Wednesday 15 October 2014

Fifty Years On II


Fifty years ago on Wednesday, Harold Wilson was elected prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Labour won because its leader caught the mood of the time.

Wilson was the politician as technocrat, the man in the Gannex overcoat who complained that, in a world in which “even the MCC has abolished the distinction between amateurs and professionals, in science and industry we are content to remain a nation of Gentlemen in a world of Players”.

Maintaining the technocratic image helped him to keep a fractious party more or less intact.

But nobody doubted that the pragmatism about which he boasted was, in truth, guided by a principle which he set out in the language of the time. “The Labour party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.”

Two or three weeks into the new parliament, he invited the dozen or so youngest Labour MPs to Downing Street.

The most self-confident among us – which did not include me – told him that the government had made a crucial mistake in not devaluing the pound.

They were right, and there were moments when I suspected Wilson himself had doubts about the decision. But then he defended it in terms that markedly differed from the classic economic case.

In 1964, the pound was a reserve currency.

The nations of what we then called the third world held their sterling balances in London. “I am not,” said the prime minister, “prepared to cut India’s savings by 10 per cent.”

There was no doubt in my mind that the man who founded War on Want spoke with genuine conviction. I left the meeting reconciled if not convinced.

I do not suggest that today’s parliamentary party would settle down to winning next year’s election if Ed Miliband expressed the moral fervour that I have no doubt he feels.

Labour backbenchers are notoriously bad under fire.

They begin to believe what they read in Tory newspapers and contribute to their own despair by whispering to lobby correspondents criticisms of the leadership, which produce more nerve-shattering headlines.

The turbulence will only subside when they see an improvement in the – far from calamitous – opinion polls.

That will happen when Miliband follows his instincts and says (in more appropriate language) that Labour is a crusade or it is nothing, and sets out the principles that guide him and should guide Labour.

Then, as in 1964, the party would catch the mood of the time.

It was as the candidate of ideas and unashamed socialist ideology that Miliband stood for party leader. That is why I voted for him and why he retains my undiminished support.

Almost all the policy initiatives for which he has been responsible have been consistent with his principles. 

Yet they’ve been portrayed as sudden decisions taken on the instruction of trade union barons, cynical attempts to climb on passing bandwagons, or feeble efforts to deflect attention from the government’s perceived successes.

There is still plenty of time for him to demonstrate that he has a clear and coherent vision of the sort of society that he wants Britain to become.

By describing it, he will cause some offence – though it will mostly be to people who would never vote for him anyway.

And he is not going to win May’s election without antagonising his enemies.

Miliband has to proclaim his belief in equality – not uniformity, which is as undesirable as it is unattainable, but the conscious attempts to narrow the social and economic gaps that divide society.

His critics constantly complain about the party’s neglect of its core vote – the essential 35% of the electorate. Most of them would benefit from a policy of conscious redistribution.

And outside the ranks of the beneficiaries there are millions of voters who want to be told politics is about something better than “what have you done for me recently?”

There has never been a time when greater equality was so consistent with the needs of the nation.

By saying the word, Miliband answers the questions about the strength and purpose of his leadership – including his decision to stand against his brother. David and Ed have different visions of the good society.

Proclaiming the core principle should only be the beginning.

The good society requires the state – national and local government – to protect otherwise defenceless citizens against private tyranny.

Miliband put that principle into practice by demanding tighter press regulation.

His promise to freeze energy prices was the application of the same idea and confirmed his understanding that reliance on the (often manipulated) market is not the best way of providing the best deal for the consumer.

The Tory party and their allies are demonstrably wrong about the role of the state and the benevolence of the market.

If Labour fights the battle of ideas, it will win.

And how, I can hear the anxious Labour candidates asking, does that deal with the question of the moment – immigration?

Reliance on principle teaches us not to play Ukip at its own game – which Labour will always lose.

More important, if the electorate is convinced by the coherence of Labour’s general policy position, it is more likely to believe what the party says about the most contentious issues.

The British people respond to principled leadership – even, as Margaret Thatcher demonstrated, when they do not share the leader’s principles.

Ed Miliband has to make clear what those principles are. He is ideally suited to that job.

That why I support his leadership with undiminished hope.

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