Posts Tagged ‘Anthony Painter’

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Sunday Review on Monday: The dog that finally barked by Richard Wyn Jones, Guy Lodge, Ailsa Henderson, Daniel Wincott

23/01/2012, 07:30:44 AM

by Anthony Painter

Is England the new Catalonia? It’s a serious question. We’ve up until this point associated regional pride with secessionist regions in the north of Spain. FC Barcelona, anti-Francoism, pride and fierce independence is how we think of one of Europe’s most vibrant and vivacious regions. It’s easy to see Scotland in the same sort of independent light. But England? Well, a new report into Englishness suggests that we might be entering that territory.

The Dog That Finally Barked published today, by the IPPR, assembles a stack of evidence that suggests that after many years of a predicted rise of Englishness, it is now actually happening. Not only that, but this rising Englishness has a political expression that may become irresistible. This has profound implications for the future of the centre-left. And yet we bury our heads in the sand even more firmly the more difficult questions of identity and nationhood become.

In a selection of European “regions” (or “nation”, cross-national definitions are tricky but bear with it), 45% of Catalans feel more Catalan than Spanish. Scotland is top of the “regional” pride league with 60% saying they are more Scottish than British (only 11% say they are more British than Scottish). Independence is still very much a live possibility.

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Sunday Review on Tuesday: “The price of civilization” by Jeffrey Sachs; “Betterness: economics for humans” by Umair Haque

10/01/2012, 09:37:53 AM

by Anthony Painter

The most infuriating aspect of recent political history is the way in which the old regime has reasserted itself so quickly. There is little doubt that the downside of neo-liberalism has been demonstrated in spectacular fashion. What is the response? Neo-liberalism.

A different way of doing things is desperately needed. It is not just about a different ideology, but also new institutions, a different way of thinking, of doing business, and of running an economy. At this time of enormous opportunity for change, the left has responded with sanctimonious triumphalism and off-the-shelf Keynesian social democracy. And so default neo-liberalism is winning. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Both Jeffrey Sachs and Umair Haque have constructed a credible alternative argument – one is aimed at US politics, though is relevant this side of the Atlantic too, and the other is aimed at business. Haque challenges business to be better; not more profitable but more meaningful. Sachs challenges society to be more “mindful” and politics to adhere to a greater ethic of good. This is all well and good, but it is in their practical arguments that both succeed – and make a contribution to helping us understand how we can shift our economy and society away from neo-liberalism. (more…)

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Sunday review on Monday: “Out of the ashes: Britain after the riots” by David Lammy

19/12/2011, 07:30:19 AM

by Anthony Painter

There is a new moralist movement in British politics. It binds red Tory and blue Labour and even Ed Miliband and David Cameron from time to time. The latter was at it this weekend in his “Christian country” lecture. This new moralism emphasises traditional values, family, responsibility, community, right and wrong, security, good and bad. A judeo-christian thread runs through it. David Lammy’s Out of the Ashes: Britain after the riots is, in part, a significant centre-left expression of this new moralism.

The definitive argument of the new moralism is that Britain has faced two liberal revolutions in the last fifty years: social liberalism in the 1960s and economic liberalism in the 1980s. Both were disastrous and explain why our society faces its current travails. It’s why people are rioting.

This “two revolutions” marker is there in red Toryism, blue Labourism, and it’s in Out of the Ashes:

“The problem is that we can never have enough. The revolutions that shaped modern Britain – the social liberalism of the 1960s and the economic liberalism of the 1980s – have schooled us to think of ourselves as individuals living lives free from each other”.

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Sunday review: The autumn financial statement and “In the black Labour” by Graeme Cooke, Adam Lent, Anthony Painter and Hopi Sen

04/12/2011, 02:20:54 PM

by Anthony Painter

There’s no hiding place. The autumn financial statement outlined in full the dire economic situation that this country will face for much of this decade. Squeezed living standards, high borrowing, cuts in public services and the shrinking of the welfare state, ongoing uncertainty, and high unemployment will define the 2010s: the austerity decade. What’s worse is that all of the risks are on the downside.

George Osborne has made the situation worse – unnecessarily so. Cutting short term programmes and investments such as the future jobs fund and building schools for the future which don’t add to the structural deficit was myopic. Once his model of economic recovery – driven by exports and private sector investment – was faltering early this year he should have intervened. He didn’t and that has made things worse. We are all paying a price as a consequence.

The choreographed dance so far this parliament has been for the Tory-Lib Dem government to blame the last Labour government for all our economic ills. And for Labour to blame the government austerity. The reality is far more complex. The government bears some, but by no means all, of the blame: a strong stance on fiscal consolidation has reduced the risk of government debt in the eyes of investors; world oil prices and food prices that have increased by 30% in a year have also been a drag on growth; eurozone crisis is starting to be a drag on confidence and demand; but an early and inflexible fiscal consolidation, especially the VAT increase, has made matters worse.

