Hopi Sen

One of my interests is North Korea. I’ve got a small library of books on the hermit kingdom, it’s rulers and the gulag nation they oppress and starve. (I recommend the decade old “The Aquariums of Pyongyang” and the more recent “Nothing to Envy” to anyone who wants to know more about the nature of the dictatorship, though what has happenned since)

When you read about a regime as totalitarian as North Korea, you can find it hard to seperate the regime from those who are forced to live under it. This is, of course, intentional.

So I was delighted to see Tania Brannigan’s essay on visiting Pyongyang, and Dan Chung’s photographs in the Guardian*, both of which put a human face on the population of North Korea’s capital.  Both are worth lingering over, especially Dan’s photographs, and the impact is only slightly marred by a few people in the comments trying to persuade themselves that North Korea isn’t as bad as every bit of evidence suggests it is.

Tania Brannigan points out that what they were allowed to see was exceptional – like being allowed to Britain to see only a Kensington and Chelsea swept clean of any poverty. Still though, what both article and photo-essay remind you of is our common humanity. That makes the plight of North Korea even more important, not less troubling.

With the knowledge of what you are not allowed to see, some of the pictures really draw you in, like this one, of a group of women, not dressed for manual work, seemingly trimming a grass verge by hand, presumably ahead of a state celebration. The street lights they work under are all modern and solar powered. A sign of gradual modernisation, or a a symbol of the way the regime uses aid and funds for prestige itself while ignoring their people?

North Korea is a moral challenge to any of us who call ourselves socialists. We must not turn away from the people who suffer there, or shrink from the truth about the nature of the prison that Korean communists and their allies have created for twenty million people.

*Disclosure: I’ve met Dan a couple of times when he’s covered political stuff).

There’s a big row looming amongst the right wing think tanks.

I know, as an exciting opening line, that’s pretty much a dud. “Argument in thinktank, few interested”, one might say.

But this one matters. The Reform report on Benefit reform, issued today, has garnered headlines based on their call for eliminating middle class welfare in benefits like the Winter Fuel Allowance, while also opposing the government’s policy on child benefit.

But there’s a bigger issue that lies just underneath the headlines. At the heart of the Reform pamphlet is an out and out attack on Iain Duncan Smith’s beleoved “Universal Credit”

Here’s what the reformers say about IDS’s plan: “the economic benefits of this approach are questionable“, “The costs of in-work benefits would increase without any certainty of the savings achieved” and “these proposals represent poor value for money”. They finish off by saying that the Government should “Not go ahead with plans to introduce a Universal Credit with more generous earnings’ disregards and a single uniform rate of abatement”.

That is a right wing think tank telling the Government to abandon the major platform of their Benefits policy and the personal mission of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

Reform, whose chief is ex-Conservative Policy chief Andrew Haldenby, are directly attacking the work of the Centre of Social Justice, IDS’s creation and the so called “Taxpayer’s Alliance”. As far as I can tell, the Cameronian centrists in Policy Exchange support Reform, though they are being diplomatic about it

In Whitehall this is as close as it gets to Stepping to.

Both sides in this argument have huge problems.

The “Reformers” say that to reduce the deficit the coalition must reduce the Middle Class Welfare budget. But their definition of middle class is far from what most of us imagine. They (correctly) think in terms of household median incomes- but this leaves them arguing that the government should offer less support to couples with children earning only over £25,000 a year.

Removing support from this group would lead to howls of rage. They also have the problem that their proposals are a direct contradiction to the Prime Minister’s pre election declarations. There is some wiggle room for Mr Cameron, but the reformers put him deeper on the hook in deeper”.

Meanwhile the Tory “Justicers” are offering a proposal, which as Reform point out, has uncertain economic benefits, is expensive, doesn’t save money in the long term, and isn’t (despite their incessent propaganda) have much proof that it incentivises work. This in the context ofthe Treasury wanting to save money. They’re reaping the whirlwind of having (in my view) fiddled the cost of universal credit o make it an easier political sell.

All of which leads you to the inexorable conclusion – if you want to save billions of pounds from the benefits budget, you’re going to hurt somebody, most likely somebody not very well off.

(Your other solution is to attack the pensions budget. As you can imagine, this doesn’t have a lot of political upside to it)

*Anthony Painter calls this an Orwellian term, as the credit is far from Universal. We should call it Partial Credit.

