Guy Aitchison (London, OK): As I write this in the early hours it looks very much like Edward Timpson will be the next MP for Crewe and Nantwich having won today's by-election with around 50% of the vote - a swing which would give the Tories a crushing majority if repeated at the general election. It's a propitious moment then to ask how the Cameroon hegemony can be challenged in years to come. Where is the new thinking on the left going to come from?
This is the question Martin Bright has been grappling with today on his New Statesman blog. He notes that the "Third Way" for all its flaws had a solid intellectual underpinning in the writings of Anthony Giddens, Roger Liddle, Geoff Mulgan and others. But these figures have now retreated from mainstream politics. Where are Labour's intellectuals in 2008? Bright reckons that any renaissance will be led by women intellectuals such as Demos's Catherine Fieschi and Lisa Harker and Carey Oppenheim at IPPR.
For what it's worth I agree with Anthony that a prerequisite for any "new thinking" on the left is the recognition that the voters have rejected Blairism. Brown was popular briefly last summer because it seemed like he recognised this but in the end he squandered the opportunity to make a decisive break from his predecessor and is now paying the costs.
Perhaps Compass's major conference in just over a fortnight on "Fairness and Equality" will provide some clues to the answer. I believe Anthony will be speaking at an event there on the national question.
Comments
I don't think the really new thinking will come from the "left" or from the "right". It will come from well outside the political/policy world boxes. Although Compass began well, they have become stuck, for three important reasons: they are still too attached to Labour and the "left"; they have not distanced themselves sufficiently from the paradigm of eternal economic growth; and, deep down, they are materialists. In my view, this last point is the most serious block on their road to "progress".
That said, there is a lot of new thinking in the world (China, India, Brazil and France seem to be the main centres for radically new thinking), but very little of it seems to be reaching the UK policy and media worlds. Here, it is very largely a case of business as usual, albeit dressed up in "progressive" clothes.
I live in a different culture but once of the British. Although the cord might have been severed one feels it still active. It is an energy and if it means a spur to blog, that isn't bad. Britain is no less important at a time that many are calling for change. It makes "chris thomson said" vital for digesting boldly. His is no overstatement: "business as usual" political management "dressed-up in progressive clothes" risks becoming the 'prisoner' of tradition on matters of (i) eternal economic growth, and (ii) paradoxes of being enslaved by materialism.
Chris is meaningful implicitly. The above crystalize into a pattern. In the end the "commonest" of its challenges cause unwarranted 'disarray'. Change idea: a problem to deal with in balanced senses tends to be read as a threat. Psychology of imperial status history is a factor here - has nothing to do with monarchy - the nation's pride], but a 'politico-socio-economic' change-problem.
Pride of history, reputation of progress and successes will do well to redefine a new reality, within which idea of change would be no threat but a strength. Chris: an optimist, like rests of us, only forewarns: growth must be reassessed - it cannot be 'business as usual' all the time, governance system must reform 'raw' capitalism, re-socialize, reassessing viability of present materialist culture.
This paper was actual months ago. It is no-less so now that world economic/financial meltdown unveils to the surprise of many the depth systems thought wouldn't be possible. Now that systems experience, parts of the worst, issues in the paper are at center stage. Looking at the scope arguments for broadly-based solution or approach: at national and international levels, appear what must be worked out. Even here, Chris suggests dialogue and consensus: good for the forthcoming G20 Conference in the UK, end of this month/beginning of next !
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