It is actually about us. We are used to being on the side of virtue. We are used to being on the side of good. We revere our leaders as they stand up to dictators and crush oppression. We are respected and we are admired. We are decent and we are just. Only in the case of Iraq we weren’t these things. And it wasn’t a demonic figure of the right who had led us there. It was a messianic figure of the left who triumphed over the forces of Thatcherism. How could this be? We must have been duped. And then this leads us back to Tony Blair- and to his relationship with the Bush Presidency.

For those of us who reflexively oppose almost any military action- especially one led by a right-wing Republican President- this was always clear. The majority are far more circumspect in their assessment of any military action; this is especially the case with invasion and regime change. As US forces ended their combat mission in Iraq yesterday, this is especially timely. They were engaged in glorious service. But let’s not mark this moment with a new revisionism. The assessment of our time in Iraq must place costs alongside outcomes. And the cost was enormous- in terms of life lost, the moral authority of democracies, and the geo-political consequences. Was removing a brutal dictator and giving Iraq a chance at making freedom and democracy work an acceptable outcome for these costs?

My guess is that relatively few people would take that cost v outcome balance if it was laid before them. And that is the source of the anger and the guilt. There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction and no programme to develop them in any meaningful way. Saddam Hussein miscalculated and so did we. And there is a terrible guilt about associating ourselves as a nation with that. The obvious impulse is to deflect that onto Tony Blair.

For his part, he has been remarkably consistent. I find that both frustrating and admirable at the same time. He writes in the chapter on Iraq:

“But the notion of ‘responsibility’ indicates not a burden discharged but a burden that continues. Regret can seem bound to the past. Responsibility has its present and future tense.”

This is the admirable element of his position. He hasn’t ever tried to deflect or reapportion blame for what transpired. The frustrating element of his position comes in the overall tone of the chapter which essentially suggests that his opponents haven’t properly thought through their position. This is Blair the missionary, the salesman, the defence lawyer in action- if only he had more time, if only there were more open minds, if only all the facts would reveal themselves then he will persuade his opponents of his case. So we are treated to yet another justification where facts are crammed into narrative – often distorted to fit. But we’ve heard it all before so not a single mind will be changed as a result. However, none of this warrants the vengeful attacks on Tony Blair’s integrity. He is a man of honour and integrity. He takes responsibility for his decisions but just makes a different calculation of the justice of the Iraq War.

But we bear collective responsibility for the Iraq War also- ‘not in my name’ is an easy refrain. And the best way to handle that responsibility is to insist that the mistakes aren’t repeated- we never accept arguments for regime change that are pre-emptive and insufficiently conclusive, we weigh the risks alongside the mission, our media becomes far more questioning, our politicians far more insistent on better evidence and more sufficient post-war planning, and we have a better awareness of what we may be walking into. Some did of course, most notably Robin Cook whose reputation can do little but rise. The vast majority did not and in this we are bound by collective responsibility as a nation.

These memoirs are utterly transfixing from the extracts that I’ve had some time to read so far. The language can be imprecise and cumbersome but there are flashes of insight into the man, his world, and what it means to be Prime Minister in the early part of the twenty-first century. One man who will be reading them is David Cameron for sure.

Like President Lyndon Johnson, Tony Blair is a man whose enormous domestic achievements will be over-shadowed by a disastrous foreign invasion. If we can place our Blair rage to one side then our consideration of the man and his achievements will be far more textured and fair. His ten years in office rebuilt the UK’s public services, extended fairness, were economically successful, and instituted significant democratic reforms. New Labour relied too much on the market while failing to reform the state enough and over-extending its power. To critique is not to condemn. Critique is a positive process. To turn critique into rejection is a mistake. Too easy. And dishonest.

The Blair years were good for Britain on balance and he was a good Prime Minister who made a monumental mistake. He was an expression of Britain at the time and now we are moving on. To pour scorn on Tony Blair is to pour scorn on ourselves. I for one consider it better to assume a standpoint of collective responsibility rather than collective guilt.

Oh, and he won three elections- the only Labour leader in my lifetime to win even one.

