The Fabians's have stood the test of time and are the best think-tank on the centre-left. These words are wise and from a critical friend of Labour. However, Uncle Arthur would suggest a few words of caution. The Fabian's link this call to a call for a'Progressive Manifesto', this is not a word used by the working-class base. Also road pricing schemes are bound to be a vote loser in many core Labour areas. This saddens me but I am afraid it is cold, harsh reality.
Brown must win back working-class voters, says thinktank
A key Labour thinktank has warned Gordon Brown that his attempts to rise "above politics" risk alienating crucial working-class voters.
A new paper by the Fabian Society cautions that core working-class support is critical to Labour winning another general election and beating a resurgent Conservative party.
By attempting to be "all things to all people" to win cross party support, the government could end up fatally neglecting traditionalists, it says.
Instead, the Fabian Society's general secretary, Sunder Katwala, said a "bolder Labour vision" was now a strategic necessity.
Tackling child poverty with multi-billion-pound funding and standing firmly against any US plan for military action against Iran should form part of a new policy platform to reinvigorate party loyalists, the paper recommends.
Mr Katwala said: "Brown's initial positive appeal was built on leadership, competence and authenticity.
"But political vision is central to the authentic Gordon Brown. The message to his advisers should be 'let Gordon be Gordon' - and that must mean letting Gordon be Labour, too."
Thursday 1 November 2007
Wednesday 31 October 2007
The Direction of Public Services under Brown
Introduction
The government’s agenda on the public sector been a defining theme for many assessments of their record. High and unprecedented levels of public expenditure have heightened public expectations to demand high quality, world class public services in an increasingly consumer orientated world. Such levels of expenditure even have forced the Conservative opposition to publicly match Labour’s commitment to sustainable levels of expenditure.
Yet the government’s mantra on public services, has created unique pressures on Labour’s trade union support base and generated a wider debate about the efficacy and equity of such an approach. The raising of the bar on public service investment and reform naturally raises the political temperature whenever there seem to be apparent shortcomings in the public services.
This paper aims to chart the development of this debate, the likely direction of public services under a Brown premiership and an analysis of the forthcoming legislative agenda and the recent CSR pre-budget report to discern the likely direction of the public services agenda. There will be a continued use of PFI, marketisation developments in social care and library services where we can expect a clear move towards further fragmentation.
The paper concludes that we cannot exaggerate the difference between a Brown premiership from a Blairite one on this subject. Yet, we must not be wholly gloomy. Brown has overturned certain Blairite programmes, and we must believe that alternative policy platforms can be calibrated and unwelcome public service developments challenged on a case by case basis. The New Labour narrative on public services will not change substantively. There may also be a sense that the Brownite camp is more amenable to dialogue on alternative paradigms on public services where such endeavours ultimately proved a fruitless exercise under Blair.
With the accession of Gordon Brown to the Labour Party leadership and ergo becoming PM, it is an opportune time to take stock of what has happened in public services under Blair and what is the direction of travel under Gordon Brown. Will there be a substantive shift in direction? Will the narrative be different? If so how can Unison frame it’s positively public campaign in the light of a different leadership?
Anatomy of Public Services Under New Labour
Under Labour the marketisation and part-privatization of the public services has continued apace, naturally this has attracted vehement criticism. The Labour Party has been able to publicly position itself as the custodian of public services, citing its high and unprecedented levels of public expenditure and defining itself against a Conservative Party who allowed themselves to be potential cutters of public expenditure. For example Oliver Letwin MP sabotaged the Conservative’s 2001 eelction campaign by indicating to the Financial Times that a Conservative Government would reduce public spending by up to £20bn. Given a change in stance from the Conservative Party and financial instability in Health Trusts it may be more difficult for the Labour Party to do this in the future.
Labour emphasised‘Schools and Hospitals first', in the General Election of June 2001 fusing the mantra of invest and reform, although a simple message it worked in defining Labour as pro-public sector as against the more ideologically bound Conservatives. 2001 election –Schools and Hospitals – narrative provided a very simplistic dividing line with the Conservatives. Blair had originally staked out his mission in reference to the public service agenda in the now infamous sound-bite summarising his priorities as ‘Education, Education, and Education’.
Sometimes the tone and rhetoric used by Tony Blair was unfortunate and alienated public servants, for example when in 2000 he referred to ‘having scars on his back’ due to his public service reforms. The reform agenda which seemed to take a step-change towards privatization during the 2001 election:
‘So this is a great challenge to us as a government and a cabinet, to our public services. There should be no barriers, no dogma, no vested interests that stand in the way of delivering the best services for our people.’
These tensions came to a head in Labour Party conference 2001.
‘The confrontation between ministers and unions over Labour's public service reforms has dominated Tony Blair's second term’
The government attempted to define it’s agenda for modernizing/reforming public services in 2002 by adopting an adversarial posture. Given that the decision to expand private sector involvement in the public sector would be problematic for trade unions in the public sector the government sought to define these forces as ‘producer’ interest, juxtaposed to the interests of the consume ie the public. This narrative even led to one government minister inferring that opponents to this agenda were ‘wreckers’. In a speech to the Labour Party Spring Conference 2002 in Cardiff the phrase wreckers was clearly used in thinly disguised attack on public sector unions.
The rhetoric has evolved but has never been de-coupled from the marketisation agenda. In particular, this point is evidenced by the governments promotion of the concept in choice in public services, particularly choice within the health service. Some saw this philosophical development as an attempt to construct a ‘trojan horse’ through which more marketisation could be pursued. Certainly the government felt they had to craft a modern health service that fitted the consumer orienated, information savvy aged. Fearful that public service legitimacy could be undermined by the middle-classes exiting the service in favour of private provision. The accession of Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP, has seen a toning down of the choice rhetoric.
To many observers Gordon Brown was inextricably bound up in this public services agenda. As Chancellor of the Exchequer oversaw a marked expansion of the PFI scheme, the Treasury’s preferred route for developing public sector infrastructure. Hence to expect him to oversee a substantive shift in direction would be a leap of faith. Brown was of course also the architect of the PPP for the Tube, so heavily criticized by Ken Livingstone and transport unions.
Brown seems to have the same implicit faith in the private sector that Blair had, which we could summarise as private sector good; public sector bad, in a conversation with academic and expert on PFI, Alyson Pollock Brown said, when pressed on the justification for PFI.
“ His response was simply to declare repeatedly that the public sector is bad at management, and that only the private sector is efficient and can manage services well. By 2003 the business paradigm was the only model that the Treasury and senior Department of Health officials could relate to”
There were however moments during Brown’s chancellorship, when it become clear (or politically expedient) that Brown was not wholly convinced by Blair’s direction of travel. For example, during the foundation hospital debate it became apparent that Brown was not happy with policy detail. The message conveyed, albeit discretely, was that Brown realized there should be boundaries to the marketisation process in way that either Blair did not recognize or was untroubled by. Brown may have allowed his lieutenant, Ed Balls to articulate on these differences by hinting that markets have limits. Yet Brown’s real misgiving may have been that foundation hospitals would stoke up private debts that would fall on the public purse ie the Treasury.
