Prospect gave further substance to its reputation as a sponsor of contemporary political debate by supporting a two-day conference of academics and politicians from Britain and abroad in July. The International Conference in UK Political Ideologies at Liverpool University’s school of politics and communication saw MPs and researchers thrash out the theory behind the direction of politics in Britain in a series of discussions which threw into sharp relief the link between long-term analysis and everyday events.
A recurrent theme of the conference was the question of the prospects for social democracy, the subject of a roundtable discussion featuring Professors Denis Kavanagh and John Callaghan, with Neal Lawson of Compass and Stephen Twigg, vanquisher of Michael Portillo in 1997 and now a leading figure in the think tank Progress. A varied selection of outlooks emerged, but none of the participants was able to express great optimism about the prospects for Labour, the party that identifies itself most closely with social democracy; indeed, they even looked to David Cameron’s Conservatives to act as the vehicle of some of its elements. Professor Rodney Barker of the LSE gave a keynote lecture explaining the decline of social democracy in modern Britain in part by its inability to identify its enemies. Blair’s electoral coalition became so disparate that his attempts to attack the "forces of conservatism" became “risible,” and Labour’s appeals to class loyalties in the contests for the London mayoralty and at Crewe & Nantwich were implausible.
Most of those defending today's Conservative party stuck to the Cameroonian line that his party and Thatcher's tackled different issues using the same ideas. The "broken society" of today has replaced the "broken economy" of 1979 as the priority of government, insisted David Willetts in a debate with Labour’s Frank Field. Some critics could not resist asking when and why society became broken. Professor Andrew Gamble of Cambridge University gave an analysis of the Conservatives’ revival that acknowledged their "decontamination" and their attunement to modern British society, but that also asked what specifically was being offered by Cameron beyond traditional one-nation nostrums. Answers to this question in a later panel included Christopher Macallister’s suggestion that Cameron has most in common with Baldwin as a Conservative leader. A less dignified claim, acknowledged by Willetts, was of Cameron as "Willie Whitelaw with an iPod."
Other sessions examined the state of nationalism in the territories of the United Kingdom, the impact of globalisation on ideology and the claims of the Lib Dems to the liberal heritage, where Roy Douglas, author of Liberals, argued that Nick Clegg’s party has liberal ideas and policies, but not yet a liberal agenda embracing radical tax reform.
If you want to know more about the conference, or want to get involved in next year’s, email the convenor Kevin Hickson.
A recurrent theme of the conference was the question of the prospects for social democracy, the subject of a roundtable discussion featuring Professors Denis Kavanagh and John Callaghan, with Neal Lawson of Compass and Stephen Twigg, vanquisher of Michael Portillo in 1997 and now a leading figure in the think tank Progress. A varied selection of outlooks emerged, but none of the participants was able to express great optimism about the prospects for Labour, the party that identifies itself most closely with social democracy; indeed, they even looked to David Cameron’s Conservatives to act as the vehicle of some of its elements. Professor Rodney Barker of the LSE gave a keynote lecture explaining the decline of social democracy in modern Britain in part by its inability to identify its enemies. Blair’s electoral coalition became so disparate that his attempts to attack the "forces of conservatism" became “risible,” and Labour’s appeals to class loyalties in the contests for the London mayoralty and at Crewe & Nantwich were implausible.
Most of those defending today's Conservative party stuck to the Cameroonian line that his party and Thatcher's tackled different issues using the same ideas. The "broken society" of today has replaced the "broken economy" of 1979 as the priority of government, insisted David Willetts in a debate with Labour’s Frank Field. Some critics could not resist asking when and why society became broken. Professor Andrew Gamble of Cambridge University gave an analysis of the Conservatives’ revival that acknowledged their "decontamination" and their attunement to modern British society, but that also asked what specifically was being offered by Cameron beyond traditional one-nation nostrums. Answers to this question in a later panel included Christopher Macallister’s suggestion that Cameron has most in common with Baldwin as a Conservative leader. A less dignified claim, acknowledged by Willetts, was of Cameron as "Willie Whitelaw with an iPod."
Other sessions examined the state of nationalism in the territories of the United Kingdom, the impact of globalisation on ideology and the claims of the Lib Dems to the liberal heritage, where Roy Douglas, author of Liberals, argued that Nick Clegg’s party has liberal ideas and policies, but not yet a liberal agenda embracing radical tax reform.
If you want to know more about the conference, or want to get involved in next year’s, email the convenor Kevin Hickson.