Balls v Osborne is a economic death match. Only one can win and if you lose then you are politically broke. This is the argument of my LabourList column this week. Just because George Osborne has decided to bet all his chips on one strategy, it doesn’t mean that Labour should do so also. It is just not sensible economics or politics to go for this win or lose approach. If Labour goes down that road it will be left in the invidious position of secretly hoping for a economic downturn- it would be politically broke if there was a recovery. That’s exactly what George Osborne wants. Labour would be advised not to play his game. Even if the bet comes off, Labour would be tarnished in the process as the doom-mongers of British politics. And the outcome is anything but certain (and, for the record, OBR forecasts show a much greater chance of the recovery following George Osborne’s rather than Ed Balls’ path.)

No-one can predict the direction of the economy over the next few years with any degree of certainty. In essence, both have a point. The economy does still need fiscal support and a high and continuing deficit does pose a different but by no means insignificant risk. Both extend their position to its logical- and extreme- conclusion. And that is a mistake.

George Osborne has taken an enormous risk with the UK economy apparently with no plan B. For his plans to succeed they require three years of export and private sector investment growth at a level not seen since the mid-1960s. And this at a time when our main export economy is stagnant and the pound has appreciated again. He may get lucky and Labour should always remember that- the UK’s is still an open and dynamic economy that could respond energetically in the next few years. The issue is not *will* happen. The issue is the risk associated with that.

Ed Balls in his Bloomberg speech last week not only took the historical lessons- and these can be contested relatively easily- but turned the risk that George Osborne’s growth projections will be missed into a certainty. On that basis he proposed an equally risky economic strategy as a response. Should the tide turn and the UK had not demonstrated that it was serious about tackling the deficit then that would be a dire situation to be in.

A better approach for Labour is to demonstrate that it is serious about tackling the deficit at the earliest possible moment that didn’t jeopardise the recovery. Let George Osborne take the risk. And for the Chancellor, he’d be advised to contemplate a Plan B. Just in case.

I would even go as far as to say that the ‘yes’ campaign should actually be the ‘no’ campaign. It should be a no to our broken system of politics that allows MPs to be elected on just 29% of the vote. This means that they can afford to ignore up to two-thirds of their constituents should they choose. And it should be ‘no’ to a system that collapsed in scandal a year ago.

In fact, there are only two arguments for First Past the Post that I can see. Firstly, that it produces clear outcomes. But it doesn’t. We have a hung parliament and the breakdown of class blocks of voting means that hung parliaments will become more common without a major class-voting realignment. And as Patrick Dunleavy of the LSE reported yesterday, the ‘Westminster model’ or majoritarian political systems are no longer producing clear outcomes. Again, this would appear to be something structural- we are becoming more pluralistic societies and majoritarian political systems sit uncomfortably with pluralism hence the breakdown of the ‘clear outcome’ argument.

The second argument that has ostensible merit is the ‘maverick politician’ argument. This asserts that AV will make elections anodyne as the system awards the most popular candidate who offends the fewest voters. This is a stronger argument than the ‘clear outcome’ argument but is by no means decisive. It has acquired added force by the ‘safety first’ approach of the Labour leadership contest. However, there are very few ‘maverick politicians’ in the current system. Where there is a successful one- Boris Johnson as Mayor of London- he was elected under AV. The force of personality can out in any electoral system- are there no maverick politicians in Australia? Of course there are.

So the ‘yes’ campaign should actually be- in major part- the ‘no to the First Past the Post’ campaign. It should get stuck into a system that allows incumbents to be reelected election after election with no real reason to engage with anyone other than their political base. It disenfranchises the majority. It is a recipe for static politics and resistance to change. All these elements together mean that many politicians had become so disconnected from voters that there were able to become serial expenses fiddlers. Its claimed advantages don’t stand. Without stability and decisiveness it’s a dud system.

Under no circumstances should the campaign be about the Coalition. There will be pro and anti Coalition forces on each side and that needs to be clearly articulated then the conversation should be about the damaging nature of First Past the Post.

