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Livingstone’s loss shows why Labour must change

May 5, 2012 5:11 pm

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Anthony Painter

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By the end of London’s mayoral elections both main party leaders could have been forgiven for quietly wishing that their candidate lost. As with the rest of the results, it broke Ed Miliband’s way. Having Ken as a symbol of Labour and its most visible representative for three years before an election would almost certainly have been problematic. But his defeat underlines why the party still has to change.

Labour’s overall performance in this year’s elections was very strong. Just take Glasgow where a revitalised party with a fresh slate of candidates showed how the party’s fortunes in Scotland can be reversed. Only twenty-three of the thirty-nine incumbent councillors stood again for Labour – many deselected to make way for new blood. It shows what can happen when you do things differently.

Miliband’s reward for yesterday’s performance is that he is now firmly established as Labour’s leader going into the 2015 election. While low turnout is a very fat fly in the ointment, he has placed Labour in a position where it is a real contender again just two years after a devastating election defeat.

Nonetheless, there is a danger that Miliband’s Labour party remains manacled to the past and the future may slip from its grasp. That is, unless it can demonstrate that it offers something fresh and relevant in 2015. The real work for the Labour leader starts now.

London’s mayoral election is the flashing warning light. Despite a powerful and emotional concession speech, it can’t be ignored that Ken Livingstone represented much of what Labour has to leave behind – the politics of divide and rule, promising what you can’t deliver and moralising about others when your own house is not in order.

His candidacy divided Labour with significant voices against him in public and private. The way the ‘loyalty’ card was played against those who had doubts was a disgrace. There was reasonable doubt and it should have been respected. Those who gave their all campaigning for Ken deserve deep respect but so do those who couldn’t bring themselves to support him.

The charge sheet Luke Akehurst laid out today is more than enough to justify a decision not to support Livingstone. When you sign up to Labour you don’t leave your conscience at the door. If we ask people to then we become an even smaller clique of ‘true believers’. As it happens, I voted for Ken (first preference!) but more than understand those who didn’t feel able to do so.

The bigger point though is that Livingstone’s defeat shows what happens when a party fails to move on. Too often, voices on the left articulate a language of change while remaining ardent defenders of a social democratic status quo. All that changes is the latest set of events which are claimed as transformative moments – this week it’s double-dip recession. Rather than transforming itself, the orthodox left continually claims that the world has changed instead. This thinking is what risks marooning Miliband whereas if he changes Labour, he can change Britain. He has yet to choose between the past and the future.

So Labour ends up opposing the cuts and accepting them. It moralises about predatory capitalism but simply offers regulatory tweaks around the edges. It talks about a new economy but the manipulation of taxes, credits and benefits will once again be the modus operandi of a future Labour administration. The lead singer is new, the lyrics have changed but the song is pretty much the same. Livingstone’s defeat shows that will not wash come 2015.

Renovation is needed rather than refurbishment. Ed Miliband now has a very short time to make Labour a party worthy of office again. He has to start with the basics and confront a party that has become too narrow and sectional: Glasgow Labour changed and won; London’s mayoral campaign didn’t and lost.

A modern party needs to be open rather than closed. In the manner of the French Parti Socialiste – energised by a national primary for its candidate in the presidential election – an open party would find ways of reaching out beyond its edges. The suggestion floated by Steve van Riel of a primary selection for Labour’s next candidate is a good one. Labour’s relationship with the trade unions should also be refreshed – more focused on trade union members than with trade union General Secretaries. Become a more open, democratic party and straight away you will start to change for the better as new voices widen your worldview.

Organisational and cultural change alone is far from enough. Labour has an opportunity, as neo-liberal Osbornomics palpably fails, to present a radically different national vision. This isn’t a moral question; instead it’s one of collective purpose. The UK needs new inclusive economic institutions if its people are to thrive in the decades to come.

These institutions would expand scientific research and create new networks of knowledge and innovation. We need significantly more investment in infrastructure and innovative business. Democratic power should be shifted to where it can be used to make a local and regional difference. Institutions are desperately needed to intervene to improve wages, security and expand technical, social and cognitive skills in a largely post-industrial economy.

This all constitutes a very different project to mainstream social democratic redistribution but it is ultimately more sustainable – and disruptive of the status quo. The end result will be to enable people to prosper and exert greater power over their lives.

If Ed Miliband dares to leave the past behind then he can prosecute a powerful new national vision. He can create an open and inclusive party whose mission is to innovate new economic institutions to spread power and opportunity. He’s done well to give himself a platform to make an argument for fundamental national change. The defeat of Ken Livingstone shows what happens when voters are simply offered more of the same. Labour has been warned.

Left without a future? Social justice after the crash by Anthony Painter is published by Arcadia Books in July.

Daniel Speight

That is, unless it can demonstrate that it offers something fresh and relevant in 2015.

How about using taxes to balance the budget Anthony? It’s a bit hard to pin you down on that.

Back to Livinstone. What should the party do with those members who campaigned against him? Should they be allowed to stay in the party to do the same against Ed Miliband in 2015?
- http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
  
  What taxes are you suggesting? I’d be happy with more taxes on high value property – that seems very sensible.
Spotify

Labour must change? After the best local election results since 1997? Are you crazy?
- http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
  
  Quite probably. I do seem to have quite a lot of historical evidence of mid-term elections on my side. Ed Miliband seems to agree. Maybe we are both crazy.
  - treborc1
    
    Change love it, is Blair around
    - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
      
      It’s funny, I thought the left was all about change. Apparently, it’s about keeping things the same. Sounds like conservatism to me.
      
      I do appreciate the ‘here’s something that doesn’t fit into my political frame, quick use the word ‘Blair’ lest I have to think about something’ approach.
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
        
        Ah, well, I think we need to be conserving that which is good and worthwhile – change for change’s sake is neither right nor left. Thatcher believed in change as a radical of the right
      - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
        
        Straw man…..
      - Mike Homfray
        
        Not at all. The current government are carrying out change. Some entirely unnecessary – the NHS reforms and the expansion of academies being two examples
      - Slakah
        
        Glass houses.
  - Spotify
    
    The situation is different now though. By 2015, if the Coalition actually manage it, huge cuts will have been delivered: only 13% of the planned cuts have been delivered to date with the other 87% of the cutting agenda to be implemented over the next few years. Two years on from the last general election and the economy is back in recession; the banks are not lending and every one of our major trading partners are suffering similar problems as we are. Rebalancing the economy, if it is possible at all, will take a generation or more to do. At the time of the next general election, only a thousand or so days away, the situation we are in and the difficulties in which we find ourselves will almost certainly not be much different than they are today.
    
    The Coalition will be seen as a cruel, unenlightened failure.
    
    Labour may be able to win in 2015 simply by not being the Tories.
- Holly
  
  These were local elections, with a small turnout.
  NOT a ringing endorsement.
  
  Crazy is remaining the same, with the same old faces, saying the same old things.
  You can always think the author ‘crazy’, stay the same and lose, or you can change, and win on your own merit as a party, instead of voter anger at the government, in a local election.
  The majority stayed at home, and that is the biggest threat to democracy.
  Would Miliband have a mandate with such a low turnout in a general election?
  Some have implied Cameron doesn’t for the same reason.
  
  Will Cameron now change/drop some of his policies? If he does, will the MSM accuse him of listening or running scared….I reckon the latter, but it is what the public think that counts.
  
  Enjoy your gains, but do not be fooled into thinking this is the public’s endorsement of Labour, because it is anything but.
  And the ‘REAL’ test for Ed is years away.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray

This is , once again, a far too London-centric view of ‘the way things are’

The sort of arguments going on surrounding the selection and campaign of Ken are not really reflected anywhere else. I don’t think the views of any candidate on Zionism or some of the other specific issues were even on the remote horizon in my borough of Sefton – where we took 8 seats from the ConDems and one from UKIP, including all seven in the Sefton Central constituency, none of which were won in 2008.

The idea that there is a major internal debate on some of these issues is really in your imagination, Anthony. I appreciate that you want to introduce them, but i think they are barely on the agenda of the party.

Should they be? Well, we shouldn’t be afraid to discuss any ideas, nor be so wedded to how we have done things that we can’t see the need to change. So, Ed Miliband’s realisation that the behaviour of the banks and the ‘predators’, as he put it, is starting to hit home and should be pursued. Outside the south-east, we are sceptical about the City and those associated with it, and policy which advocates proper regulation and intervention will be welcomed.

However, we are not a republic, and the leader of the party has to be the choice of the party – because we do not present an individual as candidate for president but a party for government. Should the leader resign, the party remains in power. Certainly there are ways of making the party more responsive but that will mean giving people a reason to be a member – real power in other words!

