What鈥檚 the Big Idea?
Rarely has politics been more fluid. Rarely though has politics seemed so lacking in big ideas.
Day by day David Cameron is shedding proposals that distinguish his party from Labour 鈥 subsidies for private health insurance one day, opposition to tuition fees and support for more grammar schools the next.
Day by day he adopts postures 鈥 concern about third world poverty, climate change and the ethics of Big Business 鈥 associated with his opponents. Already some in his party are taunting him for being an echo of Tony Blair and Labour-lite.
What about the Lib Dems? Mark Oaten will kick off their leadership race today by promising to water down his party鈥檚 distinctive platform on tax 鈥 he still wants a top rate of tax at 50% but now for even richer people. The favourite, Ming Campbell, is said to have opposed party policy on scrapping tuition fees and the owner of two 4 litre Jags makes a curious icon for the party that鈥檚 always claimed to be green-est.
Ask yourself a few questions and you quickly see how convergent British politics is becoming.
- Who鈥檚 in favour of ending taxpayer funding of the NHS? Bringing back grammar schools? Joining the Euro now? Radical tax cuts? No-one (in the big three parties, of course. There鈥檚 plenty of choice on offer if you include Respect, UKIP, the Nationalists, Scottish Socialists鈥.etc)
- Who backs patient choice, schools choice, smoking bans, helping people off incapacity benefit but not cutting it? Everyone.
Now this convergence is largely a reaction to success. Labour鈥檚 third election in the case of the Tories, David Cameron鈥檚 in the case of the Lib Dems. All politicians now live according to New Labour鈥檚 bible (pollster Phillip Gould鈥檚 book) which preaches 鈥渃oncede and move on鈥.
In other words, shed those policies that are losing you votes even if you get taunted for making U-turns and being indistinguishable from your opponents. Something Labour did, of course, when they shed most of the policies they stood for in the early 1980s. This is the period of conceding. Let鈥檚 hope we can move on to some Big Ideas soon.
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Comments
Oooh! You are such a cynic Nick. When you say big ideas what do you mean? And surely the reason that Poltical Party's policies are converging is because that is the only place they can go. The electorate have changed and converged themselves. There is no longer a 'class' struggle which inspired so many radical policies in the past, the NHS, right to buy and trade union reform to name but a few.
You are right to point out Cameron's conversion to the 'third way' but where else was he supposed to go. Governments are elected on the centre ground and that has been securely occupied by new Labour for the last 10 years.
Agreed, but we should stand back and see this as a triumph of politics over prejudice, rationality over emotion.
In a period of prosperity it is not surprising that consensus will emerge - where politicians will have to differentiate themselves by their accountability, effectiveness, honesty and other such virtues. This will make it easier for us to change governments thsu giving the incumbents greater incentive to perfom well.
The only downside is that polarising forces will see divisive opporuntities and emerge when we eventually start on a downward economic cycle.
Big Ideas?...my my, what a suggestion. In the political arena today, having Big Ideas appears to be a kind of Sir-Humphreyism for proposing things that haven't been focus-grouped, water-tested, spun, re-spun, re-re-spun at 40 degress or lower and hung out to dry in committee till all the colour and orignality has drained out of them. In other words, the province of political suicide. Today, Big Ideas and "courageous thinking" can only lead to the end of a potentially promising political career. The real question is, with a voting generation having been raised on the bland fare of the post-Thatcher consensus, does the British electorate still have the stomach for truly bold, creative ideas, or have we ourselves conceded our need for such things, and moved on?
Evidence of a new consensus based on New Labour values? The Labour party (most of it) took on many of Thatchers ideas, watered them down, made them palatable. Now the Tories are taking New Labour policies. Is this a victory for New Labour, beyond its electoral success, and more on ideological grounds?
Whish presumably means even more PR will be required to manufacture differences between them. Happy thought.
Why should any of the main parties bother with Big Ideas ?
Whenever it appears clear that the electorate want them to have some, they can convene a Focus Group, and just steal whatever seemes "sexiest" from the smaller, independent, parties.
"The 'reasonable' man is, by definition, happy with the way things are. All progress, therefore, depends on the Unreasonable Man"
Big ideas? No just bland political movement. Which ultimately means no voter choice and low voter turn out. Therefore we no longer live in a true democracy but a boring old middle class politically correct society where we all think & act the same and can only differientiate ourselves by irrelevent things like fox hunting and minor adjustments to high income tax.
Time to move overseas for some real action or just close parliment.
Sorry Nick you would need to find a new job. C'est La Vie I guess?
I agree, but I find the development disturbing rather than a triumph of rationality. Big questions - like big government vs small government, foreign policy, individual freedom vs collective safety - need big answers from big people. Notwithstanding Surowiecki and his wisdom of crowds, I'd rather have my fate decided by brilliant statesmen than by a focus group in Bognor. Wake me up when one of the parties decides to do what's right rather than what's popular. I won't be setting my alarm clock for the next election.
There really is little clear blue water between the major parties now and it seems the next election will be much more about personalities than politics. With the disgraceful crucifixion of Charles Kennedy by the LibDems they have lost any support I might have given them in lieu of New Labour.
I guess though that finally one can vote where ones' conscience tells one and maybe the Greens will get my vote next time round given that in voting for any of the main parties you are voting in the same old policies from now on.
It has taken Blair a decade to bury socialism and the Tories have taken 15 years to bury Thatcherism.
But all the voters are left with now is populist managerialism.
Personality politics will prevail and the truism will definitely be that "politics is showbusiness for ugly people".
Is this the end of politics? Are we condemned to American style elections were the result does not matter (or matters even less)?
Are the big ideas gone, has the will to change society deserted the main parties?
Will Tony "Thatcher light" Blair be replaced at number 10 by David "Blair Junior" Cameron?
I start to understand why so many people prefer Big Brother to PMQs!
The policies of the two main parties have been converging for years and Blair has created the "I am the future" profile which the Conservatives have now also adopted with David Cameron. So now there is not even distinction by style let alone content. On this basis, we might as well vote for the best managers of the body politic rather than on manufactured policy differences that merely generate heat rather than light.
The danger is that the electorate progressively has no perception of choice between the two main political options and switches off the whole process altogether as has largely happened in local government over the past 40 years.
I agree largely with those who have already posted to say that those with the courage to propose genuinely radical policies generally see their political careers terminated.
For example, the former Labour MP who was given license to "think the unthinkable" on pensions, and and was then sacked. I can't even remember his name now, but he was a very prominent figure in the mid 90s.
However, history shows us that while periods of stability generally breed consensus (eg the pre WWI period)crisis generally demands tough action. Problems coming down the track, such as the emergence of China as an economic colossus, the demographic collapse of Europe and the continuing War on Terror mean that cosy centrism is unlikely to last indefinitely.
Fortunately we live in uninteresting times!