Anthony Painter

A while back I wrote a blog post on why Labour should not oppose the electoral reform bill. Nick Clegg has made a huge strategic mistake by allowing David Cameron to combine electoral reform with a reduction in the number of parliamentary seats. Essentially, it has given Labour the excuse to not back the Bill *and* sapped the party’s enthusiasm for the referendum. Silly.

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.

While international relations observers may view December’s Copenhagen Climate Change Conference as the missed opportunity in moving to a post-carbon economy, last week’s Senate decision not to proceed with environmental legislation may ultimately prove to be more critical. And strangely, it may be an environmental initiative from the Nixon era that could get US environmental policy back on track.

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.

Perhaps it’s one of the most extraordinary coincidences in recent times- a tragic one at that. The world’s media’s eyes are on the City of London and there is an edgy confrontation between riot police and protesters. The police have been here many times before and know that the anti-globalisation protesters are intent on provocation and, in all likelihood, the destruction of property. Their job is simple: to maintain order. And with a raft of anti-terrorist legislation in their armory they intend to do it.

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……

Just got back from an event with a number of NGOs where they reviewed progress made as a result of this Summit. They were pretty scathing but then awarded the world leaders a C in the main (there was one E grade.) I guess that’s how these things go.

While at the press conference I did get a chance to have an interesting chat with Ray Offenheiser who is President of Oxfam America about using aid as leverage for transparency, better governance and a stronger democracy. It is the direction that USAID will be heading in and will be a key component of the Obama approach.

The key to this is developing the capacity of aid recipients through a concept that regular readers of this blog will recognise in another context- ownership. Oxfam’s argument is that information about aid must be improved, capacity of both civil society and governance mechanisms must be developed, and there must be a degree of control given to aid recipients. This last point is critical- local actors are better able to identify their needs and by entrusting them their capacity will develop further.

The Europeans are far further along this road than the US.

This all raises the obvious question of conditionality- should aid be linked to good governance, openness and transparency? Ray Offenheiser made the point that that is fine in principle but in practice is a little more complex as you can end up only rewarding those who are already good.

It’s an important consideration. It is easy to put failed states to one side (there’s little way to spend aid in any constructive way) and then you have the superstars such as Ghana. Then there’s lots of states in the middle of those two poles. What do you do with them? Get too rigid and it ends up being self-defeating and you ignore important needs that can be met. But do you just accept that a certain amount of corruption, misdirection, and inefficiency will be part of the learning process? These aren’t easy questions. If the balance is drawn in the right way then strong incentives can improve openness, transparency and good governance. What is clear is that aid can lever positive change but only if it’s calibrated in the right way.

Oxfam America’s report on ownership ‘Capacity: helping countries lead’ is available here and really worth a read.

Also, I was sent a video by the development NGO Bond which presents the British tradition of giving in relation to the Millennium Development Goals. It’s worth a watch and it’s here.

Guest post by Stephen Adshead

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.

I’m going to shamelessly rip-off the Guardian’s ‘in praise of…’ feature today. I’ve dashed off my weekly column to LabourList this morning and I thought I’d just quickly check out what was on the site. It has at least four top quality pieces. The ones that caught my eye were: Stephen Newton on healthcare reform- a bit of perspective; Mark Ferguson on the Islington Fairness Commission which is an incredible initiative; Tony Burton on the big society and civicism; Jon Wilson on the labour movement; and Caroline Badley on how to re-energise the party.

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.

I have just come back from an utterly engrossing 90 minutes with Lord Mandelson along with a number of other left bloggers in Harper Collins HQ. Despite the ferocious reaction to Lord Mandelson’s memoirs, I was determined to approach this with an open mind. And it wasn’t in any sense disappointing: whatever your feeling about Lord Mandelson he has such a breadth of experience and thought that it benefits to pay close attention to his thoughts. Fascinatingly, even for a breakfast involving bloggers, Lord Mandelson was meticulously prepared- he gave a ten minute introduction using notes so you know everything he said has been considered.

