Tory modernisers' best hope is an Ed Miliband victory

Piece for NewStatesman
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Tory modernisers' best hope is an Ed Miliband victory 

The British Conservative Party needs shock therapy. It may still scrape back into government in next year's general election but if it does, barring a miracle, it will be on a smaller share of the national vote than in 2010. This has been the case every time its been victorious since 1950. As a growing number within the party recognise, it's reaching a point where things have become unsustainable. Forty per cent of voters now say they wouldn’t even consider voting Conservative, while the party has little base among ethnic minority and working class voters, especially in the north. Once-proud Tory heartlands like Sheffield and Manchester now have not even a single Conservative councillor. As the impressive David Skelton of Renewal has argued, voting Conservative in these parts has become counter-cultural.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the left was forced into a reckoning. It had suffered successive electoral defeats but it had also been intellectually defeated, with the end of the Cold War and shifts in the country's social fabric. The Conservatives have never really undergone such a reckoning, largely because Thatcher was never defeated at the ballot box, mostly thanks to a divided opposition. And so a mythology has grown up and still has hold over the party: that her brand of free market triumphalism won over the whole country, benefited the whole country, and can do so again.

This was always dubious – but has sustained itself even as the impact of her legacy on country and party sews division and resentment, especially in the deindustrialised north, and the "party of the rich" image has been baked in. As a creed, Thatcherism has come to rest on public deference to business elites, a faith that whatever their excesses, their inherent superiority will benefit us all in the end, which has been severely undermined by the financial crisis and flatlining wages.

Moreover, Britain may be a conservative country, with many attracted to Thatcher's ethics of self-reliance and discipline. But few outside the south-east ever shared the values of break-neck economic liberalism to which those ethics gave rise. A lot of people don't like to be made to feel powerless to forces shaping their lives, or like losers for not wanting to be self-made billionaires.

And yet Thatcherism remains the default instinct for much of the party – any departure is usually tactical or skin deep (with the notable exception of gay rights). Contrary to what many on the left think, the Conservative tradition is rich and long pre-dates the neoliberal era, encompassing communitarian and even social democratic schools of thought. Yet these days, any thinking in its ranks which entails fundamentally challenging the Thatcherite comfort zone is tossed aside. If the party get back in to power in 2015, this sleepwalking will continue, even if in its obliviousness it further erodes the electoral ground on which they can be returned.

Increasingly it seems that the only thing that can reverse the trend is Ed Miliband, smiling from the steps of 10 Downing Street. If this sounds like preposterous accelerationist tosh, think about it. Being beaten after just one term by a man the party's leading lights have long deemed unelectable would provoke huge internal recriminations. In this post-mortem there will open up space for those who understand the need to reinvent the party, from top to bottom both ideologically and organisationally; a project that Cameron initially grasped and then retreated from.Even if the initial leadership contest doesn't produce such a candidate, Labour may still rescue the Conservatives with their spell in government – though only if Miliband is as successful as he intends to be.

Unlike his predecessors, the Labour leader has made clear his desire to rework the political economy that Thatcher brought into place and New Labour left largely in tact. If (and it's still a huge if) he is successful, it would re-wire the rules of British politics: towards intervention in markets to make them work for consumers; towards active industrial policy and economic populism. Living standards and wages – reform of the economy to make it deliver for ordinary people - would become the central issues of British politics.

Such ground is the only place from which Conservative renewal can be fought, given the kind of votes they need to win. Were they to move onto it, combined with already potent messages on welfare and crime, they would be a formidable threat. Yet they seem incapable of doing so of their own accord. It's almost certainly too late in this Parliament, having already surrendered so much ground Labour in favour of a much narrower agenda. Increasingly, it seems, they will have to be forced there.

This may still be a little sunny, admittedly. Defeat for the Conservatives could well just result in a prolonged turn to the right and doubling-down, as it did last time. But unlike before, there's a range of intelligent and interesting people in Conservative ranks who understand what the party needs to do to broaden its appeal, and have placed reforming capitalism at the heart of their pitch. Jesse Norman, Skelton at Renewal, and Rob Halfon are just a few. Though currently fighting an uphill battle, they have already laid down a marker for any future battle to come. And who knows, their ascent may yet end up being Miliband's biggest threat, and greatest achievement.

The royal wedding and why Britain needs to grow up

It’s good to know that amid the fawning frenzy that passed for balanced media coverage of Friday’s royal wedding, the 20% of us who identify as republicans did eventually receive some representation in the emerging pictures. The above, now famous image somehow manages to capture our position within the nation perfectly. As the newly-wed couple loom large on the balcony, a wonderfully stroppy looking girl is hunched over at the bottom of the picture, looking like she’s been forced into a dress she didn’t want to wear, covering her ears to block out the hysteria and presumably wanting the whole thing to end as quickly as possible!