The message is simple: be nice and lose. Fight fire with fire and be the anti establishment campaign and you may win. If you let the status quo become the anti-establishment force then that is negligent. It is a critical battle. The ‘yes’ campaign will need to be as ruthless as the ‘no’ campaign if not more so. This referendum is there to be won but it will need an incredibly robust campaign. Who will step up to the plate?

To be honest, I was staggered when I first saw the poll. The areas where there was biggest gap between Labour’s lost and loyal voters had a very clear pattern. Some of the biggest differences were all seen in the questions related to the size, efficacy and function of the state.

When you take into account which voters Labour disproportionately lost- C2, D, E voters who are mainly working or lower middle class- these findings are even more stark. Ed Balls writes in The Times today about the three traps that Labour must not fall into in opposition. One is that it must remember that it was mainly working class voters that Labour lost not the middle classes. He’s right. But he omits the caution the party about understanding why it lost them. So he misses one gargantuan trap that the party could fall into- projecting the party’s assumptions onto voters. There is a very clear message that comes from the Demos poll. Labour must change and to not do so would be to fall into the biggest trap of all.

I’ve presented the poll findings in a small number of private settings to academic audiences etc and a number of objections have been raised. The first is the most telling- voters become less inclined to support public spending when there is a Labour government and more inclined when there is a Conservative one. This is empirically correct. However, I would say two things in qualification. This poll shows that only 14% of Labour’s lost voters believe the priority is to avoid cuts. That is exceptionally low by any standards. Secondly, the scepticism shown towards the state manifests itself across a number of dimensions not just spending.

Just take one area: we asked people whether the state was a help or a hindrance in the lives of the respondent and their family. By a margin of only 33%-27% lost Labour voters considered it to be a help rather than hindrance. The comparable figure for Labour’s loyal voters was 54%-14%. What’s more, in all these measures Labour’s lost voters are very near the national average. It’s the loyal voters who are a distance from the average.

The second objection to these findings is that all this will reverse once the coalition cuts bite and people fall in love with the state again. Undoubtedly, there will be some shift back to the party as a protest at the cuts- mainly from disillusioned Liberal Democrats or former Labour voters who didn’t vote.

But the concern with state is not just about its size. It’s about its form- over-centralised with too little choice and control. And it’s about its function as the ‘help or hindrance’ question demonstrates. Even if Labour wins the argument on avoiding cuts- which I suspect it will only do in part as it carries the can for their necessity in the first place- then it will still lose the form and function argument if it simply proposes returning to the world of May 2010.

This is all tough analysis and Labour can choose to listen and respond or not. But better to say this now rather than lose another election or two and then say it- or win an election narrowly but rapidly lose support and legitimacy thereafter. If I was David Cameron watching Labour in opposition I would be very relaxed indeed whatever the polls may say. He has the party exactly where he wants it regardless of any tactical victories. As things stand, Labour has decided not to change. And that will suit the coalition just fine.

If I was Waterstones I would be in a state of deep concern. I have a near monopoly on the High Street and so my business will survive as long as books do. And they will survive as there is a psychological attachment to the media in a way that there wasn’t to the same degree with CDs. Nonetheless, I would imagine that within ten years 20% at least of Waterstones sales will disappear which shifts the economics of iconic stores such as their flagship on London’s Piccadilly. The simple fact is that previously someone could browse the store then go and order from Amazon should they choose. That was bad enough. It’s even worse with e-books. Potential purchasers can go over the road and hook up to a Wifi connection and download it. They can even get a 3G connection *in the store* and download it right under their noses. What’s more, Waterstones don’t even sell the format of the book that people want!

Yesterday in a subway station I saw a Japanese guy reading manga on his iPhone. He was stood right in front of a kiosk which relies on manga sales to survive but would have bought (?) the manga online. It is not only booksellers who face challenge from new technology but newsagents will do also. But booksellers have a greater degree of control over their own destiny.

