Michael Rustin (London, Soundings): Unfortunately, there are problems in the exercise of power by government in Britain beyond the infringements of human rights and individual liberties cited by the critics of Polly Toynbee’s pro-state position.
The problem is, what kind of ’state’ are we talking about? Polly has a model of the state as a benign alternative to and defence against market forces, the traditional social democratic view. But many now see government as promoting the gradual take-over of state systems by the corporate sector, either literally through PFIs and the like, or in terms of the quasi-market modes of management which have been imposed on the public sector. Everyone knows, for example, that much of the new resource put into the NHS in recent years has been wastefully deployed as a consequence of these methods.
It is not just a few individualists objecting to CCTV cameras or speed-bumps who have become sceptical of the role of government, but a significant proportion of whose who actually work in the public sector.
There is a imaginable state whose role one would, like Polly Toynbee, like to see expanded, for her reasons of fairness and the public good. It would be more devolved, more value-driven, more consultative, and more democratic, in its operations than government is now. But that is not the state that New Labour under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown has so far been building. Unless a more effective alliance can be established between those who work for the public sector, and those who benefit from its services, this cause is going to be lost.
