The Fabian Society: A Memo

Memo

To: Andrew Harrop

From: Paul Richards

Dear Andrew,

Congratulations on your appointment as the next general secretary of the Fabian Society. You beat some impressive candidates. You have some big shoes to fill. Looking at your CV it looks like it would have been hard not to appoint you. I can see you’re Labour through and through, from standing for Labour as a candidate, to working for a great Fabian MP Anne Campbell. Three degrees, including an MBA? Isn’t that just showing off? At least one of your degrees is from the LSE, one of the Fabian Society’s great contributions to British society (thanks to a bequest from a suicide). And your latest role – with Age UK – will be a great preparation for the Fabian AGM. Haha, only joking.

Seriously, though, one of your first jobs should be to meet with the Young Fabians, one of the liveliest and innovative parts of the Labour movement. The great growth in Fabian membership in recent months has been mostly down to them, and they do it with no budget and no staff.

You’ve no money. Your first priority must be financial security. You need to persuade businesses and trusts that investing in left-of-centre ideas is a smart move. Good luck with that. You need to review the Fabian Society’s current accommodation. The HQ in Dartmouth Street was bequeathed to the Society in the 1920s by George Bernard Shaw. You own that sandwich bar next door, too. It used to be a Fabian bookshop, before making way for focaccia and americano. When Stephen Twigg was general secretary, there was a plan to move to a proper modern office, but the electors of Enfield foiled the plan. You need to work out how to run a think tank that has local groups and a vibrant membership. A clue: ignore or marginalise them at your peril. One reason the Fabian Society has survived for 120 years is that it is a democratic socialist society. When Policy Exchange and Demos are long gone, the Fabians will still be there.

Organisation is vital; but so are ideas. In opposition, following a defeat, Labour needs a transfusion of new ideas. This is where the Fabian Society comes into its own. You have to confound the traditional, and unfair, caricature that Fabianism is about the central state. Fabians have been centralisers and decentralisers, conservatives and radicals. There’s more to Fabianism to Beatrice and Sidney’s geriatric infatuation with Uncle Joe. When you walk down the stairs to the Cole Room, remember that GDH was a fierce opponent of the bureaucratic over-arching state. Some of his books are still knocking around the office. Have a read.

Ed Miliband made a joke about reading Fabian pamphlets on his stag do. Your role is to produce pamphlets what people really do want to read (maybe not on stag dos). There needs to be a causal link between what the Fabians say this year, and what Labour does after winning an election. Independence for the Bank of England first surfaced in a Fabian pamphlet. We need more ideas that can take flight.

Lastly, remember that the Fabian Society enjoys a loyalty and affection from its members. Some have dedicated five or six decades to its success. When I was chair of the Fabian Society, a rumour went round that I had given my new-born son the first name ‘Fabian’.

That would be crazy.

It was his middle name.

Good luck.

Yours in gradualism,

PAUL