Surely Waterstones can use their power to both protect their business and improve the offer for their customers? For example, when you buy a CD you get to load it onto your Iphone. That is not the case when you buy the traditional version of the book- you don’t get it in digital format as well. Personally, I would be willing to pay a couple of quid extra for the traditional version of the book if one was able to download the electronic version also. Others would no doubt be just as willing. So Waterstones needs to get ahead of the game without going down the questionable route pursued by Barnes and Noble in the US which offers its own proprietary e-reader and online store. It will be blown out of the water by IPad and Kindle. If it succeeds in this then that would be very good news for independent book sellers also. The big fish would help the tiddlers instead of swallowing them up.

So that’s retail. What of publishing? Back to my changing reading habits. The first book I read on the IPad, I read in traditional fashion: largely a linear exercise. I made the same amount of notes that I would do normally (and hope to have a way to export those notes soon- still a way to go!) Then, and completely unconsciously, I started to read the second book in a completely different fashion: I began to read it more like a website. I had shifted to hyperlinked reading rather than linear reading. This has consequences for both publishers and writers.

Once books are read in this way, are they books at all anymore? For example, why not instead sell a package of materials that constitute the author’s argument? It could comprise a TED style talk, an overview of the argument with links to further analysis and evidence and even hyperlinks to external sources. The ‘book’ would then become a richer and more involved experience. You could even build communities around the ‘book’ and link it with social media. Imagine if your Twitter followers or Facebook friends see how involved you are with a particular ‘book’- will they not be tempted to buy in also?

And writers will need to be architects of their ‘books’ rather than authors per se. This applies mainly to non fiction as fiction books will remain largely linear- a story has a beginning, middle and end. Though even here there is no reason why rich content should not become part of the experience. It could even see revival of the wonderful ‘Choose your own adventure’ books that are probably the only reason- along with Roy of the Rovers and Match- that I continued reading in my primary school years.

All this is wonderful news for those publishers and writers who are prepared to innovate. If they are also prepared to work with retailers to innovate new products and distribution then it could be a golden age for the book industry. And all of this will be wonderful news for the reader.

In all honesty, I would be amazed if books in the digital age didn’t radically change our reading habits- in my case they are already doing so. iPod changed the volume and variety of the music I listen to and I expect iPad to do the same for the books I read. It is also radically changing the way I read and I find that extremely exciting, Oh, and this was written on a train heading to Kanazawa on WordPress for iPad. Brave new world. I wonder what Huxley- as a writer- would have made of it all?

This does not exonerate Labour. It has every right to oppose the Bill as drafted but that does not mean that it should. Left Foot Forward and Next Left have both sunk their teeth into the detail of the Bill. And their arguments are absolutely correct. Neither piece advocates outright opposition on the final reading though both stray dangerously close to that territory but wisely stop short. Unfortunately, that is where the Shadow Cabinet has gone and it is deeply regrettable.

The specific measures should be vigourously opposed at all stages but the elements of the Bill relating to the AV referendum should be enthusiastically endorsed. It was a Labour manifesto commitment. More importantly, if Labour truly believes in democratic reform then to oppose the Bill and appear to be roadblocks rather than leading the charge to reform is strategically weak.

And I go back to original argument I made:

“But from Labour’s point of view, that element [cut in number of constituencies] of the legislative package will, in all likelihood pass whatever I’m afraid. It is AV that is up for grabs. Labour has the opportunity to show that it can embrace reform and pluralistic politics. It can show that it is not stuck in the past; a defensive party unable to confront the future. And it is the right thing to do from the perspective of democratic accountability.”

The simple fact is that there appears to be a majority in Parliament for the reduction in the number of constituencies. If Labour opposes the legislation then there may not be a majority in Parliament for a referendum on AV. The sensible and strategic course of action would be to oppose the constituency reduction element of the Bill in the legislative process, enthusiastically support the referendum on AV and then abstain on the final Bill, all the while gearing up for a full-blooded campaign for a yes vote in the referendum.

Oh, and if you think this will crash the Coalition you may well be sorely mistaken. Because it won’t be David Cameron who gets the blame. It will be Labour. The party’s biggest problem is that it looks like the past rather than the future. In blocking a referendum on AV, Labour will seem to be an even more backwardly facing party- expediently so. And the really silly thing is that only one party stood at the last election in support of a referendum on AV: Labour. The party is in desperate need of new leadership and soon.