To be honest, I think that little girl may have been the most mature person on the mall. It certainly wasn’t a good day to be in that 20%, with near demented levels of celebration accompanied by much dick swinging from the right (e.g here, here and particularly here). Many have asked republicans why we can’t just put the politics to bed for a day and enjoy the spectacle of two people who love each other getting hitched. I can only speak for myself, but for me the frustration goes wider than the celebration of servitude to desiccated, archaic and unelected rule. My bewilderment goes wider still than at just the collective blindspot it seems to represent in the nation’s supposed love of fairness and meritocracy. First and foremost, it’s about an entire conservative establishment given renewed reason for hope.

Our upper chamber in this country is entirely unelected and still contains members there by virtue of bloodline or what god they believe in, our lower chamber is dominated by the executive and elected via a creaking electoral system, and both are governed by impenetrable layers of convention and pomp which determine everything from the daft language members are required to address themselves in to parliamentary procedure itself. Nowhere is there a written constitution codifying limits to executive power or enshrining the political and economic rights citizens can expect to receive.

This has long been past fit for purpose in the 21^st century, and is comparable to virtually no other democratic country. It is profoundly undemocratic, elitist and at least contributes to the disaffection with politicians which is such grist to the anti-republican mill (“You don’t want President Blair, do you?” they snort).

But it’s the monarchy which keeps the lid on this whole ludicrous, creaking constitutional arrangement - both formally and discursively. Almost every attempt or suggestion at decent constitutional reforms meets with a status quo patrolled by exactly the same sort of self-satisfied, whimsical bunkem paraded over the last few weeks: what we have is “quirky but peculiarly British”, “it works”, “it’s tradition”, ad nauseum.

The laughable notion that the royals are ‘just like us’, or that Middleton’s ascendency to the aristocracy represents a vindication of social mobility, is also in its own way quietly pernicious. Through personalising the institution it quite obviously masks the unimaginable disparities in wealth and influence between the average member of the royal family and the average Briton, including the Middletons. It also in its own small way serves those who want to bury discussion about similar inequalities in wider society and especially the still resoundingly white, male, upper-middle class nature of our political and legal establishment. We shouldn’t be surprised that wealthy, crusty old twerps like Nicky Haslam have taken to the air since Friday lunchtime to announce, “I hope that the English will now drop this terrible class consciousness about middle class and working class. We’re all commoners except the Royal Family” (26m50s in).

The point here is that the monarchy is a fundamentally political construct. I’m not sure everyone – particularly those in my generation - who celebrated yesterday so fervently entirely understand that; that what they are buying in to when they line the streets for a look at The Dress or flaunt a bit of ‘kitch’ merchandise is not a mere figurehead or a bit of quirky nostalgia, it is an entire political order. Hence the crowing of the right (and that Toby Young piece is worth linking to again as the best example).

It is also an utterly bizarre, outdated view of Britishness. Since when was it British to revel in being a complete anachronism within the democratic world? More to the point, the supposedly ‘positive image’ the monarchy reinforces is only that of us as the curious, crumpet-eating eccentrics popular in American mystique. But since when did this align with most people’s experiences of day-to-day reality in 2011 Britain? And since when was just being seen the same as being taken seriously? There’s an element of tragedy here - of glorifying vessels of our autocratic and imperial past (military uniforms et al) because it mausolates images of a time long gone, a time when we took up a place as the superpower at the front of the world’s stage. It’s like a Brit in America who indulges in stereotype by suddenly developing a far more accentuated, tweed accent than he uses at home, enjoying rather than cringing every time he’s excitedly asked to pronounce “bath” or “city”! It all speaks not to our pride in Britain, but to our lack of confidence.

Isn’t it time we grew up a bit as a nation? Isn’t it time we let go, and brought what it means to be British into the 21^st century? There’s so much that we can lay claim to being proud of (the NHS, broadcasting and music, literature) without the need to cling in unashamed deference to a crumpled, archaic and completely insane bunch of aristocrats – or other equally tatty clichés of our heritage - which, in the grand scheme of things, make us look ridiculous and sets back democratic advance.

Maybe I should calm down a bit. Perhaps, as Dan Hodges says, some of us should just relax and learn to pick our battles a little better. But I just can’t help feeling that in a culturally rich, complicated and alert 21st century country, we can do better – that’s all. I’m not angry, Britain, I’m just disappointed.

