Labour won the 2005 general election on the somewhat vacuous slogan of “Forward not back,” but now we learn from Philip Collins and Richard Reeves that we could go simultaneously forward and back to the Liberal election victory of 1906.
In their article “Liberalise or die” (Prospect, June 2008), Collins/Reeves argue that we should abandon social democracy for liberalism. But it turns out that this is just a function of their arbitrary labelling. Where they agree with a policy (being more green or raising inheritance tax), they call it “liberal”; where they disagree (as on tackling childhood obesity or regulating new casinos), they call it “social democratic.”
This gets them into a tangle. They are, for example, scathing about the government’s play strategy. But it is a genuine problem that today the average ten year old is allowed out to play only 100 yards from home compared with 800 yards 30 years ago. If we are to give children back their freedom, then it is right to invest in parks and playgrounds and to bring down road traffic speeds. These are political issues.
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