A response to Tom Harris

By Joe Cox

Tom Harris’ post this morning referred to a very powerful analogy for New Labour thinking that read as follows:

“There’s a terrific scene in the TV adaptation of Chris Mullin’s A Very British Coup in which the newly-elected left wing prime minister, Harry Perkins, is catching the train to London and is asked by a journalist: “Do you intend to abolish first class, Mr Perkins?” To which Perkins replies: “No, I intend to abolish second class. I think everybody’s first class, don’t you?”

Let’s take this analogy further. It’s not a question of first or second class in today’s Britain. If FTSE 100 CEOs are travelling first class, then those on average wage are travelling 100 classes behind them, and those on minimum wage are 226 classes behind. Indeed the gap between the super rich and the rest of us is so large now that we are unlikely to be on the same train. Highly paid Britain is a runaway train laced with unjust rewards and one that left the station years ago, crashing briefly in 2008, only to continue hurtling towards the next one.

I agree with Tom that success and ambition are valuable qualities but it doesn’t follow that greed or even wealth are part of the same formula. To be the most successful and ambitious teacher, nurse, postal worker, volunteer or activist is a noble aim, but it is unlikely to make you wealthy.

Tom then goes on to say that New Labour said “it was okay to want a better job, a higher income, nicer holidays, a bigger house.”

But New Labour’s essential message, encouraging people to ‘earn and own’ needs to be fundamentally changed. Lord Mandelson said back in 1998 that “we (Labour) are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”. Let Labour be the Party to now say that greed is not good, greed is bad.

The New Labour ideology that Tom describes relies on an atomistic view of human beings, a (small c) conservative one in which we are not working together but are merely rational, selfish beings. If you believe people to be fundamentally selfish, atomistic, rational wealth maximisers, then people may become richer, but no happier.

While the minimum wage is a hugely welcome floor, it does little to tackle the real distributional issues and huge inequalities of wealth in Britain. The growing gap between high earners and the rest of society is politically, socially and economically damaging.

We urgently need a High Pay Commission to instigate an evidence and fact based investigation into the effects of excessive pay on our economy and society, as well as to come up with concrete solutions to tackle it. If you want to reduce inequality in society, you have to curb the excesses at the very top. Doing nothing is not an option.

As for the accusation that this initiative would secure our core vote – Labour has lost over 4 million voters since 1997, it needs to get them back from somewhere. That said, I think there is equally middle class anxiety: the Mail, Express and the Telegraph have all been scathing over city bonuses and the excesses of the super-rich.

I believe dealing with high pay can appeal to both Labour’s traditional and non-traditional supporters, but I will finish along a similar note to Tom by saying that without the core vote, Labour may as well write off the next election.