Is the 'end of ideology' nigh?

HE OUTCOME of the British of voters earning between £10,000 and Tgeneral election confounded the £20,000 a year. More important, those experts and not least the pollsters who JACKS PENCE who aspired to earn more and, therefore, consistently put the Labour Party neck remembering the past record of Labour and neck with the Conservatives and I REVIEWS THE governments, felt vulnerable to Labour two points ahead during the last few emphasis on redistribution as a way of days of the campaign. This fuelled | CONSEQUENCES ensuring a fairer society and rectifying speculation about the prospect of a the damage allegedly done by Thatcherite 'hung' parliament with no party achiev­ j FOR THE LEFT policies to the National Health Service ing an overall majority and raised Liberal 1 and the state education system. Democrat hopes of a deal with Labour OF THE RESULT Hence the electoral significance of to form the next government. 'Essex Man' who to Labour's acute Yet to the delight of the bookmakers j OF BRITAIN'S discomfort was found alive and well and and the consternation of media pundits living in highly marginal Basildon. Here (not to mention Mr Neil Kinnock for were to be found the so-called C2 class of whom this election was make or break GENERAL voters — the skilled workers, the first- time) the Conservatives won a fourth time owners of small businesses, many of term with a 21 seat majority. This is ELECTION them hard hit by recession. more than enough to sustain a govern­ Norman Tebbitt, a former cabinet ment until economic recovery provides a ministerial leadership largely created and minister and the epitome of self-made platform for another test of electoral projected by a relentless and unending man was their spokesman: uncom­ strength and a vindication of the claim stream of television imagery, then Neil promisingly right wing, brutal in debate that the Conservatives are the 'natural Kinnock should have won hands down. (not for nothing did Michael Foot dub party of government'. His party — it is claimed — won the him the 'Chingford strangled), and Why — against all the odds — did campaign and by implication according contemptuous of those who whinged Labour lose? After all, the election was to a self-obsessed media should, there­ and whined in favour of the nanny-state. fought in the trough of a severe economic fore have won the election. That it did Yet paradoxically, they returned their recession characterised by a mounting not says a good deal about the common- Conservative MP to parliament albeit by tide of bankruptcies, house repossessions sense of the average voter and the a small majority. As the result flashed by building societies, and an unemploy­ capacity to make rational choices based across the TV screens on election night, ment figure well over the two million primarily on economic self interest, and Conservative spokesmen instinctively which has stubbornly refused all attempts remain unimpressed by the slick pro­ knew that the polls had been wrong, that at reduction. fessionalism, the half truths of campaign their leader would remain in Downing presentation. 'Nice guys' can and do Street. win, therefore, despite the best efforts of Major derided as Conservative Central Office (appalled as Dominated by they were halfway through the campaign a 'nice guy' by the 'failure' of their candidate to two contrasting 'project' himself) to suggest that their lacking charisma leader could indeed 'mix it' rough and fears tough with the best of them. After thirteen years of office, cabinet Vernon Bogdanor, an Oxford don ministers appeared tired and jaded with writing in the Independent on Sunday (12 their leader, John Major derided as a Confusion over April 1992) provides the most telling 'nice guy' (but they always lose, don't analysis of the significance of 'Basildon they?), lacking charisma and banal in taxation Man' and it is worth quoting at length. style and substance. Indeed, his flat, trite He recalled George Orwell's comment comments, invited derision from the policy fifty years ago that: chattering classes, e.g.; "Some vege­ The place to look for the germs of tables I'm fond of . . peas I'm relatively The explanation for Labour's defeat the future England is in light neutral about"; watching dog food being must, therefore, be sought elsewhere. industry areas and along the transferred from a lorry to a railway One reason was the confusion over arterial roads. In Slough, truck in a cold, dank Melton Mowbray, Labour's taxation policy. Despite denials Dagenham, Barnet, Letchworth, he remarked: "This is a very exciting use to the contrary by the Labour leadership, Hayes — everywhere, indeed, on of old marshalling yards." some 60% of the electorate (according to the outskirts of great towns — the And if it is the case — as some political exit polls) believed that a Labour govern­ old pattern is gradually changing scientists have argued — that British ment would increase the tax paid by into something new ... (the people elections are essentially popularity con­ those on average earnings. Accordingly, tests between rival brands of prime the Conservatives targeted the great mass

