‘The most underrated influence on today’s Labour government? Anthony Crosland’

A few months ago I had the pleasure of watching Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky’s Gang of Three, a masterful portrayal of how a trio of Labour giants – Jenkins, Healey and Crosland- competed over the Labour leadership in 1976. As we digest today’s GDP stats and look ahead to a momentous political and economic autumn, it left me thinking about the parallels with this Labour Government and reflecting that its most underrated influence may well be Anthony Crosland.

The play covers the Cabinet wars over the cuts imposed as part of the 1976 IMF bailout, of which Crosland was a sceptic as a believer in the importance of public investment. While there have been some deeply misguided comparisons between this Government and the Treasury under George Osborne, there can be no more radical departure than its Croslandite conception of long-term investment.

In her first Budget, Rachel Reeves made the brave choice to change the measure of debt in the fiscal rules to Public Sector Net Financial Liabilities, a change that has enabled the Government to invest an extra £113bn in the future. This money has included billions in upgrading our hospitals as they cut the Tory backlogs, social homes for the next generation and in the nuclear energy that will cut bills. This investment package has also included plans for a long-overdue rewriting of the Green Book to rebalance funding towards the North of England. In turn, this investment will catalyse far more private sector investment, the lack of which has been a major contributor to the UK’s stagnant living standards since 2010, a problem that was found to cost the average British worker over £10,000 a year.

Such a programme of large-scale investment is very much consistent with Crosland and it is hard to overstate the dichotomy with Osborne. He was the Chancellor whose fiscal rules knew the price of everything and the value of nothing and who chose not to invest at a time of record low interest rates because of a misguided belief that the state ‘crowded out’ private sector.

Breaking the link between place and life chances

Another key way that this government has been a victory for Crosland’s thinking is the significant reforms it has made to the labour market. While Crosland is rightly credited with focusing on the ways that tax and social security can boost equality, he also argued “it is more urgent today to improve the relative position of the lower-paid workers than to redistribute income through general taxation.” Similarly, this Labour Government is pushing through a subtle revolution in labour market policy, rewiring pre-distributive changes that have seen weekly earnings increase by 5%.

This revolution has been underpinned by the government’s commitment to the dignity of labour through a revolutionary Employment Rights Bill that will ban exploitative zero hours contracts, end fire and rehire and boost sick pay, a moral mission to give power back to working people. Likewise, the increases to the National Minimum Wage will give an eligible full-time worker a pay boost of £1,400 a year.

Indeed, even the difficult decision to increase employers’ National Insurance Contributions can also boost wages. By making this change, the government has incentivised businesses to invest in the skills and productivity-enhancing technologies that support wage growth rather than relying on recruiting underpaid and insecure staff. This has been supplemented by the creation of Skills England and the recent Government announcement on the creation of 120,000 more training places.

Moreover, boosting wages not only gives people more agency over their lives, but also radically rewires the economy to give it a sense of permanence. The evidence for this permanence can be found in the contrast between two of the last Labour’s government proudest achievements for boosting living standards, the National Minimum Wage and Tax Credits, with only the former surviving the austerity years. Indeed, boosting wages is a key ingredient for the much-needed revival of our high streets.

Crosland also wrote powerfully about the importance of breaking the link between place and life chances, writing in The Future of Socialism that “we still retain a deeper sense of class, a more obvious social stratification than” many other countries. In that vein, one of the most radical parts of the Government’s programme is its Opportunity Mission which is clear that “Labour will boost opportunities for everyone, and our economy, and make sure there is no class ceiling on the ambitions of young people in Britain.” A crucial way of doing so is through increased devolution, as the government is already doing through the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. Through his new Manchester Baccalaureate (MBacc), Andy Burnham is delivering the equality of status for technical education that Crosland longed for.

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‘A Croslandite narrative could be the threat this governmetn is looking for’

While the Government have implemented many of Crosland’s policies, they could also reflect on the story that Crosland told to connect these policies and values to people’s lives. The policies, as crystallised in the Plan for Change, are exactly the national concerns that residents raised with me as a Councillor.

But they are yet to fit into a broader story that flows through the policy and messaging. Once again, the answers can be found in Crosland’s writing where he powerfully argued for a more joyful society, saying “we need not only higher exports and old-age pensions, but more open-air cafes, brighter and gayer streets at night, later closing hours for public houses, more local repertory theatres, better and more hospitable hoteliers and restaurateurs, brighter and cleaner eating houses, more riverside cafes.”

The most impactful part of this argument is that it connects political economy to everyday life and designs a future rooted in hope and joy. The most pernicious effect of the cost-of-living crisis is that it has eroded a sense of joy that is so vital to a good life. A similar story to Crosland’s would work well for this Government, that its purpose is to give people the good life – secure wages, investment in the public realm and opportunities for the future. In a country where hope has been eroded by low wages and declining living standards, a Croslandite narrative could be the thread this government is looking for.

So while Crosland died too young and never became Prime Minister or Chancellor, it’s fair to say that this reforming Labour government is guided by many of his values and ideas.

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