The Myth of the Military

This year, the traditional race for Christmas Number 1 produced an unusual winner- ‘Wherever You Are’ by the Military Wives’ Choir.

The chart-topping success of this makeshift group did not come as a big surprise to most pundits. A stirring, if sentimental, ballad, ‘Wherever You Are’ was composed by the real life partners of British soldiers on active duty, under the guiding hand of BBC’s choral whizzkid Gareth Malone.

Some of the proceeds of each sale go to the Royal British Legion and Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen Families Association. In addition, the track provides the everyman with the opportunity to demonstrate solidarity with British fighting men and women overseas and their partners- at a time of year when their separation must feel that bit more painful. At £1.99, many patriotic Britons would regard it as an insult if not every man, woman and child bought a copy.

There is certainly something noble about raising awareness of military families in Britain today. The unusual strains placed on the partners and children of soldiers on active duty cannot be properly understood by the rest of us, and it will be interesting to watch how the government responds to this popular outpouring of support in the new year.

However, this campaign brings into focus a broader development that has less benevolent social consequences. I am talking about the mythologizing of the British Armed Forces.

Nation-states have always been proud of their military heritage, and Britain can boast one of the most historically successful armed forces of all time. Martial pride often goes hand in hand with patriotic fervour, but in this latter respect Britons express conflicting views. We are not all the flag-waving, anthem-singing brand of patriots so prevalent in America. Yet those who admit to being ashamed of our country’s actions throughout history, and uneasy about our role in the modern world, are still shouted down on the comment pages of newspapers and television talk shows. A survey by Demos revealed that 79% of respondents stated they were proud to be British citizens, and that over 50% of English people, 55% of Welsh and 46% of Scottish are proud of Britain’s role in the world.

Pride in one’s country is no bad thing in itself, but it can distort perceptions of right and wrong when a nation is at war. Before the first shots are fired, commentators and armchair analysts have free rein to denounce and decry its government’s decision to go to war, but once British citizens are put in harms’ way, a sort of populist patriotism demands that critics put up or shut up.

The media tapped into this culture during the 1980s. Richard Vinen notes that it was during the Falklands War that The Sun came out as ‘the paper that supports our boys’. Today, the same paper holds the annual ‘Military Awards’, where celebrities and figures from popular culture present trophies for various battlefield exploits to soldiers who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Glamorising the very serious jobs performed by servicepersons, and their violent actions in the field, seems at odds with the desire to promote peace over war. One prize- the ‘True Grit Award’ was given to one soldier “for heroically jumping from his tank and tackling a Taliban fighter.” The focus of the ‘Millies’ seems very much on incidences of individual exploit rather than on the wider context of the conflict. It takes recognition of actions beyond the call of duty up to the level of hero-worship, at which point those who buy into this myth begin to forget the reasons why servicepersons are sent into harm’s way in the first place- to promote national security.

As Simon Jenkins rightly points out, none of the foreign interventions British governments have embroiled themselves in the last ten years have had a direct bearing on our national security. Those who pedal populist patriotism are fond of saying “our boys are fighting for our country” but rarely ask why they are fighting for their country or whether their actions are making Britain more or less safe. The terrorist attacks of 7 July 2005 are a terrifying example of how conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq has made the country less safe. If the popular media continues to glamorise the work of soldiers with events like the ‘Millies’, or smother the debate on ‘just war’ with romantic sentiment- as in ‘Wherever You Are’- we may cease to ask these burning questions altogether.

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

What’s the point of PMQs?

Prime Minister’s Questions is about as alienating as Erskine May. If it’s an opportunity to shop window politics to the public, then we’re going to have to do better than showcasing a public school version of 8 Mile.

Of course, we’re often told – after Bercow has hush hushed MPs – that the public actually rather enjoy the Yo’ Mama aspect of the spectacle. But in actual fact, about half say they enjoy it and half say they’d rather see something a little more… constructive. For the Westminster Village it’s the highlight of the week, so that leaves the rest of the viewers outside of the bubble scratching their heads week in, week out. But for politicos a certain degree of over importance is attached to it. Commentators often use it as a barometer for how the leader is performing overall; bloggers score the contestants based on whether they’ve “won” or “lost” over the six rounds of questions, and MPs pack themselves into the House for a bit of live theatre.