PAGE FOURTEEN there) are the indeterminate stratum at which the older class REDEFINING THE LABOUR distinctions are beginning to break down . . . Bogdanor argues that: PARTY'S POLICY WILL The 1992 general election was dominated by the competition between two contrasting fears: fear PROVE A MAMMOTH TASK of unemployment and fear of Labour. These fears often lie at IN A WORLD WHICH HAS subconscious level; they are un­ likely to be vouchsafed to im­ personal pollsters, but may be TURNED ITS BACK ON revealed to those prepared to wait to listen . . . for voters in the new England, a Labour vote reflects SOCIALISM AND THE the background from which they have come, a background of or­ ganised trade unionism and collec­ EMPHASIS ON THE FORCED tive provision. A Conservative vote, by contrast, expresses an aspiration ... to a world in which REDISTRIBUTION VIA they can make decisions for them­ selves, free from the paternalism of trade union leaders or local coun­ TAXATION OF A NATION'S cillors. The Labour leadership may have understood this, but one WEALTH suspects that most Labour activists have not ... to anyone not blinkered by ideology, there is whose down to earth 'colonial' style and which puts its faith in market principles something profoundly moving antipathy to European federalism might before all others. This is precisely what about the process of upward social well strike a chord among those (and the Conservatives have done in good mobility which Basildon repre­ there are many) who distrust foreigners, times and in bad with results which are sents. The ideological bastions of especially Brussels bureaucrats. But who­ plain to see. The last Conservative the left, however, lie not in ever emerges as the leader will face the government did not — it is true — pull Basildon and Harlow, but in mammoth task of redefining the Labour Britain out of the recession, but the fact Hampstead and Cambridge which Party's policy and role in a world which that in 1992 enough voters believed that see the aspirations of Essex Man as has turned its back on socialism and, in only it could do so indicates the scope of narrow and materialistic and their particular, the emphasis on the forced the problem confronting Labour. political representative, John redistribution via taxation of a nation's Yet if the Labour Party abandons its Major, as nothing more than a wealth in the name of equality and traditional beliefs in equality, publicly glorified bank manager or accoun­ fairness. subsidised state provision of social tant. Yet for the voters of Basildon, In the 1950's and 1960's, it was services and an interventionist role for the profession of accountancy possible for Socialist theorists such as the state, what is there to distinguish it represents a prospect of liberation Anthony Crosland to argue that the from its Conservative counterpart? unimaginable to their East End inevitability of sustained economic grandparents. growth could and would lead to redistri­ bution of wealth and income without In search of having to impose electorally unpopular Banking on punitive taxation. In other words, decent 'a big new and efficient social services could be a change provided for out of the proceeds genera­ idea' ted by growth. But as Peter Jenkins has of leader argued, in the difficult economic climate Or, as a Labour Party leader put it, that has persisted ever since the oil crisis where can Labour find a "new big idea"? Some commentators such as Godfrey The question remains: can Labour of the early 1970's capitalist societies are Hodgson point to the success with which recover sufficiently to win the next faced with the problem of how to create the West German Social Democrat party election? Some argue that reducing the wealth not once and for all, but repeated­ transformed itself after 1959 with the Conservative majority from 84 to 21 ly through boom and depression alike as adoption of the Bad Godesberg pro­ suggests that 'one more heave' will do it. inevitable ever increasing growth of the gramme. This, in effect, meant an Others put their faith in a change of kind postulated by Crosland can no abandonment of traditional socialism in leader, pointing to the solid Scottish longer be taken for granted. favour of a "broad-left alternative to the values of John Smith, the shadow Once this premise is granted, the party Christian Democrats." But the SDP chancellor or, alternatively, the claims of with the best hope of economic and Brian Could, the clever New Zealander presumably electoral success is the one