‘Brown is vehemently opposed - not to foundation hospitals having autonomy - but to the idea that their proposed freedom to borrow will somehow create private rather than public debt. He thinks the proposition is ludicrous. It will be taxpayers' money being used to service the borrowing; of course it is public debt and, of course, the Government is ultimately responsible’
(Will Hutton, the Sunday Observer, October 6 2002)
It is a safe assumption that now the PFI driven, marketisation trend within the public sector is now embedded in practice and in world-view and shifting it substantively would be a phenomenal development within the public policy world. Indeed the government is still committed to the PFI model.
The UK experience has to be seen in context, there is a global trend, encouraged by global financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank.
“The story is not unique to Britain. Universal health care systems are being dismantled and privatized across the world”.
It is difficult to find an area of UK public services that has not been subjected to some degree of commercialization or market discipline, from the postal services to the BBC globalizing and liberalizing processes are all changing the configuration of public services, some of these are driven by EU processes eg the Postal Services Directive. Furthermore, the debate about the Directive on Services in the Internal Market (‘Bolkestein’ Directive) intensified fears that the pro-liberalisation agenda within Europe would further fragment public services.
Yet, the UK is not just mirroring the international context, it has been criticized for exporting its model of privatization to developing countries and that global institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF are ‘forcing’ developing countries to privatize their indigenous public services (particularly utilities) often to the detriment of the poor. Whilst the global financial system is often blamed in this instance clearly the UK government has pro-actively made decisions that enhance privatization in the developing world.
‘… the World Bank and IMF - to which the UK contributes many millions of pounds of aid money each year - continue to force developing countries to privatise their public services as a condition of loans and debt relief ’
Moreover, George Monbiot bemoans the assistance that DFiD has given the Adam Smith Institute to promote public sector reform in South Africa:
‘The agency keeping the South African government on track is Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID). This year it is giving £6.3 million to the Adam Smith Institute - the ultra-rightwing privatisation lobby group - for “public sector reform” in South Africa. Staggeringly, the Institute has been given its own budget - £5m of British aid money - to disburse as it pleases. By this means, DFID can generate all the support it likes for privatisation and public-private partnerships, while avoiding direct responsibility for the decisions the institute makes.’
( ‘Exploitation on tap’, George Monbiot, 19 October 2007, www.monbiot.com)
Stands New Labour where it did? – Can we anticipate any leverage in a new environment? Direction of travel under Gordon Brown as Prime Minister
To what extent then can we identify if Brown will oversee a tangible change in New Labour’s agenda on the public services? This paper seeks to identify the direction of travel of public services under the Prime Ministership of Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP. It would seem that we cannot exaggerate our hopes that the direction will be that much different to what we have witnessed thus far.
“..most commentators agree that a Gordon Brown led government would continue to steer the public services policy agenda in a very similar direction”
(The Guardian Society, 20 June 2006)
We can make some assumptions based on what happened under Blair, when Brown was
chancellor, what he has said and in detail what has appeared in the Legislative Programme and Comprehensive Spending Review/Pre-Budget Report and to some extent public statements since becoming PM. These are the most clear signs of any detailed policy that has emerged that may have a material impact on employees in the public services.
The new Prime Minister is conscious that he wants to define his tenure at No.10 on domestic policy and public services in particular. On becoming Prime Minister Brown stated that the NHS would be his priority and education his passion. He alluded to this a little more in his speech to Labour Party Conference, which did not hint at a distinct, necessary boundary mark between the public and private sector. He did focus on public services; health, education and social care and although this included some fresh thinking there was no hint at a change of direction. The references to choice and personalized care all sounded a touch Blairite.:
‘This is the future of our public services. Accessible to all, personal to you. Not just a basic standard but the best quality tailored to your needs. Education is my passion’
‘Our great ambition now: a National Health Service that is also a personal health service’
There exist of course urgent opportunities for Brown to develop a more detailed narrative. It is worth noting that one of his stated reasons to opt not to call a ‘snap election’ in the autumn is that he needs more time to articulate his vision. If so, then he has to articulate this vision fairly rapidly and we should observe what says and how he says it in case it contains some clues and hints that the public service narrative will be crafted in a different way.
It is worth noting however, there has been change in direction under Brown in some areas of policy, so there has not been an exact replication of all Blairite priorities. Perhaps this is of some significance. Change has happened in certain areas that indicate Brown was not wholly content with everything that happened in the Blair era. Some examples of this include the decision to review Super-Casino licences, reviewing the re-classification of the status of cannabis. Also he has hinted at changes in the constitution so we can watch that agenda to see what happens. Thus, we know that policy is not monolithic and more dynamic, adapting to the worldviews of different politicians and a changing environment. We should be hopeful that thoughtful, robust arguments on the public sector could still have effect. We need to be realistic about direction of travel but not wholly pessimistic.
The government’s agenda on the public sector been a defining theme for many assessments of their record. High and unprecedented levels of public expenditure have heightened public expectations to demand high quality, world class public services in an increasingly consumer orientated world. Such levels of expenditure even have forced the Conservative opposition to publicly match Labour’s commitment to sustainable levels of expenditure.
Yet the government’s mantra on public services, has created unique pressures on Labour’s trade union support base and generated a wider debate about the efficacy and equity of such an approach. The raising of the bar on public service investment and reform naturally raises the political temperature whenever there seem to be apparent shortcomings in the public services.
This paper aims to chart the development of this debate, the likely direction of public services under a Brown premiership and an analysis of the forthcoming legislative agenda and the recent CSR pre-budget report to discern the likely direction of the public services agenda. There will be a continued use of PFI, marketisation developments in social care and library services where we can expect a clear move towards further fragmentation.
The paper concludes that we cannot exaggerate the difference between a Brown premiership from a Blairite one on this subject. Yet, we must not be wholly gloomy. Brown has overturned certain Blairite programmes, and we must believe that alternative policy platforms can be calibrated and unwelcome public service developments challenged on a case by case basis. The New Labour narrative on public services will not change substantively. There may also be a sense that the Brownite camp is more amenable to dialogue on alternative paradigms on public services where such endeavours ultimately proved a fruitless exercise under Blair.
With the accession of Gordon Brown to the Labour Party leadership and ergo becoming PM, it is an opportune time to take stock of what has happened in public services under Blair and what is the direction of travel under Gordon Brown. Will there be a substantive shift in direction? Will the narrative be different?