(I hope at least one of you get the titular reference. I do not posess great skills as a headline writer)

I’ve been somewhat distracted by the day job today. I would say that this is tiresome, but it’s not, it’s fascinating. I just feel the need to remind you that I may be a big man (and definitely out of shape), but with me this isn’t a full time job.

But luckily for me there’s lots of good stuff elsewhere.

John Mcternan puts the Blairite case for Ed Miliband.

Phil Cowley writes on Labour’s Universal Discomfort. Summary – Everyone hates us, not just the South. Still, don’t go out into garden and eat worms.

Dan Paskins suggests some alternative lessons to be learned from our problems in the south.

This particular bag of sweets do have a theme, and it relates to my post yesterday about different tactical and strategic tensions in opposition. They all set out the need to understand that the challenges of the next election can nly be answered by addressing a new set of political challenges.

Britain has moved on in the last decade and a half, and we need to catch up. Some of that is tonal, as John points out. We are both a more liberal and a more insecure country than we were.  Some of it is about understanding our failures in the eyes of all voters, as Phil suggests. Finally, as Dan says, it’s important to draw lessons both organisational and which address both our own and market failings.

This is all salty, but needed gruel. We need to go through this introspection.

An attempt to think a bit about the practical problems of being in various kinds of opposition, and to offer some vague solutions. Despite a certain meandering fogginess, I assure you that my conclusions are brilliant and worth your while reading right to the end. A full refund offered if I’m wrong about that.

It’s a long time since anyone in the Labour party really had to think hard about opposition.

I’d venture to suggest most us, me included, still aren’t really doing so. As Martin Bright says, opposition takes a while to sink in, and most of the best and brightest have been busy either fighting leadership elections or analysing the causes of our defeat to think about the practical challenges and conundrums of being in opposition.

So let me start by saying something possibly ludicrous, possibly obvious. Keep reading →

I know. You’ve all been on tenterhooks.  So here they are the results of the Shadow cabinet predictions competition. We had 58 entries, from activists, bloggers, commenters, psephologists, professors, MPs (incognito), think tankers, and journalists.

The lowest score was a still respectable ten (No name, no packdrill).  The curve balls that killed many entries were the successes of Meg Hillier, Mary Creagh, Ivan Lewis, Maria Eagle and Liam Byrne. If Hain, McFadden and Thornberry had got a few more votes, we’d have seen some near perfect scores.

But they didn’t.

Yvette Cooper topped all but four of the entries, while a core of Cooper, Healey, Johnson, Balls, Burnham, Benn, Khan, Murphy, Alexander,  Flint, Jowell and Denham kept the average score over 12. A testament to your predictive skills, or proof that Labour’s top team is smaller than we imagine? As a result, nearly half of the entries got 13 or 14 out of 19.

In the end, we had a four way tie for the runners up spot.  Since I only had two runners up prizes, this presented a conundrum.

I resolved this by deciding buy two copies of Paul Richard’s excellent Labour’s revival, and sending them to the fourth and fifth place entries, with third getting Steve Richard’s “Whatever it takes” and the runner up getting the hardback of  Chris Mullin’s “Decline and fall” (The order is based on retail price, not literary merit).

To break the tie, a complex formula was applied, based on how close each entry got to the actual order. (Tedious details on application)

In fifth place… Chris Read, of Rotherham and Twitter ( I hope it’s the same person, anyway) who made the small error of not getting first place right and was heavily punished for it, despite getting the middle order better than anyone.

In Fourth  place… Andrea Parma, the legendary Milanese academic and blog commentator (for a very long time I thought Andrea was the nom de plume of a cabinet minister, such was his uncanny ability to know way too much about British politics).  Andrea who lost out by slightly over-rating John Denham and slightly under-rating John Healey, despite getting wild cards McKechkin and Byrne, which few did.

In Third place… Will Straw,  of Left foot forward fame, who included the highest number of big hitters, and lost the runners up spot by a tiny margin to..

In Second place… Antonia Bance, the twitterer and Oxford Councillor, (I suspect she’d put that the other way yound) who managed to get a remarkable nine of the top ten Shadow Cabinet vote getters in her own top ten selection.

Which leaves only our overall winner, and Grand Champion.