But the level of interest it generates has nothing to do with how valuable it is to our democracy. It’s the one time a week we know that David Cameron and Ed Miliband will come up against eachother, so the hype surrounding it has more to do with the people than the format.

Does the format even allow for effective scrutiny of the executive? Half of the questions come from the prime minister’s own side, and can any opposition leader effectively hold the prime minister to account when they’re so limited by time? The quick exchanges incentivise point scoring and render any depth to questioning pointless. As a consequence, the public are presented with a hotch-potch of messaging, lines and planted questions that do more harm than good if the desire is to instill trust in politicians and engage with voters.

Contrast the format of PMQs with the incredibly popular Question Time. It’s far less confrontational, but there are still lively debates, and without the shackles of parliamentary protocol the discussion feels a lot more natural. Instead of PMQs, why not have the main party leaders answering questions from the public for an hour in a television studio? Like the leaders debates, but every week.

The interest those debates generated superceded even Sky’s imagination, and they set the ball rolling. They showed that people are interested in politics, as long as it’s presented in the right way. So instead of being flies on the wall why can’t we be active participants in the scrutiny of the executive? We might even do a better job than MPs.

Matt Zarb-Cousin is the editor of the Young Fabians blog, and the Secretary and Press Officer for the Young Fabians.

Bankrupting the ‘Big Society’

This summer, the Department of Communities and Local Government published ‘Inspiring Communities, Changing Behaviour’.  With the backing of the slightly sinister sounding ‘Big Society Delivery and Vanguard Division’, this document serves two purposes: first, to explain the government-funded ‘Inspiring Communities’ project; second, to offer tips and guidance to those who want to launch similar outreach programmes.

However, what it represents in reality is the withdrawal of state support from community initiatives founded by the Labour government.

In 2009, the ‘Social Exclusion Task Force’ – an organ of Gordon Brown’s Cabinet Office – launched a pilot scheme to improve the aspirations and attainment of young people in some of the poorest areas in Britain. Extensive research into the long-term personal and social effects of having ‘low horizons’ and inadequate qualifications made a solution to this problem a national imperative. The report noted that “educational and career aspirations developed during adolescence can have lifelong significance, influencing future occupational outcomes.” Meanwhile, a ‘poverty of aspiration’ was linked to low attainment and below-average employment.

‘Inspiring Communities’ sought the help of community groups and neighbourhood partnerships in building activity programmes and learning projects that could make a real difference to young people’s perception of the world and themselves. 64 of the most deprived local authorities in Britain were targeted, and 15 were selected in the summer of 2009 to share a £10 million government fund. This money was put to use by local stakeholders to create innovative community programmes aimed at encouraging younger people to expand their horizons and developing their self-esteem.

In Barnsley, the local partnership used government sponsorship to expand ‘The Barnsley Academy’, an initiative that sought to inspire and motivate young people while encouraging parents to engage with their children’s future. Thetford’s partnership founded a ‘Meet-Up Cafe’ “for young people to meet and take part in a range of activities.”

Many of these schemes enjoyed great success. The ‘Meet-Up Cafe’ boasts a membership of 150 young people, who get involved in all manner of inter-generational volunteering. The Rawmarsh Neighbourhood Partnership established a panel of young ‘Community Ambassadors’ to devise a project that would both bring the community together and provide its younger members with the experience of organising and executing a medium-scale event. They settled on producing a music festival, which goes live later this year.

The effect of such programmes on young people cannot be underestimated. During the evaluation stage of the programme, 38% of questionnaire respondents “felt their campaign had made a big difference to young people’s attitudes and behaviour”, with 62% responding that it had made “some difference”. A number of case studies included in the report testify to the positive influence these campaigns have had on the aspirations and motivations of young people.

The success of the programme has been rebranded by the current government as the adventurous vanguard of the Big Society in action. ‘Inspiring Communities, Changing Behaviour’ contains plenty of practical tips and guidelines to help budding social entrepreneurs establish their own partnerships and launch their own schemes.

However, the language used near the end of the document betrays how the Coalition is seemingly offering opportunity on the one hand, while withdrawing it with the other. The report admits that “government funding ended in March 2011”, forcing the initiatives set up under the scheme to source income from “local partners” in the private sector.