If one of New Labour’s shortfalls was a historical myopia, then it pays to not fall into the same trap when assessing ‘The Third Man.’ It was clear from our chat that it is rich with historical insight that is valuable not just for Labour but across the political spectrum.

In addition to its political values there were two main things that struck me about the conversation this morning. Firstly, there was a warning. He recounted a telephone conversation with the late John Smith in 1993 where the latter was complaining about agitation by modernisers. Smith made reference to ‘these f**king boat rocking modernisers.’ This comment was referred to in reference to the future. Almost under his breath, Mandelson implored people in Labour to ‘rock the f**king boat.’ He seems to hinting at a similar concern with Labour in opposition as I’ve voiced (at one point he talked about Tony Blair’s style of opposition- outflanking the Tories rather than confronting them each and every time which is instructive.)

Secondly, his reflections on Labour’s defeat went further than I thought they would as he gave a full analysis of the defeat and also, somewhat surprisingly, and honestly an assessment of the shortcomings of the former Prime Minister. He put the defeat down to incumbency, the Prime Minister being right for the ‘war’- i.e. the credit crunch- but not for the peace, Labour failing to articulate that it was about the future not the past, and, in perhaps what was a bit of a swipe at people such as Ed Balls, the fact that Labour was too rooted in a scarcely credible ‘investment v cuts’ narrative.

Then he came onto Gordon Brown. For Lord Mandelson, Gordon Brown was ill-equipped to fight the ‘most presidential election in our history’ where the TV debates dominated everything. While he passed the test with flying colours with his understanding of an exceedingly complex crisis that wasn’t enough. Brown was good at the big picture- understanding the world and the right policy responses. However, he failed at the ‘small things’: relationships, management and communications. And in the Gillian Duffy incident the nature of modern politics was crystallised: there is no hiding place, EQ is at a premium, and everything is magnified. How would Harold MacMillan have coped in such an environment? Quite. And Gordon Brown faced similar challenges.

Of course, this does pose the rather uncomfortable question of why the Prime Minister remained in place given these shortcomings.

But this book isn’t simply about personalities; it’s about the policy and strategic conflicts of the New Labour years. Some will see this book as an act of disloyalty. That’s the easy and knee-jerk response. What is more difficult is to engage properly with history, experience, judgements, and lessons of one of New Labour’s not so holy trinity. These three men defined British politics for three decades. It’s easy to dismiss ‘The Third Man.’ It would sorely be a mistake to do so. This book is an honest account. Parties that ignore their past are destined to make the same mistakes in the future. That in itself makes it a worthy read. Beyond that, this story sizzles and crackles just as its protagonists do. While we may wish to put the psycho-drama behind us, the historical lessons- more positive than negative- must remain with us. And we could do well to remember that, from time to time, we will have have to rock the Labour party’s boat.

Gregg McClymont MP has an interesting post on Next Left about Keir Hardie’s acceptance of liberal ideas but rejection of the Liberal Party. The final point he makes about a party’s primal instinct being revealed as it approaches power is an interesting point. To quote:

“Again, there is an insight from West Ham. Led by Thorne, West Ham in 1898 elected the first ‘Labour’ Council in Britain. The governing Labour Group included several unaligned Liberal/Radical members and embarked on a programme which involved enlarging the municipal workforce and bringing it directly under public control so as to improve pay, conditions and job security. By 1900 the Labour Council was no more. It was defeated by an alliance of Liberals and Conservatives, who, aghast at the distributive consequences of municipal socialism in action, united in opposition to the common enemy.

This pattern would be repeated. Across the twentieth century the tensions between Labour and Liberal have been most evident at the local level. This is partly because it was only in local government that the Liberals could wield power – and only when close to power are the instincts and prejudices of a political party revealed.

Labour councillors around the country have been telling us this for years about Liberal Democracy. Now, with the Coalition, we see the same dynamic at the national level.”

There is something I find worrying about this. It’s not the historical analysis per se- McClymont’s credentials on the historical front are impeccable. It’s more the implications that are drawn in the final sentence above. There are two concerns I have: firstly, Labour has worked perfectly respectably with Liberal Democrats in devolved Parliaments and Assemblies as well as on constitutional reform in the early years of the New Labour Government. To allow ourselves to fall into a mindset that Liberal Democrats will always revert to classical or Manchester liberal orthodoxy will mean that fruitful opportunities for dialogue and engagement may not be pursued which could be an error.