Anatomy of Public Services Under New Labour
Under Labour the marketisation and part-privatization of the public services has continued apace, naturally this has attracted vehement criticism. The Labour Party has been able to publicly position itself as the custodian of public services, citing its high and unprecedented levels of public expenditure and defining itself against a Conservative Party who allowed themselves to be potential cutters of public expenditure. For example Oliver Letwin MP sabotaged the Conservative’s 2001 eelction campaign by indicating to the Financial Times that a Conservative Government would reduce public spending by up to £20bn. Given a change in stance from the Conservative Party and financial instability in Health Trusts it may be more difficult for the Labour Party to do this in the future.
In the 2001 election –Schools and Hospitals – narrative provided a very simplistic dividing line with the Conservatives. Blair had originally staked out his mission in reference to the public service agenda in the now infamous sound-bite summarising his priorities as ‘Education, Education, and Education’.
Sometimes the tone and rhetoric used by Tony Blair was unfortunate and alienated public servants, for example when in 2000 he referred to ‘having scars on his back’ due to his public service reforms. The reform agenda which seemed to take a step-change towards privatization during the 2001 election:
‘So this is a great challenge to us as a government and a cabinet, to our public services. There should be no barriers, no dogma, no vested interests that stand in the way of delivering the best services for our people.’
These tensions came to a head in Labour Party conference 2001.
‘The confrontation between ministers and unions over Labour's public service reforms has dominated Tony Blair's second term’
The government attempted to define it’s agenda for modernizing/reforming public services in 2002 by adopting an adversarial posture. Given that the decision to expand private sector involvement in the public sector would be problematic for trade unions in the public sector the government sought to define these forces as ‘producer’ interest, juxtaposed to the interests of the consume ie the public. This narrative even led to one government minister inferring that opponents to this agenda were ‘wreckers’. In a speech to the Labour Party Spring Conference 2002 in Cardiff the phrase wreckers was clearly used in thinly disguised attack on public sector unions.
The rhetoric has evolved but has never been de-coupled from the marketisation agenda. In particular, this point is evidenced by the governments promotion of the concept in choice in public services, particularly choice within the health service. Some saw this philosophical development as an attempt to construct a ‘trojan horse’ through which more marketisation could be pursued. Certainly the government felt they had to craft a modern health service that fitted the consumer orienated, information savvy aged. Fearful that public service legitimacy could be undermined by the middle-classes exiting the service in favour of private provision. The accession of Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP, has seen a toning down of the choice rhetoric.
To many observers Gordon Brown was inextricably bound up in this public services agenda. As Chancellor of the Exchequer oversaw a marked expansion of the PFI scheme, the Treasury’s preferred route for developing public sector infrastructure. Hence to expect him to oversee a substantive shift in direction would be a leap of faith. Brown was of course also the architect of the PPP for the Tube, so heavily criticized by Ken Livingstone and transport unions.
Brown seems to have the same implicit faith in the private sector that Blair had, which we could summarise as private sector good; public sector bad, in a conversation with academic and expert on PFI, Alyson Pollock Brown said, when pressed on the justification for PFI.
“ His response was simply to declare repeatedly that the public sector is bad at management, and that only the private sector is efficient and can manage services well. By 2003 the business paradigm was the only model that the Treasury and senior Department of Health officials could relate to”
There were however moments during Brown’s chancellorship, when it become clear (or politically expedient) that Brown was not wholly convinced by Blair’s direction of travel. For example, during the foundation hospital debate it became apparent that Brown was not happy with policy detail. The message conveyed, albeit discretely, was that Brown realized there should be boundaries to the marketisation process in way that either Blair did not recognize or was untroubled by. Brown may have allowed his lieutenant, Ed Balls to articulate on these differences by hinting that markets have limits. Yet Brown’s real misgiving may have been that foundation hospitals would stoke up private debts that would fall on the public purse ie the Treasury.
‘Brown is vehemently opposed - not to foundation hospitals having autonomy - but to the idea that their proposed freedom to borrow will somehow create private rather than public debt. He thinks the proposition is ludicrous. It will be taxpayers' money being used to service the borrowing; of course it is public debt and, of course, the Government is ultimately responsible’
(Will Hutton, the Sunday Observer, October 6 2002)
It is a safe assumption that now the PFI driven, marketisation trend within the public sector is now embedded in practice and in world-view and shifting it substantively would be a phenomenal development within the public policy world. Indeed the government is still committed to the PFI model.The UK experience has to be seen in context, there is a global trend, encouraged by global financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank.
It is difficult to find an area of UK public services that has not been subjected to some degree of commercialization or market discipline, from the postal services to the BBC globalizing and liberalizing processes are all changing the configuration of public services, some of these are driven by EU processes eg the Postal Services Directive. Furthermore, the debate about the Directive on Services in the Internal Market (‘Bolkestein’ Directive) intensified fears that the pro-liberalisation agenda within Europe would further fragment public services.
Yet, the UK is not just mirroring the international context, it has been criticized for exporting its model of privatization to developing countries and that global institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF are ‘forcing’ developing countries to privatize their indigenous public services (particularly utilities) often to the detriment of the poor. Whilst the global financial system is often blamed in this instance clearly the UK government has pro-actively made decisions that enhance privatization in the developing world.
‘… the World Bank and IMF - to which the UK contributes many millions of pounds of aid money each year - continue to force developing countries to privatise their public services as a condition of loans and debt relief ’
Moreover, George Monbiot bemoans the assistance that DFiD has given the Adam Smith Institute to promote public sector reform in South Africa:
‘The agency keeping the South African government on track is Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID). This year it is giving £6.3 million to the Adam Smith Institute - the ultra-rightwing privatisation lobby group - for “public sector reform” in South Africa. Staggeringly, the Institute has been given its own budget - £5m of British aid money - to disburse as it pleases. By this means, DFID can generate all the support it likes for privatisation and public-private partnerships, while avoiding direct responsibility for the decisions the institute makes.’
( ‘Exploitation on tap’, George Monbiot, 19 October 2007, www.monbiot.com)
Stands New Labour where it did? – Can we anticipate any leverage in a new environment? Direction of travel under Gordon Brown as Prime Minister
To what extent then can we identify if Brown will oversee a tangible change in New Labour’s agenda on the public services? This paper seeks to identify the direction of travel of public services under the Prime Ministership of Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP. It would seem that we cannot exaggerate our hopes that the direction will be that much different to what we have witnessed thus far.
“..most commentators agree that a Gordon Brown led government would continue to steer the public services policy agenda in a very similar direction”
(The Guardian Society, 20 June 2006)
We can make some assumptions based on what happened under Blair, when Brown was chancellor, what he has said and in detail what has appeared in the Legislative Programme and Comprehensive Spending Review/Pre-Budget Report and to some extent public statements since becoming PM. These are the most clear signs of any detailed policy that has emerged that may have a material impact on Unison and it’s members.