President Obama’s first year and half have been marked by huge legislative successes: healthcare, recovery and investment, and last week’s financial services reform package.

The importance of healthcare reform to not only the well-being of tens of millions of Americans but also to the US economy can not be underestimated. The US recovery has been rather less productive in creating jobs than the UK’s. The non-wage costs of healthcare should be underestimated and the benefit to deficit reduction over time will also be critical. Meanwhile, last week’s financial services reform package not only provides greater consumer protection but shelters to a degree the land economy- financed by Main Street banks- from the sea economy- where Hedge Funds and the like prowl. Recovery and reinvestment prevented the US economy from sliding off a cliff edge though there is still a worryingly jobless nature to the recovery as unemployment rates remain stubbornly high.

All in all though, the legislative achievements during Obama’s term of office have been impressive. His election victory was the most commanding since Lyndon B Johnson’s in 1964. His legislative achievements have been similarly prolific. A sound economy and the well-being of Americans have been a thread that has run through the most eye-catching measures.

And so it is all the more perplexing that the Administration has allowed environmental reform to slip down the agenda as it is a natural fit with its overall strategy for reform of the US state, economy and society. Strong environmental measures build a long-term economic base, create jobs, mitigate and slow the effects of climate change, provide energy security, and augment the US’ world leadership. Security, economic opportunity, environmental improvement and an enhanced global role and status, you’d think that would be an easy political sell. Yet, it has proved to be anything but.

The easiest thing in the world would be to blame the forces of darkness- the usual suspects (you know who they are.) Their strategy has been obvious and utterly predictable. It’s also been effective. And that is the failing of the Administration and where the blame lies as it is the White House that has the ability to lead in way that Congress can never do.

In simple terms, just as it failed to do initially on healthcare, the White House has failed to build a populist and convincing narrative for change. And what a failing. It could have placed its environmental policy at the core of post-recovery argument. Beyond recovery, what is the vision for a long-term, balanced economy? The irony is that President Obama gets this. His brilliant speech at the Carnegie Mellon University demonstrated that he gets it at a very profound level. Here are his comments on investment in clean energy:

“And that’s why I’ve said that as we emerge from this recession, we can’t afford to return to the pre-crisis status quo. We can’t go back to an economy that was too dependent on bubbles and debt and financial speculation. We can’t accept economic growth that leaves the middle class owing more and making less. We have to build a new and stronger foundation for growth and prosperity — and that’s exactly what we’ve been doing for the last 16 months.

It’s a foundation based on investments in our people and their future; investments in the skills and education we need to compete; investments in a 21st century infrastructure for America, from high-speed railroads to high-speed Internet; investments in research and technology, like clean energy, that can lead to new jobs and new exports and new industries.

This new foundation is also based on reforms that will make our economy stronger and our businesses more competitive — reforms that will make health care cheaper, our financial system more secure, and our government less burdened with debt.”

And:

“But the only way the transition to clean energy will ultimately succeed is if the private sector is fully invested in this future — if capital comes off the sidelines and the ingenuity of our entrepreneurs is unleashed. And the only way to do that is by finally putting a price on carbon pollution.”

His expression of the role of the state in all this (the speech also covers education reform and investment in general) is about right:

“The role of government has never been to plan every detail or dictate every outcome. At its best, government has simply knocked away barriers to opportunity and laid the foundation for a better future. Our people — with all their drive and ingenuity — always end up building the rest.”

So the case has been made. What has not happened is that the case has been translated into a mission. The corporate lobbyists have been confronted on their terms- the case has been an intellectual rather than a political one. It seems clear that the Carnegie Mellon University speech was designed to provide a framework for an economic and social mission. Yet within just a few short weeks a core argument of the speech- that the US will not change without a national carbon price- has been shot down.

What is most remarkable about all this is the context. And yes, I do mean the spill or to quantify it more precisely- the Gulf of Mexico environmental catastrophe.