Step forward to recieve the virtual plaudits, our all comers prognositication champ…

Mr… Nick Parrott! A former parliamentary candidate and a member of the Jon Cruddas campaign for deputy leader, now working for Blue state Digital,  Nick can now claim to have a better sense of the mood of the Parliamentary Labour party than a bevy of MPs, advisers, activists, bloggers, lobbyists and journalists. 

That’s the sort of skill that is worth real money (or would be if knowing the mood of  the PLP wasn’t politically irrelevant for the next four years). Oh well. On the bright side, Fifty pounds is winging its way to Nick, along with a sense of vindication and psephological pride.

So, thanks to everyone who entered, and congrats to Chris, Andrea, Will, Antonia and our overall winner Nick. See you again in two years time!

PS I’ll be emailing each of the winners about the best way of getting their prizes.

I’ve found the reaction to the Browne review fundamentally depressing.

Yes, it’s enjoyable watching Lib Dems being caught by their own record of historical opportunism. It’s fun to point out the twists and turns that MPs make as they try to get themselves off the hook of commitments made too easily to obtain votes.

I don’t begrudge that fleeting pleasure. I’ll laugh as heartily as any at the contortions Sarah Teather gets into to maintain both her job and her reputation. That unalloyed partisanship is both right and proper when facing such awful hypocrisy.

But beyond the simple pleasure of poking Lib Dems there is a real political problem, and I worry that we may neglect good policy method in our rush to take advantage of the embarrassment of others.

I’m not opposed to a graduate tax – it strikes me as an intelligent mechanism for funding Higher education. A graduate tax has huge attraction in simplicity, in avoiding ”debt” and in “progressiveity”.  

But a system of subsidised loans also has advantages.  It has the benefits of giving power to student choices, of allowing a clear discount to cost of education, making it simpler to subsidise student maintenance and to protect poorer earners. There are also some practical questions. A loan system avoids a question of who is liable for the tax. If I do two years of a degree, or a foundation degree, why should I pay the same tax rate as someone who did four years of Chemistry at Imperial? At the same time, a tax based system avoids the idea that some Universities are “inaccessible”. (On both these issues, I note the arguments are louder than the data)

To me , once you accept the principle of student contributions the question of which system is better becomes a largely technical one.

The big issue is how much we should subsidise higher education, and only then how to make up the shortfall between that and the amount needed to educate students.

As a left winger, my answer to the first question is “oooh, by quite a lot – higher education is a social good as well as an individual one“.  So I’m more worried by the Coalition plan to reduce HE funding overall than I am by their choice of the best mechanism to supplement that funding.

When we get to the second issue, my attitude is that I am willing to support any programme that a) Provides maintenance support for low-income students so they can live decently b)  Provides a significant subsidy to each student for the cost of the education and any system of repayment c) Tailors repayment to ability to pay.

Judged by these standards, different flavours of graduate taxes and loans have differing advantages.  You could have a bad graduate tax, and a good loan, and vice versa.

Fundamentally I find it hard to get vexed by an offering of subsidised loans, maintenance grants, a high cut off for repayments and funding for bursaries and scholarships. I also find it difficult to object to a set period of taxation of personal income with a time cut off and a generous allowance, if both provide a broadly similar flow of funds to the exchequer and roughly the same level of upfront student support*.  Frankly, if both are done well, they stop looking particularly different.

In the end, the choice between these methods becomes more technical that ideological. Which is more likely to deter poorer students? It is probably a close run thing. Which is likely to allow higher education standards to improve? Probably loans, but not by much. Would a loan system be unfair to certain groups, like those who must repay but due to being just over the repayment threshold will repay for longer? Yes, but there are fixes you could apply to that.

To give an absolute answer about which system I think is better I’d meed to know a lot more about HE funding and the behaviour of poorer students when confronted with various loan and tax models than I do. Which is why the Labour government commissioned the Browne report in the first place.

However, I am certain two issues are much more significant than which precise mechanism of graduate funding we employ.

The first is that we neglect Vocational, FE and technical education far too much. We have long arguments about the funding mechanism for university students, when adult learners, part-time learners and apprentices face a far less favourable support network for their aspirations.  

