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Fifty years since Crosland’s Future of Socialism. What have we gained? Not happiness. We were happier then. Not community. Not localism. Not equality
Labour is now the conservative enemy. We are the opponents of equality and fairer taxation, the advocates of meritocracy.
The defence mechanisms the working-class once had: the unions, community, solidarity, full employment and free collective bargaining, are broken. Their Party no longer protects them because we are whoring after other votes. The disgruntled working-class are drifting to fascist Parties – or not voting at all. Why should they?
We’re full of policies on irrelevant esoteric mini-issues, from landfill tax to smoking bans. We have none on the basic issue of equality and no guts.
Polls and focus groups provide our ideology. Brown versus Blair our debate. We have no life, ideas or existence, independent of the Leader. Crosland’s prescription is still right today.
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Once we were a Party bubbling with argument, discussion, ideas and debate. Now there’s none. Factions like Tribune or Manifesto are dead. No principled groupings, only careerists clustering round Blair, Brown, or for those risking a long shot, Clarke or Hain. Our raison de not very much etre is to ensure that whatever Tony wants Tony gets.
He has an idea. The Departmental Minister pushes it through. Protests produce minimal concessions but leave the principle unchanged. It gets a second reading by bribery, bullying, or deceit, then however small the majority it’s made it. The Standing Committee is packed with loyalists who sing its praises. The report stage is so rushed and confusing no-one knows what’s happening. The House of Lords quibbles but either gives way or is overruled in the end. And all that without the Party discussing it at all.
Bingo! the disaster is in place – Foundation Hospitals which don’t work, Fees which force a generation into debt, Regionalism the voters reject, PFIs which lumber the NHS with debt, Education reforms which flog the schools to Saudi Arabia or Alan Sugar. Not what I remember voting for. But who’s to stop it? If this is the best Government by Party can do it’s time to dismantle it and have PR. What function do the Parties now serve, except to prop up whichever Leader has hi-jacked them?
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Crosman once said that Labour pretends to give the rank and file influence over policy in return for their work at elections.
Both pretences are now gone. Policy comes from the top down, drizzled down like pesto or chucked at us in lumps. The election work is done by professionals paid for by millionaires.
Labour trades insolvent. Its branches are liable to takeover. Its members drift away because there’s nothing for them to do: Councils are impotent, School Governors aren’t political, CHCs are gone, and Housing and Education are being taken away from Councils.
Parties need drastic reform before it’s too late and the best prescription of the Society for the Preservation of Political Parties: mass membership on a £5 sub, State aid, and a limitation on national campaign spending. Give Members a real involvement via the internet. Save Labour for the Nation. |
