Blue Labour?

[jackstarb]

This looks interesting.

Labour's traditional working class supporters are abandoning the party in their droves. But can Labour win them back without alienating the middle-class voters it needs to win the next election.?

Radio 4 Analysis at 8.30pm this evening (Monday 21).

The NHS and welfare payments, I'll give you... but (at risk of sounding like a Monty Python sketch) what else did socialism actually bring? Even the 'marvellous' NHS started as a badly planned mish-mash of diverse outfits that we've spent the subsequent 50+ years trying (and failing) to convert into a cohesive efficient organisation. The welfare state was intended as a safety-net for those on hard times... not as the alternative lifestyle that it has become. Bevan and the rest wouldn't recognise and almost certainly wouldn't approve of the way it looks now. The other socialist innovations like nationalised industries have largely disappeared because they were badly run and ate money.

'Dead' might be a bit strong but, like rationing and Teddy Boys, it's certainly had its day.

Just to say again - I highly recommend all of you (lefty and Tory types alike) to listen to the Analysis program linked in the OP. The quote below is from an article by the program editor - in the opinion of Labour advisor Maurice (now Lord) Glassman:

".... in the post-war period following the creation of the National Health Service, Labour developed a top-down model of government that became "remote, bossy and managerial".

"1945 was a wonderful achievement of solidarity," he told Radio 4's Analysis programme. "But the sting in the tail of 1945 was that it broke all the mutual solidarity - the ways we took care of each other - and handed them over to the state."

Alas Glasnost you overestimate my influence. I didn't slap down socialism. Far from it. It would seem all over the world it is being slapped down.

I love the concept of the NHS, i really do. And I fully support the concept of the welfare state. I have no problems paying taxes to support both.

That support however does not extend to throwing money down a bottomless pit. The NHS is already the biggest employer in the UK. So it's MASSIVE. The welfare state dwarfs our education and defense combined.

There does come a point where we have to say "Look I like the idea but we just can't afford it."

I think the future depends up to a point on how the Libya war plays out.

The May elections will be interesting.

AV vote also. Low turnout NO vote. (Thats only may guess.)

People talk about motivation of governments on war etc. Well, there will be mixed motives going through the minds of Dave and Ed/ (politics is that sort of game.)

SARKOZY? He jumped in for Thatcheresque motives.
It may or may not work for him.

Libya war...the interesting geezers are the antis. The Suns most famous ex-antitor, (Kelvin Mac) is dead against. And is doing interviews night and day.

Opinion polls? Much more DIVIDED than parliament. (People suspect we will send in ground troops eventually)
From a media point of view I dont like stories that dominate. 5-Live will give a 3 hour programme to the war at weekends.

Chil socialism hasn't had its day. That's the problem. It's never been given a proper chance to flourish. And Bevan et al would certainly not recognise the current welfare state seeing as it's a stripped down, eviscerated sad shadow of its former self.

Niceguy it would seem socialism's being slapped down all over the world? Er please tell me where there's socialism and I'll move there forthwith!

If they can't afford the welfare state how come they can easily afford policing the globe raining tomahawks down? The UK's spending £3 million a day in Libya. I agree with Gabby that the Libya escapade could be Cameron's undoing.

You know what, I'm with you on the Libya thing. Not so much for the cost as £3million is peanuts when you run a deficit as large as ours.

But the whole thing is a mess in the making. At least my local MP (who is a self confessed socialist) is one of the few who has voted against it. I've said before, I don't agree with my local MP but at least he seems an honourable man. And given the choice, I'd rather have an honourable man representing me whom I disagreed with than some slimebag who does but only looks after himself.

Anyway, back to the point....I think the fact there isn't any country left which is truly socialist should tell you that perhaps...just perhaps the idea is flawed.

Bevan et al worked on the then legitimate assumption that every working man would rather do any job and so the welfare safety-net was something of a last resort provision to eliminate 'want'. The assumption is no longer correct. Neither is the welfare state 'stripped down' or 'eviscerated'. On the contrary, it has flourished and expanded beyond all recognition. The original vision only covered schooling, national insurance (pension), family allowance and national health.... not the forest of tax credits, housing benefits, disability allowances, child trust funds, council tax subsidies etc.,that it has become.