In 1969, President Nixon- yes, you read right- responding with political alacrity to the Santa Barbara oil spill. Rolling Stone reports:

“By another logic, the disaster in the Gulf should have been a critical turning point for global warming. Handled correctly, the BP spill should have been to climate legislation what September 11th was to the Patriot Act, or the financial collapse was to the bank bailout. Disasters drive sweeping legislation, and precedent was on the side of a great leap forward in environmental progress. In 1969, an oil spill in Santa Barbara, California – of only 100,000 barrels, less than the two-day output of the BP gusher – prompted Richard Nixon to create the EPA and sign the Clean Air Act.”

The meaning of the Gulf of Mexico disaster is important. As the US tries to release its dependence on dangerous and potentially hostile nations to meet its energy needs, there will be an increasing temptation for it to attempt ever more risky oil exploration and drilling in its indigenous territory. As this pursuit becomes more risky then the cost increases enormously: and the costs come in lost human life, environmental destruction, as well as economic costs. The only benefit is security. That shouldn’t be underestimated given the high cost of US foreign policy in the last decade but it is an extremely skewed approach. The point about Deepwater Horizon is not BP negligence (and that is still being established or not) but the inevitable breakdown that comes once risks reach a certain point. It’s not chance or luck; it is simply a matter of time.

Whatever the aesthetic merits, solar and wind power do not present anything like the same risks. However, alone they may be a security of energy supply risk. Nuclear power poses much less risk than deepwater drilling though the cost of any breakdown is enormous in well-being, economic and environmental terms. There is no perfect alternative solution to reliance on foreign oil. However, with vision, strategy and capital mobilisation, there may be a better balance of risks, costs and benefits. That will require leadership. Unfortunately, that is sorely lacking at present.

One hope remains. Back in 2007, Massachusetts and eleven other states took the Environmental Protection Agency to the Supreme Court on account of its refusal to regulate Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act 1969. They won.

The EPA now has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases. Legislative attempts to curtail that authority have failed. No doubt any attempt to use that authority in a meaningful way will lead to charges of communism and the like so there will need to be a sophisticated political strategy to accompany any move by the EPA to take action. In the short term, using the EPA’s legally sanctioned authority may provide a way forward.

American political history is littered with irony. What this course would mean in effect is that an agency created in response to an oil spill in 1969 would help shift the US onto a more environmentally sound course. It would also make Richard Nixon an environmental hero. Strange how things turn out.

Into this scene wonders Ian Tomlinson- on his way home to the Isle of Dogs. In the tension of the moment- in the wrong place at the wrong time- he is struck with a police baton on the back of his leg and falls to floor. The police officer is clad with a balaclava and their badge is blacked out (gender is indeterminate.) Ian Tomlinson has his back to the officer when he is struck. He crawls away in perplexity and later, and utterly coincidentally, 100 yards from the attack, he dies.

What we are asked to believe is that there no link between event one- an unprovoked attack on Ian Tomlinson- and event two- Ian Tomlinson’s death. That is what the pathologist, Freddy Patel, brought in by the City of London coroner concluded. It was one of the more remarkable coincidences since Julius Caesar, having been stabbed in the back by Brutus, also suffered a fatal stroke just a few seconds later. These coincidences happen.

So let’s applaud the CPS for a decision not to pursue a manslaughter case again the police officer concerned. Sure there is video footage showing the whole chain of events. Here it is:

Inconclusive I’m sure you’ll agree. And let’s not ignore the second bizarre coincidence in this case. The original pathologist, Freddy Patel, is appearing before a GMC misconduct disciplinary hearing. Oh, and a second pathologist report concluded that Ian Tomlinson did die of bleeding related  to the baton blow. Again, these things are complex and clearly the loss of 60% of your blood as a result of any injury due to a blow is not necessarily fatal. Of course not.

I’m sure, looking at the evidence, any prosecuting barrister would have immense difficulty making a case for manslaughter against the police officer involved so the CPS is right not to risk it. There’s the obvious tragic coincidence. Freddy Patel’s record is clearly unblemished and unimpeachable. The case would not stand up in any court of law. The officer’s actions were clearly proportionate to the situation they faced. The balaclava and covered badge were clearly not a pre-emptive cover up.

