Broken record

How should Labour respond to David Cameron's language around society?

For a party that doesn’t believe in society, the Conservatives have become remarkably adept at talking about it. The party that brought us spiralling poverty, crumbling schools and rising crime on Britain’s streets now argues that society is ‘broken’. ‘Social responsibility’ and ‘fraternity’ are the new buzzwords as David Cameron seeks to ‘detoxify’ the Conservative brand. On one level, this is almost entirely meaningless: the language may have changed, but the rightwing outlook has not. Cameron’s Conservatives still propose tax cuts for the rich, ‘boot camps’ for the poor and a regressive agenda on the family. Yet the political language deployed by the opposition should also prompt us in the Labour party to refresh our core story after 11 years in government.

It is often said that political parties should campaign in poetry and govern in prose: make your case to the people and then get on with delivering. But after more than a decade in power, the risk is of becoming part of the establishment. The danger is that we spend too much time emphasising what works – and not enough making the case for what matters. This is a trap all governing parties face: even Ken Livingstone, the archetypal insurgent, became weighed down by incumbency in seeking a third term in office. He found, as we have, that the processes of government and language of the civil service can obscure the bigger picture.

Political visions can be sterilized such that policies read like a list of bullet points rather than as part of a mission to change society. And when this happens, switching back to ‘poetry’ is never so easy: ‘forward not back’ was not our most inspiring rallying cry at the last election.

Yet, as we look forward, the issue is not just one of political language and presentation: they are also about political priorities and emphasis. At the last three elections we have stood on a twin ticket: a strong economy and strong public services. New Labour’s achievement was to convince the country that, as a party, we could manage the economy and, as a nation, we could all benefit from breathing new life into failing schools and an ailing NHS. The formula proved a successful one, delivering three election victories and a wealthier, fairer society. Far fewer children now live in poverty. Many more of them will stay on in education. Their parents are far more likely to be in work. Their local area is likely to be safer and their local services much improved. But for all this, the next election requires a different platform. In 2008, we need to be much clearer about the kind of society that we want to create. The narrative of the last 10 years – a strong economy and strong public services – needs another ingredient: a good society.

For too long now, we have sounded like the party for public service reform. We have become preoccupied with changes to school structures without putting enough emphasis on parenting and the effects of peer groups. We have invested political capital in reforming the health service, but addressing public health issues like obesity remains equally important. We have talked about education as if it is separate from personal development, yet an apprenticeship is about personal and social development – not just training for the workplace. We have tended towards regarding gun and knife crime purely as policing issues, when their root causes lie in some bigger questions including the way young men relate to the society around them, starting with their own families.

None of this is to say that public services should have been left unreformed, or that those who break the law should go unpunished. Far from it. But it does mean that changing the way we manage institutions is not the same as changing society. The next agenda must be forged through starting with the pressures and the struggles that people face in their own lives – in the places where the social, the personal and the political all meet.

At its most basic, this means a clearer story about two things: the limits of the market and the new frontiers of the welfare state. Old Labour was hostile to the market; New Labour has arguably been too deferential to it. The modern, progressive position has the confidence to assert the social over the economic. It argues that there is more to decisionmaking than competition law: that the market needs to be shaped around the needs of society, not vice versa. This need to govern the market in the interests of society is something we’ve always done as a party, from equalities legislation in the 1970s, to the minimum wage 10 years ago. And it’s an idea we need to be acting on and articulating more strongly over the next decade.

Climate change, we now know, is the biggest market failure in history. Employees, we understand, need rights for flexible working and opportunities to training. Families, we now recognize, need help to find time to spend together. Childhood, we now realise, is something that requires time and space away from commercial pressures to be enjoyed. In so many of these areas, the Conservatives answer is to ‘nudge’ companies in the right direction. This is a fashionable idea in Whitehall, but it is not a substitute for a political philosophy. You don’t nudge for flexible working, or a minimum wage that isn’t watered down by employers, or a right to request training – you create them, if that is what you believe in.

And while we recognize the limits of the market, we need also to consider the new frontiers of the welfare state. Many of the big social issues of our time are symptoms of people struggling to cope. Young men struggling to manage their emotions, parents struggling to manage their responsibilities, people struggling to maintain control over their own lifestyles. Cameron may choose to lecture people on these issues, but our response must be to provide people not just with challenge but also support to live fulfilling, responsible lives. Getting people the help they need, whether a budget to manage a chronic health condition or support networks to help bring up a family, cannot be left to the accident of birth or the whim of charity.

And an emphasis on the good society means taking relationships seriously. The next agenda must involve more concerted attempts to bridge the gap between generations and races. It must find ways to help parents spend time with their children, not just have them looked after by the state. And it must seek a more equal partnership in workplaces, so that employees feel real ownership of their work.

The truth is that the Tories’ change in language has touched a nerve, reflecting a big gap in our own political narrative. Yet beneath Cameron’s rhetoric lies the basic philosophy that failed Britain in the past. The Tories demand responsibility without offering support; they appeal for fraternity without any real belief in equality; they have finally noticed ‘society,’ but remain implacably hostile to the state. As a party, it would be a mistake to dismiss the achievements of the past decade, but now we must move on from them. The formula that has served our party and our country well needs to be refreshed. A concern for the social and civic health of the nation has drained away from our political language and direction. It is time to rediscover it.

David Lammy is parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Department for innovation, Universities and Skills

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