The rest of what you have to say just sounds like yet another warmed up version of ‘modernisation’ and is effectively an apolitical, technocratic programme which could be supported by anyone apolitical and centrist. It is largely a ‘take the politics out of politics’ sort of programme, and if Labour ever adopted it, then the Greens would appear are far more attractive prospect. Because this is no radical programme but more of the same – technocratic, centrist Blairism, and we all know where that ended up……

No thanks, Anthony.
- http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
  
  V.well done on Sefton. I don’t agree with much of the rest. As soon as you flash the ‘Blairite’ or ‘technocratic’ card I disengage….sorry.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
    
    You shouldn’t. I do think you seek ‘technocratic’ solutions. I still believe in redistribution and I’m unenthused about localism, so I don’t think there’s ever going to be meeting of minds. Your politics just have nothing to say to me and under a different electoral system we wouldn’t be in the same party. I think its one of the difficulties with having the two big catch-all parties.
    - derek
      
      Although the elections were local most people voted because of the reforms the national government were implementing.All these so called special advisers strangely only became very vocal to the near end of the London election, people are sick to death of these teflon brain drains using the good work done around the country by the real labour party hero’s for these selfish bunch to use it as an excuse to take us back to the lying days of Blairism.One step forward and two steps back.
    - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
      
      Mike, had I have made the comment about how we shouldn’t be in the same party then I would have been completely taken to task. Rightly.
      
      And if you think that my argument above and elsewhere is anti-localism and ‘technocratic’ that you haven’t understood a single word I’ve ever written. In fact, almost all of what I write is an argument against centralism and top-down bureaucratic management. If you want to have an argument with ‘Blairites’ go and find one.
      - derek
        
        @Anthony, but there is a sense you only write for Londoners? How many labour supporters endorse your ideas in the North?
      - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
        
        No idea. But I’ve no idea how many do in London either.
      - derek
        
        Well I think it’s fair to say that you’ve made the statement that because Ken failed labour needs to change? but it seems to me that labour made an over all gain everywhere else, so! is the problem in London and the thought train of the London for change ideas?
      - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
        
        I think you’ve misunderstood my argument. I’ve said the defeat shows what happens if you don’t change. I also talk about Glasgow where the local party did change.
      - derek
        
        The question of change in Glasgow wasn’t on the agenda, Glaswegians voted to oppose the SNP because 5 years in power have seen a drop in employment and all sorts of disparities in local governance.
        
        The SNP claimed to have gained 32.7% of the Scottish electorate vote, will a third of the vote deliver Independence?
        
        I think the argument is? people want a government that delivers jobs,, good schools, decent transport links, basically a labour party true to it’s founding principles of fairness and distribution for all.
        
        So change for change sake is defunct, when we’ve never reached the goals of our founding ideas. Full employment, a home for everyone and a fairer tax system is worth voting for, muddy the waters with language few understand just creates divisions.
      - treborc1
        
        It’s easy to say labour needs to change, without telling anyone what those changes are, tell us what type of labour party we would have, how do you change the Labour party so it’s still labour and not some carbon copy of the Tories which for me it is now.
      - AlanGiles
        
        I have to be careful what I say or I will become as abrasive as “Guy”, but I think one of the big problems today is that those at the top of the party listen to too many clever boys and girls (I am NOT talking about Anthony here, let me make that clear), who learned all they know at University, and they regard the party as an extension of the Oxford debating society.
        
        Men and women of my generation who became Labour MPs were appalled at the shocking poverty and inequality that was everywhere around us – there were still disused bomb sites in East London for example in the later 1950s while people lived in terrible hovels yards away from them. Most of them – and us – saw this waste and poverty as we went to school or work, as did the MPs who emerged from the mines, industry and the services, and were determined to see thin gs change for the better.
        
        Think of Labour in those years and beyond and you think of people who had done real work sometimes hard physical work and entered Parliament in their 30s or 40s. Now you think of Labour MPs and you think of twenty somethings at Oxford congratulating each other on their great intellects. They think they know all the answers because some of them are in textbooks – in theory. In practice they are often talking about things they know virtually nothing about.
      - Mike Homfray
        
        But Johann Lamont has taken the Scottish party to the left and cleared out many of the right wing fossils in Glasgow. The message was very much a traditional Labour one. Organisational change really doesn’t have to go hand in hand with the shift of policy emphasis you suggest.
      - Mike Homfray
        
        Sigh – it’s clear you don’t understand what I am saying. I am sceptical about localism. I still believe in a strong redistributive State. I think politics should lead economics. And I am a globalisation sceptic and think it will inevitably fail. My beliefs all stem from those three things
        
        Also I pointed out that under our current electoral system with one catch all left of centre party we are both members of Labour. I think a proportional system would probably mean a different arrangement of parties both on the left and right. Politically we seem to be miles apart.
https://mikestallard.virtualgallery.com/ Mike Stallard

“ Labour’s relationship with the trade unions should also be refreshed – more focused on trade union members than with trade union General Secretaries. ”

Indeed. But he who pays the piper……….

“The Conservative relationship with the big donors should also be refreshed – more focused on party members than with the personalities who pay for the elections.”

Indeed, but he who pays the piper………..

Meanwhile, we, the voters, decline to vote. We just moan or give unheeded advice. And in the end most of the decisions that hurt us come straight from Brussels anyway.
Conor Brady

I could talk about how this article made me furious, how you condescend to huge numbers of activists, me included, who have swallowed so much of this guff out of love for the party. But it would not be productive, so let me ask some questions: What are this platitudes?

What are these new economic institutions, what is this innovative business your talking about? Where is it coming from? What cognitive skills are we talking about here? No offence but if your going to insult huge parts of the party you should at least be kind enough to not do so with straw men and high minded platitudes? I mean you take this apart, you could just say its 600 or so positive words, intervention, innovation, sustainable, nation vision.

The straw man as well, its not about how London was an up hill race from the beginning with a Mayor who reflected the desires of many of the ‘hipster’ urbanites he courts, or the collapse of the Working Class vote for Labour that could be endemic of national views not Ken’s failure. When we look at the low turn out, we really should be worried that the people we were supposed to represent aren’t coming out to support.

Finally, and i think the worst of all is that last part. Are you actually saying, that with inequality at its highest since the pre war era, you want to give up on re-distributive policies in favor of some meaningless platitudes? No-one is against innovation mind you, i think there should be a real move towards Green Energies, that’s where the money will be in 30 years time. But are you saying we shouldn’t even talk about re-distributive policies? Because if anything, innovation is almost more difficult to sustain, especially for electibility, it takes time so later governments get the credit, we can either create debt to innovate and get flack for that, or we can raise taxes and get flack for that, without anything direct to show for it.

I really hope you take a long hard look about the damage this gleefulness to disengage with the past will do to the Party, or at the very least put some hard evidence and ideas as a down payment for your rhetoric.
- Holly
  
  Redistribution is all very well, but what about the unemployed?
  Do we simply let them ‘enjoy’ the redistribution from those already in work, or do we try to give them the skills so they too can join the party, and do a bit of redistribution of their own?
  It is only two years ago since Labour left office, so many of the now unemployed were educated/trained under a Labour government. They are seeing the job market is tougher, but also have the disheartening knowledge that their education was not all they were led to believe it was.
  Some have a burning desire to become part of the redistributing, others live in absolute fear that their lives are being turned upside down, as they have always been recipients, and have never known the world of work.
  Then you have the people who have no intention of being anything but a recipient, this should be stigmatised as unacceptable social behaviour.
  Lastly, but most importantly you have those with no choice but to be recipients as they are unable/not fit to work.
  If we can get those who are able to work to join the redistributing team, then life for ALL categories will improve dramatically….
  This is just my own vision of what the nation should be banging on about, not just having a dig at those with more….A genuine aim to include those with less, to work & enjoy being among those with more.
  Would it ever catch on?
  - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
    
    Holly, I think what you’ve said makes a lot of sense.
    
    “Do we simply let them ‘enjoy’ the redistribution from those already in
    work, or do we try to give them the skills so they too can join the
    party, and do a bit of redistribution of their own?”
    
    Yes, we should invest in their skills and enable them to participate again. We also need to think of ways of doing more to raise wages at the bottom so people can live decent lives if they work. That means a different balance between wages and profits.
    
    And you are right, if people genuinely can’t work then they should be given good support.
    - Spotify
      
      It is easy to talk about giving people skills. But what skills are we actually talking about? Professional? Technical? Skilled? Semi-skilled? What? And where are all of these millions of well-paid jobs for all of these shiny, happy, freshly trained people to go into? Mouthing homilies like this is the easiest thing in the world to do. If only it were that simple: train ‘em up and put ‘em to work. Oh, boy. Some mothers do have ‘em. Keep your eyes on the Tory Work Programme and watch it crash and burn.
  - Spotify
    
    It isn’t a matter of simply reskilling the workforce. We now have thousands of first class unemployed graduates in every imaginable subject and discipline who can’t get a start in life, let alone the millions of lesser well qualified men, women, boys and girls who desperately need paid work. The real problem is that most of the mezzanine jobs, i.e., skilled manual or sub-professional technical jobs, that provided millions of citizens with careers and incomes have gone, plain and simple. Unless employment opportunities of a similar middling nature are created we will ALWAYS have millions of people unemployed no matter how many Work Programmes we commission or how meagre benefit levels remain or how much workfare we demand to punish the unemployed for not securing non-existent jobs with employers who don’t want to hire them.
    