The new Prime Minister is conscious that he wants to define his tenure at No.10 on domestic policy and public services in particular. On becoming Prime Minister Brown stated that the NHS would be his priority and education his passion. He alluded to this a little more in his speech to Labour Party Conference, which did not hint at a distinct, necessary boundary mark between the public and private sector. He did focus on public services; health, education and social care and although this included some fresh thinking there was no hint at a change of direction. The references to choice and personalized care all sounded a touch Blairite.:
‘This is the future of our public services. Accessible to all, personal to you. Not just a basic standard but the best quality tailored to your needs. Education is my passion’
‘Our great ambition now: a National Health Service that is also a personal health service’
There exist of course urgent opportunities for Brown to develop a more detailed narrative. It is worth noting that one of his stated reasons to opt not to call a ‘snap election’ in the autumn is that he needs more time to articulate his vision. If so, then he has to articulate this vision fairly rapidly and we should observe what says and how he says it in case it contains some clues and hints that the public service narrative will be crafted in a different way.
It is worth noting however, there has been change in direction under Brown in some areas of policy, so there has not been an exact replication of all Blairite priorities. Perhaps this is of some significance. Change has happened in certain areas that indicate Brown was not wholly content with everything that happened in the Blair era. Some examples of this include the decision to review Super-Casino licences, reviewing the re-classification of the status of cannabis. Also he has hinted at changes in the constitution so we can watch that agenda to see what happens. Thus, we know that policy is not monolithic and more dynamic, adapting to the worldviews of different politicians and a changing environment. We should be hopeful that thoughtful, robust arguments on the public sector could still have effect. We need to be realistic about direction of travel but not wholly pessimistic.
The government’s agenda on the public sector been a defining theme for many assessments of their record. High and unprecedented levels of public expenditure have heightened public expectations to demand high quality, world class public services in an increasingly consumer orientated world. Such levels of expenditure even have forced the Conservative opposition to publicly match Labour’s commitment to sustainable levels of expenditure.
Yet the government’s mantra on public services, has created unique pressures on Labour’s trade union support base and generated a wider debate about the efficacy and equity of such an approach. The raising of the bar on public service investment and reform naturally raises the political temperature whenever there seem to be apparent shortcomings in the public services.
This paper aims to chart the development of this debate, the likely direction of public services under a Brown premiership and an analysis of the forthcoming legislative agenda and the recent CSR pre-budget report to discern the likely direction of the public services agenda. There will be a continued use of PFI, marketisation developments in social care and library services where we can expect a clear move towards further fragmentation.
The paper concludes that we cannot exaggerate the difference between a Brown premiership from a Blairite one on this subject. Yet, we must not be wholly gloomy. Brown has overturned certain Blairite programmes, and we must believe that alternative policy platforms can be calibrated and unwelcome public service developments challenged on a case by case basis. The New Labour narrative on public services will not change substantively. There may also be a sense that the Brownite camp is more amenable to dialogue on alternative paradigms on public services where such endeavours ultimately proved a fruitless exercise under Blair.
With the accession of Gordon Brown to the Labour Party leadership and ergo becoming PM, it is an opportune time to take stock of what has happened in public services under Blair and what is the direction of travel under Gordon Brown. Will there be a substantive shift in direction? Will the narrative be different? If so how can Unison frame it’s positively public campaign in the light of a different leadership?
Anatomy of Public Services Under New Labour
Under Labour the marketisation and part-privatization of the public services has continued apace, naturally this has attracted vehement criticism. The Labour Party has been able to publicly position itself as the custodian of public services, citing its high and unprecedented levels of public expenditure and defining itself against a Conservative Party who allowed themselves to be potential cutters of public expenditure. For example Oliver Letwin MP sabotaged the Conservative’s 2001 eelction campaign by indicating to the Financial Times that a Conservative Government would reduce public spending by up to £20bn. Given a change in stance from the Conservative Party and financial instability in Health Trusts it may be more difficult for the Labour Party to do this in the future.
Labour emphasised‘Schools and Hospitals first', in the General Election of June 2001 fusing the mantra of invest and reform, although a simple message it worked in defining Labour as pro-public sector as against the more ideologically bound Conservatives. 2001 election –Schools and Hospitals – narrative provided a very simplistic dividing line with the Conservatives. Blair had originally staked out his mission in reference to the public service agenda in the now infamous sound-bite summarising his priorities as ‘Education, Education, and Education’.
Sometimes the tone and rhetoric used by Tony Blair was unfortunate and alienated public servants, for example when in 2000 he referred to ‘having scars on his back’ due to his public service reforms. The reform agenda which seemed to take a step-change towards privatization during the 2001 election:
‘So this is a great challenge to us as a government and a cabinet, to our public services. There should be no barriers, no dogma, no vested interests that stand in the way of delivering the best services for our people.’
These tensions came to a head in Labour Party conference 2001.
‘The confrontation between ministers and unions over Labour's public service reforms has dominated Tony Blair's second term’
The government attempted to define it’s agenda for modernizing/reforming public services in 2002 by adopting an adversarial posture. Given that the decision to expand private sector involvement in the public sector would be problematic for trade unions in the public sector the government sought to define these forces as ‘producer’ interest, juxtaposed to the interests of the consume ie the public. This narrative even led to one government minister inferring that opponents to this agenda were ‘wreckers’. In a speech to the Labour Party Spring Conference 2002 in Cardiff the phrase wreckers was clearly used in thinly disguised attack on public sector unions.
The rhetoric has evolved but has never been de-coupled from the marketisation agenda. In particular, this point is evidenced by the governments promotion of the concept in choice in public services, particularly choice within the health service. Some saw this philosophical development as an attempt to construct a ‘trojan horse’ through which more marketisation could be pursued. Certainly the government felt they had to craft a modern health service that fitted the consumer orienated, information savvy aged. Fearful that public service legitimacy could be undermined by the middle-classes exiting the service in favour of private provision. The accession of Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP, has seen a toning down of the choice rhetoric.
To many observers Gordon Brown was inextricably bound up in this public services agenda. As Chancellor of the Exchequer oversaw a marked expansion of the PFI scheme, the Treasury’s preferred route for developing public sector infrastructure. Hence to expect him to oversee a substantive shift in direction would be a leap of faith. Brown was of course also the architect of the PPP for the Tube, so heavily criticized by Ken Livingstone and transport unions.
Brown seems to have the same implicit faith in the private sector that Blair had, which we could summarise as private sector good; public sector bad, in a conversation with academic and expert on PFI, Alyson Pollock Brown said, when pressed on the justification for PFI.
“ His response was simply to declare repeatedly that the public sector is bad at management, and that only the private sector is efficient and can manage services well. By 2003 the business paradigm was the only model that the Treasury and senior Department of Health officials could relate to”
There were however moments during Brown’s chancellorship, when it become clear (or politically expedient) that Brown was not wholly convinced by Blair’s direction of travel. For example, during the foundation hospital debate it became apparent that Brown was not happy with policy detail. The message conveyed, albeit discretely, was that Brown realized there should be boundaries to the marketisation process in way that either Blair did not recognize or was untroubled by. Brown may have allowed his lieutenant, Ed Balls to articulate on these differences by hinting that markets have limits. Yet Brown’s real misgiving may have been that foundation hospitals would stoke up private debts that would fall on the public purse ie the Treasury.
