A stretch too far
by Graeme Cooke
Nick Clegg’s pamphlet The Liberal Moment is the latest pitch to be the torch carrier in chief for the future of progressive politics. It is slightly bizarre that politicians of all parties are so desperate to be associated with a word that virtually no-one outside Westminster and Whitehall understands or associates with. Having said that, this is an engaging, well argued and important contribution to the debate about the liberal-Left. The themes of democracy, power, pluralism, freedom, equality and internationalism – which he emphasises - should all be central to its future.
Clegg’s historical analysis is also welcome and all too rare. However, his argument that the conditions which caused Labour to overtake the Liberals as the leading anti-Conservative force in British politics at the start of the last century are now being replicated feels like a stretch too far. Though they neatly fit his political purposes, of course. Labour’s future prospects are no doubt uncertain, but are there really tectonic plates shifting on the scale of the extension of the franchise, the union movement pitching its weight firmly behind Labour and the totalising disruption of the Great War?
However, the main problem with this pamphlet is that in contrasting Liberal and Labour approaches to politics, Clegg presents a pretty crass caricature of a particular strain of Labour thinking and methods (which again fits his argument nicely). Labour’s starting point, he argues, “is central state activism, its defining characteristic is the hoarding of power at the centre and its method of delivery is top down”. Really? All of it? And all Liberals want to send criminals to holiday camps and don’t care about communities, right Nick?
Rather than associate all Labour thinking with a crude interpretation of one of its many strands, it would have been more interesting for Clegg to have explored the relationship between liberalism and the different dimensions of contemporary social democratic thinking – and even more so – to have considered which strands of Liberal thinking (especially in my view the New Liberalism of Hobhouse and Hobson) provide the best guide for the liberal-Left today.
Michael Green
What are you talking about michael? Euro-federalism?
Richard Reeves
But Ed Balls just made Home-School
Contracts complulsory. So while a caricature, it may not be as crude as you suggest!
Michael Green
@Richard
Most Labour party activists are against ID cards, Trident and illiberalism.
Ed Balls is also enthusiastic about academies and foundation schools. James Purnell's idea for for Swedish style Free schools has not shown compelling evidence that it would improve the state education system and increase social mobility. And the Trade Unions would break away from Labour if it did such a policy.
Nick Clegg completely ignored devolution, stronger local government and the massive bottom-up public service reform of New Labour.
Juan-Pablo Velez
A few questions for Graeme Cook:
What are other major recent contributions to the debate about the liberal-Left?
Are there any good books on the relationship between liberalism and contemporary social democracy?
(How does social liberalism differ from (post?-) Third Way social democracy anyway?)
On New Liberalism? What are the key texts in the tradition?
I've been having a hard time finding any rigorous exposition of center-left ideology and policy ...
Michael
...and then question how all this sits with the unswerving and wholesale LibDem endorsement of the Euro-Federalist project.