Elsewhere, it is left unclear how certain activities are supposed to continue over the coming months. On one activity targeting NEETs in North East Lincolnshire, the report states “it is hoped the work will be sustained through a partnership with a local college.” The impression is that many of these projects have been thrown into limbo and forced to fight on their own for survival.

‘Inspiring Communities’ thus serves as an example of the paradoxes that lie at the heart of the Coalition’s ‘Big Society’ project. Individuals and partnerships who have established working programmes in their local area are held up as community champions. The government provides advice and ‘how to’ guides for those who seek to emulate them. However, it would appear that the government is wilfully ignorant of the fact that the programmes in Thetford, Barnsley and Rawmarsh were all financed by the state, and require more money to survive.

Yes, the government should do its bit to create a climate where individuals and partnerships are encouraged to do more in their local area for young people. But it still remains the case that the state can do the greatest good by providing funds to those who seek to improve their communities. All projects need an idea and money to become reality.

Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ is asking people to find both for themselves.

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

• Further reading: Inspiring Communities: Customer Insight Research Report, Inspiring Communities, Changing Behaviour: A Guide, Aspirations and Attainment in Deprived Communities

Chalk and Cheese? Comparing the British and American Police

The fallout from the English riots has left few public institutions unaffected. Arguably, the Metropolitan Police has attracted the lion’s share. Officers were lambasted by politicians and members of the public alike for standing idly by on the streets while looting took place, and chiefs were criticised for employing the wrong tactics and deploying the wrong numbers to the wrong areas.

The government has pointed to these failings as evidence of a wider malaise in policing, and is using the public opprobrium to strengthen its case for police reform. The Prime Minister has turned his gaze across the Atlantic for inspiration, hiring US ‘Supercop’ Bill Bratton as an adviser on gang violence in London.

The appointment has caused uproar in Scotland Yard, and divided opinion across the media. There is suspicion across the political spectrum that Cameron wants to impose a US-style policing model on the capital – a poor fit for a city that bears little relation to the American metropolises of New York and Los Angeles.

This in turn has provoked an interesting debate: just how dissimilar are the US and UK styles of policing?

In some ways, the differences are clear from the badges that British ‘bobbys’ and American ‘cops’ display on their chests.

The British police are members of a ‘service’, and therefore – in theory – are public servants bound to their local communities, who exercise their powers in accordance with a tacit social contract with the people they serve. This operational model was first conceived by Sir Robert Peel, the father of the modern police force. In his 1820 manual “Principles of Policing” he stressed the importance of integrating the police service with local communities, stating how all officers must: “maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police”.

However, over recent decades this relationship has been distorted somewhat by the increased centralisation of state powers in the capital. The centralised funding structure has shifted power to shape policing policy to London bureaucrats, and in the process removed the pressure of accountability from local chiefs to Westminster politicians. As a consequence, Britain has a centrally-directed, top-down model of policing that bears little resemblance to Peel’s original vision of local forces sensitive to the requirements of their communities.

There is also little of Sir Robert’s philosophy underlying policing on the other side of the Atlantic. Primarily, this reflects the diverse nature of the American population, the federal structure of the United States and the often antagonistic relationship American citizens have with government authorities.

First of all, the number and variety of US police departments frustrates any commitment to the “consent and serve” model. America has an incredible 17,000 police agencies (compared with Britain’s 52) which vary in size and jurisdiction, from tiny country sheriff’s departments to sprawling city departments like the LAPD. As Bill Bratton observed, “none of them respond to a national mandate”, but enforce the law according to the dictates of local political authorities. This means there is a wide range of operational styles in practice across the country that defies standardisation.

However, one similarity does unite them.

American police officers are members of a ‘force’ whose focus is on ‘crime control’ rather than servicing the community. The constitutional right to bear arms requires American officers to carry weapons, while legal ambiguities concerning individual liberty often restrict their ability to stop and search, and stymie healthy relations with the public.

These factors have nurtured a culture where the police are separate from the communities they serve, and often operate in conflict with them. Jennifer Abel states that the US police today wield “immense power” and employ “aggressive tactics against their own citizenry.” Such statements are corroborated by the findings of an independent research paper, which reveals that complaints against excessive force to law enforcement agencies doubled between 2005/2008*.

