Amid the din of the party conference season it is easy to forget the dirty little secret of British politics: that the underlying differences in philosophy and even policy between the three main parties remain narrower than at any time in the modern age. All parties, reflecting majority public opinion, want a regulated market economy flanked by decent, tax-funded public services (with the state spending 40 to 45 per cent of GDP, once normal economic service is resumed), and all parties—following the Tories’ leftward shift—lay claim to the term “progressive,” aiming to improve the life chances of those at the bottom and even narrow the gap between rich and poor. After Labour embraced the 1980s (the turn to the free market) the Tories have recently made their peace with the 1960s (race and gender equality, environmentalism and so on). The Tories talk grandly about transforming the British state (see Julian Glover’s cover story, p32), but any party needs an election-time myth, and in reality their plans amount to a few small adjustments to the New Labour settlement. There is little that David Cameron would disagree with in Gordon Brown’s testament of belief published in this issue, p24. If Labour loses the election, as most people expect, it will not be because the electorate have tired of its centrist politics but because they got bored with the people implementing them. And the idea that the recession, or the retrenchment in state spending that it calls for, is opening a new divide in British politics is also false—is it such a big deal if we halve the deficit in three years rather than five?
This is no cause for regret. An intelligent, unideological, technocratic politics is what is required to solve the many serious problems facing Britain and the world. One of those problems—what to do about Britain’s overmighty finance sector—earned Prospect a deluge of publicity last month when Adair Turner, our leading technocratic public intellectual, confronted high finance with some uncomfortable truths in these pages. The big idea this month seems to be Amartya Sen’s 20-year-old notion of “capabilities”—a more subtle version of the old left-wing idea of positive liberty. Several writers, including the prime minister, cite it as a guiding light for rethinking the centre-left. Nothing wrong with using new words to describe perennial themes, but the idea of capabilities is too easily bent to very different agendas. Most of these writers also agree that Labour has failed to renew British democracy. But perhaps in a post-political age the problem lies less with the apathetic masses and more with the unrealistic expectations and hyperbolic language of the political class.
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READER’S LETTER:
Your editorial suggests that an ‘intelligent, unideological, technocratic politics is what is required’ to solve Britain’s problems. Technocratic we might be able to live with and no-one recommends stupidity. The case for ‘unideological’ politics is far weaker. After all, from John Major to today, it might be said that politicians have ruthlessly sought to detach themselves from any form of ideology and the results haven’t been that impressive. Successful politicians need strong ideology to push through change. Without a clear set of beliefs tied together in a coherent philosophical structure, political parties become weak and disorganised. Voters lose interest because they don’t know what politicians stand for. Faced with the strong tides of modern life, a politician without ideology is unmoored. He or she is able to keep a consistent direction and is tossed to and fro by what Harold Macmillan called ‘events’. Ideology gives politicians a star to guide them. In short, without ideological politics we descend into the relentless launching of minor initiatives and headline-grabbing policy changes rather than substantial and permanent shifts. Ask yourself to name the most effective (I choose the word carefully) British politician of the last half century. Was she ‘unideological’?
Huge ideological debates need to be had in this country. A large part of the UK electorate wants to withdraw from the EU in whole or in part. An increasing number of people believe that Britain’s high and possibly increasing levels of inequality are a moral stain on our country. Many would like a real discussion on whether continued economic growth is compatible with dealing with climate change. Are we going to get these debates in your world of ‘unideological technocratic politics’ where nobody has any fundamental beliefs? I suspect not. We will continue with disorganised drift.
Chris Goodall
Green Party candidate for Oxford West and Abingdon