Political Narrative Battlegrounds for 2015 (the May 2012 Crystal Ball)

It's obviously far too early to be predicting the narrative battlegrounds on which the expected 2015 general election will be fought. So here goes...!

I think it's plausible that both the Coalition parties will have a similar top-level narrative:

The economy is on the right path again, but the task is not finished.

The country was in a terrible state five years ago. Britain was being dragged down by a dreadful deficit. The banks had got away with massive profligacy because of an unhealthy bonus culture. There was no money left to secure the future of our vital public services.

So when we took charge, we stopped the rot of Labour overspending, we clamped down on the banks, and we reduced taxes for hard-working people. Tackling the deficit needed tough, unpopular decisions. The country would be far worse off if we hadn't taken those  decisions.

Now, we need to finish the job. Get Britain working again. Use the solid foundations we have put in place to build a strong and lasting prosperity. Labour would put the recovery at risk. But we can make Britain the envy of the world once again.

Labour, of course, will be saying the opposite:

This incompetent government has unnecessarily damaged Britain's public services and created mass unemployment; if you let them get back in, they will slash-and-burn all that we hold dear.

Five years ago, the world was faced with an unprecedented international economic crisis, caused by bankers who only cared about their bonuses. But the Labour Government led the way in preventing a global meltdown, and put Britain on the path to recovery.

But this Tory-led government dealt with the world economic crisis in the worst possible way. It cut spending too far, too fast. It created an entirely unnecessary double-dip recession. Britain would have recovered years ago, if it hadn't been for this mismanagement. The Tories cut taxes for their rich cronies, while the rest of the country suffered unemployment and cuts to schools, hospitals and other public services. Trebling tuition fees. The Granny Tax. The Pasty Tax. Picking on the disabled. Privatising the NHS. The Liberals were complicit in all this.

Now, what about the next five years? The Tories don't believe in public services. They want to cut and cut until there's nothing left. Don't let them finish the job.

This is over-simplifying things a bit, but then political narratives need to be simple.

But come down a level of abstraction, and the narratives are murkier at this stage in the parliament.

Conservatives

The Conservative Party is torn between, on the one hand, traditional fiscal prudence (reducing government over-spending, and slightly increasing taxes to pay off debt); and, on the other hand, free-market libertarianism that says that a radical pruning of the state can set wealth creators free and thus benefit everyone. Critics say that belt tightening can slide into stagnation and diminished public services. Meanwhile, radical pruning is a gamble that might result in mass unemployment and inadequate safety nets for the most vulnerable.

It could change, but currently the prudence chaps dominate the pruning brigade.

The likely Conservative narratives, one level down, would therefore be along the lines of:

After the turmoil of the Labour years, the firm grip of the Conservative-led Government was absolutely the right thing for the country. Now we need stability and steady growth. We need to nurture the recovery; we mustn't imperil it again with Labour's wild spending.

We've put the economy on a firm footing, so now it's time for us to sort out other socialist legacies: Fight back against the EU's invasion into our affairs. End profligate subsidies for inefficient energy generation. Reduce taxes on enterprise and hard work. Cut bureaucracy in social services. Allow museums and hospitals to charge foreign visitors. Renew Trident. Fund our armed forces properly. Give schools back the right to select pupils... etc. etc.

Labour

Meanwhile Labour is torn between, on the one hand, the New Labour vision that public services deliver targets best when they are given as much freedom as possible from state regulation and are funded by partnerships with the private sector; and, on the other hand, the socialist ideal of the state looking after everyone in society, and spending money to keep the economy going. But critics say that New Labourism helped to create a situation in which irresponsible banks plunged the country into economic crisis; and in which hospitals and schools ended up lacking democratic accountability for their decisions. And the socialist ideal can easily slip, they say, into spending beyond our means and into weakening enterprise by sucking more and more of the nation's wealth into central government.

It's not clear to me how this tussle between New Labourism and neo-socialism will play out. Ed Balls was thoroughly implicated in New Labourism but Ed Miliband is (probably rightly) keeping his policy options open for now. My guess is that nearer the election there will be some kind of public catharsis: "It was Gordon Brown who wanted PFI. And the CBI was pushing for less regulation. We've learned from those mistakes."