‘Brown is vehemently opposed - not to foundation hospitals having autonomy - but to the idea that their proposed freedom to borrow will somehow create private rather than public debt. He thinks the proposition is ludicrous. It will be taxpayers' money being used to service the borrowing; of course it is public debt and, of course, the Government is ultimately responsible’
(Will Hutton, the Sunday Observer, October 6 2002)
It is a safe assumption that now the PFI driven, marketisation trend within the public sector is now embedded in practice and in world-view and shifting it substantively would be a phenomenal development within the public policy world. Indeed the government is still committed to the PFI model.
The UK experience has to be seen in context, there is a global trend, encouraged by global financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank.
“The story is not unique to Britain. Universal health care systems are being dismantled and privatized across the world”.
It is difficult to find an area of UK public services that has not been subjected to some degree of commercialization or market discipline, from the postal services to the BBC globalizing and liberalizing processes are all changing the configuration of public services, some of these are driven by EU processes eg the Postal Services Directive. Furthermore, the debate about the Directive on Services in the Internal Market (‘Bolkestein’ Directive) intensified fears that the pro-liberalisation agenda within Europe would further fragment public services.
Yet, the UK is not just mirroring the international context, it has been criticized for exporting its model of privatization to developing countries and that global institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF are ‘forcing’ developing countries to privatize their indigenous public services (particularly utilities) often to the detriment of the poor. Whilst the global financial system is often blamed in this instance clearly the UK government has pro-actively made decisions that enhance privatization in the developing world.
‘… the World Bank and IMF - to which the UK contributes many millions of pounds of aid money each year - continue to force developing countries to privatise their public services as a condition of loans and debt relief ’
Moreover, George Monbiot bemoans the assistance that DFiD has given the Adam Smith Institute to promote public sector reform in South Africa:
‘The agency keeping the South African government on track is Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID). This year it is giving £6.3 million to the Adam Smith Institute - the ultra-rightwing privatisation lobby group - for “public sector reform” in South Africa. Staggeringly, the Institute has been given its own budget - £5m of British aid money - to disburse as it pleases. By this means, DFID can generate all the support it likes for privatisation and public-private partnerships, while avoiding direct responsibility for the decisions the institute makes.’
( ‘Exploitation on tap’, George Monbiot, 19 October 2007, www.monbiot.com)
Stands New Labour where it did? – Can we anticipate any leverage in a new environment? Direction of travel under Gordon Brown as Prime Minister
To what extent then can we identify if Brown will oversee a tangible change in New Labour’s agenda on the public services? This paper seeks to identify the direction of travel of public services under the Prime Ministership of Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP. It would seem that we cannot exaggerate our hopes that the direction will be that much different to what we have witnessed thus far.
“..most commentators agree that a Gordon Brown led government would continue to steer the public services policy agenda in a very similar direction”
(The Guardian Society, 20 June 2006)
We can make some assumptions based on what happened under Blair, when Brown was
chancellor, what he has said and in detail what has appeared in the Legislative Programme and Comprehensive Spending Review/Pre-Budget Report and to some extent public statements since becoming PM. These are the most clear signs of any detailed policy that has emerged that may have a material impact on employees in the public services.
The new Prime Minister is conscious that he wants to define his tenure at No.10 on domestic policy and public services in particular. On becoming Prime Minister Brown stated that the NHS would be his priority and education his passion. He alluded to this a little more in his speech to Labour Party Conference, which did not hint at a distinct, necessary boundary mark between the public and private sector. He did focus on public services; health, education and social care and although this included some fresh thinking there was no hint at a change of direction. The references to choice and personalized care all sounded a touch Blairite.:
‘This is the future of our public services. Accessible to all, personal to you. Not just a basic standard but the best quality tailored to your needs. Education is my passion’
‘Our great ambition now: a National Health Service that is also a personal health service’
There exist of course urgent opportunities for Brown to develop a more detailed narrative. It is worth noting that one of his stated reasons to opt not to call a ‘snap election’ in the autumn is that he needs more time to articulate his vision. If so, then he has to articulate this vision fairly rapidly and we should observe what says and how he says it in case it contains some clues and hints that the public service narrative will be crafted in a different way.
It is worth noting however, there has been change in direction under Brown in some areas of policy, so there has not been an exact replication of all Blairite priorities. Perhaps this is of some significance. Change has happened in certain areas that indicate Brown was not wholly content with everything that happened in the Blair era. Some examples of this include the decision to review Super-Casino licences, reviewing the re-classification of the status of cannabis. Also he has hinted at changes in the constitution so we can watch that agenda to see what happens. Thus, we know that policy is not monolithic and more dynamic, adapting to the worldviews of different politicians and a changing environment. We should be hopeful that thoughtful, robust arguments on the public sector could still have effect. We need to be realistic about direction of travel but not wholly pessimistic.
The government’s agenda on the public sector been a defining theme for many assessments of their record. High and unprecedented levels of public expenditure have heightened public expectations to demand high quality, world class public services in an increasingly consumer orientated world. Such levels of expenditure even have forced the Conservative opposition to publicly match Labour’s commitment to sustainable levels of expenditure.
Yet the government’s mantra on public services, has created unique pressures on Labour’s trade union support base and generated a wider debate about the efficacy and equity of such an approach. The raising of the bar on public service investment and reform naturally raises the political temperature whenever there seem to be apparent shortcomings in the public services.
This paper aims to chart the development of this debate, the likely direction of public services under a Brown premiership and an analysis of the forthcoming legislative agenda and the recent CSR pre-budget report to discern the likely direction of the public services agenda. There will be a continued use of PFI, marketisation developments in social care and library services where we can expect a clear move towards further fragmentation.
The paper concludes that we cannot exaggerate the difference between a Brown premiership from a Blairite one on this subject. Yet, we must not be wholly gloomy. Brown has overturned certain Blairite programmes, and we must believe that alternative policy platforms can be calibrated and unwelcome public service developments challenged on a case by case basis. The New Labour narrative on public services will not change substantively. There may also be a sense that the Brownite camp is more amenable to dialogue on alternative paradigms on public services where such endeavours ultimately proved a fruitless exercise under Blair.
With the accession of Gordon Brown to the Labour Party leadership and ergo becoming PM, it is an opportune time to take stock of what has happened in public services under Blair and what is the direction of travel under Gordon Brown. Will there be a substantive shift in direction? Will the narrative be different?