And secondly, we are now getting a better insight into the Liberal Democrats from voices such as Richard Grayson who is at the head of the Social Liberal Forum and has written a Compass pamphlet (which was summarised in the New Statesman last week.) His point is that the Liberal Democrats are under-factionalised. There is an ideologically social liberal minority and a similarly ideological ‘Orange book’ tendency- also a minority. In between, there is a non-ideological majority and where they swing depends very much on which of the ideological wings are in the ascendancy and circumstance.

Labour faces a pluralistic political landscape where hung parliaments may become far more frequent if not the norm- especially if the next election is fought under AV. If it allows itself to fall into ‘they are all untrustworthy classical liberals really’ trap then it may fail to develop what could be a fruitful dialogue with Liberal Democrat elements who are broadly centre-left-liberal in their political philosophy.

And if you need any evidence of this then it is worth reading the Grayson pamphlet. Just take his perspective on poltical economy for instance:

“In developing new ideas which go beyond the latest manifesto, social liberals could be arguing for a new political economy, which puts issues of power in the workplace and the ownership of assets back on to the political agenda in the way that the Liberal Party once did.”

And what would be holding Labour back from joining in that discussion? It certainly feels like a more constructive discussion that a constant sticking to the ‘don’t challenge the market’ guns. I’d rather be looking at the power of the individual in the workplace and the market than just accepting economic orthodoxy and trying to make the best of a bad job. Sadiq Khan MP makes this point ably on Labour Uncut in his rebuttal to John Woodcock’s defence of labour market flexibility of last week. And if there are social liberals who wish to engage in that discussion also then great.

Thought it would be worth putting up some bits from my LabourList column yesterday. Having watched Labour in opposition over the last few weeks it is clear that it is ducking some of the big strategic questions. While the leadership election is in process, this is probably understandable but there is a risk that it will acquire bad habits now that it won’t be able to shake. Moreover, the leadership election itself seems to be ducking these big questions.

Whether the objective is to attract the Liberal Democrats into a more centrist/ centre-left coalition after the election or provide a clear alternative to the Coalition in its entirety, it’s clear that a reflexively oppositionalist standpoint vis-a-vis the Coalition and a defensive standpoint with respect to the last Labour Government will provide limited success.

The piece argues:

“So should we simply accept that this short-termist and retrospective form of opposition is temporary? The problem is that there is an addictive quality to this approach. You get the high of being on a full frontal attack. Your troops line up behind you – loyally. You get to look the enemy in the eye and finally unleash all the emotional energy that has been building up over the years.

It’s a real trip this opposition. The problem is that it’s corrosive. You don’t see the long term impact. Your friends move on. They whisper behind your back in sympathy and despair. They look for others to hang around with. After a while even your family gives up on you. You might be life and soul of the party now. Down the line, you just look a bit lost, sad and irrelevant.”

And what will be the consequence of Labour not raising its strategic game? It will seem backward looking and so will come a repository for a protest vote and little more. Parties who look like the past rather than the future do not win elections. If there is a basic rule of British politics, that is it for me. The new leader may transform this but in the meantime, let’s not be under any illusions and indulge ourselves: Labour faces an enormous strategic challenge.

by Alex Canfor-Dumas

Soon after England’s dismal exit from the World Cup, theories about how to turn the national side from also-rans to champions began to fly about. The most prominent was that our failure was down to foreigners. Siren voices from the world of football have beckoned us closer to the rocks of knee-jerkism.

Last week, the President of Spain’s La Liga, José Luis Astiazarán, pointed to what he saw as the key difference between the English and Spanish game:   “We invest more and more in young Spanish players than in young foreign players…In Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United there are a lot of young Spanish, French and Italian players – maybe this is why at the moment you are not creating young English players.” Among pundits, journalists and fans, calls for a limit on the number of foreign players in Premiership squads are getting ever-louder.