It's political economy, stupid

As much as I enjoyed myself, a weird feeling stalked me as I shuffled through corridors from event to event, panel discussion to panel discussion at last weeks' Fabian conference. In retrospect it was a restlessness that the answer to every question earnestly pondered – What can the left learn from the right? How do campaigners deal with the deficit?- belligerently remained the same, even if the wording changed, or the faces of the speakers differed from the last.

When you drill down into so much of centre-left soul searching in 2011, the absence of a coherent political economy lies at the root of almost all of it, even if it's rarely acknowledged.

The last few years have finally seen progressives get their critique of neo-liberalism right. Space has opened up after the financial crisis for us to question effectively previously untouchable dogma over the efficiency of free markets and the evil of state intervention. Meanwhile, the extent of public anger over bank bonuses and popularity of the 50p top rate of tax chips away at Blairite mythology that 'aspirational' swing-voters will always view increased taxation as 'the politics of envy'. Labour has even started to find its feet in arguing against the pace of deficit reduction (Ed Balls' famous Bloomberg speech is still the pick of the bunch), while turning to focus on stagnating average incomes (Liam Byrne is good on this here).

These are all sound intellectual advances. But the problem is that at the moment, they remain just that. It remains for progressives to colour these in with practical policy, and then to sell these in a way that is accessible to the wider public and activists knocking on doors. The reason the right has been ascendant for so long on economics is because they have a philosophy that cascades down from the the thinktank ("Free markets are the best way to efficiently allocate capital, government intervention always leads to inefficiency") to the doorstep ("governments shouldn't pick winners, it's bloated and should get out of the way"), translating to peoples everyday experiences or emotions ("why should the government waste my money? I am the best judge of how to spend it"; "We can't go back to the 1970s"), out of which flow practical policy implications (e.g cutting corporation tax, privatisation, deregulation). The latest example of this is the Tories misconceived idea that the private sector will necessarily 'pick up the slack' on unemployment resulting from cuts to public spending.

Meanwhile on the deficit, the right remain aided by the famous imagery of 'maxing out the creditcard' or 'household budgets' ("I have to balance my books, why shouldnt the government?").

The centre-left still cannot compete with this. Even if we are now challenging these ideas at the level of the thinktank, our arguments from there remain fractured or incomplete. For example, if we are agreed that New Labour became over-reliant on tax receipts from financial services, how should we look to 're-balance' our economy? This will usually prompt talk of 'broadening our industrial base' (as echoed recently by Ed Miliband), but what does this mean? How do we make our industry competitive in a globalised economy? Likewise, if we are agreed that median wages are stagnating, how do we get them to rise? Is it just a case of growth as an end in itself, or should the government be directing investment in to certain areas? If so, how? By what means? Assuming we believe in capitalism, what should it look like? How should we translate complex Keynsian arguments over public spending into bite-size chunks of common sense?

These are just a few of the critical questions that, from what I can see, are not being progressed or followed through on. Even the most prominent centre-left writing of the last few years (e.g Ill Fares the Land, Them and Us, 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism) is vague on policy, usually impotently acknowledging that it 'doesn't have the answers', but we should at least 'ask the questions'. A lingering sense I got from people at last weeks conference was that if we just taxed the bankers more, everything would be ok. Some are happy for the left to simply be the new 'conservatives', acting as stalwarts of public services under attack from budget cuts.

This is not enough. As popular as it may be in the short term, it doesn't constitute a coherent economic argument and it will not win elections or change the country in the way we want. For all the huff and puff over the end of neo-liberalism, it is still the right who are the radicals, still social democrats who are on the defensive. This does not represent a substantive change in the pre-crash, post-1970s state of play; progressives just have more numbers on the field than they used to, more men behind the ball. To win, it needs to be far more creative.

The rewards for doing so would be great. A coherent alternative political economy would give the left the chance to turn so many debates on their head. Take welfare dependency as an example. Instead of pandering to hatred of those dependent on welfare and extending the current logic of just cutting benefits (or alternatively ignoring the issue), we could legitimately ask why bottom end wages are so low that living on meagre unemployment benefit is a more attractive option, and map out how we can get them to rise. Or, on the banks, we wouldn't need to be held to ransom by obscenely paid financiers who threaten to pack up and head for pastures new every time the status-quo on tax or bonuses is challenged.

Unfortunately, this seems a long way away. Gordon Brown's 'markets need morals' was a good start, but what was it underpinned by in practice? It read more as a plea. Ed Miliband's current problems on the economy are just a projection of the centre-lefts wider dilemmas. Increasingly, it seems we have started an argument we cannot finish. This is the the extent of the challenge for the likes of Ed Balls, as he puts his feet under the table as shadow chancellor. Obviously, I don't have the answers, I'm just asking the questions...