BTW I'd hope that if the government in this country ever started turning their tanks on their own people, their fellow members of the UN would step in forcefully, just as we're doing to help Libya....

Bevan was a socialist though as was that Atlee government. We haven't had anything like it since so to go back to OP it's a red herring anyway to compare and contrast the Labour party and the tories. Blue Labour? Red Conservatives? Or just monochromatic fuzz where they're all in thrall to the same economic and media interests.

Chil if, in Bevan's times, every working man would have rather worked than stay on benefits that could be because there were jobs protected by union rights. Now jobs are so poxy at times wages wise and conditions wise that it's hardly astounding a few would rather stay on the dole.

James Purnell - I have heard enough.

Every working man would have rather worked than stay on benefits because they had some damn pride....

Pride can be knocked out of you.

NG2

The Tories understand aspiration. They understand that people don't want handouts, they want opportunities.

That fine in theory if those oppertunities exist but the Tories dont give that oppertunity to many, every time they are in power they cause mass unemployment, rising poverty and misery as they are now doing it again.

They never seem to understand that not everyone can start a business or be a banker and some will need other employment which they seem to destroy/inhibit.

The Tory idea of equality is that everyone can eat at the Ritz shame only some can afford it.

The most recent two periods of Conservative government have followed long periods under Labour where the 'growth strategy' was solely dependent on creating state-funded jobs. In the seventies failing industries were propped up with public money & since 1997 it's been the public sector that was disproportionately pumped up. In both cases, as soon as there is any serious drop in tax revenue, the policy runs into massive trouble. Labour removed opportunity much more effectively by deliberately reversing social mobility and creating a dependency culture. Fixing the mess means the Conservatives always look like the bad guys.

Wasn't Thatcher marvelous! What she managed to do in a relitavely short time anyone lesser would have taken generations to complete. Unfortunately, what she did was generally crap and we are still suffering the ravages of her policies and Cameron the smarmy baby face boy is continuing where she left off. Similar parallel with the Bush boys in the US!

I was watching a (probably old) documentary last night about 'Britain at Work' presented by Kirsty Young. And I remember the mid-late seventies to a point, but the documentary brought back just how hopeless the entire picture was at the time. Millions of days lost to strikes. A man interviewed who had started a small building firm at the time told how he had been threatened by a buch of thuggish flying pickets to either down-tools on his first real job and join in the builder's strike or have his equipment smashed up. He went out of business. Billions paid propping up dying industries and meeting pay demands averaging 15% per annum. Decay and pessimism like you wouldn't believe. The unemployment stats were going up rapidly from 1977. The Wall Street Journal printed the line 'goodbye Britain, it's been nice knowing you'. It makes today's situation look like a cake-walk.

So 'crap' is nice easy word to flounce about with, but in extreme times, extreme measures are often required.

crap is a lovely word and it descirbes quite well a lot of what she did. I don't deny things were bad in the seventies but what she did was divide a country and put nothing in place of what she took away.
Of all the women in history she is one I am not proud of.

Hear hear, Yelloutloud, and can I just say I probably haven't read this thread in as much depth as I should but I dislike what I see in the earlier posts about socialism being a class issue. I know that in this country socialism is rooted in the labour movement but if you look at countries like France there is absolutely no contradiction in being left wing and non-working class. Labour has work to do in terms of winning back supporters but it's not either/or when it comes to middle and working class. Both can have valid reasons for being left leaning and policies such as a strong NHS, effective state schools and good public transport are relevant to both. The divide is, as it has always been, between worker and employer - worker doesn't have to mean blue collar, and there are plenty of middle class professionals who don't automatically share the interests of big business. Where Labour has lost its way is with issues of personal freedom (ID cards, anyone? I personally don't object but plenty of people did) and that's what it really needs to reconsider.