PAGE FIFTEEN From Page Fifteen party's prospects among potential years away from any real contact with middle class supporters in that area. Yet the voters who when they did appear on Labour remains strong in the north-east, our screens were incessantly shuffled Delimitation Scotland and Wales, where orthodox about by their minders to provide sound Labour ideology still holds sway. bites and photo opportunities. could enhance It is by no means certain that their Who was manipulating whom is a Tory chances supporters in those areas would be easily good question, but the impression of an reconciled to an abandonment of tradi­ unholy alliance between the media and never won power in its own right: be­ tional attitudes in favour of a platform the politicians gathered strength as the tween 1969 and 1983 it shared power, which stressed that Labour's fitness for campaign progressed. first with the CDU and then subsequent­ office rested solely on its capacity to In the event, one wonders whether the ly with the liberal Free Democrats. The manage a capitalist economy more effec­ highly charged televisual nature of the latter then switched its allegiance to the tively than its Conservative rivals. But rival campaigns made any difference to Christian Democrats and the SDP has this may be the price which the Labour voters' choices. The voter did what been left out in the cold ever since. Party will have to pay for electoral he/she always did, that is mark the That the SDP was able for some 13 success in a world which has seemingly ballot paper in the privacy of the voters' years to share power was because of an accepted the thesis that 'the end of booth and succeeded — either by electoral system based on proportional ideology' is nigh. accident or by design — in misleading representation and also because it had On a more mundane level, changes in the prying questions of those who organised exit polls. As E.M. Forster leaders of talent in the shape of Willie the delimitation of constituencies via the remarked "Two cheers for democracy!" Brandt and Helmuth Schmidt who for a mechanism of a Boundary Commission variety of reasons impressed a significant before 1995 are likely to increase the The Conservatives won 43% of the chunk of the German electorate. More­ chances of future Conservative success. vote, the Labour Party 35% and the over, the German economy flourished Finally, a comment on the role of the Liberal Democrats 18%. The polls failed throughout this period and the Social polls and the intrusiveness of television to register this crucial difference probab­ Democrats could rightly project them­ in the campaigns. The two are connected ly because the swing between the parties selves as efficient partners in the task of if only because poll findings determined they did detect was not uniform across managing the economy. Hence, in the current British context, £ The polls may well have been an accurate the call for a revision of the electoral system in favour of proportional repre­ reflection of the views of the samples sentation or, in the short term (i.e., the interviewed, but not of the electorate B period before the real election), an electoral pact between Labour and the as a whole. J Liberal Democrat parties. But the Con­ servatives will not concede the first the day to day electoral strategies of the the country. In fact, the swing often option while the electoral consequences parties. (A good example of this tendency varied considerably between one consti­ of a Lib-Lab pact are unpredictable: was the emphasis during the last week of tuency and another, between one region some 66% of the electorate voted against the campaign on the prospect of a hung and another. Thus, as one observer put the Labour Party in 1992 and many of parliament which the polls predicted, it: "The polls may well have been an those supporting the Liberal Democrats thereby compelling the politicians to accurate reflection of the views of the might desert if the price of a pact was the spend hours debating the merits of such samples interviewed, but not of the return of a Labour-led coalition to an outcome to the exclusion of key electorate as a whole". office. policy differences between them). The politicians and the pollsters will in There is a further difficulty: jettisoning Invoked at the daily party press con­ future do well to remember G.K. traditional values might help the Labour ferences, poll findings on the party's Chesterton's lines: Party win seats in the critically important current standing and the electorate's "Smile at us, pay us, pass us; south-east; indeed, Ken Livingstone, a attitude on key issues set the agenda for but do not quite forget. left wing Labour MP argued that what appeared to be an exclusively media For we are the people of England, Labour's tax proposals damaged the discussion. The politicians seemed light that have never spoken yet."

From Page Nine People's education possible, rather than merely gargantuan. up in the long term. Too much emphasis BIBLIOGRAPHY: NEPI must juggle the imperative for on values might mean too little on their Donaldson, A. (1990) A Political Economy of People's Education. In Peoples' Education Workshop Reports and quick results with the need for depth of practical application; too much emphasis Resolutions 1-2 July 1990. Johannesburg: NECC. research into both practical and philo­ on economic factors could mean Mkhatshwa, S. (1987) Keynote address to 1985 Nation sophical areas; quick fixes all too often "People's Education Inc." "People's Consultative Conference. In People's Education: a Collection of Articles from December 1985 - May 1987. rest on shaky foundations. education" should not be lost in the University of the Western Cape: Centre for Adult and stampede to table policy proposals; at Continuing Education. If the process takes too long its the same time, the concept requires Wolpe, H. (1990) The Right to Learn: Comparative Studies of People's Education by RES A. In Peoples' Education deliberations may become irrelevant; if resolution before it can serve as a basis Workshop Reports and Resolutions 1 - 2 July 1990. Johan­ it is too shallow its policies will not hold for policy. nesburg: NECC.

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