It will be tempting, I think, to just stay on the attack:

Inhumane cuts. Ideological economics. Out of touch. Incompetent. etc. etc.

But journalists will press for firm plans, and the public don't like politicians who are resolutely negative without getting into detail about how they would do things differently. So a possible positive Labour narrative, one level down, would be:

We need government to offer alternative models to uncaring capitalism: Address our housing crisis using cooperative and mutual models. Give tax breaks to businesses that fund apprenticeships. Give energy consumers, hospital patients and parents the power to call managers to account. etc. etc.

Liberal Democrats

The LibDems have a number of narratives that don't offer alternative futures to each other, but compete for attention. For example, one narrative is about being in coalition in the first place:

The national interest demanded we help repair the economy while doing our damnedest to protect public services. We sacrificed our popularity to help the country overcome Labour's economic crisis.

A parallel narrative is a defence of the things the Conservatives were able to do because the LibDems weren't sitting on the Opposition benches:

Would you have wanted an unfettered Conservative Government? Or right-wing Conservatives in league with the New Labour zealots who got us into this mess? We helped tame the worst excesses of the Right, although you have to box clever when your Coalition partner is five times the size of you.

There's an obvious risk of a LibDem general election campaign consisting entirely of re-runs of the arguments about tuition fees, the Welfare Reform Act, the Health and Social Care Act, the so-called Granny Tax, etc.: the arguments that failed to convince the first time round.

Another narrative is:

Look at all the liberal stuff we managed to deliver, despite our under-representation in Parliament: shifting taxes from low and middle earners to the richest; getting extra money to schools to help poorer children; creating more new apprenticeships than Britain has ever had before; creating the world's first Green Investment Bank; restoring the link between pensions and earnings; setting up proper regulation of the banks; restoring many of the civil liberties thrown away by Labour; increasing social housing for the first time in 30 years; halting Labour's post office closures; and so on.

Unfortunately lists don't make for great narratives. It's also not easy to explain concisely what makes this good stuff "liberal" in the same way that Conservatives and Labour stances are easily grasped.

All of these LibDem narratives are also too rooted in the past: they don't impel you through to an obvious LibDem future. I'm sure the manifesto will be packed full of good ideas, costed and crafted as usual. But, again as usual, it will somehow lack a coherent narrative to string it together. Some random slogan combining "free", "fair" and "opportunity" won't cut it.

Another problem with these LibDem narratives is that they don't offer congruencies with both possible future coalition partners.

An alternative plan might be to piggy-back on a less antagonistic version of the first half of the Conservatives' message...

After the turmoil of the economic crisis, it was absolutely right for the Conservatives and LibDems to come together for the good of the country. Now we need stability and steady growth. We need to nurture the recovery.

... and then build a distinctively LibDem narrative:

We've got the economy under control, but what's to stop the crisis happening again? If big business is unaccountable to its employees, customers and shareholders, it will simply repeat the same risky behaviour. Meanwhile, if public services and quangos are unaccountable to the people they are supposed to serve, their spending of your taxes will again rocket out of control. We need to encourage  democratic principles and innovative models of mutualism and cooperatives, and not just unconvincing "consultations". We need to navigate a narrow path between cold hard capitalism on one side, and overweight statism on the other.

And we also need to make central government more accountable by devolving more powers to our cities and counties to kickstart local economies, to sort out endemic housing issues, to take advantage of green opportunities, to support your hospitals and schools...

And most importantly, if we don't take greater action on climate change fast, the global economy will be threatened by a crisis that will make the last few years pale into insignificance. We need a massive programme to build more renewable energy capacity; to increase home insulation; to encourage businesses that tackle their carbon pollution responsibly; and to enhance the Green Investment Bank. These measures will help prevent climate change wrecking our economy, but they will also help stimulate our industry and create jobs right now.

Concluding remarks

Crystal ball gazing is a notoriously unreliable practice in politics. And I have a lousy reputation for accuracy. But although the details may change rapidly, I suspect that many of the overriding concerns of Conservatives, Labour folk and LibDems are quite slow to change.

