How would non-partisan observers see the condition of UK democracy over the decades as viewed from above the stratosphere ?
With Labour they might see a political party that replaced the Liberals as the party of reform in the 1930s and after WW2, based on representing the ‘working class’ – then working mostly in industry. They might contrast this with today’s Labour party – now mostly funded and controlled by public sector unions – both a strength and weakness in terms of the progression of democracy. A public sector union is a very peculiar animal. Without the constraints of industrial competition, and with senior ‘two-hatted’ civil servants facing conflicts between the public interest and the interests of their unions, one can understand why the Labour party has certain weaknesses as part of the democratic system. Hence their conflation of the public interest with ever-expanding public employment, usually couched in the language of additional benefits to the public, (and a policy cohabitee with Tory centralization). Therein lies Labour’s key weakness as well as its strength.
The Conservative party, traditionally the party of the wealthy elite, has experienced a century old battle between old money and new – still very visible to our observer in Tory run councils across the UK today, with their property & land factions and their private sector and small business factions. The industrial elite has always had influence rather than control however, and then along came Thatcher with her ideological market and anti-state approach which upset the apple cart (Thatcher was disdainful of landed and industrial elites). Whilst Thatcher claimed to support democracy by limiting an overbearing state, the reverse trend was seen in her centralizing of administrative power and consolidation of ‘the Deep State’ and US influence. After years in the doldrums (when ‘public sector Labour’ courted popularity with increased public funding), the Conservatives were led by Cameron – whose new project to decontaminate the ‘nasty party’ brand was interrupted by the financial crisis, and by a selection process which saw lesser quality MPs enter parliament on the back of their anti-EU obsessions. The result has been a weak, confused and vacillating leadership.
Our space observer might see the Liberal Democrats as inheritors of the UK’s strong liberal and democratic-reformist traditions – the underlying motivation for democratic reforms for over a century. For much of the post-war period the British public supported liberalism in principle but not in practice, as the need for strong and well-funded political parties dominated. Three events then moulded the new Lib Dem party into a hybrid state-skeptical liberal and pro-state social democratic party – Thatcher clothing herself with (economic) liberal garb, the merger with the SDP, and the flight from New Labour under Blair-Brown. Wary of reconciling differing philosophies, the party reinvigorated its community politics methods, invented as a survival strategy in the 1970s, and re-focused on local government elections and ‘quality-of-political-service’. This approach however contained weaknesses – parliamentary candidate selection dominated by local councilors and public sector employees, and an outlook conditioned by the fact that around 80% of local authority funding is Whitehall provided and negotiated. Our observer might see resulting weakness in public policy development and funding, and serious problems in public perceptions related to the party’s role in having to go into coalition.
Our space observer may therefore conclude that the progress of democratisation in the UK has at least decelerated, partly because the three main political parties themselves have become weak, while the state administration has become stronger.
* Paul Reynolds works with multilateral organisations as an independent adviser on international relations, economics, and senior governance.
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9 Comments
I know that the Lib Dems invented every good idea that politics has ever had: the NHS, the welfare state, equality, social justice, social housing, the minimum wage, the ending of the NHS, the ending of the welfare state, penalising bedroom blockers, ending discrimination by arguing that you can’t do anything about it because that would in itself be discriminatory, centralising political representation by use of proportional voting systems, etc. but I had no idea that the inhabitants of space are also Lib Dems.
Paul Reynolds
Our space observer may therefore conclude that the progress of democratisation in the UK has at least decelerated, partly because the three main political parties themselves have become weak, while the state administration has become stronger.
The second part of this is simply not true. Globalisation and privatisation means the state has become much weaker, not stronger. There are many things that used to be state controlled but are not state controlled now. Even in those things which are state controlled, we are so often told we are limited in what we can do, as we do not want to scare off the power of big money which could easily withdraw and settle somewhere else.
Three events then moulded the new Lib Dem party into a hybrid state-skeptical liberal and pro-state social democratic party – Thatcher clothing herself with (economic) liberal garb, the merger with the SDP,
The is also not true. It is part of the Orwellian attempt by the political extreme right to rewrite history. Please note, by “extreme right” I mean “defenders of the power of wealth and privilege”.These people are trying to steal the word “liberal” and get it to mean them.
@”JRC”
The good ideas you mention, as opposed to the bad ones, were invented by the Liberal Party, not the Liberal Democratic Party.
Paul Reynolds.
What an interesting summary!