    There are not enough professional or unskilled vacancies to mop up the millions of unemployed and economically inactive citizens now forced to live pinched lives on benefits coupled with low-paid or part-time temporary employment. Unless people have secure local jobs with enough hours which pay living wages and enable people to support themselves with minimal help from the state the welfare bill will rise inexorably. Besides, in my opinion everybody deserves a better life than the dole or benefits plus some low-skilled twelve-hour-a-week job stacking shelves in their local supermarket for a pittance. Nothing will ever improve the situation of this country without a much fairer redistribution of the nation’s wealth and a resurgence in manufacturing.
    - Holly
      
      The thousands of unemployed graduates are behind the thousands of graduates from other countries, that is the problem many of them are facing.
      The majority would be a great asset to any business or company, but the world moved on while the UK stood still.
      We can not compete in the global markets on the wage front in many types of manufacturing. Until the emerging & fast growing economies wages ‘catch up’, it will sadly stay the same, and so will the competition.
      Competitive is what we have to be, both in skills and in wages.
      Hopefully, pay rises will follow both here and abroad.
      - Spotify
        
        Why are foreign graduates being hired before British graduates? Are their degrees better? Do they also offer post-graduate qualifications? Are they harder working? Are they cleverer? Or are they qualified in professions that are in short supply in the United Kingdom? I really don’t think you can simply say that British graduates are unemployed because foreign graduates are stealing most of the jobs that are available.
        
        In economics there is a principle called “competitive advantage” which basically means providing goods and services cheaper or of a higher quality than others and changing those goods and service in reaction to what others are doing globally. Once upon a time Britain manufactured ships. Then along came Japan and South Korea and now Poland and other countries who could supply the same ships more cheaply and Britain gave up producing ships in large numbers and moved into banking and allied services and so on and so forth. If one country beats you at a certain activity you have to move on to pastures new. We CANNOT compete with countries like China as far as sweatshop mass production of goods goes because Chinese wages are low (because living costs are low) and social costs are low (because they have little regulation in respect to health and safety, workers rights, pollution of the environment etc): without benefits people would die if treated the same as the average Chinese worker in this country because, literally, they would not be able to afford to have adequate nourishment or shelter to keep body and soul together.
        
        What we can do is move into the creative, scientific and high-tech industries, which rely on much more than a cheap workforce and stop sending most of our designs to places like China in order to get them manufactured ultra-cheaply, manufacture them at home, and pay bit more for them giving a shot in the arm for home grown businesses in the process.
http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter

This is under 1000 words. Luckily there’s a lot more to come. You are going to be very, very angry.
http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter

This is under 1000 words. Luckily there’s a lot more to come. You are going to be very, very angry.

It’s not posting in right place – it’s in reply to @Conor Brady.
- treborc1
  
  Lots more to come, I suspect depending on how the book sells
  - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
    
    George R R Martin watch out!
Anthony T

Many of the articles on LabourList show remarkable intellectual laziness in responding to disappointments like this. Every time something goes wrong (Ed’s personal polling, Bradford West, Ken, etc.) the said event as interpreted as irrefutable evidence that in order to rectify matters we absolutely must follow the path the author had already decided on prior to that event.

This usually takes the form of empty modernisation-era rhetoric, warning us of the dangers of doing anything to help the working class and inevitably throwing in a few vacuous platitudes about innovation and localism for good measure.
- http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
  
  Thank you for not resorting to a lazy response.
  - Brumanuensis
    
    It might be lazy, but there’s an element of truth in it. Is there anything you’ve said here that you haven’t already said many times over.
    - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
      
      Quite a bit. But even if not then then so what? Repetition is important – it’s not ‘laziness’; it’s how you build awareness of your ideas and get engagement with them.
- Holly
  
  It’s not laziness as such, it is the same principles in everything.
  There was nothing wrong with tin baths & outside toilets, both worked, and everyone had one, but aren’t the modern, innovative, inside bathrooms tons better?The basics are the same, but the ‘facelift’ was what won it. What the country needs is the ‘inside bathroom’ equivalent of a political party.Having had the misery & joy of experiencing both, the modern & innovative beats the dreary old fashioned every time.
  - Slakah
    
    What your asking for then is surely improvement, of which you seem to equate modernisation and innovation. Using metaphorical argument should I cook my dinner in the Microwave because it’s newer, should I abandon 2D film for 3D because it’s more modern? It’s just a method used to attempt to extra weight to an argument by the ingrained link that people have in their mind that modernisation automatically means better. When in fact I would argue there are very few truely new/modern/innovative ideas in the political arena, especially when you look at the article above. Barack Obamas guilty of it, Cameron, Blair, Thatcher, Reagan, Kennedy, Wilson, Clinton the list goes on and on because it’s a trick which works.
    - Holly
      
      The outside toilet/tin bath were already brilliant. Everyone knew what they were for, and so were easy to incorporate into a modern house.
      Microwaves are NOT the same as gas/electric cookers, so although modern, people usually also have the standard cooker as well.
      3D film needs another machine/TV to enable them to play.
      
      It was not so much the modern alternative,I was advocating. It was utilising what was already there, but changing the surroundings, the look, the ‘feel’ of the party.
      The modern bath & toilet have barely changed. It has been subtle, with none of the original intention, purpose or function removed.
      Subtle changes, in the language, the faces, the attitude to the opposition, less attack/opposition.
      A bit more ‘likeable’, ‘inviting’.
      More the ‘Flake advert’, than an episode of ‘how we used to live’.
      No need for new machinery, or something that is only used when in a hurry.
      If you know what I mean.
      - AlanGiles
        
        ”
        The outside toilet/tin bath were already brilliant.”
        
        Not on a very cold winters night. Outdoor lavatories are not to be recommended at midnight in January
Ianrobo

so is this the 4th or 5th article on the bloody london mayor ??

A position that in reality has few powers and does not effect 53 Million people outside of London.

I mean we won the list easy and the tories lost badly and yet all we hear is Ken this, Ken that !

We won a Sutton coldfield seat in the height of Toryism and NOTHING

We clean sweeped Manchester, sandwell, Sefton.Drove the racists out of Burnley, drove the Lib dems out of Sheffield and rochdale, previous powerbases for them.

We swept across Wales, performed a good recovery in scotland.

Won southern Councils, won seats in Cameron’s backdoor

We got part of the east back in Thurrock, Norwich and Ipswich (all marginal seats)

and yet all we hear is KEN, KEN, KEN

get out of your bubbles guys and look across the country and look at the labour results.
- http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
  
  It’s not simply about the London Mayor. It’s actually about Labour and our political future. I thought that is what LabourList was about….
  
  And if you read beyond the headline you’ll see mention of all the local election results and a specific discussion about Glasgow. But we all like to have a moan.
  - Ianrobo
    
    Come on Anthony London is a Labour city still and by a distance on the more important LIST vote. So London joined the rest of the country in turning more red across the urban areas for certain.
    
    You can not base Labour on what Ken does or does not do the same you can not base Tories on what Boris does. Two mavericks, both outside the leadership fighting to pretend to be important and open the Olympics.
    - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
      
      I’m not. I’m saying there something in that defeat which poses a warning. The rest of the results were excellent and should be celebrated.
      - Ianrobo
        
        yes there is a warning that you have to change and London Labour will see that and has done in other boroughs across the City
  - Ianrobo
    
    Yes we should always change and the party is across the country. Take Birmingham and we got some young community based councillors now representing their areas. This is the future of the party, almost back to the future away from the metropolitan elite and spin we saw in the past (from all ).
    - Dave Postles
      
      Ian – tell us more about the composition. We need to know.
      - Ianrobo
        
        Here is something I posted elsewhere, some names
        
        Jess Phillips will be fantasticJosh Jones a young man with a long futureRob Pocock who knows the value of proper community engagement Zafar Iqbal – A man with community values at his coreJohn O’Shea who needs little introductionCaroline Bradley – The heartbeat of Gisella’s fantastic organisation in edgbaston
      - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
        
        Can I just say how excited I am about Caroline getting on the Council. Brilliant results for all the others you mention too. Brum has a bright future.
      - Ianrobo
        
        It does and is replicated across many councils. These people do not need cash as such and work on the ground, it is the way forward.
        
        It is why we can offer the low donation limits the Tories can not, politics is about winning teh ground war in the future.
      - Dave Postles
        
        Excellent.
      - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
        
        Spot on. Agree entirely.
      - AlanGiles
        
        ”
        Brum has a bright future. ”
        
        Made all the brighter by the fact that the dreadful Byrne will not be their Mayor – or anybody else for that matter. It must have been as sad a day for Liam as it was for Ken – I bet he was dreaming up ideas on how to “maximise” his expenses – a leopard never changes his spots.
  - derek
    
    And by jov! your moan length is as long as the nile.
  - TomFairfax
    
    Hi Anthony, Ian has a point. The UK is not London, England is not London, and the London Mayoral contest is a beauty contest where people seem quite happy to vote for an individual of one party whilst voting for assembly members of another.
    
    In this case individuals doing their best to dissassociate themselves from their own parties policies.
    
    Fot the 90% that don’t live there this continual London centric naval gaziing simply indicates a lack of grip on reality. Important yes, but so are the West Midlands, Scotland, and Wales. The last two areas where nationalist movements have profitted from this London is the centre of the universe attitude.
    - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
      
      I agree.
trotters1957

I read every word but am none the wiser. “Change, Modernise, Innovate, Renovation, Vision”

Style over content.

It’s real Ideas and an Ideology Labour needs now, not the Third Way, End of History, cliche ridden Change agenda.