This makes American cops sound more like tooled-up paramilitaries than public servants. However, the British police are no angels themselves. Recently, we have witnessed the questionable killing of Mark Duggan and the botched disclosure of the circumstances of his death. A few weeks ago, the Met’s Chief Commissioner resigned following evidence he accepted bribes from News of the World employees (he was later cleared of misconduct).

Both the American and British police systems are dysfunctional, and in Britain it is right that politicians tackle “the last great unreformed public service”. However, those in charge of reshaping the police must be sensitive to the fact that the American model has evolved to contain crime in a much more violent and diverse country than our own. As such, it cannot be held up as the ultimate answer.

After all, what works in California will not necessarily work in Cambridgeshire.

Louie Woodall is Assistant Editor of the Young Fabian Blog

*Bruce Taylor, ‘Changes in officer use of force over time: a descriptive analysis of a national survey’, Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, Volume 34:2
Police Executive Research Forum, Washington, DC, USA

Lessons in spin – “lane-charging”

Wahoo! Today the Department of Transport have been parading their sparkly new* initiative to charge utilities companies which disrupt commuters during peak travel periods.

Transport Secretary Philip Hammond says of the proposals:

“Everyone knows how frustrating it can be when you are sat in a traffic jam, unable to get to work or drop off the children at school because someone is digging up the road.

Yeah. EVERYONE knows that Phil. Even people who can’t drive and don’t use public transport and don’t have kids. They’re really frustrated.

“This disruption is expensive as well as inconvenient, with one estimate valuing the loss to the economy from road works congestion at £4 billion a year. We simply cannot afford this.

£4bn quid a year? Outrageous! I could buy shed-loads of scratchcards for that. Obviously if we can shift that cost from commuters by making those evil utility providers pay, that would be great!

“That is why I am putting forward proposals which would incentivise utility companies and local authorities to carry out their works at times when they will cause the minimum disruption to the travelling public.”

Totes amazing Phil! You are a genius. So glad we have a modern day Transport hero like you sticking it to those evil corporations.

And it’s a good job I can’t be bothered to read the actual consultation document or supporting impact assessments. Otherwise I might realise that:

• Because of the way utilities companies are regulated, they can pass on unavoidable costs to consumers. So higher costs means higher utility bills. I guess that means that the costs to commuters would just be shifted to gas, electricity, telecoms and water consumers, right? But aren’t they broadly the same people as the commuters? So commuters will save some costs which will be paid for by… commuters! D’oh!
• If the lane-charging costs are avoidable, then regulators can prevent the utilities companies from passing the costs on to consumers. But how often are road-works actually ‘avoidable’? Probably only a proportion of the time right? In which case, we’re probably going to continue to incur some of the £4bn in costs, aren’t we?
• Oh, and I see that you’re limiting the scheme to critical highways. So costs to commuters on non-critical parts of the highway won’t be defrayed? That means more of the £4bn in costs remain, right?
• Yep, they are. The DfT impact assessment shows this. In the preferred policy option, the DfT estimates that charges will result in a reduction of costs to commuters of £46m per annum (that’s their “best estimate” of the benefits), with costs to utility firms of £11.2m.
• Hang on! I thought the costs to commuters were £4bn per annum? So if the proposals are going to generate only £46m in benefit to consumer each year, that’s only a 1% reduction in costs!???! WTF?!

I thought you said we couldn’t afford £4bn in costs Phil? Then you go and save me £46m in costs. That’s like loose change to you government types. You might just as well not bothered. In austerity Britain, I don’t get out of bed for more than 10-figures in cost-savings.

Oh, but journalists are lazy and didn’t read the documents either. So I have no way of knowing that your recycled* policy initiative is the equivalent of pissing in the wind! Huzzah!

And you get to sound all clever and stuff on the radio talking about ‘nudge economics‘.

You really are quite brilliant, aren’t you Phil!

Alex Baker is Secretary of the Young Fabians and Editor of the Young Fabians blog.

*As far as I can tell, this scheme was piloted in Camden and Middlesbrough eight years ago and found to be little more than useless.

