should be disbursed.
4. A coherent vision as to why we need to tax in the first place will be increasingly necessary if the proposals are implemented. Tax simplification will mean taxation is more transparent. This probably implies something about the likely trajectory of effective tax rates in future – downwards. So, other things equal, Labour will find it harder in either opposition or government to generate revenues from personal taxation if this proposal is implemented. They’ll need better justification for increases as a consequence.
5. If Labour oppose the Budget move, then they are likely to be accused of two things by the coalition government: (a) being deceitful – Labour are likely to be portrayed as a party which would rather intentionally mislead voters as to the real level of taxation they face (this may stick, irrespective of its merits) and (b) being opposed to measures designed to boost growth, which this proposal is likely to be portrayed as. Neither of which will be comfortable ground for the party; it is the wrong time to look deceitful or anti-growth.
6. So Labour should not necessarily be afraid of tax simplification. In fact, if the Budget proposes a change solely to income tax and National Insurance, Labour might do worse than argue that the government combine all forms of personal taxation into one rate. Put another way, Labour should argue they levy the same tax rate on all forms of income – why is employment income fundamentally any different to capital gains, dividend income or inheritance? This might help flip the argument – if the coalition believes income tax and national insurance are equivalent, why do they believe capital gains tax or inheritance tax is fundamentally different to either? Are they trying to protect their (wealthier) constituents?
7. And why focus only on personal taxation? Surely it would be better to examine all taxation if this is a core part of a growth strategy. After all, businesses will be the driver of job creation.
8. Finally, all parties appeared to have largely ignored the substantive conclusions of the Mirrlees Review for the IFS which was published in November last year. This is a distinct shame, as the Review concluded with a sound set of recommendations for a more progressive, neutral and efficient taxation system. Labour could do worse than examine its proposals in detail – a simplified taxation system is not necessarily contrary to the party’s broader aims.

Given the above, Ed Ball’s response to the putative change to income tax and National Insurance was rather disappointing:

“Any sensible government that wants to win public support would see the advantages of keeping NI.”

That’s not wholly convincing, and doesn’t imply that Labour has given a great deal of thought to tax simplification.

In advance of Wednesday’s budget, they should.

Alex Baker is Secretary of the Young Fabians.

Are some wars better than others?

Is a civil war better than military intervention by other countries?

I ask because the Stop The War Coalition is tonight demonstrating against military intervention in Libya. On its website, the Stop The War coalition lists ten reasons against military intervention, which include:

• As soon as NATO starts to intervene, the Libyan people will start to lose control of their own country and future.
• Intervention can only prolong, not end the civil war.
• Intervention will lead to escalation.
• Respecting Libya’s sovereignty is the cause of peace, not is enemy.
• This is not Spain in 1936, it is more like Iraq in the 1990s. Or Kosovo and Bosnia.
• It is about oil.
• It is also about pressure on Egyptian revolution.
• NATO will only ever intervene to strangle genuine social revolution, never to support it.
• Liberal interventionism cannot be allowed to rise from the graves of Iraq and Afghanistan.

I’m not making these up, unfortunately.

Behind the assertion and the otherwise objectionable argumentation put forward by the Stop The War Coalition is a worrying underlying implication – that it is better to leave Colonel Gaddafi to use military force against his people, than risk shedding blood by intervening to oppose his brutality.

We’ve been here before.

Perhaps the Stop The War Coalition would like to believe there are moral absolutes – that killing is absolutely wrong. But the implications of taking a stance against military intervention to prevent civil war is that you might condemn people to die by other means. So much for your morals.

Or perhaps they are comfortable with military action in general, but object to the deployment of military force by a country in situations where there is no direct threat to its own people. But that is just as illogical – why oppose specific types of military action when you’re comfortable with the concept in general?

Or, more likely, perhaps the Stop The War Coalition long ago lost any coherence to its core aims.