Ideology and Policies, your article is an ideas and policy free zone.
- http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
  
  I don’t know where to begin with such a weighty contribution.
  
  I asked this after comments to my last piece but where are the women and the new commenters? It’s the same old voices saying the same old things. It kind of underlines the argument about open v closed party…
  - trotters1957
    
    I’m not a Labour Party member nor have I voted for anyone for many years but I would like to.
    
    Go home and write 10 things you believe in and then 10 things you would do, as long as those 10 things don’t include ” change, modernise, innovate” etc etc.
    - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
      
      If you’re patient, you’ll see 50.
      - trotters1957
        
        Do I have to buy the book?
      - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
        
        Afraid so. I need to keep the coffee jar stocked.
  - Brumanuensis
    
    And you’ve come to that conclusion based on one website’s comments section. Good God, it’s worse than I thought.
AlanGiles

”
The way the ‘loyalty’ card was played against those who had doubts was a disgrace”

The Ken Livingstone of 2012 was the Ken Livingstone of 2008. We had already had the famous encounter with the Evening Standard journalist, and Labour were happy enough with him then. Even in 2010 when they selected him the hierarchy kept their worries to themselves. Then, just weeks before the election itself, Labour figures publically started airing their doubts on Labour Uncut, mainly but on LL as well. Alan Sugar and Lord Dasai put the final nails into the coffin just days before the election. Not only were they not voting for him themselves they were telling other people to follow their example. That is disgraceful.

Yet, when many of us expressed our doubts over some of Tony Blair’s excesses especially Iraq we were called all sorts of names by the ardent Blairites.

Funny how it is OK to be disloyal to a traditional Labour figures, but not to the so-called “modernisers”.

I repeat what I wrote on Luke’s piece: KL only just lost the elecgtion, or Johnson only just won it. This was no landslide.

Livingstone’s career of 41 years ended last night. As he didn’t want it to, that is a personal loss for him. I really don’t think this constant crowing over the remains is edifying or necessary.

Of course we can;t keep offering more of the same – but that includes “Blairism” The Third Way, triangulation and all those other 15 year old relics as well.
- http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
  
  I agree with your last sentence – Blairism and the Third Way are past. And I agree with what you say about dissent and Iraq. In fact, it’s a very good example where people had concerns of conscience and they should have been able to express them openly without being judged.
  - AlanGiles
    
    Of course, there is a particular problem with being a candidate for Mayor of London (or anywhere else I imagine) and that is you need to have a degree of showmanship. It is horrible, but true (one of the reasons I am against the idea of Mayors) that you have to enjoy being on television, and the whole atmosphere is more akin to showbiz (journalists who would never dream of saying “Ed & Dave” say “Boris and Ken” without thinking. It’s like a comedic double act).
    
    A TV critic in a newspaper (try as I might can’t remember her/his name) once described Boris Johnson as “a national treasure” – for appearing 0n Have I Got News For You, the ancient news quiz. Johnson certainly likes to act up to this image of the buffoonish clown, and it has to be said in fairness, Ken in his prime quite enjoyed playing the cheeky chappy. Do both major parties go for fun or gravitas next time round?
    
    As for 2016 Johnson is unlikely to be the candidate, since he seems to have his eye on No 10 (modesty is obviously not something that troubles him), so what media figure will they pick? Matthew Parris perhaps?, anyway, labour will have to play along and go for a media figure, and therein lies the problem. I frankly don’t think politics and entertainment mix comfortably, but this will always be more a personality contest than a political one.
    
    I have no ideas as to who it should be. If I had my way, there would be another referendum on the need for a Mayor, and I would frankly hope it would go the way of Birmingham and co this week.
    
    One other point not concerned with the Mayor, but just thinking aloud. If the low turn out for both the London Mayoral election and the referenda in other parts of the country are replicated for the Police Commissioner elections, I reckon we will be looking at turnout of about 15%
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
    
    The problem I have is that I don’t find your alternative any more appealing. Less so, if anything – I wouldn’t vote Labour if your ideas became party policy
    - derek
      
      Good point @Mike, if labour had chosen a Blairite to run for the London mayor position results elsewhere would have probably been worse.
      - treborc1
        
        New labour is dead, so lets welcome Newer labour, and then the dam grinning pair of ears turns up to advise new MP’s
Ian Pace

One thing that has to change for Labour is the tolerance shown towards party members who actively work against the leadership and official candidates. As one person pointed out in the comments accompanying Luke Akehurst’s article, what has happened with respect to Ken in 2012 will happen for Ed in 2015.

It’s time for the cry-baby Blairite faction either to start doing something to support the party and the leadership, or leave and join the ConDems, where some of them belong.
- Bill Lockhart
  
  If you had got what you wanted Livingstone would have been expelled two years ago.
  - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
    
    Nope. That’s the precise opposite of my argument.
    - Bill Lockhart
      
      I was replying to Ian Pace.
- http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
  
  We do need a purge. And a loyalty test. Perhaps a public declaration of allegiance. Come join us and we’ll humiliate you.
  - AlanGiles
    
    How deep would this purge go, though, Anthony?
    
    Would it include the right-wingers like Frank Field who consorts with Duncan-Smith for example?
    - derek
      
      Great point @Alan, Anthony talks as if the Scottish labour party has changed? I can tell Anthony that any move towards the ideas of Tom Harris would alienate labour further in Scotland.Tom Harris didn’t even reach double figures in his quest to lead Scottish labour.
      - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
        
        Glasgow is what I mention. I haven’t said anything about Scottish Labour.
      - AlanGiles
        
        Sorry Derek tthe reply above was in answer to yours – for some reason either my netbook or the system is playing up this morning
    - AlanGiles
      
      I admire Anthony’s work in Hackney where he is helping to found a new technical college, which is a brilliant and practical idea, but my problem with his wing of the party is that they want to “change” so that they can gloat at the defeat of left-wingers like Ken Livingstone (in the same way I recall hearing a right-winger gloating when Bob Marshall-Andrews announced he was steppping down at the last election), but it seems not to bother them at all that you have the likes of Field endorsing Tory welfare policy (though of course we started it) and Hoey who “advises” Boris Johnson and is a leading light in the Countryside Alliance – despite being a South London MP (the opportunities for hunting in Stockwell is somewhat limited), and that is not regarded as disloyal or extreme. It seems you can only be “extreme” if you are on the Left, it is not extreme to endorse warmongers.
      
      I suspect what they want is for a light blue Conservative party with perhaps a smaller “c”. Well, the larger part of Labour’s membership doesn’t support this, otherwise when Blair made his exit we would have had people throwing themselves out of buildings p- a great majority even of the PLP were glad to see him gone.
      
      I think, if Anthony and his friends really believe that “Progress” has the answers they are posing the wrong question – their only answer seems to be more of the same
      - derek
        
        I agree! there are times when @Anthony hits home big time but often falls short on context, leading me to believe there is a hidden agenda. Anthony seems religiously tied to the idea that there is no left nor right to progress but just a plain drive down the middle, the problem there is if you stand in the middle of the road you’ll get knocked down and the evidence is overwhelming that the congested middle road rotation is littered with casualties. I think Anthony ducks out of explaining what part of Ken’s manifesto he disagrees with? because if he doesn’t oppose what Ken wanted for Londoners then it’s just a case of attacking the man rather than the policies?
      - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
        
        I didn’t disagree with much of it. In fact, I thought there were some great ideas like the London energy co-operative. My problem on the policy level was about deliverability rather than the policies in and of themselves. And I think he faced some of that problem with Londoners too: they wanted the fare cut, the London EMA etc. – all of which are good things but people didn’t believe they could be delivered and if they were they would create new problems (eg difficulty refinancing TfL debt or cuts to the investment programme). We can all come up with a manifesto full of popular policies – spend more on everything and cut taxes but it fails the credibility test. Having said that, I don’t feel that credibility on policy was Ken’s biggest problem but it was a factor.
      - derek
        
        Scotland has maintained it’s EMA? @Peter Barnard has consistently advocated that consumers need to spend, so with that in mind it would seem a pretty good and fair policy to cut the cost of travel. With the sheer size of the London vote it’s better to talk in percentage rather than numbers, 60,000 plus seems a big number but the reality is a 3% difference, which is within the margin of error? and it’s likely that in a few months time Boris will be a mayor without a majority of support.Returning to the economics, we can only garnish growth from creating demand and demand can only be viable by the consumer spending power, so I guess we disagree on the way forward?
- D. Hanlon
  
  More divisive claptrap from the far-left.
  
  Can you people shut up about Blairite conspiracies for one second?
  - AlanGiles
    
    Even if they are real and exist? – and even more so during the week Blair himself appoints a new “communications” chief and says he wants to “re-engage” with British politics.
    
    D. Halon – are you man, woman – or ostrich?
TomFairfax

Just to clarify. I’m not aware of a Black Country movement ccampaigning for independence in Tipton.
- http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
  
  If it did then it would have some of the finest pubs and beers of any nation.
hp

Labour’s big problem is the economic shambles that the country is in following 12 yrs of Labour government.
The idiots who got us here are claiming to have the answers… as if!
When it comes to the big elections, rather than protest votes over closing libraries, Labour will be in the wilderness for 10 yrs.
Labour will only have a chance once the current generation has moved on.
derek

Change? change to what? does this push for perpetual evolution simple equate to being more like the opposition? I like the fact that Ken offered a different manifesto to that of Boris and I think we’d be mad to embrace the one nation conservative notion.