Anatomy of Public Services Under New Labour
Under Labour the marketisation and part-privatization of the public services has continued apace, naturally this has attracted vehement criticism. The Labour Party has been able to publicly position itself as the custodian of public services, citing its high and unprecedented levels of public expenditure and defining itself against a Conservative Party who allowed themselves to be potential cutters of public expenditure. For example Oliver Letwin MP sabotaged the Conservative’s 2001 eelction campaign by indicating to the Financial Times that a Conservative Government would reduce public spending by up to £20bn. Given a change in stance from the Conservative Party and financial instability in Health Trusts it may be more difficult for the Labour Party to do this in the future.
In the 2001 election –Schools and Hospitals – narrative provided a very simplistic dividing line with the Conservatives. Blair had originally staked out his mission in reference to the public service agenda in the now infamous sound-bite summarising his priorities as ‘Education, Education, and Education’.
Sometimes the tone and rhetoric used by Tony Blair was unfortunate and alienated public servants, for example when in 2000 he referred to ‘having scars on his back’ due to his public service reforms. The reform agenda which seemed to take a step-change towards privatization during the 2001 election:
‘So this is a great challenge to us as a government and a cabinet, to our public services. There should be no barriers, no dogma, no vested interests that stand in the way of delivering the best services for our people.’
These tensions came to a head in Labour Party conference 2001.
‘The confrontation between ministers and unions over Labour's public service reforms has dominated Tony Blair's second term’
The government attempted to define it’s agenda for modernizing/reforming public services in 2002 by adopting an adversarial posture. Given that the decision to expand private sector involvement in the public sector would be problematic for trade unions in the public sector the government sought to define these forces as ‘producer’ interest, juxtaposed to the interests of the consume ie the public. This narrative even led to one government minister inferring that opponents to this agenda were ‘wreckers’. In a speech to the Labour Party Spring Conference 2002 in Cardiff the phrase wreckers was clearly used in thinly disguised attack on public sector unions.
The rhetoric has evolved but has never been de-coupled from the marketisation agenda. In particular, this point is evidenced by the governments promotion of the concept in choice in public services, particularly choice within the health service. Some saw this philosophical development as an attempt to construct a ‘trojan horse’ through which more marketisation could be pursued. Certainly the government felt they had to craft a modern health service that fitted the consumer orienated, information savvy aged. Fearful that public service legitimacy could be undermined by the middle-classes exiting the service in favour of private provision. The accession of Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP, has seen a toning down of the choice rhetoric.
To many observers Gordon Brown was inextricably bound up in this public services agenda. As Chancellor of the Exchequer oversaw a marked expansion of the PFI scheme, the Treasury’s preferred route for developing public sector infrastructure. Hence to expect him to oversee a substantive shift in direction would be a leap of faith. Brown was of course also the architect of the PPP for the Tube, so heavily criticized by Ken Livingstone and transport unions.
Brown seems to have the same implicit faith in the private sector that Blair had, which we could summarise as private sector good; public sector bad, in a conversation with academic and expert on PFI, Alyson Pollock Brown said, when pressed on the justification for PFI.
“ His response was simply to declare repeatedly that the public sector is bad at management, and that only the private sector is efficient and can manage services well. By 2003 the business paradigm was the only model that the Treasury and senior Department of Health officials could relate to”
There were however moments during Brown’s chancellorship, when it become clear (or politically expedient) that Brown was not wholly convinced by Blair’s direction of travel. For example, during the foundation hospital debate it became apparent that Brown was not happy with policy detail. The message conveyed, albeit discretely, was that Brown realized there should be boundaries to the marketisation process in way that either Blair did not recognize or was untroubled by. Brown may have allowed his lieutenant, Ed Balls to articulate on these differences by hinting that markets have limits. Yet Brown’s real misgiving may have been that foundation hospitals would stoke up private debts that would fall on the public purse ie the Treasury.
‘Brown is vehemently opposed - not to foundation hospitals having autonomy - but to the idea that their proposed freedom to borrow will somehow create private rather than public debt. He thinks the proposition is ludicrous. It will be taxpayers' money being used to service the borrowing; of course it is public debt and, of course, the Government is ultimately responsible’
(Will Hutton, the Sunday Observer, October 6 2002)
It is a safe assumption that now the PFI driven, marketisation trend within the public sector is now embedded in practice and in world-view and shifting it substantively would be a phenomenal development within the public policy world. Indeed the government is still committed to the PFI model.The UK experience has to be seen in context, there is a global trend, encouraged by global financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank.
It is difficult to find an area of UK public services that has not been subjected to some degree of commercialization or market discipline, from the postal services to the BBC globalizing and liberalizing processes are all changing the configuration of public services, some of these are driven by EU processes eg the Postal Services Directive. Furthermore, the debate about the Directive on Services in the Internal Market (‘Bolkestein’ Directive) intensified fears that the pro-liberalisation agenda within Europe would further fragment public services.
Yet, the UK is not just mirroring the international context, it has been criticized for exporting its model of privatization to developing countries and that global institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF are ‘forcing’ developing countries to privatize their indigenous public services (particularly utilities) often to the detriment of the poor. Whilst the global financial system is often blamed in this instance clearly the UK government has pro-actively made decisions that enhance privatization in the developing world.
‘… the World Bank and IMF - to which the UK contributes many millions of pounds of aid money each year - continue to force developing countries to privatise their public services as a condition of loans and debt relief ’
Moreover, George Monbiot bemoans the assistance that DFiD has given the Adam Smith Institute to promote public sector reform in South Africa:
‘The agency keeping the South African government on track is Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID). This year it is giving £6.3 million to the Adam Smith Institute - the ultra-rightwing privatisation lobby group - for “public sector reform” in South Africa. Staggeringly, the Institute has been given its own budget - £5m of British aid money - to disburse as it pleases. By this means, DFID can generate all the support it likes for privatisation and public-private partnerships, while avoiding direct responsibility for the decisions the institute makes.’
( ‘Exploitation on tap’, George Monbiot, 19 October 2007, www.monbiot.com)
Stands New Labour where it did? – Can we anticipate any leverage in a new environment? Direction of travel under Gordon Brown as Prime Minister
To what extent then can we identify if Brown will oversee a tangible change in New Labour’s agenda on the public services? This paper seeks to identify the direction of travel of public services under the Prime Ministership of Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP. It would seem that we cannot exaggerate our hopes that the direction will be that much different to what we have witnessed thus far.
“..most commentators agree that a Gordon Brown led government would continue to steer the public services policy agenda in a very similar direction”
(The Guardian Society, 20 June 2006)
We can make some assumptions based on what happened under Blair, when Brown was chancellor, what he has said and in detail what has appeared in the Legislative Programme and Comprehensive Spending Review/Pre-Budget Report and to some extent public statements since becoming PM. These are the most clear signs of any detailed policy that has emerged that may have a material impact on Unison and it’s members.