I think creating a better method of subsidising 16-19, technical, vocational, post-graduate** and part-time working is a major priority, especially for Labour. One of the things that attracts me to a loan model is that it looks  much more scalable to other sectors, and I think educational flexibility is going to be key to our future growth.  If I were a blue collar union leader, I’d want this to be a major part of my policy shopping list.

The second issue is a more simple one. We are in danger of losing the argument about the overall social contribution to higher education by getting in the thickets of an argument about student contribution mechanisms.

Both a graduate tax or loan system, done right, might help more people access a high quality eduication. Using either as an ideological tool to reduce the contribution of the state to providing quality education does not.

*I also don’t quite get why a “loan” is a disncentive to studying but 20 years or so of incremental tax rate isn’t. I’m sure there are lots of arguments about culture, but I suspect the cold hard cash would also play a role. 

** A dirty secret. Most post-graduate education is vocational training in a nice hat. Just ask all the Cambridge economics Mscs who go on to work in the Bank of England. Or barristers. Or Physicists.

One of the problems with politics, as in business, is people constantly try and plan two or three steps ahead in an environment which is constantly shifting and changing underneath them.

 So David Cameron commits to matching Labour’s spending plans in order to head off an attack on tory cuts, only to find himself in a situation which makes both the spending plans and his repsonse to them redundant. 

Similarly, no-one voting in the general election in 2001 was aware of the choices the government would soon be pressed to in relation to terrorism.

Still though, we try and find a way to plot a path through the unknown future. Usually, these are in the form of “informed” commentators writing a future history, which like all such revelations are either quietly buried or celebrated endlessly, depending on whether they come to pass.

I was going to try and write one of these, an embodiment of my expectations, hopes and fears over the next four-five years. Yet it strikes me that brilliant though I am, there is little reason for me to be believed other than my word.  

It occurs to me that it would be a helpful exercise to construct a more statistical “central forecast” for the next few years of politics, taking into account likely outcomes of key events- growth rates,  unemployment forecasts, general trends in government popularity and so on. This would be an attempt to create a data based version of the sort of “conventional wisdom” that dominates political planning. 

For example, what does the country feel like in three years time if the OBRs main forecast for the British economy comes true? What if it turns out to be optimistic? Is there a way of relating key data points like unemployment, interest rates, and tax burden to overall paths of government popularity, or could we try to create models and test them against reality?

I’ve no idea whether such an exercise is possible, but the nerd in me has come to believe that the attempt, even though certainly flawed, would be more insightful starting point for discussions of the political future than the endless predictions based on gut feel and experience of a few commentators. Those predictions are both constantly changing and consequence free, which makes them worthless.

I’ve just calculated the results of the Shadow Cabinet prediction competition. I’m going to check the details in a moment, before announcing the winners, so here’s some awards for the runners and riders.

The wisdom of crowds award goes to… Yvette Cooper, who was the number one pick of over 90% of entrant.

The Dark Horse award goes to… Ivan Lewis, who was nominated by only one of our 57 entrants. Well Done to Molly Bennet for her unique insight.

The “By a nose” award goes to… Emily Thornberry, whose by missing out by one vote on an impressive 99 votes,  scuppered the predictions of many. If only she was the MP for a yorkshire seat!

The downed favourites award goes jointly to Peter Hain and Pat McFadden, who, after Emily, recieved the most nominations of the candidates who didn’t make it. Given that Pat is a big loss to the Shadow Cabinet, and the PLP managed to somehow elect a top team with no Welsh MPs, I’d suggest that this makes our voters slightly more sophisticated than the PLP!

A couple of comments on the results themselves. There a really strong showing by Yorkshire MPs as, when you include the Leader and Chief Whip, the Shadow Cabinet includes nine members from from Yorkshire and the Humber Region, I suspect a certain Nan Sloane will be smiling tonigh!

In fact, it’s even more impressive than that – If you drive the rectangle of motorway bounded by the M18 to the south, the M62 to the north and the M1 and A1M to the west and east, I think you’re driving through the constituencies of the Leader of the Labour Party, the chief whip and the top three vote getters in the shadow cabinet! You’re also Going through Mary Creagh’s constituency, and are right next to Caroline Flint. That’s some concentration of opposition influence. Time to become pally with the regional director of the Yorkshire and Humber Labour party, everyone!