Change? change the economics and support a fairer distribution for all.
- AlanGiles
  
  I agree Derek. Sometimes there is a danger that if you are constantly seeking change you are in a permanent state of flux, which many people find unsettling.
  
  Blair seemed to use the word “change” as often as “if” and “but”, but not all change is for the better – he himself changed from a right-winger whose heart was more or less in the right place by establishing the minimum wage, into a war-mongering poodle of an extreme right-wing American President.
  
  Honesty should triumph over expediency, both personal honesty – not fiddling your expenses while decrying “benefit cheats exploiting the system” (Purnell) and political honesty – not changing stance to fit in with some whacky Daily Mail obsession.
  
  Lord Palmerston had it about right: ”Change, change, change – all this talk of change.
  Are’nt things bad enough already?”
RogerMcC

The most sensible response to the London fiasco is not to throw out the political baby with the remaining water from the bath from which Ken’s just been messily ejected but to start a serious national campaign to abolish the Mayor(s) altogether.

Like so many other manifestations of Blair’s peculiar obsession with American politics its now been in operation for long enough to show that it doesn’t work and produces precisely the opposite results to those intended (not least the resounding rejection of new mayors in all those referenda on Thursday).

I do however look forward to Anthony’s detailed explanation of what these new ‘inclusive institutions’ that can magically reverse every destructive trend of modern capitalism will actually be…
- Brumanuensis
  
  Damn straight Roger. This bizarre power fetish for consolidating power in the hands of one person is completely against our Party’s traditions and culture. Stop prevaricating and just devolve power to the existing councillors. Or if that’s too much, just end the ridiculous requirement for a 2/3 majority of the London Assembly to modify the Mayor’s proposals.
- http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
  
  You are going to be disappointed I’m afraid. You’ll get the suggestions but the argument is anti-utopian so ‘magically’ sorting everything out isn’t part of the argument.
Brumanuensis

Essentially, if we cut out the extraneous elements, this article reduces to ‘I want primaries’.

Primaries are the epitome of zombie idea. At least with zombies you can kill them by shooting them in the head. Primaries, on the other hand, seem to pop up constantly, no matter how many times it is pointed out that if you want a way to alienate ordinary Party members, then taking away their right to select the candidate they will be campaigning for is a pretty straightforward one. I mean, if you want a load of pissed-off CLPs saddled with candidates they don’t like and don’t want, then go for primaries. We’ll lose election after election, but the commentariat will be happy. Just like when they completely misread the mood on AV and the mayoral referendums – to be repeatedly told by journalists that Birmingham was likely to vote yes to having a mayor, when anyone actually living in Birmingham could have told them that this just wasn’t going to happen, was a frustrating experience .

The fad for primaries is based on a misapprehension of what the public want. The public seem to have three basic demands of candidates these days: honesty, charisma/’likeability’ and clarity. The first two more or less sum up the major reasons why Ken lost: people saw him as dishonest and they liked Boris’s ‘hail fellow, well met’ schtick. Having talked to many non-political friends, these do indeed seem to be significant factors. It is enough to make you want to bang your head against the wall and weep for the future of democracy, but it is a reality and it probably explains why Ed Miliband has low personal ratings. His low-key, rather intellectual approach, is casually summed up as ‘geeky’ and coupled with the endless ‘fratricide’ allegations – that fact it isn’t true doesn’t matter for the purposes of the argument – contrives to make the public see him as a bit stand-offish. Now Ed has his problems and his public speaking style can grate at times – the short sentences, the clunky emoting, etc. – but the fact that so much coverage has focussed on his alleged ‘weirdness’, is a reminder of how utterly wretched the level of public debate in Britain is. None of this will be altered by primaries.

Primaries are just a symptom of wider disease. Party activists are regarded as optional extras and a persistent neophilia means that rather than try and encourage the renewal of CLPs by actually giving them some influence and discretion, we instead end up with gimcrack ideas like primaries. Aside from the exorbitant cost, what primaries represent is another nail in the coffin of collective politics. Why bother, as a Labour Party member, paying your dues and chipping in, if you are consistently treated with such disrespect by the leadership. Primaries are essentially a not-so-subtle way of saying ‘we think you’re untrustworthy and we don’t think you’re important enough to participate in shaping our Party’s future or ideals’. We are being transformed from members, into supporters. Instead of being partners in politics and power, we are becoming a glorified ginger club, who will stand in place, waving placards and applauding gormlessly at whatever we’re told. I want something more for myself and my comrades. I want us to be treated with respect.
Daniel Speight

In reality Painter’s post has very little to do with the London’s mayoral election and Livingstone’s loss. The election result was just a peg to hang his oft-repeated ‘new way’ economics. This can be seen by his avoidance of answering the very first question on this thread of what should be done with those Labour members who campaigned against voting for Livingstone or even advanced a vote for Johnson. (Mind you Painter isn’t alone in doing this as neither Mark or Luke seem to want to dip their toes into this cesspool either.)

The strange thing is that so far Painter’s ‘new way’ looks rather similar to what has gone on before. I can’t see that many differences to the Blair/Brown partnership or even what proceeded them. Maybe we will have to buy his book to find the magic cure, although I’m beginning to suspect it may be snake oil that we find within.

In the joke when asked directions the yokel says that if it was him he wouldn’t start from here. Maybe there’s a bit of truth in that answer. If we analyze how we got to where we are now it’s no good starting from Blair and Brown’s ‘no more boom and bust’; and yes Blair did say it too. After the initial post-war reforms by the the Attlee government there was a consensus between Labour and the Tories that we were shifting gradually towards a more equal society. It wasn’t until the late 1970s that Thatcher and Reagan broke that consensus with their neo-liberal beliefs. At that point we started along a road of lower taxes on business and the wealthy in the belief that the growth generated would spread, even as the gap between the rich and the poor widens. This economic ideology had very little in common with either the One Nation Tories or the US Republicans who came before Thatcher and Reagan

It worked initially, but long before Blair had even been elected prime minister for the first time the gains were already turning into fools’ gold. Britain, unlike France and Germany, had deindustrialized and nailed its colours to the mast of the City’s financial industry. Even the growth was false built on debt. Of course there was a bust coming. Failure to see that would be learning nothing from history. Vince Cable may have forecast six of the last two recessions, but he was on a pretty good bet that one was coming.

The problem with allowing the inequality to worsen is that while nobody notices it when the money is pouring in, once life starts to get harder it becomes a very contentious issue. That’s why the polls are beginning to show that taxing the more wealthy in the country is no longer a toxic subject. That is why Hollande and Obama can talk about it.

But poor Anthony doesn’t want to talk about taxing the rich. It doesn’t fit with his ideas. Why use taxes to balance the budget when we can cut more social services? As far as I can see he seems to want a combination of austerity plus some sort of fund to help new industries and education. I’m sure the latter part is a great idea, but it seems he is just tacking it onto more of the same old failed policies that got us here anyway. Why not go back to the point of failure, the introduction of neo-liberal economic policies in Britain and the US.

Here comes Anthony Painters rather strange bit. Recently he gave a good review to a book by Jeffrey Sachs, an American economist, called The Price of Civilization. The strange bit is that very core idea in this book is that we need to get back to the post-war consensus that we use income taxes to balance the budget and move back onto the road heading towards a more equal society. So why when it seems that this is not Painter’s view did he praise the Sachs book? Did he even read the book I now wonder?

Now he doesn’t like being called a Blairite, but he needs to give a real indication showing where he veers off the path of Blair/Brown economics which in itself was a continuation, all be it a little less shrill, of the Thatcher/Reagan one.
- Brumanuensis
  
  I don’t agree with your characterisation of Painter’s argument on redistribution. The point was not an anti-redistribution one, more an argument in favour of ‘pre-distribution’. I don’t think this is objectionable in itself, as structuring economic, political and social institutions in such a way as to promote equality, shared profit and better business practices, is preferable to having to deal with the consequences post-production. Greenspan allowed the housing bubble to inflate because he thought it would be easier to deal with the burst, rather than take steps to prevent it from bursting. In a similar way, redistribution is not enough. It is highly valuable as a means to correct market inefficiences and reduce income disparities, but it won’t deliver a better society on its own.
  
  Oddly, this is a similar argument to that made by left-wing critics of another Anthony – Crosland – when he wrote ‘The Future of Socialism’. Crosland – like AJP Taylor incidentally – believed that capitalism had been tamed and that socialists should redistribute the profits of capitalist enterprise to harness that wealth for social purposes. Public ownership was a wasteful distraction and Clause 4 should be re-written. The merits of individual nationalisations can be debated, but in retrospect that now seems like an error. Without changing the ownership profile and architecture of our economy, socialist goals are unlikely to be achieved.
  