The Search for ‘Community’

A buzzword, a fiction, or a societal necessity? The idea of a “community” is something that has been hotly debated over the last two weeks. The unrest in Tottenham can point the way to a better understanding of this term in the modern age.

Many favourite political themes have resurfaced over the last couple of weeks in response to the “wake-up call” afforded by the recent riots. The Prime Minister has resurrected “the broken society”, “responsibility” and “right and wrong” in his keynote speech diagnosing the cause of one hundred hours of lawlessness. Ed Miliband, keenly aware that the aftershocks of the unrest have reshaped the political battleground, is both complementing and criticising the Coalition by flagging up social irresponsibility at both ends of the economic spectrum and demanding a closer scrutiny of “the culture of our society.”

However, the one word that is trending most popularly with politicians, pundits, and the public is one that continues to elude a simple definition: “community”.

What is a “community”? The term rests uncomfortably in a web of ideas, meanings and beliefs that are continually shifting to form new connections. The man on the street would probably describe a community as a close-knit collection of individuals, welded together by their shared residency in a particular neighbourhood or borough. He may add that a community is bound together by its members’ obligation to safeguard mutual interests and promote local improvements – be they social, economic or cultural.

However, that definition rings false in the ears of many whose neighbours are alien to them and who feel little attachment to their particular patch of concrete. Now more than ever, it seems nonsensical- why would individual members of a community effectively wage war on their fellows if they are bound together by such meaningful ties?

Perhaps our man on the street would expand to say that a community can also mean a collection of people united by an idea, or against a specific grievance. Such communities are not confined to localities, and can transcend racial and cultural differences. Under this definition, the number of communities in any one area greatly multiplies.

David Lammy MP may talk about his Tottenham constituency as being one community, but the behaviour of many there suggests that this singular entity has fractured into different parts, if it ever existed in the first place. The riots in Tottenham (I’m setting aside disturbances elsewhere in this post) can be perceived as a clash of communities, some long established, and some newly formed.

The rioters became an ad hoc community on 6 August, unbound by a shared motive but united in their anger towards the police and the intrusive authority they were seen to represent. They chanted “Whose streets? Our streets!” as they attacked the police whose duty it is to protect them and destroyed the buildings that made up their local landscape. As Sam Leith rightly pointed out: “‘our streets’ is an answer that only begs another question: ‘Who’s us?’”

For several nights, ‘us’ was a spontaneous community of mainly young, local residents who, despite the divisions of postcode and ethnicity, shared many similarities. They shared a culture – a street culture unique to the ethnically diverse neighbourhoods of the capital, one which places a premium on the defence of a person’s ‘yard’ (home) and ‘end’ (local area). They shared a grievance with the police- who were seen to be a force of oppression and discrimination. They even shared a language, clumsily called “Multicultural London English” (MLE), from which terms like ‘Feds’, ‘gansta’ and ‘shank’ derive.

Another community that could rightly claim ‘our streets’ as their own include the residents of Tottenham who took part in the initial peaceful protest against the police’s bungled disclosure of Duggan’s shooting. They marched against the perceived injustice and jeered at the police, but did not take part in the riot or use the opportunity to loot and pillage. The members of this community were derived from a wider variety of social backgrounds and ages, yet clearly shared a sense that they had been misled or cheated by the police.

The other community involved were those who stayed at home, who sided with the police and condemned all those involved in the clash. These were the people who David Lammy was most likely referring to when he stated that the community was “anxious”.

Certainly, not everyone in Tottenham was. The first community was angry, violent and selfish. The second was angry, disillusioned and frustrated. The third was fearful, uneasy and threatened.

Tottenham is not one community. It is many. So are all the other communities torn apart by the recent violence. The way forward is to find a way to reconcile these different groups in peaceful coexistence.

It is time to junk the outdated logic that a “community” is something wedded to a specific place. A “community” is an idea that takes a different shape in the minds of different people. In Tottenham, one community is moved by the idea of police oppression, another by the havoc caused by “feral youths”. Attempting to meld them together will only cause tensions in the future.

What is needed is a new discourse on “community”, and a retreat from the idea that all our difference can be subsumed beneath a shared postcode.

Louie Woodall is Assistant Editor of the Young Fabian Blog.