Narratives need to capture those concerns, to fix in voters' minds afresh what these parties stand for.

And narrative building takes years.

Acknowledgements

• The three battle pictures [1, 2, 3] are by Flickr user Dave Pearson, and are CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
• The cats were adapted by me from Microsoft Clip Art [license terms]

Three types of localism

Did you know that major provisions in the Localism Act 2011 are starting to come into effect this year?

If, like me, you're slightly vague on how the Localism Act 2011 changes the nature of local government, it's worth reading the Plain English Guide, browsing the communities.gov.uk website or even (good luck) read the Act itself.

This post isn't about the Localism Act. It's about what kind of thing we might want local government to be.

I think this is timely, because, given the widespread public indifference to the Act (citation needed!), I've got a strong suspicion that there's a greater disparity right now than for many years between:
(i) public perceptions of local government;
(ii) the functions and powers of local government as laid out in legislation;
(iii) the customs and practices of local government.

To be honest, though, you're probably better off talking about "what kind of thing we might want local government to be" with all those councillors who grapple with this question day-by-day. But I'm still trying to think things through; hence this post.

I'd like to distinguish three types of localism.

1. Robotic Localism

"I think you ought to know
I'm feeling very depressed"

The first type of localism occurs when local government is large and involves efficient but uncreative administration of rules and procedures laid down by central government. The details of all possible services and decisions are carefully circumscribed. The goals are always those of central government. Anything other than minor local variations in choices is illegal. The decision-making processes are also strictly defined. There's limited discretion over income and expenditure. The role of the local voter is to assess the efficiency with which local government operates. Although this "Robotic" type of local government can be as big or as small as central government decrees, "Localism" is portrayed as occurring when local government is responsible for many large, complex, and important budgets and decisions.

2. Autonomous Localism

"Greasing the wheels"

The second type of localism is very market-oriented. Companies, institutions, charities, communities, and other organizations do pretty much what they like, within broad parameters laid done by central government. Similarly, local government has a high degree of autonomy to decide on what services it wishes to provide, and the mechanisms by which it provides them. It distributes and regulates contracts for its services, funded by the taxes it decides to levy. This type of local government can be as big or as small as it wishes to be. The role of the local voter is to assess the choice of services, the mechanisms by which they are provided, and the subsequent judgements. Central government may choose to regulate particular markets in additional ways, and set minimum standards for services, contracts and taxes, but otherwise largely leaves local government alone.

3. Delegation Localism

"The first rule of management is delegation.
Don't try and do everything yourself because you can't."

The third type of localism is characterised by central government delegating as many decisions as possible, to individual industries, businesses, hospitals, schools, and so on. As in Autonomous Localism, central government may choose to regulate particular markets in additional ways, but otherwise tries to keep out of the way as much as possible. Funding of organizations by central government is decided by formulas that may take account of particular circumstances to a greater or lesser degree; but organizations are encouraged to develop new income streams to maximise their power and to set up mechanisms for accountability to stakeholders. Similarly, central government delegates to local government as much as possible - the choices of taxes to be collected, of services to be provided, and of decisions to be made - without interfering in the operations of local autonomous organizations. As in Autonomous Localism, the local voter can judge local government by assessing the choice of services, the mechanisms by which they are provided, and the subsequent judgements; but since so many services are provided by local autonomous organizations, it is the stakeholders who have the primary role. Where accountability to those stakeholders fails, it is typically central government that takes the blame, rather than local government.

By the way, if you liked the caption for the above diagram, you might like to know it's a quote from that great sage Anthea Turner (!) Perhaps you might prefer "Surround yourself with great people; delegate authority; get out of the way". That's Ronald Reagan.

Concluding remarks

I think it's clear that, in broad brush terms, England is moving away from a kind of Robotic Localism that unashamedly wanted the whole country to receive the best services currently available ("‘We have lived too long with a system good for the few but not for the majority") and so set national targets ("It is not an arrogant government that chooses priorities, it's an irresponsible government that fails to choose."). And it is now moving towards a kind of Delegation Localism ("The Big Society", "core principles for modernising public services: choice, decentralisation, diversity, fairness and accountability").