  I do think ‘a combination of austerity plus some sort of fund to help new industries and education’ is a very effective summary of In The Black Labour’s philosophy though. I also agree that in common with most of his articles, this one is annoyingly vague at specifying the details behind the broad themes discussed. However I don’t think describing him as ‘Blairite’ really helps move the discussion along, given that Painter’s views conflict fairly regularly with what is commonly known as ‘Blairism’. I think he’s just an iconoclast, with an idiosyncratic streak.
  - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
    
    Brumanuensis – you have come closer to understanding my argument then anyone else here. It is an argument contra Crosland and I see Blair/Brown as neo-Croslandites. There is also an important argument to be had about politics and political organisation – some which I’ve touched on above. Essentially, political economy has to deal with both political and economic institutions and they are related.
    
    Get the institutions right and people are able to acquire the skills, finance, wages, assets, relationships and welfare support that they need. For me, the British state delivers neither sufficient security nor opportunity – it is either institutionally weak or ill-adapted. The centre-left should devote itself to rectifying that as a means to significantly enhance social justice. Redistribution works for a while until there’s no money left. Then, as we are seeing, it is reversed and you haven’t really gained much in terms of transforming people’s life chances.
    
    To be honest, where this fits in the spectrum of British political ideas, I’m not sure. It may well be idiosyncratic as you say. Because of that it’s difficult to place – hence people reach for familiar categories such as ‘Blairite’. I understand why this is but it is also very wrong.
    
    As for any vagueness, just stick with it for now. There’s plenty on the way, trust me.
    - Brumanuensis
      
      I’m flattered, but I do differ somewhat on redistribution. I don’t think ‘no money left’ is a useful way of thinking about the present situation. There’s always money, it’s just a question of whether extracting it is worth the trouble. It’s not as if incomes at the top have collapsed; the growth in inequality demands some form of redistribution in order to correct it. I don’t think ‘redistribution’ and ‘pre-distribution’ should be contrasted as ‘either-ors’. The two complement one another, but over-reliance on the former is not sensible. That doesn’t mean it becomes useless. It just needs to be better designed – reforming taxation of property and wealth, for instance; eliminating loopholes in the tax system; ending the preferential treatment of certain forms of income like capital gains, etc.
      
      I’m afraid my reading list is rather full at the moment. I may get your book some time in the future. As Dean Baker – remember him – said, ‘Death to Copyright’.
      - CaptnJackSparrow
        
        I’m going to scan and make the book available for download in portable document format ASAP. You can then download by torrent or other means, for free, at your convenience.
      - Brumanuensis
        
        Thank you Captn Jack, but I didn’t say I agreed with Baker. I was being flippant.
  - Daniel Speight
    
    Brumanuensis – First I think you are being far too kind to Greenspan. If I remember correctly this guy was an acolyte of Ayn Rand who is now trying to rewrite his part in the financial meltdown. Having him in charge of the Fed was allowing a patient to run the asylum. Then again there were a few crazies who tied themselves to the neo-liberal bandwagon.
    
    If Painter’s argument is in favour of what you call ‘pre-distribution’, I’m not quite sure what that means. Are we back into the quagmire that we only need to help those with ‘aspiration’?
    
    Hindsight is a most wonderful talent to have, but of course we can all have it for free by just looking at history. We can see the point where Friedman and the new economists on the block started calling for a reduction of taxes on the wealthy, which coincides obviously with the end of the gradual move towards income equality. We know what they did back then, so what a good starting point to try and fix things.
    
    Painter’s posts are getting flakier and his refusal answer questions is annoying. I guess we are being sucked into buying his book, but in it I hope he at least makes an effort to support his ideas with a few facts.
- http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
  
  Daniel, I’ve answered these points for you umpteen times. Both on this thread and elsewhere. I’m sorry but there’s really no point just saying the same thing over and over again – it’s a waste of your time and mine.
  
  I’ve answered your point about taxing the rich elsewhere in this thread which you didn’t respond to – instead you just made the same accusation again. I’m really not sure what it is you are trying to achieve.
  
  For others, see our exchange in my last article here:
  
  http://labourlist.org/2012/04/the-lefts-choice/
  
  It deals with Sachs, tax, etc etc. Here’s the Sachs review if people are interested:
  
  http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2012/01/10/sunday-review-on-tuesday-the-price-of-civilization-by-jeffrey-sachs-betterness-economics-for-humans-by-umair-haque/
  - Daniel Speight
    
    Anthony the problem is that you never do answer the questions. You go out of the way to avoid answering them and I’m not sure why you have this aversion.
    
    Daniel, I’ve answered these points for you umpteen times. Both on this thread and elsewhere.
    
    Let’s start with this thread. I ask “How about using taxes to balance the budget Anthony?”
    
    You answer “What taxes are you suggesting? I’d be happy with more taxes on high value property – that seems very sensible. “
    
    So does that mean you want to balance the budget with property taxes? Are you against higher income taxes on the wealthy? If you believe higher taxes have no role to play in balancing the budget just say so.
    
    Now lets go back to the earlier thread. I left the following hanging there as I just couldn’t get an answer out of you. Here is top newest and of course unanswered comment from me on the thread from 4 days ago.
    
    Are you really not going to answer Anthony or have you just missed it?
    
    From below:
    
    No we do not have high taxes on top incomes. We are still in the Reagan/Thatcher years. 45p is not high. We have been in a race to the bottom with corporate taxes and income taxes. Our capital gains taxes are low.
    
    You want to talk about his increased welfare spending, but Sachs main point is that the deficit is destroying any chance of sorting out America’s economic problems. (Very comparable to ours.) He sees the answer to closing that deficit as higher taxes on the wealthy…
    
    for the umteenth time…
    
    Why will you not put forward your argument against Sachs ideas on
    using taxes on the wealthy to fix the structural deficit. If you don’t
    agree with him just say so.
    
    So now we get to your link to your review of the Sachs book. Let me repeat again the last two sentences from the above.
    
    Why will you not put forward your argument against Sachs ideas on
    
    using taxes on the wealthy to fix the structural deficit. If you don’t
    
    agree with him just say so.
    
    You see Anthony it does upset me that you are being allowed to get away with flaky arguments that are no better than the ‘no more boom or bust’. It’s as flaky as Blair’s third way. Just try this once giving an answer with your argument against Sachs’s ideas.
    - Anthony Painter
      
      I’ve answered it elsewhere in this thread. And in the links I provided. Daniel – you’re wasting my time I’m afraid. I’m not sure why.
      - Daniel Speight
        
        Why does that answer not surprise me Anthony? I guess I will keep on bringing up these questions until you are honest enough to answer them.
        
        I can now only believe that your review of the Sachs book was dishonest, in the hope nobody would bother reading it, or that you just didn’t bother reading it and just glanced at a few pages and read the blurb.
      - Anthony Painter
        
        *bored*
      - derek
        
        Jeez! such is good conduct and engagement?
      - trotters1957
        
        I’m glad you come on here to engage but too many of your replies are dismissive and rude, like this one.
        
        If you don’t like criticism why bother to post?
      - Anthony Painter
        
        I’m sorry but it’s just not possible to engage Daniel in a reasonable conversation on the evidence I’ve seen. See conversation above, elsewhere in this post and the last post that I’ve linked to. There is a limit I’m afraid. I’ve answered everything he’s raised and all that happens is the same point is made over and over again. It’s a waste of time.
      - Daniel Speight
        
        I’ve answered everything he’s raised…
        
        This is dishonest Anthony and you know it.
      - Mike Homfray
        
        The problem is that you don’t answer questions or engage with those not sympathetic to your view , Anthony. If you are to convince most Labour voters – who don’t live in London and couldn’t care less about Boris vs Ken or any other silly mayoral contest – you need to start to recognise our concerns
      - http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
        
        I don’t engage or answer qs of those I disagree with? Mike, that’s just not serious. Just scan this entire thread and the comments under the last one I wrote. To be honest, I think I am going to be more selective with engagement in the future because there are a few who just want to point score. I’m afraid you’ve been in that category on this thread which is a pity because you haven’t been previously.
      - Daniel Speight
        
        So it being a question of honesty I can only conclude that you are dishonest Anthony.
        
        And to think this all started over your dishonest review of a book on labour-uncut.
        
        If there is any good to come from the time I have wasted trying to pin Painter down, I can only hope that by my recommendation (and Painter’s;-) everyone tries to read the book.
        
