Jonathan Todd

Ed Miliband talks a lot about responsibility and a responsible capitalism. Given reports in the Observer, I have a feeling that David Cameron will take up similar themes on the Andrew Marr show this morning. This illustrates a dimension of the responsibility theme identified by Robert Saunders in the current edition of Renewal.

“Like Thatcher, Miliband has sought to identify a unifying theme to which all Britain’s problems can be related. Where Thatcher chose ‘socialism’, Miliband has opted for ‘responsibility’. The theme has obvious merits … The problem is that it is inherently non-partisan. When Thatcher railed against ‘socialism’, it was obvious that she was talking about Labour. No one on the Conservative benches self-identifies as ‘irresponsible’, and that limits its power as a political weapon. ‘Responsibility’ has no political hook; indeed, if it were to ‘take’ as a theme, there would be nothing to prevent David Cameron from simply co-opting it.”

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were right-wing, obviously. But they were coherent, courageous and possessed of certain irreducible beliefs. And not wrong about everything. Sarah Palin is, in contrast, clearly incoherent and vapid. Andrew Sullivan once described her as the “reductio ad absurdum” of Reagan’s conservatism. Palin, basically, manifestly is nuts. The reluctance of the American right to acknowledge the self-evident contrast between Thatcher and Palin is indicative of their estrangement from reality. If the Republicans select her as their presidential candidate, reality will surely, finally, file for divorce.

I had this on Labour Uncut today.

The longer Gordon Brown was prime minister, the harder it became, sadly, to picture him in post at the 2012 Olympics. His purchase on the future evaporated. Ed Miliband has to recover this to return to government. He has to convince that he has the answers to the challenges of 2015 and beyond. And personify these answers.

While his speech to the resolution foundation looked towards this, the past is always knocking incessant, trying to break through into the present. As Jim Murphy told the progress political school, in politics, the past is always the context, the future the contest. The spectre of Iraq hangs over Libya. The fiscal management of the last government colours arguments about the approach of this. In many areas – NHS, schools, welfare and, increasingly, foreign affairs – David Cameron presents himself as more heir to Blair than a return to the 1980s. Labour begs to differ. The public is uncertain.

What is not in doubt, however, is that the past has to be overcome to own the future. The 1997 victory couldn’t happen until Labour had outrun the shadow of its discontented winter. Tory detoxification hadn’t removed the stench of Thatcherism before 2010. That foul odour now emanates from Number Ten, in spite of Cameron needing Nick Clegg’s help to limp over the finishing line of the general election.

Cameron has hired a head of strategy, Andrew Cooper, who was convinced of the need to detoxify the Tories before he was. Cooper is determined to now complete this long march. Only when this journey has ended, liberal Tories like Cooper think, will a Tory majority come. Mainstream Tories, such as Tim Montgomerie, less abashed by association with Thatcher, disagree.

Clegg now blocks the route that Cooper wants to pursue. It will be difficult to avoid the narrative that anything progressive done by the government is a consequence of the Lib Dems. These actions would serve only to prop up Clegg, not detoxify the Tories.

So long as Margaret Thatcher is held in such low regard in the northern seats that the Tories need to form a majority, mainstream Toryism cannot own the future. Equally, liberal Toryism is compromised by the Lib Dems claiming any of their victories as their own. Mainstream Tories and liberal Tories may battle for the soul of Cameron and their party, but these factors mean that neither is capable of owning the future.

It doesn’t have to be this way for Ed Miliband. But, first, we have to move beyond our past. Voters felt, as Fiona MacTaggart conceded at conference last year, that we were “taking their money and giving it to people who are taking the piss”. This is no prospectus upon which to form a government.

Labour canvassers rarely field complaints that we let the state get too big. This isn’t how people tend to conceptualise things. The Tory charge of profligate Labour spending still stings, though, because too many people feel Labour took too much of their squeezed wages in taxation, with too little improvement in public services to show for it, while being too generous with those unprepared to graft as they do (namely, some welfare recipients and, less fairly, immigrants).

James Purnell argues that Miliband can neuter the Conservatives’ attack that Labour is spendaholic by committing that no new Labour policy will involve additional spending. He claims that this would redefine the political battleground. Rather than being reform versus spending, it would be good reform versus bad reform. The story of the Cumbrian NHS exemplifies the virtues of Labour reform over Tory reform. Such arguments have to be taken on and won.

Labour reform enables more to be done for less, which is integral to being fluent on the deficit, as is a compelling plan for economic growth. However, the economic argument isn’t simply about fiscal management and growing GDP, but raising wages unchanged in real terms since 2005. The biggest long-term challenges that the country faces – earning our way in an Asian century, decarbonisation, ageing, banks both too big to fail and save – are all bound up with this most bread and butter of issues.

