Straw v. Livingstone

Anthony Barnett (London, OK) I think I have seen the shape of a battle to come - one side personified by Jack Straw the other by Ken Livingstone. Jack Straw is too canny to make it a straightforward contest while London’s ‘Our Ken’ is now only an allegory for radical reform, as he is enjoying it for himself already. But while they may not be personally leading the two sides, they characterise different futures for the British state.

Yesterday morning, at a second Smith Institute seminar on a new constitutional settlement, neatly chaired by Jon Snow, the Mayor of London opened the proceedings. What emerged most strongly is the crippling incapacity of the UK’s over-centralised government. Livingstone emphasised that he is London’s “directly elected executive authority”. Therefore he has to get things done. If he messes up the voters sack him. Whitehall, by contrast, spent 40 years dithering about building crossrail (a no-brainer investment to relieve the capital’s East-West congestion). Ken’s conclusion: the need for an irrevocable shift to a federal model of government. Tony Travers of the LSE confirmed the general case: when it has the resources, local government raises standards and, unlike the national civil service, has a rising competence according to official audits.

The evening before I heard Jack Straw at a Progress meeting on constitutional reform in the House of Commons. This was chaired by Stephen Twigg and had Chris Leslie (an energetic organiser inside the Brown campaign who spoke of reform with some enthusiasm and precision), Joyce Quinn and Billy Bragg. Jack praised the achievements of the last ten years, especially his own Human Rights Act but also the creation of a Mayor for London. But Straw’s tone was defensive and after Billy had spoken with forceful eloquence for a British Bill of Rights Jack patted him patronisingly on the back. At one point the Leader of the House spoke with a throb in his voice about the constituency link, how it is historically “The House of Communes”. You could feel the stifling belief of so many MPs that they are the people’s tribunes, and that the local is directly represented through their own blood and sinues. There was not a breath of federalism, nor its energy. Straw is a classic representative of the British system, which has always 'bent with the wind'. Livingstone has made the weather.