The vexed issue of our involvement in military activity overseas did not resolve itself with the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Bad people exist, and some of those do bad things to others. On the facts of each case, there may be merit in acting to stop them on humanitarian grounds. The bad people may die as a consequence. So too might some good. But they might have anyway.

But that cannot be the intention of countries acting to intervene – they act to prevent unnecessary loss of life, not to cause it. However, doing so is not without risks.

Moral relativism might be troubling, but being a moral absolutist about military intervention appears unsustainable.

Alex Baker is Secretary of the Young Fabians.

The same, but different

The ECJ ruling that insurance companies cannot charge different premiums for men and women is lunacy.

According to the ECJ:

Taking the gender of the insured individual into account as a risk factor in insurance contracts constitutes discrimination.

This is a rather absolutist view of gender equality, and ignores an important point: that gender differences may be the proximate cause of differences in observed outcomes, such as the ability to keep a car on the road.

Behavioural studies, as well as observed claim data available to actuaries who calculate insurance premiums, show that the risk of having a serious accident, and therefore having a large claim against insurance, is lower for females. (Other studies show that female drivers may be involved in more ‘low-claim’ accidents, and that over-75s are the riskiest group to insure). Essentially, the gender of driver is a reliable component in assessing the probability that a driver will claim against their car insurance.

The consequences of forcing insurance companies to ignore risk factors which may contribute towards the variance in the expected pay-out for a given individual is that some consumers are likely to overpay for cover – in the case of car-insurance, this is likely to be women who will be charged higher premiums.

Put another way, the link between the fundamental cost of the service and the price charged to some consumers will be distorted to the detriment of those consumers. Worse still, female drivers may now subsidise the cost of insuring more risky men.

Isn’t that a form of discrimination?

And where does the ruling end? Will insurance companies be banned from basing contracts on a person’s age? Or levying a higher price because someone is bad at driving – isn’t that discrimination?

A grown-up view of gender equality will recognise that there are some situations where acknowledging differences in gender is potentially important and desirable. The ECJ’s efforts would be better spent sorting out those situations where it is not.

Alex Baker is the Secretary of the Young Fabians.

What is government for?

This isn’t a glib question. Or the start of some quest for anarchy. Rather, it strikes me that this is the one question which is absent from much of the noise about deficits and cuts and economic policies.

Politicos claim the state is either too big or not doing enough, too powerful or not powerful enough, and that is either a good thing or a bad thing (or you’re indifferent), depending on your tribe. Cuts are either good because they reduce the deficit or the amount of tax payable, or they are bad because some people use the services or it will affect employment.

Economists aren’t much better. Theorists either claim that the only way to stave off impoverishment the likes of which we’ve never seen before is to engage in a slash-and-burn fiscal policy, or they claim that only way to reduce debt is to spend more, presumably on roads and infrastructure which may or may not be used.

But surely discussions around what to cut and when should be second order to a view of what government is actually for? Where intervention is desirable and necessary? And how best to implement any intervention? Economic policy should flow from this, rather than the other way round.

In some senses the role of the government is implicit in much of the discourse, but it isn’t explicit. And in any event, the cart appears before the horse.

We’re in a state where the dominant political ideology is defined by the direction of public expenditure, not about why, where or how the state intervenes. And the opposition to that ideology is just that – pure opposition to an ideology, with no tangible sense of what the government ought to do either.

In my mind this leads to some pretty perverse outcomes. For example – surveys claiming public sector workers, if made redundant, would struggle to find new employment being used as a justification to keep them on the public payroll (it’s not clear to me this is an unambiguously good thing); or cuts to existing benefits whose wider consequences seem ill-considered relative to the benefit the taxpayer derives.

Seemingly, not being able to articulate a vision for government beyond the amount it contributes to public expenditure is a problem for the right. And not being able to articulate a vision for government which justifies its contribution to public expenditure is a problem for the left.

Of course, it might be naively optimistic to hope for anything different.

Alex Baker is Secretary of the Young Fabians.