More immediate changes can help: tax incentives to encourage wider payment of the living wage and use of smart meters; more advocacy of the kind that saw consumer focus earn households a £70m rebate in the week before it was callously axed. However, the squeeze is intimately connected with the advance of globalisation and the failure of public policy to keep pace.

To be social democratic is to be condemned to optimism about capacity for improvement. Yet, as a country, we are far from having found the policies to grasp all the opportunities and meet all the challenges of an ever more Asian-powered globalisation.

Ed Miliband needs such policy, and ways to present it that are doorstep-ready. The big society wasn’t so ready and has become synonymous with small-state Thatcherism. It is now a rhetorical cul-de-sac for Cameron. Miliband cannot, however, own the future by default.

Only when his blank pages are filled with policy that escapes big government perceptions and paints a believable picture of a Britain at ease in the global age of today and tomorrow will he be able to own the future. This will take time and be no easy task. So long as we are privately advancing in these regards, the right public posture is enough for now.

I wrote this in Labour Uncut recently:

For all Nick Clegg’s slightly vague talk of “giving the party with the biggest mandate the chance to govern” it wasn’t hard, given opinion polls, to see a Tory/Lib Dem government as a potential outcome throughout the general election. I warned Westmorland and Lonsdale that they might vote Liberal Democrat and end up with such a government. They didn’t listen. I was less surprised by the government we ended up with than the extent to which the motivations of my Liberal Democrat opponent, Tim Farron, recently elected president of his party, seemed so close to those of Labourites.

He professes “anger at the injustice” of Margaret Thatcher. At hustings he’d offer impassioned rhetoric on whatever social problem was most germane. Whether this was the struggles of hill sheep farmers or global warning, he challenged market iniquities. His stump speech tells of watching a repeat of Cathy Come Home as a teenager and being so compelled to do something about the injustice he’d witnessed that he decided to use his pocket money to join a political party instead of buying a Smiths single. While he was far more profligate in Biblical quotations than me, at hustings we battled to colonise the language of poverty and oppression.

Farron’s constituency once belonged to Tory grandee, Michael Jopling, whom Alan Clark famously recorded saying of Michael Heseltine that “his trouble is that he had to buy his own furniture”. Jopling stood down in 1997, bequeathing Tim Collins a majority of over 16,000. Collins was defeated eight years later by a candidate fired by rage at a Prime Minister in whose government Jopling served.

Farron first contested the seat in 2001, when Collins was a shoo-in. The next year he switched jobs to work in the constituency and at some stage – long before it was thought a potential site of a Tory “decapitation” – he settled his family locally. All of this suggests reserves of self-belief and a willingness to play the long game.

He may sometimes sound like a lost member of our tribe, but part of the reason for Farron turning a safe Tory seat into a solid Liberal Democrat one has been a ruthless crushing of Labour. His annihilation of me came after all Labour councillors had been vanquished. As considerable Tory support remains in the more rural parts of the constituency, which have recently formed the backdrop to Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan’s The Trip, he has assiduously worked wards that were once Labour.

Good Labour councillors have been crushed by Farron’s machine. While it would delight me to see these councillors returned to office, Farron represents a different kind of Liberal Democrat from, say, David Laws. In effect, they are now in different parties.

As Tim Montgomerie observes, this is a governing ensemble in three parts:

the almost indistinguishable front benches;

the Tory right;

the left of the Liberal Democrats who, in their hearts, would still have preferred a deal with Labour.

Farron is one of the leaders of the latter and Laws seeks – with, for example, his crass dig at Ed Miliband for buying a round of teas – only to help the former.

The difference between being a human shield happily (Laws) and begrudgingly (Farron) may seem trivial when you are protecting a prime minister as destructive as she who inspired Farron to go into politics. But there is significance in the distinction. The willing human shields will be appealed to by Cameronites like Nick Boles who intend the Tory/Lib-Dem alliance to endure beyond this parliament. Longevity in this axis is to be feared by Labour.

Immediately upon becoming Lib Dem president, however, Tim Farron dismissed the notion as “absolutely stark raving mad”.

Labour might build upon this by following the advice offered by Liberal Democrat David Hall-Matthews in Renewal:

“There might be more to be gained for Labour by trying to woo the Lib Dems – or at least by highlighting their (huge) differences from the Tories, rather than condemning their similarities. It would be a disaster for the left if a 2015 balanced parliament created the possibility of a clear Lib-Lab majority but five years of mutual carping had poisoned the well”.

It would be in tune with the post-tribal sensibilities of the public for Labour to be upfront about where we can agree with the Liberal Democrats and where we can’t. This should uncover a considerable basis of common ground, potentially on issues like a land tax and a second chamber elected by full PR, which the Lib Dems share with Labour and which neither can share with the Tories. The election of a social democrat like Farron as president and quotations like that from Hall-Matthews indicate that there are plenty of Liberal Democrats looking for common ground. For them, perpetual governance by the Boles-Law class is almost as nightmarish as it is for us.