        It’s The Price of Civilization by Jeffrey Sachs. It seems in the US there are are a few intellectuals trying to find answers. If Painter is the best we can come up with we are in deep trouble.
      - treborc1
        
        As are most of the voters questions answered.
Jules

What is done is done. The best way to wipe the smile off Boris Johnson’s face is to make him serve his last year as London Mayor under a Labour government at Westminister.
mcquade

Don’t you believe that just because the French Socialist Party held an open primary, it has flung its doors wide open. Far from it, it is still very much a closed shop.
Riyadofbritain

http://riyadofbritain.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/kens-last-stand/

Ken would not have undermined Ed Milliband’s leadership, his return to City Hall, would have provided an even further boost to Ed following the gains across the nation. Indeed the Tory losses seemed a distant past as Cameron rubbed shoulders with Boris yesterday to claim a substantial Tory trophy, and earn himself a temporary reprieve. Ken would not represented a return of old politics but signify the contemporary articulation of a credible, workable, Centre Left alternative to the status quo. The closeness of the vote underscores how we were so very near to making that a reality. Unfortunately Ken did not receive the 100% backing from all sectors of the Party and Labour pundits, so he faced his last stand, like many brave generals alone. It is clear in the aftermath, as it was before and during his campaign that many influential Labourites did not back him enough, perhaps if we all did then it clearly would have been a different reality, but its that reality that some Labourites never wished for anyway.
- AlanGiles
  
  Quite true. I despair sometimes of Labour supporters. If they had spent a quarter of the time they have spent Ken-bashing over the last three days (thats generous it was going on long before that), hitting out at the latest gaffe of Duncan Smith, a truly nasty little guttersnipe, their enegry would be better spent. As it is, even though a Conservative tabloid hits out at his insensitivity and rudeness on their front page headline this morning, everyone is still lining up to take another potshot at KL.
http://twitter.com/eddyman00 Edward Anderson

Not going to say much. I hate Livingston for being (repetition) a tax dodging fraud. He lied about keeping fares down when he first raised them as Mayor. He demanded loyalty when he had consistently ran against Labour candidates and there was a fear he would do so if he lost to Oona. He also campaigned against a Labour council candidate in Tower Hamlets whilst he was Labour’s Mayoral Candidate this time around.
Most disgracefully in my book, is his total betrayal of Iranian Social Democrats , Trade Unionists and Feminists by taking money off Press TV and also his support of Yusuf al-Qaradawi by extending an official invitation to an Islamist Cleric. He publicly has supported a man who is the polar opposite of everything he claims to be : Equal rights for gays, for women, for freedom of speech. The man is a pseudo leftist who indulges far right speakers if they hide behind a religion or do not have white skins. Finally, he is a man who has shamefully tried to bank Muslim bloc votes by playing identity politics in the same way Galloway did . The man is a disgrace and all of those who say they support leftist causes should be glad to. My point, is that I have said this for a very long time (just check my twitter if you must) but those who less than a week (not saying you have Anthony, it is a general point) supported Ken and now will no doubt turn round and say he was the wrong candidate , etc, etc should never be put in a position of authority because they are either two faced and backed him out of opportunism or tribalism or (if they did disagree but helped) are cowards. Had to get that off my chest…
- AlanGiles
  
  Better out than in, Edward, but let’s not suggest that in politics as a whole – both in the current Labour/LibDem/Tory parties – there are no “tax dodging frauds”, because there are, just as there were MPs of all parties who defrauded the public purse with their expense claims – and many of these high respectable people are still sitting in parliament. Being a right-wing expenses fiddler is no better or grants extenuating circumstances.
  
  But Edward, Ken Livingstone has now retired, and those of you who have wished to do so have now aired your distaste, at great length and volume. Have you nothing to say about the antics of Duncan-Smith as reported today? No? – funny – nobody else on Labour List has either, yet unlike Livingstone this excuse for a man is actually in government and in power.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZPXYLRVP4XOIGGDJWAL6HUO7U4 David

Taking the comments below as the starting point, it seems to me that the most pernicious impact of the Blair years (and this applies equally to left and right of the party, as well as extending to other parties) is an apparently unwavering belief that words are somehow more important than actions: whether it be in policy formulation (“the third way”), presentation (Campbell et al) or, as both article and comments in Labourlist and elsewhere often seem to ask, for belief and trust in the impact of an unspecified future idea.

Blair may not have started this trend, but was certainly a master of its application, and for me its impact is causing more of the long-term damage to political trust than individual behaviour: why vote for a group of people who all (ultimately) sound the same (because almost any political idea can be dressed up in similar language and sound bites), and who either do not trust us, or more worryingly may not even have the vision, to be able to turn their political concepts into clear, tangible ideas.

This is not to denigrate the article: I support the direction, but I need more specifics to get my teeth into now – not at some unspecified point in the future. Phrases like “We need significantly more investment in infrastructure and innovative business ” just don’t cut it, without explaining how this investment will work, and will apply to me. I will not vote with tribal allegiance, but will follow the arguments, and ultimately, will decide on their merits.

The left of the party are equally culpable, however, and at some point they will need to prove to me (as a voter) that social principles really can be effected without bankrupting the party and driving wealth and innovation away. To you I say: it has not been successfully achieved in any other country, why has the right time and place for these ideas arrived now? The right of the party can (to the extent of the early years of Blair-Brown at least: the jury is still out on the latter years) at least fall back on a record of government. For the left there is no clear precedent, and this trust cannot be achieved through words alone.
- Daniel Speight
  
  The left of the party are equally culpable, however, and at some point
  they will need to prove to me (as a voter) that social principles really
  can be effected without bankrupting the party and driving wealth and
  innovation away. To you I say: it has not been successfully achieved in
  any other country, why has the right time and place for these ideas
  arrived now?
  
  David seeing that left of the party includes just about anyone who was not enthused by New Labour I will give an answer. The international aspect of any economic answer has to be taken into account. It would be no good just one country imposing a financial transaction tax if all the business just moved to the next country obviously. The same goes for corporate tax rates and even top rate income tax. The problem is this has left us in a ‘death spiral’ with countries taking part in a Dutch auction on tax rates.
  
  Right now may be the best time to stop this downward momentum as we can hope for wins for Hollande in France and Obama with a second term in the US. From that start we could rebuild a consensus in creating more equal societies. Mind you probably nothing will come of it until 2015 as this present government believes in the exact opposite.
  - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZPXYLRVP4XOIGGDJWAL6HUO7U4 David
    
    So the manifesto is: “vote for us, and if we can get other countries to agree then we’ll do something…”? Do you think that is enough?
    - Daniel Speight
      
      No you have to start by doing what you able to do by yourself as a country. If the aim is a more equitable society the government may lean towards better wealth distribution without being able to do it perfectly. At the same time it could try to convince other countries not to find new competitive lows. In fact Britain in recent years has been one those countries finding the new lows so any change is likely to be positive.
      
      Let’s take an example of corporate taxes. We could have a plus and minus five percent from a medium level which would enable the government to reward companies that are adopting policies we like while punishing anti-social companies. That would tie in rather well with Ed Miliband’s predators and producers.
      
      Then again as I said before we would probably find ourselves working from a lowly position against what other governments are doing. Most of Western Europe managed to avoid the more extreme version of neo-liberalism that we and the Americans had and if there is a second Obama administration it’s very possible he will move further to left and give his supporters some of that change he promised.
      
      You see David although left by the standard the Labour Party finds itself in now, I’m hardly a screaming Trotskyist entryist am I?
      - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZPXYLRVP4XOIGGDJWAL6HUO7U4 David
        
        @google-edb3ed6135928d8aa28904ba388de4d0:disqus thanks for the specifics: so the proposal is +5% corporation tax on certain industries, and -5% on others? Interesting. Which ones, and who decides? Is the intention that the overall level remains level, or is increased for greater redistribution? These are the sort of details that everyone seems too timid to come clean on, so I applaud you for stepping forward.
        I don’t know if you are confusing me with another poster, or trying to paint me into a certain corner, but while my politics are definitely centrist, I don’t recall ever using the language of Trotskyist Entryism to describe any poster.
- http://twitter.com/anthonypainter Anthony Painter
  
  Yes, it’s a fair point. I’m making the argument on the plane of ideas and politics – but ultimately people would have to vote for this stuff. That requires a different thought process and articulation. For now though, let’s debate what a centre-left party should do in order to reflect its eternal values. And the top-lines might sound floaty at the moment but I promise there’s quite a bit underneath them – keep watching.
Slakah

The defeat of Ken Livingstone shows what happens when voters are simply offered more of the same.Anthony if you want to talk about your discomfort with the current direction of Labour, instead of building Ken as the embodiment of “old labour” or “social democratic redistribution” and then claiming the mayoral election was lost due to old curmudgeon labour values. When I certainly believe he lost almost entirely due to his own hypocrisy, dodgy tax affairs and the Evening Standard. Most commentators and politicians seem to be in accord that the mayoral elections had very little to do with policies and everything to do with personalities. In unambiguous terms your belief that labour lost the Mayoral race because Ken represented what you deem old labour isn’t true. Your attempting to turn Kens’ defeat into a straw man, it’s cynical and opportunist.Now I’ve got my biggest qualms with the foundation done we can move onto the rest of the article. Firstly your proposition of economic institutions of which you say ”would expand scientific research and create new networks of knowledge and innovation.”, there’s not much to differentiate these institutions from Universities, or am I missing the point. Open primaries for the mayoral election is an interesting idea, but it could further entrench personality politics into London, but the press a successful candidate would receive may be advantageous, possibly giving them a trial by fire. “This all constitutes a very different project to mainstream social democratic redistribution but it is ultimately more sustainable – and disruptive of the status quo.” Your propositions don’t appear to directly address the big issues of today, how can I disagree with these:
“Renovation is needed rather than refurbishment.”
“A modern party needs to be open rather than closed.”
“The end result will be to enable people to prosper and exert greater power over their lives.”
and yet non of your grand project gets to the heart of the issues of today, jobs, growth, the deficit, corporate accountability, tax avoidance and pay inequality. I understand these are big difficult issues, but these are the troubles of which we will face for many years, but desperately need addressing.