It's also fairly clear that there are problems with Delegation Localism, particularly the limitations on local accountability and the limitations on control over what local services are funded and how.

There are also obvious problems with Autonomous Localism, but it seems to me there has been a lack of public debate about what type of localism we actually want, and how the particularly limitations are to be addressed.

Question for the reader: what other types of localism should we consider?

Acknowledgements

• "Robot" by Andy Field (Hubmedia) [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]
• "Local government gears" by LonWon. [CC BY-SA 3.0]
• "Delegation localism" by LonWon. [CC BY-SA 3.0]

The Big Society v Liberalism

(wild cheering)

In the BLUE corner... from the Home Counties of England... weighing in at... not-very-much... with no knock-outs but one win on points... and with a right hook that's pulling punches... the challenger... BIIIIIG SOCIETEEEEEEE!!!!!

(wilder cheering, thunderous applause)

And in the YELLLOW corner... needing no introduction... from quite-a-long-time-ago... slightly doddery, but still standing... the very disputed heavyweight champion of political philosophies... IIIIIIIT'S LIIIIIIBERALISM!!!!!

(polite clapping)

I'm not sure Nick Clegg did exactly say that "Big Society = Liberalism", as reported, but he has said in the past that "David Cameron’s eloquent description of what he calls the Big Society is what I would call the Liberal Society". So the report is not very far off.

So what to make of this upstart idea "Big Society"?

I would suggest that the question is not whether the Big Society idea captures all of liberalism (pace Cameron the would-be political philosopher, the answer to that is obviously no), but whether the Big Society idea is compatible with the aspects of (what is commonly understood to be) modern liberalism that are relevant to Big Society themes; or, more specifically, how the Big Society compares with the contemporary vision of the Liberal Society.

Mark Pack of Liberal Democrat Voice has compared Cameron’s vision of the Big Society and mainstream Liberal Democrat beliefs in community politics, and found "grounds for agreement, grounds for disagreement".

Pack highlights a common dislike for an overly bureaucratic, centralised, top-down state. Such a state is not only inefficient but disempowering.

There is a consequent shared demand for (1) decentralisation of power, particularly in relation to planning decisions and control of local assets; (2) an unbundling of public services, so that anyone can offer to provide them; and (3) volunteerism and philanthropy.

The areas of disagreement or tensions that Pack notes lie firstly in language, such as whether one is primarily talking about personal responsibility or the freedom of the individual; secondly, in the extent of the decentralisation, whether simply to local government or beyond that to neighbourhoods and communities; but perhaps most pertinently in relation to the fraught question of who should provide public services.

My view is that the key tensions here are less about freedoms, localism and diversity, in relation to which Cameron conservatives and Lib Dems share a huge amount in common; and more about democracy:

• Not so much "Who takes which planning decisions?" but "How should the decision-makers be held to account?"
  
• Not so much "Who controls which assets?" but "How are stakeholders in the assets involved in decisions about those assets?"
  
• Not so much "Who should provide which public services?" but "How should providers be held to account?"
  
• Not so much "How do we support volunteerism and philanthropy?" but "How is it decided what should be left to volunteerism and philanthropy to provide?"

It is telling that Cameron's speech makes no mention of democracy or of councils, of mutualism or stakeholders; or even of "decisions". The closest he gets to mentioning accountability is in relation to public service providers being "held to account with transparent information to enable people to make informed choices". I would suggest he means consumer choice rather than stakeholder choice or voter choice. He also draws attention to a form of market accountability in that if the business community (taken as a whole) is socially responsible the result will be economic stability, lower taxes and minimal regulation. These two mechanisms may be liberal but there's no sense of direct democratic accountability for actions.

In conclusion, this is not at all a boxing match between ideologies: it seems we are all pragmatists now. It's entirely possible I've misunderstood the Big Society idea. However, my worry is that this agenda of decentralisation, public service unbundling and third sector growth will be pushed without sufficient attention to the kinds of mechanisms that would provide the democratic checks-and-balances that a healthy democratic society needs.