We shouldn’t forget, and should continue to resist, the damage that Farron has wrought on a CLP. We should be suspicious of his ambitions (having been told he was crazy to think he could beat Collins, he may now secretly think he can lead the Lib Dems to be the largest leftist force). We should expect him to over-egg the progressive credentials of the Liberal Democrats.

But we should probe these credentials fairly and seek – rather than firing endless rounds into the human shields – to build bridges and back-channels with those of Farron’s bent. This will expose the greatest enemy: David Cameron. And we may even discover that Farron got Stockholm syndrome not six months ago but soon after watching Cathy Come Home.

James Crabtree has written a fascinating and much commented upon Prospect piece on the role that an apology might play in a quick return to Labour government should the Conservatives win the General Election later this year. This has set me thinking about the role of contrition in politics in general and two sorry Tory stories in particular. These sorry stories are: First, seeing (tacit and non-formal) apologies for being slow to make peace with the 1960s and for the excesses of the 1980s as being integral to the rebranding of the Conservatives sought by David Cameron (a project that is now threatened by a sense that the credit crunch and the scale of public debt have caused the Conservatives to renew their marriage vows to Margaret Thatcher and the 1980s); and, second, conceptualising the Republicans as being split between those who see a need for some kind of apology for the years of George W Bush as necessary to their political renewal and those who do not.

Some recent events – the reaction to the attempted Christmas day terrorist bombing in the US; the election to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in Massachusetts; the tea party protests; the spike in retirements from Democratic Congressmen; and President Obama’s approval rating - would seem to strengthen the position of those who are unapologetic for the Dubya years. But my default sense – which I am increasingly having cause to question - is that in the long-term more contrition than that which the likes of Karl Rove are presently prepared to offer will be required for the Republicans to fully recover. That said; there are signs, which are worrying to a European and (in the American sense of the word) liberal, that an unreconstructed Republican party might return to the White House in 2012. An example of such a sign is that when I departed Dulles airport, just outside DC, 48 hours ago I noted lots of t-shirts on sale like the one below.

Dulles may be in Virginia, but it is hardly in the heart of red state territory; Massachusetts is even less so. I can only fear what they are now thinking in such territory. But let’s return to American politics via a review of the role of an apology (of sorts) in the fortunes of the Conservative Party in recent years.

“There is no such thing as society.” This was one of the most outrageous and defining claims of the Thatcher years. So, for Cameron to repudiate this by saying that ”there is such a thing as society” was for him to grasp towards an apology for the excesses of Thatcherism in the form of a Clause 4-esque moment. In actuality, he failed to fully seize this moment by following this line up with words (“it’s just not the same thing as the state”) that amounted to a Burkian little platoons view of society that is little removed from Thatcher’s notion that “there are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first.”

Notwithstanding this I am with James Crabtree – pace Luke Akehurst – in conceding that lines such as these from Cameron, as well as a focus upon such non-traditional Tory themes as poverty and the environment, amount in tone, at least, to a sustained Tory apology and repositioning.

But that is soo 2005/7. You know, PCC (pre-credit crunch). We are now in a very different era. Philip Stephens has captured well what this meant for the Cameron project:

“The cuddly, environmentally friendly prospectus he offered during his early years as leader has collided with grim economic reality. The Tory leader used to promise to share the proceeds of economic growth between public services and lower taxes. There is nothing left to share. The choice is between what services to cut and what taxes to raise.”

David Goodhart touches upon another aspect of the Cameron project, “after Labour embraced the 1980s (the turn to the free market) the Tories have recently made their peace with the 1960s (race and gender equality, environmentalism and so on).” Part of the ”friendly prospectus” involves an apology for not previously being at ease with the 1960s. While Labour had to adapt to the 1980s to reinvent itself under Tony Blair, the 1997 election constituted, in part, a rejection of the dogmatic firmness of the Tory faith in the free market. Consequently, as well as finally reconciling themselves to the 1960s, Cameron has sought to apologise for the 1980s Thatcherite dogma that lead to 1997. He’s the “heir to Blair”, remember.

This strand of Cameron’s apology – the 1980s strand, if you will – has gone flaky since the need to control public debt (and the implied requirement for restraint in public spending) has become more apparent. This is because the Conservatives have seemed more keen than Labour to address this need. Peter Mandelson tried to increase this flakiness by speaking of the “barely disguised glee” of the Tories at the prospect of spending cuts.

The 1960s strand is also undermined by a Conservative Home survey that reports that reducing Britain’s carbon footprint is the lowest priority of Tory PPCs. Their second highest priority is “cutting red tape”. How 1980s and John Redwood-like is that?!? It’s like the regulatory failures of the credit crunch never happened. Perhaps, only Boy George and “reducing the public deficit” (aka cutting public spending), which was their top priority, could be more 1980s.