Smash and Grab Britain

Reflecting on all the online chatter about whether the riots were caused by the cuts and/or the recession, and also all the talk about the rioters having a sense of ‘unearned entitlement’, it struck me that a better reading might be that both phenomena (the recession/cuts and the looting/riots) may stem from the same social malaise, which has just manifested itself in different ways at the top and bottom of the social food chain.

The narrative would run something like this: Britain is country where for years smash and grab activities by banks and bankers have been tolerated, politicians have committed expenses fraud with impunity and where both politicians and the police have been in the pockets of the right wing media, where a credit orgy for the middle classes led to a credit crunch that has put thousands of working class people out of work, and where an unelected government intends to pay for the bail out of the very same financial system by cutting benefits and services to the most vulnerable, justifying its agenda with spin about a ‘big society’ that can only ever exist in communities that least need it.

When the culture of ‘Smash and Grab Britain’ hits the streets, should we be surprised?

Claire Leigh is Treasurer of the Young Fabians.

Is Britain constitutionally challenged?

In this guest post, Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan MP, sets the scene for a speech he will give tomorrow on the British constitution at a joint Young Fabians/Society of Labour Lawyers event in London.

Labour’s 13 years in power were a period of major constitutional change for Britain – devolution for Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and London; introduction of the Human Rights Act and the Freedom of Information Act, creation of a Supreme Court; separation of the senior judiciary from our second chamber; and the removal of all but 92 hereditary peers from the House of Lords. The list goes on.

But while our record stands tall, I also recognise that we left some areas of constitutional change unfinished.

We’re now faced with a government who are playing with our constitution in a way which is not in the nation’s best interests, but is simply about preserving the harmony of the coalition.

Parliament length is being fixed at five years, boundaries are being re-drawn and the number of MPs reduced by 50 – all to favour one, or both, of the coalition partners, riding roughshod over our constitution. Other issues which are contentious between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have been kicked into the long-grass – again, to ensure harmony within the government rather than what is in the country’s best interests.

Our constitution deserves better than changes made simply to satisfy the short-term, partisan needs of this coalition.

A future Labour Government will be left with the challenge of putting the pieces back together and restoring public confidence in our constitution. But we must also continue the modernisation of our democratic structures that we started when in power – looking at improving and widening participation in democracy, devolving of power and whether the country might be better served by a written constitution.

Rt. Hon Sadiq Khan MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Justice (with special responsibility for constitutional reform)

Reviving the Fabians: What the new General Secretary must do

The selection of a new General Secretary is an important juncture for the Fabian Society. It is a chance to revisit our purpose and vision, refresh the way we do things and re-fit the organisation to the changing context in which it operates.

But for this opportunity to be fully realised, Andrew Harrop, who has been recently appointed as the Society’s new General Secretary, needs to be clear about the severity and nature of the challenges that we face.

We exist in a world in which many people have given up on politics, in which the social equality which the Society was founded to promote is facing its biggest onslaught for a generation, and in which Labour appears powerless against a Coalition Government which is both more radical and politically more stable than anyone thought possible a year ago. At the same time, the Society risks being marginalised as the labour movement seeks to rebuild, cast as a fuddy-duddy irrelevance that cannot provide the kind of transformative ideas the party needs.

More immediate crises – the precarious finances of the organisation, for example – need to be addressed as part of a much more fundamental stock-take that asks what the Fabian Society is for, where we want to get to and how we need to change in order to get there.

Over the next three years the Fabian Society needs to rediscover its ‘USP’ – its strengths and the things that set it apart – and then build on it. We are never going to be all things to all people. We need to know who we are and then endeavour to be really excellent at it. Our three unique characteristics also represent three important opportunities: our membership, our substance, and our independence.

Member-led

First and foremost the Society is a members-led organisation. But this needs to become something we actually do/live/breath rather than just say. Our members have a wealth of talents – specialist knowledge and skills, networks that extend far beyond the society’s reach, access to the movement outside London – and need to be given far more opportunities to use them.

We need to grow our membership across three dimensions: (1) by recruiting more members in absolute terms, (2) by diversifying our membership across age, location, gender and ethnicity and (3) by empowering members to engage more deeply with the Society and its activities.