As a final point, I find it quite ironic that in all your talk of new vs old, future vs past, renovation vs refurbishment, your argument does seem quite reminiscent of Harold Wilson and his ”white heat of industry” speech.
Pingback: and again | Rhea Keehn
aracataca

Any cursory history of social democracy would show that it has not remained in the same place for very long, hence its enduring and continuing popularity. This is an interesting article but it alludes to change while offering few policy specifics and I do not detect any overarching tendency within the party to remain riveted to the past. In this sense Anthony is arguing into the wind and in this sense also the argument that is offered is ‘lazy’.

However, when you are emerging from a political train of thought that evolved during 18 years of opposition to (and ultimately a grudging accommodation of) neo-liberal ideas, it is going to take some time to develop a fresh approach that will emerge in an era that is post government/dominance and where neo-liberalism has been shown to be a very imperfect economic, social and political model. Personally, I feel that such an approach will develop, but patience is the greatest virtue in matters such as these.
- Hiburnian
  
  As a first step I would advocate a merciless condemnation of the unemployed and economically inactive, blaming all of their woes on their personal shortcomings and justifying a remorseless cutting back on all benefits, especially those which support the sick and disabled. These kind of pronouncements have worked well for David Cameron and should work well for the Labour Party too. Ed Miliband’s Coin House speech about “meeting a man” who had sponged on Disability Benefit for ten years was a good start but far too tame as far as punishing such individuals go. I quite like the scrapped Tory idea of taking 10% housing benefit away from everybody unemployed for a year (no matter how hard they tried to find work). I think making such people homeless would be a tough but fair policy and one I believe that Liam Byrne would approve of. We need to be merciless to win the next election and the unemployed are a constituency that doesn’t vote much anyway, so we can really stick it to them without much backlash.
  - ThePurpleBooker
    
    Here, here.
    - RoseLodge
      
      I think you mean, “Hear,hear”.
      - treborc1
        
        Nope he means here here he wants it here.
    - AlanGiles
      
      Where?, where?
      “As a first step I would advocate a merciless condemnation of the unemployed and economically inactive, blaming all of their woes on their personal shortcomings and justifying a remorseless cutting back on all benefits, especially those which support the sick and disabled”
      
      Go and join the Tories, Booker if you really believe this nonsense
      - treborc1
        
        says a lot for the bloke does it not
  - aracataca
    
    I assume this posting is meant to be a joke.
    - AlanGiles
      
      I assume it is, (I hope so anyway), but what does this say about the “Labour” principles of the “Purple Booker” if s/he actually agrees with it?.
      - aracataca
        
        I assume that this is a ‘ joke’ also. The spelling was incorrect.
      - aracataca
        
        I have flagged it for review.
    - Hiburnian
      
      No. We need an enemy to persecute and attack. Same as America swapped Islam for Communism when the USSR went capitalist. It’s not in vogue to attack the super-rich and the powerful these days, we look up to such people as success stories and role models now, so we have to find a new group of voiceless, powerless people to demonise and persecute to gain favour with the mob. Everybody in the shadow cabinet hates the unemployed and the sick and disabled and so they are obviously open targets for all administrations. I propose that it would be a good idea to suck the elderly into this group of moribund persons as well. The old age pension soaks up the biggest share of the welfare budget and if we could persuade the electorate to hate the old as much as they hate the unemployed we could, maybe, just maybe, do something like means testing the old age pension or at the very least increasing it way below the CPI. If you don’t want to be bullied the best thing to do is to instigate the bullying of someone else. Who better to do this to gain the political favour of the mob than the sick, disabled, unemployed and the elderly?
Dave Postles

I’m reading strange stuff about pre-distribution because redistribution is no longer viable. Perhaps someone can explain how that works. Being an old lag, perhaps even a recidivist, I cannot perceive how redistribution can be abandoned. If there is a transition from direct taxation on income to taxation on real estate, then I would expect that there should be a wholesale revaluation of property. Some sort of revaluation would be necessary to introduce a ‘mansion tax’ or whatever (we can’t wait for the houses to be conveyed). Since some revaluation is necessary, why not a complete revaluation? The present government has dismissed a revaluation on the grounds of cost, but a ‘mansion tax’ would require a partial revaluation. A wider revaluation would allow: (a) more independence from central government for local authorities through more local income; and (b) the introduction of more bands at the higher end.

Even so, we might still consider refining direct taxation on income at the higher margins. There is an enormous range from 42k+ to 150k. An intermediate rate would seem sensible. Finally, in the present circumstances, it would seem reasonable to reintroduce a higher rate of 48% on income over 150k for three years, given that the ex-Cabinet Secretary has revealed that that level is the optimum for maximizing income. In these difficult times, we should be asking those with the highest income to make a higher contribution, not least the bankers, whom King has directly accused of causing the mess.

I’ve also read that the policy review is being placed on the back burner to allow for high-impact individual policies. may we please start with an industrial policy? May we please start with identifying contingent income (4G auction, for example; up to 1bn from the sale of Northern Rock) for investment (including building social housing)? The ratings agencies would surely not baulk at such diversion of contingent income to productivity.
- Dave Postles
  
  May … can’t find the edit button.
- aracataca
  
  Dave
  I believe Osborne sold Northern Rock at a knock down price of £700 million to Branson. £700m loss to the treasury and currently the subject of a National Audit Office enquiry/review.
John Slinger

Excellent article by one of the truly visionary commentators on the left.

The party must look outwards, listen more, preach less and set its default position to be one of openness to new ideas, new members, etc.

I chair Pragmatic Radicalism, and our Top Of The Policy events are designed to be focused on the quality of the idea, not the status of the speaker. Members, supporters and their friends are welcome. People present new policy ideas in 2 mins (now reduced to 90 seconds) followed by 3 mins of Q&A. Then there is a vote, using a ballot paper showing all the ideas. We end up with a Top Policy. Chairs of former events include Mr Painter himself (!), Michael White and Jim Murphy.

These events are energetic, inclusive, non-factional and genuinely give a platform for ordinary members to express their ideas in a comradely environment. Increasingly, Shadow Ministers either attend or chair the events, meaning this gives presenters a rare opportunity to communicate directly with those at the top of the party.

My comments to this effect on LabourList sometimes attract criticism from those who claim our events are insubstantial and ‘Blairite’. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, at the Defence event in March, Jeremy Corbyn (hardly a Blairite) came second with his ‘scrap Trident’ policy. As for insubstantial, these events see 15-20 new policy ideas presented and debated, they are inclusive, dynamic and democratic, and bring together MPs, Shadow Ministers, journalists, members, bloggers, activists, trade unionists and experts.

Our next event is chaired by Jack Dromey MP, and is focused on Housing. It is on 23 May, at 6.30pm – 8.30pm at the Barley Mow pub (upstairs). All Labour Party members, supporters and their friends are welcome. Details are at http://pragmaticradicalism.co.uk/top-of-the-policies-on-housing-chaired-by-jack-dromey-mp-shadow-housing-minister

If you would like to present a 90 second policy on housing, please get in touch john.slinger@pragmaticradicalism:disqus .co.uk
Jeremy_Preece

Friday was a rather good day I thought. And yes you are right, there is much that Labour still has to do. Winning local elections on a low turnourt can simply be a registration of votor anger with the present government. That, as history shows, is a million miles away from a general election where the electorate vote to say yes to the current opposisiton – yes we back you to run the economy the country etc.
It is quite clear to me that the Labour party has still got a very long way to go. However, Friday was a good day as it showed that the jounrney is possible if difficult.

I have always had an interest in steam railway engines, and have seen youtube vidoes of the “the last steam train at….” To be honest, when Ken made his speach, I was of course really sad to see that the PG Woodhouse extra had been re eleacted. However, when Ken said that this was to be his last election there was the same sense of the end of an era, as in the last train video.

I think that you are right Anthony. Whatever you may have thought about Ken, he had the appreance of one of the greats, but one of the greats of yesterday. I thought ” why couldn’t we have had a new candidate, a man or woman of today, someone new, a fresh face. I suspect that many of the London electorate felt the same way, as clearly many voted Labour for the assembly, but not Ken as Mayor.
jimsweetman

Too right! Worth noting how the presidential campaign run by Francois Hollande was a big success. Sarkozy was well established in the Franco-German axis as being the safe candidate in terms of economic recovery so to remove him it was necessary to change a lot of minds. So, how did Hollande do it?

First off, he didn’t shy away from the need to change. Specifically, a focus on public sector growth particularly in terms of jobs, taxing the banks and the very rich and supporting education. However, he has not been afraid to suggest that inheritance taxes should rise and that the corporates should pay their share to support recovery.

There is an honesty and freshness about this approach which underlines the difference in terms of his party’s offer and doesn’t compare well with Ed Miliband out in Essex this morning and lamenting the fact that all politicians look the same instead of putting clear water between himself and this raggedy coalition.
Fi Dent

All these comments and ideas and where do they go? I have been a party member for many years and am consistently disappointed by the lack of opportunity to be part of policy development. All those members with specialist knowledge, strong intellects, life experience etc and they can only play a substantial role if they are in the Westminster bubble.
In what way do we constitute a party if only a select few have any influence?
We will never ‘improve’ until we ‘grow up’ as a party and have a more inclusive policy development system.
Anotherfive

Perhaps Ken was the wrong candidate for Labour to put up this time?

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