All of which supports Mandelson’s argument and gives the suggestion that Cameron may be a somewhat reformed character who wants to rebrand the Conservatives, but the Conservatives themselves do not wish to be so changed and the public are unconvinced that such a change has been completed. Jack Scott, a Labour PPC, has picked up strong evidence on the doorstep for this view being held amongst the public.

Cameron’s attempt to change the Conservatives has certainly been buffeted, most spectacularly by the credit crunch. However, he remains keen that the perception of change, at least, holds; whether he can make this perception stick in the hearts of his party and the minds of voters are different questions, however.

Returning to America, we note one of the most basic and fundamental distinctions between British and American politics. The Republicans have no politician in an office akin to Cameron’s. Whether the Republican leadership wants to apologise for George W Bush, as Cameron has sought to apologise for Thatcher et al, is immaterial, because no office exists from which a leader might thrust such an action upon their (welcoming or otherwise) party. Cameron may have fluffed his Clause 4 moment but this structural distinction between the US and the UK means that there is much less chance of a Republican Clause 4.

The nearest the Republicans have got to such a moment came in the form of a recently published book by Michael Steele, Republican Party Chairman, in which he discusses why the GOP has often lost touch with typical Americans since the Ronald Reagan era and concedes: “We screwed up.” (Notice another difference between the UK and the US: The 1980s are something for which the party of the right is to apologise in the UK and are something for the party of the right to seek to recover in the US).

However, as E. J. Dionne Jr notes, some Republicans remain on the offensive about the period for which Steele is apologetic. These are the kind of Republicans who are doubtful about Michael Steele.

“Much of the contention surrounding Barack Obama’s presidency is simply a continuation of our argument over the effects of George W. Bush’s time in office. That is why Obama, despite his fervent wishes, has been unable to usher in a new period of consensus. Bush’s defenders know that Obama’s election represented a popular reaction against the consequences of the Bush presidency. Because Obama is both the anti-Bush and the leader of the post-Bush cleanup squad, his success would complete the rebuke. So the Bush camp — Karl Rove’s regular contributions to the Wall Street Journal’s opinion pages are emblematic — must stay on the attack.”

The strand of the Cameronista project that is so determined to underline a sense of change within their party, it seems to me, is motivated by a desire to act upon an insight provided by Danny Finkelstein, one of their most sympathetic commentators: the British electorate is never wrong. Change is required, it is thought, to show that the party has moved on from the past mistakes that kept it out of office. However, the Rove strategy seems based on precisely the opposite view: the Dubya years weren’t missteps at all, but coloured by the right actions, and, in time, the American public will come to realise that they made a mistake in evicting the Republicans from the White House. It’s not so much “don’t blame me, I voted McCain” as “sorry, I’ve seen the error of my ways and wish I’d voted McCain.”

As well as on terrorism and foreign policy, the Republicans are unrepentant on their role in the economic situation. This is also noted by E. J. Dionne Jr:

“It’s striking that most conservatives, through a method that might be called the audacity of audacity, have acted as if absolutely nothing went wrong with their economic theories. They speak and act as if they had nothing to do with the large deficits they now bemoan and say we will all be saved if only we return to the very policies that should already be discredited. The few exceptions to this rule — Bruce Bartlett and Richard Posner, the authors of two bravely dissident books, come to mind — find themselves excommunicated from the conservative movement.”

Until very recently – the Massachusetts vote, etc – I’d have dismissed this lack of contrition, this pig-headedness, this wilful “we were right and we’re not sorry”, as the surest way for the Republicans to keep themselves out of high office for a long time. As Finkelstein argues, all of this is about the Republicans choosing to listen to themselves, not the electorate, who they are convinced can be very wrong. But if the Democrats can lose in Massachusetts, may be, an unrepentant Republican Party can return to the White House.

As Mandelson and Cameron both understand, the perception that the Conservatives have not changed is a real threat to their return to government. The credit crunch has complicated this rebranding exercise, though this exercise is still of great political significance. I’ve always tended to assume that the same rules apply to the Republicans: They won’t win without independents and they won’t gain the support of such voters without demonstrating that they have listened to them by showing contrition for the things that are perceived to have gone wrong under Dubya.

Yet now I am starting to wonder and worry whether the same rules do actually apply to the Republicans. America is, famously, different. It is the right nation - there are deep reasons why, for example, as touched upon above, Reagan is revered in the US as Thatcher is reviled in the UK – and, perhaps, its slight turn to the left under Obama (always more a rejection of Dubya than a convinced liberalisation) may prove temporary. It gets frighteningly easier and easier to imagine Gideon Rachman’s dystopian dream of a President Palin – the unapologetic pitbull - becoming real 2012.

Where would the world be then? Wishing that it and President Obama had acted differently? If not now, when?