So well done City of London police, IPCC (slow off the mark), City of London Coroner, and the CPS. You’ve seen that justice was done. And if I were to walk out of this building now and club a random passer by and they were to coincidentally die a few moments later also, I’m sure that my case would never go before a court also. It’s irrelevant that it was a police officer involved.

It’s a good job all this is the case. Because if it it were otherwise, some people may conclude that officers of the law are above the law. And what would that mean for the rule of law? It would render it irrelevant. We could all, in principle, do what we please and then it’s just down to who has the biggest baton and the most powerful swing. What sort of country would we be living in then? Luckily, that’s not the case……

During the 1970s, the Ford Pinto was one of the biggest selling subcompact cars in the United States. Named after the Horse Pinto, it started life as a two-door coupe and was introduced under the tagline ‘The Little Carefree Car’. With a certain prescience, Ford’s advertising agency later dropped the following from a radio commercial – ‘Pinto leaves you with that warm feeling’; prescient because the Pinto’s later fall from grace was as a result of a fuel tank prone to explode following rear-end collisions.

Ford had estimated that if no changes to the fuel tank were made there would be 180 deaths and 180 burn injuries. In a cost benefit analysis later revealed to a US jury, Ford calculated the overall ‘cost’ of the safety improvement as $ 49.5 million. This was based on an estimate of $ 200,000 per human life and $ 67,000 per injury. By contrast, the cost of fixing the fuel tank for 12.5 million Pinto vehicles was calculated by Ford as $ 137.5 million, i.e. $ 88 million more. QED. The cheaper option was chosen. When a US jury assessed punitive damages following one such injury, unsurprisingly, they went berserk.

Ford had, according to Professor Michael Sandel, adopted a purely utilitarian approach, as reflected in a (Benthamite) cost benefit analysis. Certainly, they had a highly rationalistic calculation of the risks. There was no visible evidence of empathy towards the individuals and families that might be affected, seemingly treating them as a cost of doing business. Ford’s analysis was numerate, logical and utterly mechanical, in essence it was left-brained. It was the type of thinking suited to the – you can have whatever colour you like, as long as it is black – Fordist age. If the people at Ford had been more right-brained – empathetic, creative, seeing the bigger picture – they might have approached the problem very differently.

The left-brain dominant types amongst you are right now searching for the memo – a version is here – and are chomping at the bit ready to perform your own calculations. You will probably review whether $200,000 was too low (the figure was based on the average value of a lost adult life according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration); then consider whether numerical account was taken of legal cost (indirect costs such as hospital, legal and funeral costs were considered). You may reasonably point out that 500 people lost their life, not 180 as Ford estimated. You will note that assessment was not made of reputational risk and treat that as an error in the analysis. Much like the chocolate biscuit machine in Bagpuss, you believe that fed the right butterbeans and breadcrumbs, the chocolate biscuit will pop out. Your response to a consistent stream of failures, scandals and disasters may well have been that all risks can and should be made governable and auditable; that the failure of Ford was not being left-brained, but being not left-brained enough. If so, you would not be alone.

There has been a risk management explosion, as highlighted by Michael Power in his Demos Paper ‘The Risk Management of Everything’. Risk management has entered our lexicon and extended its tentacles such that, according to Power, even concepts of national security and ideas of preventative military action are being thought of within the conceptual architecture of risk management.

Risk managers talk of risk mapping, risk-based decision making, risk frameworks, risk intelligent solutions, or propose impressive calculations (e.g. risk = uncertain future results + consequences x probability). In the absence of an agreed English definition, search is made elsewhere: Latin (risicare meaning ‘to dare’) or Chinese (apparently the characters for risk contain elements of both danger and opportunity). The latter has even been characterised as mitigating (a) potential adverse consequences and (b) the sub-optimization of gain.