What also happened was that the EU-fanatic elitiist right wing of Labour Party refugees from Michael Foot’s EU-sceptic, leftist Labour Party merged with and took over the Liberal Party at the time, so that the Liberal Democrats are now fiercely pro-Euro, pro-EU and pro- a Country called Europe. They also stripped the merged party of the traditional Preamble tothe Liberal Party Constitution calling for “liberty, PROPERTY and security for all”, which was altogether too liberal and radical for the Social Democratic refugees from the Labour Party.
The continuation Liberal Party is now the radical and progressive political party for Liberal EU-sceptics, for whom UKIP’s right wing policies such as banning gay marriage and abolishing inheritance tax altogether are, naturally, anathema. But it is NOT right wing to want to leave full membership of the EU, CAP and CFP. It is Liberal, as is wanting to reduce the vast inequalities of inherited wealth and the gaps between public and private health and education, all in the interests of greater equality of opportunity in the UK.
Is selection really dominated by councillors and public sector employees? In many constituencies it’s dominated by retired people! In any case, is a strong councillor input a bad thing, especially as our councillors are those most opposed to a centralised system?
Sceptical is spelt with a c.
Dane Clouston
Haha good one. It’s good to see that the Lib Dems are just keeping up the Liberal Party tradition of claiming ownership of anything and everything whilst finding compelling logic to justify never actually doing anything to create the conditions under which liberal equality can exist.
“JRC”
What is your prescription for “creating the conditions under which liberal equality can exist”? Although, I must say that as a Liberal I am keener on equality of opportunity in each new generation than equality of outcome.
For greater opportunity for all, in each new generation, I want to see an Asset Welfare State with UK Universal Inheritance financed by reform of Inheritance Tax including abolition of unlimited exemptions, together with VAT on private health and private school fees in order to pay for better NHS and State Schools.
And, of course,for a degree of equality of outcome, a good and fair current Income Welfare State as a safety net for those in need, while hoping that greater opportunity for all may reduce to some extent the need for and so the annual cost of that.
Dane Clouston,
Equality of opportunity cannot coexist with the private education system. It can but is unlikely to with private health care. However, as long as both exist then I would agree with your VAT prescription. I agree with the notion of universal inheritance but not as a one off payment in place of an ongoing fair distribution of the proceeds of the market.
The logical ends of the liberal egalitarian argument leads to a commitment to equality of capabilities being the goal of distribution. Equality of opportunity cannot exist if the capability of each to access those opportunities is unequal. That would preclude the notion of the welfare state as a safety net and imply that it must be an insurance policy. The safety net would be beneath the welfare system not as we have now instead of it.
As for my prescription for the conditions for liberal egalitarianism to exist, they are numerous and would largely be described as socialist without the hazy notion of the communal good, but as an example of how Liberal politics mitigates against such action I would cite the position of the Liberal Democrats towards positive discrimination in parliamentary candidate selection. The use of all-women short lists is denounced as tokenism and illiberal, it is not. The only way to solve discrimination is to discriminate against it. Liberal politics always finds a reason to claim that actively promoting the conditions for equality will conflict with an individual’s intrinsic rights it thus is destined to defend the status quo.
Democracy is what the people strive for as it is the best form of providing a level playing field for a nation’s people. But unfortunately the political parties corrupt this political system to their own ends and that’s where it all goes wrong. How many times have we seen in the UK the Labour and Tory Parties put in their manifestos things that they never do after they are voted into power by the people. Indeed the people are hoodwinked all the time by the mainstream political parties in the UK today and basically always have been. For they soon backtrack on their manifesto promises that the people vote for once in power. Therefore it is the ‘Party’ system that corrupts democracy as the ‘Parties’ are there just to get into power and serve themselves in many ways. Unfortunately this is the Achilles Heel of Democracy as the people vote for it, but because party politics rise above the people and their wishes (based upon broken manifesto promises), they never really get it. For true democracy is what the people vote for and get. Unfortunately because our political parties are more interested in themselves and what they can get out of it themselves, the people are basically secondary to this issue and used like pawns in the whole political scheme of things. Sad but perfectly true if you think on the situation and based upon the political history of the UK. UK citizens therefore must open up democracy by aggressing this stranglehold and start to vote for others as otherwise they are all basically mugs in the whole game of party political manipulation. Indeed how many times have we seen the people paying dearly for the abhorrent party political leadership and seen the perpetrators come up smelling of roses. Labour is a fine example here where they landed the British people with unparallel debt during their 13 years of reign and where many ministers have now ended up in senior positions, commanding 100s of thousands of pound salaries, in all manner of private and public concerns/companies. Tories will fair no better, but again will inherently end up the same, flush with money and the people left to pick up the extreme tabs that are now clearly apparent with the political system that corrupts the people’s wishes inextricably.
Dr David Hill
World Innovation Foundation