Becoming a truly ‘members-led organisation’ is not only a way to have a greater influence and to draw on the creativity, energy and ideas of a greater number, it is also the smart way to expand Society activities at low cost. In other words we need ‘less top, more bottom.’ By capitalising on our greatest untapped asset the Society would at the same time demonstrate how the Fabian Society is not diametrically opposed to the Blue Labour/community organising zeitgeist, but rather can play a part in realising the vision of a revitalised grassroots movement.

Intellectually Substantial

Secondly, the Fabian Society is substantial and intellectual, and should be unashamedly so. Rather than combating accusations of wonkish irrelevance by dumbing down or taking a more populist approach, we should recognise that substance and new ideas is what the movement is crying out for, and the Fabian Society is better placed than anyone to provide it.

It is precisely our ability to offer big, singular new directions and ideas that will prevent us from becoming marginal or irrelevant. It is for this same reason that we should fight the urge to take a scattergun approach to our published outputs, events and media presence. Clear themes and substantial projects should continue to be the modus operandi. However, this should not necessitate an exclusive and centralised command and control approach. The Society could do far more to democratise involvement and ‘crowd source’ inputs from its members.

Affiliated but independent

Finally the Society’s USP rests on being affiliated to, but not part of, the Labour Party. This affords us an unequalled level of access to the party leadership and influence over parliamentarians. But it also means that we can be critical, objective and take risks in a way that the party itself is often unwilling or incapable of doing. While the Labour Party was in power the Society had one type of role to play. Now we have entered a period of opposition, another role is demanded of us. We need to rediscover an ‘opposition voice’ that is bolder in its vision for the left and more critical of the Coalition.

So the focus of the new General Secretary should be to help us as a Society rediscover who we are and what makes us unique, and then to focus on becoming really good at it. But there is little time for naval-gazing and time is of the essence. The next three years takes us almost to the next election, meaning internal reform must be front-loaded and efficiently managed.

The best of luck to Andrew as he takes the helm at an important and potentially exciting time in our history as an organisation.

Claire Leigh is Treasurer of the Young Fabians and was shortlisted for the position of Fabian Society General Secretary.

Politicians and sex

What can behavioural economics tell us about political sex scandals? More than you might think.

I’m currently reading Dan Ariely’s excellent book Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions. In one chapter, Ariely describes a study he undertook in 2006 which tested whether periods of sexual arousal altered responses to some questions about sex.

In short, they did.

For the study, Ariely got a number of young college men to answer a series of questions relating to sex. He then repeated the task but asked the students to ‘stimulate’ themselves while answering the questions. There were statistically significant differences in the way most questions were answered between the two states. For example: “Is a woman sexy when she is sweating?”  saw an increase in positive responses; so did “Can you imagine getting sexually excited by contact with an animal?”, “Would you slip a woman a drug to increase the chance she would have sex with you?” and “Would it be fun to get tied up by your sexual partner?” ; “Would you use a condom even if you were afraid that a woman might change her mind while you went to get it?” saw a decrease.

Ariely concludes:

Our results on attractiveness of activities suggest that sexual arousal acts as an amplifier of sorts. Activities that are not perceived as arousing when young males are not sexually aroused become sexually charged and attractive when they are, and those activities that are attractive even when not aroused, become more attractive under the influence of arousal. By showing that, when aroused, the same individual will find a much wider range of activities sexually appealing than when not aroused, these findings weigh in against the view of sexual preferences as being purely an individual difference variable—i.e., as dispositionally rather than situationally determined. Certainly, there are robust individual differences in sexual preferences and in the likelihood of engaging in various behaviors…

So what’s the link to political sex scandals?

The research seems to provide a rebuttal to the oft-used argument that exposing political sex scandals is most justified where hypocrisy has been committed (for example, the ‘family’ politician engaging in extra-marital affairs).

The research implies politicians are actually incapable of providing honest answers about sexual predilections when not aroused, compared to a state of arousal. So maybe we should be more forgiving of differences between publicly stated beliefs (when not aroused) and actual behaviour (when aroused)?

Equally, the research provides a strong argument for politicians to try and avoid making statements which might lead to hypocrisy. If they cannot accurately describe their beliefs when not aroused, they should simply avoid doing so.