With Harriet Harman as deputy, there’s also four members from London, and another four from the North West (Burnham, the two Eagle sisters and Ivan Lewis.) There’s a issue though with a lack of representation for the North-East, Wales and West Midlands. that will need to be balanced in the Junior ministerial appointments,

I occasionally get the chance to transcribe a letter from a wily old cynic, a veteran survivor of many past battles. Today, a copy of a sulphurous letter arrived, addressed to a not particularly prominent supporter of David Miliband. I thought it was worth sharing. Names have been changed, naturally.

BY HAND -PRIVATE

Dear M,

Well, I bet I find you a trifle embarrassed, as having backed one Mili with vigorous enthusiasm, you now find yourself trying to reverse gently into supporting another. 

I did try to warn you that unbridled enthusiastiasm is only appropriate in a walkover, but would you listen? No. A degree of distance would have made you useful to either winner, as the few Ballsites are discovering. But you had to throw yourself in to a contest where the outcome was uncertain and your contribution to victory was minimal. Foolish.

Frankly I can’t understand why you did it. After all,  even if your man had won, he could have offered you nothing significant. That Prince’s council was chosen an aeon ago, and you were stuck in a distant ante-chamber.

Still, you at least came to ask for advice, and for the price of a decent Claret, I am prepared to offer it.

First of all, put out of your mind all thought of revolt, future or present. You are a member of Her Majesties Loyal Labour party, a party so loyal we possess a proud record of being thrown over by our leaders more often than we have overthrown them.

So the new man is in for a good while. There will be occasional mumblings and discontent, but in truth, the next few years will feel like recovery.

As long as we are gaining council seats, press admirers and plaudits from the chin-strokers, as we will, no-one will be rewarded for piping up to say that it may not quite be not enough. Such noisome dissent will be both  ludicrous (you are no Tiresias) and counter productive (for such comments would be seized upon by our enemies).

So put such thoughts from your head.  In any case, if the unthinkable did happen, then like the Roman Senate after the fall of Sejanus, it will be far better to not be a Macro, sand ufficient merely to avoid being a known Julian.

You now need to walk a fine line. First, do not suck up. If you suck up ( by which I mean, going around telling the new leader and his complement of pale twenty and thirty-something assistants how wonderful they are, or being interviewed by some gawking 2am newsreader about how superb the new leader is),  the Leader’s team will disdain you.

Why? because  however grateful they appear to be, ultimately they will know your support is false, a cheap thing, to be obtained by the mere scent of authority and in opposition, forsooth. Knowing you sell yourself so cheaply, they’ll assume that one day you could be bought cheaply too.  You badge yourself as fickle and untrustworthy.

Since you’ve got yourself into this mess, don’t think you can get out of it by pricing your integrity at a mess of pottage.  

Instead,  as you cannot be a fast climbing lackey, you have to take a far harder road. You must  make yourself an attractive target for political seduction. You must make them desire you, need you, long for you. Then you can sell your integrity for what it’s worth, which in your case is a good shadow cabinet position with the promise of promotion.

So be loyal and supportive, perhaps a letter sending to the leader or a chance meeting with his chief of staff where you say quietly that “of course, while I take a different view on some issues, I know that Ed has won the right to loyalty.”  But then, stop. If you are asked to help, murmur “of course”, but do not push yourself along with the other greasy pole climbers. You have to make them want you.

So what political pheromones can you spray yourself with that will lead you to appear a tantalising conquest? first, realise that opposition is bloody horrible. Things will go wrong, and when they do, the person who is useful is not the lickspittle, but the man who knows. In a crisis, we all become followers of Plato.

So your challenge is to find some coming storm and become expert in it. Make your own way, never challenging the leader, but building your reputation. Then, when the storm comes, you will have your umbrella ready to unfurl.

The good news is that you have many options – Jobs, Welfare, Defence, public services, pensions, each of these will be fertile ground, I’d go for employment, but I’m an old eighties man, so you might prefer something more vague and etherial that can be applied to any crisis.