At about the same time, the Tory – sorry, Coalition – government was outlining its plans to introduce a cap on economic migrantion. Herein, of course, lies a parallel between football and politics – one of the few not to have been picked up already in the frenzy of World Cup-related activity in the left-of-centre blogosphere. The proposals are similar, and their consequences  will be similar too: both will fail to achieve their aims, and instead cause a good deal of harm. Let’s look at each in turn – starting, of course, with the most important.

The rationale for a limit on the number of foreigners playing in the Premiership, it seems, runs like this. (1) For every foreign player playing, there is a young English player not playing. (2) If there were fewer foreigners playing, more English players would play. (3) This would improve the national team.

If this is indeed something like the argument, it’s a pretty weak one. To sustain it, one would have to believe both that there are currently young English footballers who are forced out of their Premiership club sides by (superior) foreign players, and that these same players have such exceptional potential that they could conceivably go on to become not just full internationals, but players of such quality that they would transform England from a last-sixteen or quarter-finals team to a potentially World Cup-winning side. These players surely do not exist. If they do, where are they? They’re not playing in the Premiership (by definition) and they’re not playing abroad (Jermaine Pennant and Matt Derbyshire are the only English players playing in major foreign leagues). So presumably, if they exist at all, these potentially world-beating stars – denied an opportunity on the big stage by foreign players – are languishing in the lower leagues or dropping out of the game altogether. I just don’t buy it.

The England manager is allowed 23 players at a World Cup, and only eleven can fit on the pitch at the same time. Manchester United alone have over a dozen English players in their first team squad, and there are hundreds playing in the Premiership. The best 23 that England has to offer are getting their chance – they just aren’t good enough. Taking foreign stars out of the Premiership will only make them worse, by starving them of practice against the best in the world, while at the same time decreasing the value of the British game to advertisers and broadcasters, thereby taking away the money that sustains the grass-roots and youth systems. Not one European league has a limit on the number of foreign players, which suggests that we need to dig a little deeper if we want to work out how to improve the England side. That we have subjected our young talent to too much competition, I suggest, is unlikely to be the answer.

What of the cap on immigration proposed by the new government? Leave aside the fact that, in a rare bit of foresight (or populism?), the government has excluded footballers from the cap – it’s even harder to see what the rationale is here. The government claims to want to reduce the total number of immigrants – but the cap applies only to non-EU workers, who make up just 5 per cent of total migration, and the limit arbitrarily selected for this year (24,100) is more than last year’s inflow under Labour’s points-based system. So calling it a ‘cap’ is clearly misleading; at best it tinkers around the edges. But perhaps sheer numbers aren’t what the policy is about. Perhaps it will help the country’s economic plight? The reaction from small businesses – so often dubbed the ‘engine’ of our economy – suggests otherwise, and a policy that limits the ability of firms to hire skilled workers seems to fly in the face of George Osborne’s apparent desire for Britain to be ‘open for business’.

Maybe, though, the policy will make it a little easier for the unemployed to find work in an extremely tough job market? Think again. Under existing rules, employers can’t take on immigrants unless the post has first been advertised in Britain, and has remained unfilled. This means that the immigrants that the cap will now prevent from coming wouldn’t have been taking vacancies that could otherwise have been filled by unemployed workers already in Britain, but rather would be doing jobs which require skills that the current labour force lacks.

Any economist will tell you that caps are almost always inefficient, because they are arbitrary and necessarily inhibit searches for optimum points. The caps on foreign players and on foreign workers will both be counterproductive, damaging English football and the British economy. They reflect an unwelcome tendency to seek scapegoats for our failures, rather than looking hard at ourselves and working out how we can do better. In the aftermath of Spain’s deserved victory last night, it is clear that we need our home-grown footballers to be better-trained in the technical skills that they currently lack and which will be necessary for success in the future. The same, of course, is true for the workforce as a whole. The FA and the government must decide whether they actually want to deal with these difficult issues, or if populist and ineffective solutions are the order of the day.

Alex Canfor-Dumas is a Watford fan, a Labour Party member, and a graduate student in politics at the University of Oxford.