Problems arise where Bagpuss’ butterbeans and breadcrumbs do not take into account human behaviour (in particular how human beings handle risk) and fail to give sufficient weight to the right hemisphere of the brain. Malcolm Gladwell in Blowup, an article from the New Yorker, drew attention to an experiment involving German taxis equipped with antilock brake systems (ABS). You would expect that better brakes made for safe driving. But that is exactly the opposite of what happened. A fleet of taxis – some with ABS, the rest left alone – were put under secret observation for three years. The result? Giving the taxi drivers ABS made them drive faster, make sharper turns and turned them into markedly inferior drivers.

This is not an isolated example.

• More pedestrians are killed crossing the street at marked crossings than unmarked crossing.
• The introduction of childproof lids on medicine problems led, according to one study, to a substantial increase in fatal child poisoning.

In essence, we become less careful with ABS, marked crossings, childproof lids and the like and, over time, we become complacent. (Interestingly, it works in the opposite direction – when Sweden changed from driving on the left to the right, traffic fatalities dropped 17%, before returning slowly to previous levels.) Devices and systems brought in to reduce risks run the danger of leading human behaviour in the wrong direction. ABS systems did not reduce accidents; instead the drivers used the additional element of safety to enable to them to drive more recklessly. As economists might say, they ‘consumed’ the risk reduction, they didn’t save it.

Power points out that significant risk events – litigation, uncontrolled employees, reputational damage – are high impact and low probability; by their very nature the events lack rich historical data sets and exist at the limits of manageability. Power argues that a great deal of risk management activity focuses on routine system errors and malfunctions – “it is as if organisational agents, faced with the task of inventing a management practice, have chosen a pragmatic path of collecting data which is collectable, rather than that which is necessarily relevant, and in this way it is a kind of displacement; the burden of managing unknowable risks, a Nick Leeson, is replaced by an easier task which can be successfully reported to seniors’ Systems and controls and other left-brain activities are important, but to be truly ‘risk intelligent’ you must also see the bigger picture. And seeing the big picture is a speciality of the right hemisphere of the brain.

This hasn’t always happened. Max Weber argued many years ago that the logic of bureaucracy is the tendency to privilege procedural rationality (the rationality of rules) over substantive rationality (the rationality of ends). There is a temptation – in the face of uncertainty and risk everywhere – to increase the rules and the systems; to shape human behaviour by sheer bloody effort of will. The danger is the flight from judgement, with the negative concomitant effects highlighted. The ‘end’ should be to encourage healthy human behaviours in your people, recognising that you can’t control all of the people all of the time. Ideally, you want a mixture of left-brain and right-brain thinking, with a wide circle of consultation to maximise the chances of both. Ultimately, as the Royal Society of Arts neatly puts it, twenty first century enlightenment involves championing a more self-aware, socially embedded model of autonomy. If your systems or controls don’t help to encourage the right behaviours, or worse still they hinder them, these systems and devices need to be re-thought.

Fortunately, some of the lessons of the Ford Pinto have been learned. Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the founder of Toyota, said before the House oversight committee and explaining Toyota’s recall of several million cars – ‘All Toyota vehicles bear my name. When the cars are damaged, it is though I am as well. I more than anyone wish for Toyota’s cars to be safe, and for our customers to feel safe when they use our vehicles’. On a very personal level, he appeared to empathise. He may have recognised that whilst left-brain analysis will help to enhance your brand, an absence of right-brain thinking may damage it in an instant.

Since Alex Smith took over I’ve been a big fan of the site but I have to say that it has gone to new level over the last few weeks. It really gives a sense of perspective and healthy debate. It would have been easy for it to fall into just being a mudslinging site post-election. Far from it, it gives voice to range of perspectives across the party: from the constructively critical to the ferociously so while sensibly leading on party debate.

I would even go as far as saying that there is more self-reflective honesty on LabourList than there is in the leadership election.

It has managed to retain absolute balance on the leadership election and is the place to go for the latest scores on the doors with CLP nominations and the like.

I’d really recommend visiting the site regularly and signing up to their daily newsletter. I know I’m biased (but I should say I don’t get paid for my column) but LabourList needs to continue its growth. It does need some investment so if you like the site, give what you can.

If not, just enjoy.