“The good life”, or some such, will suffice. Start a think tank called Eudaimonia. (Don’t write it in Greek, for gods sake. It’s purpose is  to be a title to go under your name when on Newsnight. No-one will know how clever you are if it’s all greek to them). Write a report on the social consequences of insecurity. Write a book with several hundred footnotes. Make speeches. Get some sallow youth to spend a month staring at databases while camped out in the commons Library.  Build your stock of intellectual capital, loyally and quietly. Praise your leader, if asked, but be circumspect. Your mind is on higher things. Say you wish to attack the ideological underpinnings of the enemy, not second guess the position of a friend.

Then, at the moment everything looks like it’s going tits up, then you offer support. Bring to bear your newly acquired reputation.  Speak up, and save the day. Don’t worry, you won’t be rescuing a drowning man. You’ll be coming to the aid of the party. Showing your truebackbone when the fair weather friends are flapping. A man of iron, of indefatigable will, of real grit. Just the sort of fellow we need in the thick of battle.

So, off you toddle. Play the long game.  You’re a substitute, so wait until you’re desperately needed before trying to get on the pitch.

Toodle pip.

Lord Tapescrew PC

That was…. alright. It was a perfectly servicable conference speech. 

It didn’t drop any huge clangers (The quiet man… is turning up the volume!) nor did it hit any career defining heights (the grotesque chaos of a Labour council — a Labour council — ) but it didn’t need to. 

I re-read Tony Blair’s first conference speech as Prime Minister today, and I was struck by three things. 

First, how good it was. Second, that despite this I did not remember a single line of it. Third, how similar it was to the speech David Cameron gave today. 

I suspect David Cameron has read Blair’s speech, because there’s some striking similarities in the structure and delivery of both. It’s almost as if someone took Blair’s 1997 speech and ran in through a Conservativamizer(TM) to produce Cameron’s speech. 

Structurally both begin with a recognition of the privilege of office, then move to a tribute to the “lost” leaders and activists, and then to a recitation of the pleasure of being able to act on cherished beliefs. 

Then there’s a ritual, but perfunctory attack on the opposition, before a discussion of the enormous challenges the nation faces, an extended musing on the meaning of a word (Blair:change, Cameron: fairness) then a passionate setting out of the solutions the government offers to social ills, before a closing focussed on how to delivering those changes will require the support and involvement of a whole nation, not just ministers, with a peroration that says that the British spirit is vibrant, energetic, go getting and caring, so the Prime Minister is convinced that everything will work out fine. 

Tonally too, theres are likenesses. 
Blair : “I am proud,  privileged, to stand before you as the new Labour Prime Minister of our  country.” 
Cameron: “It is an honour and a privilege to stand here, before the party I lead, before the country I love, as the Conservative prime minister of the United Kingdom.” 

Blair:  ”No cockiness about the Tories even now.  They’re  not dead. Just sleeping.” 
Cameron “They said we had ceased to be. That we were an ex-party. Turns out we really were only resting – and here we are” 

Blair ” Believe in us as much as we believe in you. Give just as much to our country  as we intend to give.  Give your all. “ 
Cameron: ” Society is not a “spectator sport. This is your country. It’s time to believe it. It’s time to step up and own it.” 

Blair: “And when people say sorry, that’s too ambitious, it can’t be done, I say: this is not a sorry country, we are not a sorry people.  It can be done. 
Cameron: “Don’t let the cynics say this is some unachievable, impossible dream that won’t work in the selfish 21st century – tell them people are hungry for it.” 

Nor are the similarities are just the occasional phrase, or structural move. 

In Blair’s first speech we find a young girl who writes in to say how much she liked going to a summer camp. In Cameron’s a young girl writes in to help pay off the deficit. 

In Blair, an argument about it being right to have higher interest rates now to ensure stability later. In Cameron a similar argument about the deficit. 

Neither speech contains much actual news, but rather focusses on the big vision for the next few years. 

Finally, both speeches contain extended lyrical descriptions of the nation they would like to build and the wisdom, generosity and courage of the British people, though I suppose this is compulsory. I’d like to see a Leader’s speech that claimed that a large proportion of the British populace were bothersome blighters. 

Obviously, I think Blair’s speech is better, because I don’t think Cameron ever quite reaches the same heights of Blair. While both are ultimately forgettable, and say nothing truly new, The echo makes Cameron oddly hollow sounding, at least to me. 

But if this speech isn’t a conscious tribute to Blair, it is certainly at some level an unconcious one. 

That’s a compliment to Labour’s old leader, and a challenge to our  new one.