The shifting fault lines: Labour on two edges

Over the last few days, there’s been a mood of celebration growing amongst informed Labour activists, at least those that blog.

Here’s Paulie:

• Post Office sell off ’shelved’
• East Coast rail line ‘nationalised
• ID Cards scheme ‘teetering‘

Now where did I put those blindfolds and cigarettes?:

And here’s Jon announcing ‘New Labour’s Retreat’, now that it realises that it has ‘overextended its supply lines’ and distanced itself too far not only from its own membership, though he is quick to note that New Labour’s backtracking on the neo-liberal policies has little to do the Left (and the union movment) becoming a stronger influence, and that there is much for the Left to do in a very short time if it is to have a proper impact.

Elsewhere, Duncan is more restrained, but he notes that his recent call for a ‘national economic plan’ ,which set out the broad parameters for a proper Keynesian investment package focused on public works, has, to some degree, been answered; that, although the language remains all very New Labour, the substance is a step in the right direction.

Over the last few days, indeed, there have been times when the left-leaning blogosphere, which in many respects does reflect wider Labour party and other left viewpoints pretty accurately, could have been forgiven for thinking that the government was actually starting to take note of what we were saying, starting to say what we want it to say. 

For example, Hopi, one of the centre-left’s most read bloggers, says of Peter Mandelson’s weekend speech:

‘What the interview makes clear is the intention to relate the debate about cuts and investment back to the values and intentions of the Labour and Conservative parties – and move from there to a discussion about how each sees the role of the state in aiding economic recovery………As regular readers will know, I’ve been talking about this for a little while. ‘

You can almost sense the excitement here, the maybe not quite so wishful thinking that there are senior policy advisers there around Mandelson who ARE reading Hopi’s views, picking up the regular links to Duncan and other intelligent left-leaning analysts, and ARE actually starting to be convinced.  

Even over at Don Paskini (writing at LibCon) there’s a little frisson of ‘maybe, just maybe, they’re listening, as he celebrates two down, three to go of the five policy changes he wants to see straightway if Labour is to stand any chance electorally (and that was before the news on the ID card climbdown).

Of course, it’s unlikely Hopi or Duncan or Dan will ever to thanked publicly for their insights, or even told their views were read by those with Mandelson clout, and he’ll never be able to prove what influence he may have had, but even so, you never know.

And yet, and yet…..

Before we on the Left start to celebrate too hard, to start to talk of what next to persuade the government to re-think (’welfare reform’ might be a good place to start, we should be aware of the counterattack that may already be underway.

The other day, I wrote of my concern that Amartya Sen’s work on ‘basic capabilities’ suddenly appears very in vogue with New Labour and its apparatchiks, and that might be the start of an assault on some of the most basic assumptions we make in the Labour party about equality; that a focus on minimum capabilities might be a really neat cover for a pernicious erosion of core Labour values about social justice based on egalitarian principles, and in practice for an erosion of principles of universal entitlements in a modern welfare state (a threat also picked up by Don Paskini in this perceptive post).

I was very interested to note that Chris Dillow agrees about this threat, adding a good deal more substance and detail on Sen’s work than I can currently claim. 

In addition, Duncan kindly pointed me to this New Statesman review, written by Jon Cruddas and Jonathan Rutherford, which starts to confirm my suspicions that the hardcore loyalists of New Labour are seeking a new intellectual legitimacy for policies and values which are anathema to the egalitarian ethos of the Labour party.

This evening, Luke Akehurst has joined the defence of the most distinctive of all Labour values, as he reacts to Communities Minister John Denham’s  speech to the Fabian Society and associated Guardian review (also covered by Next Left). Luke says:

I’m not impressed by John Denham’s argument to the Fabians, reported in the Guardian as that ‘that the egalitarian ideal that has dominated left liberal thinking since the 1960s is redundant, saying Labour’s traditional emphasis solely on the poor leaves the vast bulk of the population alienated and left out.’

The creation of a more equal society is not an abstract ideal, it’s one of the reasons – along with providing a political voice for the trade union movement, why a separate Labour Party exists. Take away that mission and we cease to have any distinctive social democratic purpose or identity and might as well merge with the Lib Dems.

Now, I’ve not agreed with Luke on very much since I started blogging, and Luke is proud of his ‘moderate’ status within the Labour party.  

But on this I agree with every word, and in so agreeing it seems to me that this is a reflection of a changing fault line within the Labour party. 

If Luke – self-avowed loyalist that he is –  is now prepared to set his stall out against a Minister’s statement of anti-equality intent, then an earthquake within the Labour party may really be due.

And on one side of the fault line is a smaller rump of New Labour, desperate to carry forwrard its ‘modernisation project’ at all costs, and on the other will be the Labour party, drawing back from the edge, wondering whether and when Denham, Reeves, Collins and Byrne will fall into the precipice, clawing at Amartya Sen as they slide.

If John Denham mentioned Sen in his speech to the Fabians today (I await reviews), then we’ll really know where we stand.

Updare 10pm: John Denham’s speech is available now, and he didn’t mention Sen.  In fact it was a lot more balanced than The Guardian’s selective quoting made out, and I apologise if I’ve been too pre-emptive in aligning him with the new anti-egalitarian New Labour strand.