The new Prime Minister is conscious that he wants to define his tenure at No.10 on domestic policy and public services in particular. On becoming Prime Minister Brown stated that the NHS would be his priority and education his passion. He alluded to this a little more in his speech to Labour Party Conference, which did not hint at a distinct, necessary boundary mark between the public and private sector. He did focus on public services; health, education and social care and although this included some fresh thinking there was no hint at a change of direction. The references to choice and personalized care all sounded a touch Blairite.:
‘This is the future of our public services. Accessible to all, personal to you. Not just a basic standard but the best quality tailored to your needs. Education is my passion’
‘Our great ambition now: a National Health Service that is also a personal health service’
There exist of course urgent opportunities for Brown to develop a more detailed narrative. It is worth noting that one of his stated reasons to opt not to call a ‘snap election’ in the autumn is that he needs more time to articulate his vision. If so, then he has to articulate this vision fairly rapidly and we should observe what says and how he says it in case it contains some clues and hints that the public service narrative will be crafted in a different way.
It is worth noting however, there has been change in direction under Brown in some areas of policy, so there has not been an exact replication of all Blairite priorities. Perhaps this is of some significance. Change has happened in certain areas that indicate Brown was not wholly content with everything that happened in the Blair era. Some examples of this include the decision to review Super-Casino licences, reviewing the re-classification of the status of cannabis. Also he has hinted at changes in the constitution so we can watch that agenda to see what happens. Thus, we know that policy is not monolithic and more dynamic, adapting to the worldviews of different politicians and a changing environment. We should be hopeful that thoughtful, robust arguments on the public sector could still have effect. We need to be realistic about direction of travel but not wholly pessimistic.
Good Quote on Prayer
"Jean Nicholas Grou, a mystic from the eighteenth century, prescribed that healthy prayer should be humble, reverent, loving, confident and persevering – in other words, the exact opposite of impatient”
P288, Phillip Yancey, ‘Prayer – Does it make any difference?’
P288, Phillip Yancey, ‘Prayer – Does it make any difference?’
Word for the Week - Mark 13v11
"When you are brought to trial, don't worry about what to say. Just say whatever is given to you, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit" Mark 13v11.
Saturday 6 October 2007
Election Speculation Thoughts
What must be going through Gordon Brown's mind now? Within the space of ten days an eleven point poll lead has shrunk to either parity or a marginal lead, depending on which poll you read. This has led Uncle Arthur to reflect on just how unreliable and limited opinion polls are. Certainly they reflect the increasing volatility and fluctuations of public opinion and as we all know in the past they have been wrong.
On balance, I think there will be an election some time in November. In many ways, looking ahead, it can't get much better for the Prime Minister and perhaps things will improve for Cameron, even without a 'snap election' he will be able to put his difficult summer behind him.
Uncle Arthur fears that at the margins the election could be negative, with the Tories subliminally attacking Brown for being a Scot and Labour attacking Cameron for being a toff. Neither of these points come anywhere near serious politics but I fear they may surface at some point.
I will be interested to see how much of the christian vote is attracted by the proposals on supporting married couples. If it really is effective it should be a wake-up call to Labour to adopt a more coherent view on this and other aspects of social policy.
On balance, I think there will be an election some time in November. In many ways, looking ahead, it can't get much better for the Prime Minister and perhaps things will improve for Cameron, even without a 'snap election' he will be able to put his difficult summer behind him.
Uncle Arthur fears that at the margins the election could be negative, with the Tories subliminally attacking Brown for being a Scot and Labour attacking Cameron for being a toff. Neither of these points come anywhere near serious politics but I fear they may surface at some point.
I will be interested to see how much of the christian vote is attracted by the proposals on supporting married couples. If it really is effective it should be a wake-up call to Labour to adopt a more coherent view on this and other aspects of social policy.
Wednesday 3 October 2007
Cameron's Speech - to the audience not the nation
Uncle Arthur has been listening to Cameron's speech, he seems to have done a good job in cementing his bond with the Tory faithful but surely the job is about crafting a narrative to the nation, it did not appear to do that.
I liked the part where he rejected Utopia, which is welcome from a christian perspective, utopianism is disabling the left and is a dangerous path. Yet, given that the enlightenment framework shapes UK politics to some degree how can the Tories really escape this kind of discourse?
Uncle Arthur thinks the Tory proposals to support married couples are welcome. This is not to say that material wellbeing is needed to regenerate marriage. We have seen UK prosperity rise immeasurably in the last fifty years and this has not necessarily benefitted marriage. It is surely a good thing that the state takes a positive stance on marriage. Labour has done much to support families through social policy and support for children, if it could make the step to be positive about marriage in an explicit sense we could see the party returning to it's roots. Sadly, I will not hold my breath. I will however, stay within the party and make the case.
I liked the part where he rejected Utopia, which is welcome from a christian perspective, utopianism is disabling the left and is a dangerous path. Yet, given that the enlightenment framework shapes UK politics to some degree how can the Tories really escape this kind of discourse?
Uncle Arthur thinks the Tory proposals to support married couples are welcome. This is not to say that material wellbeing is needed to regenerate marriage. We have seen UK prosperity rise immeasurably in the last fifty years and this has not necessarily benefitted marriage. It is surely a good thing that the state takes a positive stance on marriage. Labour has done much to support families through social policy and support for children, if it could make the step to be positive about marriage in an explicit sense we could see the party returning to it's roots. Sadly, I will not hold my breath. I will however, stay within the party and make the case.
God Squad
Uncle Arthur spotted this article on the Progress website, it doesn't seem too unfair when you read it. However, one can't helping wondering that British secularist's on the left seem transfixed by a fear of a US style polity whenever the question of religion and politics is mooted.
God squad
Britain is unlikely to see its own version of America's religious right
08 September 2006
Drive across the United States - as I did this summer while researching a book about politics and the religious right - and you cannot but be struck by the tone of the political debate.
As you fiddle with the car radio dial, and discussion programmes, phone-ins and commentaries hover in-and-out of synch between the rock music and country and western, you get a sense of a country with a wholly different political discourse from the rest of the western world.
It sometimes seems to be a land where it is taken for granted that only Christians can be moral; where other developed countries such as those in Europe are sunk in secularism or, worse, Islam; and where the United States is itself under attack from powerful insurgent forces of liberalism and secret, Godless, conspiracies. If only, you sometimes find yourself thinking.
This, however, is not a religious insurgency that has suddenly sprung up in American society. Religion has played a prominent part in politics since the Pilgrim Fathers struggled ashore on Plymouth Rock. George W Bush is not the first overtly religious president, either. He's a Methodist, but don't forget that his two Democrat predecessors Bill Clinton (admittedly not a shining example) and Jimmy Carter are both southern Baptists, as is Al Gore.
What is more disconcerting is the openly partisan and highly politicised nature of the religious lobbying groups and their access to the airwaves. This is not because what they are saying is necessarily new, but because they are more determined and professional - indeed entrepreneurial in pursuit of followers - in getting their message across. Furthermore, their audience can be easily targeted because it is highly atomised, with little social superstructure beyond its shopping malls and local churches.
The Republican party machine has also been very happy to exploit this congregation: buying up its membership lists, targeting its priorities and playing to its prejudices. This paid off in 2004. The Democrats maximised their votes but the Republicans did better: 78 per cent of white evangelicals - who make up 23 per cent of the total electorate, well over the margin of victory in certain key states - voted for Bush. No wonder the Democrats are belatedly taking lessons in how to appeal to a religious electorate.
Could the same happen here? There are some on the fringes of British evangelical religious life, such as Christian Voice, who would like politics to move that way. But the leaders of the main denominations (just like their counterparts, by and large, in the US) do not wish to be embroiled in partisan politics.
Instead, they are content to lobby on issues which concern them, such as abortion; as they are entitled to do like any other citizen. When Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, restated church policy on this issue shortly before the last general election, he was startled to discover himself being creatively interpreted in the Tory tabloids as throwing the church's weight behind Michael Howard, who had recently announced that he favoured reducing abortion time limits. The cardinal promptly scuttled for cover, terrified of being thought party political.
On the fringes, Christian Voice, which led the assault on productions
of Jerry Springer - the Opera, is nasty and sectarian, but appears to be run largely out of a farmhouse in Wales. Its political agenda - anti-EU, pro-capital punishment and, bizarrely, opposed to traffic speed-humps - is scarcely coherent. Or Christian. It doesn't like Catholics much, either.It can kick up a fuss, but is shunned even by other evangelical groups.
Of course, religious groups other than the Christian evangelicals also flex their muscles, most notably Muslim ones. Their agenda has not, however, been primarily religious. Furthermore, there are crucial differences in the funding and the access to the airwaves that the fringe groups enjoy in Britain, compared with the US. A British Pat Robertson would not be given the airplay or the chance to run his own cable channel. This is unlikely to change.
Perhaps British society is a bit more sceptical, too. Christian Voice's Stephen Green appeared on Question Time this year, but was disconcerted to find himself ridiculed by the audience.
But there is no room for complacency. There is evidence that some of the American multimillionaires who fund the lobbyists in the US have started diverting some of their dollars here as well. Howard Ahmanson, the Californian real estate heir who funds fundamentalist and creationist groups in the US, last year is thought to have given $60,000 to an Anglican conservative evangelical pressure group, campaigning on the gay issue in the Church of England. That's small beer compared with such groups' funding in the US. But Ahmanson has certainly got long arms and deep pockets, and is presumably not giving his money away out of the generosity of his heart.
Stephen Bates is the religious affairs correspondent at the Guardian. He will be speaking at the Progress 10th anniversary conference seminar, We Don't Do God: Is Faith Finding Politics?
God squad
Britain is unlikely to see its own version of America's religious right
08 September 2006
Drive across the United States - as I did this summer while researching a book about politics and the religious right - and you cannot but be struck by the tone of the political debate.
As you fiddle with the car radio dial, and discussion programmes, phone-ins and commentaries hover in-and-out of synch between the rock music and country and western, you get a sense of a country with a wholly different political discourse from the rest of the western world.
It sometimes seems to be a land where it is taken for granted that only Christians can be moral; where other developed countries such as those in Europe are sunk in secularism or, worse, Islam; and where the United States is itself under attack from powerful insurgent forces of liberalism and secret, Godless, conspiracies. If only, you sometimes find yourself thinking.
This, however, is not a religious insurgency that has suddenly sprung up in American society. Religion has played a prominent part in politics since the Pilgrim Fathers struggled ashore on Plymouth Rock. George W Bush is not the first overtly religious president, either. He's a Methodist, but don't forget that his two Democrat predecessors Bill Clinton (admittedly not a shining example) and Jimmy Carter are both southern Baptists, as is Al Gore.
What is more disconcerting is the openly partisan and highly politicised nature of the religious lobbying groups and their access to the airwaves. This is not because what they are saying is necessarily new, but because they are more determined and professional - indeed entrepreneurial in pursuit of followers - in getting their message across. Furthermore, their audience can be easily targeted because it is highly atomised, with little social superstructure beyond its shopping malls and local churches.
The Republican party machine has also been very happy to exploit this congregation: buying up its membership lists, targeting its priorities and playing to its prejudices. This paid off in 2004. The Democrats maximised their votes but the Republicans did better: 78 per cent of white evangelicals - who make up 23 per cent of the total electorate, well over the margin of victory in certain key states - voted for Bush. No wonder the Democrats are belatedly taking lessons in how to appeal to a religious electorate.
Could the same happen here? There are some on the fringes of British evangelical religious life, such as Christian Voice, who would like politics to move that way. But the leaders of the main denominations (just like their counterparts, by and large, in the US) do not wish to be embroiled in partisan politics.
Instead, they are content to lobby on issues which concern them, such as abortion; as they are entitled to do like any other citizen. When Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, restated church policy on this issue shortly before the last general election, he was startled to discover himself being creatively interpreted in the Tory tabloids as throwing the church's weight behind Michael Howard, who had recently announced that he favoured reducing abortion time limits. The cardinal promptly scuttled for cover, terrified of being thought party political.
On the fringes, Christian Voice, which led the assault on productions
of Jerry Springer - the Opera, is nasty and sectarian, but appears to be run largely out of a farmhouse in Wales. Its political agenda - anti-EU, pro-capital punishment and, bizarrely, opposed to traffic speed-humps - is scarcely coherent. Or Christian. It doesn't like Catholics much, either.It can kick up a fuss, but is shunned even by other evangelical groups.
Of course, religious groups other than the Christian evangelicals also flex their muscles, most notably Muslim ones. Their agenda has not, however, been primarily religious. Furthermore, there are crucial differences in the funding and the access to the airwaves that the fringe groups enjoy in Britain, compared with the US. A British Pat Robertson would not be given the airplay or the chance to run his own cable channel. This is unlikely to change.
Perhaps British society is a bit more sceptical, too. Christian Voice's Stephen Green appeared on Question Time this year, but was disconcerted to find himself ridiculed by the audience.
But there is no room for complacency. There is evidence that some of the American multimillionaires who fund the lobbyists in the US have started diverting some of their dollars here as well. Howard Ahmanson, the Californian real estate heir who funds fundamentalist and creationist groups in the US, last year is thought to have given $60,000 to an Anglican conservative evangelical pressure group, campaigning on the gay issue in the Church of England. That's small beer compared with such groups' funding in the US. But Ahmanson has certainly got long arms and deep pockets, and is presumably not giving his money away out of the generosity of his heart.
Stephen Bates is the religious affairs correspondent at the Guardian. He will be speaking at the Progress 10th anniversary conference seminar, We Don't Do God: Is Faith Finding Politics?
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