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Sunday review: Attlee memorial lecture by Jon Cruddas; The Labour party in perspective by C R Attlee; and Small man: big world by Michael Young

20/11/2011, 02:33:50 PM

by Anthony Painter

Jon Cruddas has turned the biographical political speech into an art-form. His recent Clement Attlee memorial lecture is no exception. In the last year or so he has tackled three, in many ways forgotten or at least distant, Labour party leaders: Keir Hardie, George Lansbury, and now Clement Attlee. This one on Attlee touched on a fundamental historical divide within Labour in a quite profound way.

Labour is divided between romantics and pragmatists. It’s not about new versus old Labour. It’s not about trade unions versus the party or socialists versus social democrats. There are romantics, who emphasise the ideal, the human, the ethical, the relational and the communitarian. Pragmatists emphasise power, policy, practicality and process.

The former have dominated our emotions as a party; the latter have driven the party’s leadership. As William Morris once said, to that arch-technocrat Sidney Webb, “the world is going your way at present, Webb, but it’s not the right way in the end”. In a single quote that sums up the elegiac history of Labour’s romantic disposition. (more…)

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What makes people tick, by Chris Rose

23/10/2011, 12:00:44 PM

by Anthony Painter

It has been clear for some time that class-based models of political behaviour have weakened to the point of uselessness. The question is what to replace them with. Human beings are not just a set of individuals impervious to external influence. In fact, we are deeply influenced in ways that we don’t realise. It turns out that that what drives us is values.

Values are the deep undercurrents of individual motivation. They heavily influence our shopping habits, our choice of partner, our cultural interests, our work, and our politics. We don’t just wake up one day and decide that we are going to hold a certain set of values. It is something which occurs in response to our needs. If we are hungry then our values will gear us towards abating our hunger. If we need the esteem of others then our values will guide us in that direction. And if we need to attain ethical wisdom then that is what we will spend our time doing.

It is these deep values that Chris Rose explains in this powerful and exciting look at what makes humans tick. Maslow was right: we do have a hieracrchy of needs and this book presents the evidence behind the theory. It is built around decades worth of data about values and value shifts in society. The evidence base comes from a guy called Pat Dade who runs a company called Cultural Dynamics. I’ve met Pat on a number occasions and he is one of the most inspirational people I’ve come across in my professional life. This book explains his life’s work. Anyone engaged in politics, business, human association of any kind who hasn’t read this book is missing the full picture. It’s all in here.

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Sunday Review: 75. The battle of Cable Street, edited by Steve Silver; and Hate, by Matthew Collins.

09/10/2011, 02:30:26 PM

By Anthony Painter

This week marked the 75th anniversary of the battle of Cable Street. When Oswald Mosley attempted to march his British Union of Fascists black shirts through London’s East End on 4 October 1936, they were met by fierce resistance led by the area’s Jewish community. It was the moment pre-war British fascism was broken. Two days later, Mosley married Diana Mitford in the presence of Hitler in Berlin. She should have waited.

In a stunning publication edited by Steve Silver, 75. The battle of Cable Street anniversary, Searchlight commemorates the events of that day. It mixes textured history with rare photos published for the first time and eye-witness accounts. Through the mists of time the facts get lost. When the EDL tried to march on East London a few weeks ago, a Cable Street inspired protest was planned. Voices on the liberal left, including liberal conspiracist Sunny Hundal and academic Nina Power, even called for the EDL march to proceed. Neither seem to have read their Cable Street history. As Silver writes:

“Feelings ran high and the JPC [Jewish people’s council] led opposition to the proposed march by organising a 100,000 strong petition urging the home secretary to ban the march… But the government refused to ban the march and it was left to local people to defend their community from the fascists”. (more…)

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The Sunday preview: Ed Miliband’s conference speech

25/09/2011, 02:30:53 PM

by Anthony Painter

Something isn’t quite gelling between Ed Miliband and the country. He’s taken over a brand for which people have an affection but feel it has lost its way – think Marks and Spencer before Stuart Rose. We’re not talking toxicity here. Many are sticking with it for now – though sales have slumped – but they are not going to do so indefinitely. The question is how the new CEO can convince people that things are really going to change.

Miliband’s problem is not that he is necessarily wrong in his analysis. The problem is that he is right- in many respects. And yet, despite this, people are not saying: “I think that Mr Miliband has it right on inequality, the squeezed middle and responsibility”.

And maybe that’s part of the problem – people just don’t think and talk in that way. People generally have a short attention span when it comes to politics and easily switch off on the occasions they tune in. It they hear think-tank-esque gobbledygook when they do, they just tune out again. It’s fine for resolution foundation to churn out stacks of graphs on rising inequality and static median incomes – they do it extremely well – but it doesn’t make for great political communication. And if you want to make a point about responsibility in society, don’t talk about the causes of riots being “complex”, because most people aren’t going to listen. The responsibility prospectus has to be painted in primary colours, not pastels.

There is even something to be said for Ed’s argument that the centre ground has shifted. It has. People are offended and angry about wealth without responsibility at the top of society. They know that we are not all in this together and feel mocked by a prime minister who claims that we are.

The mistake in the analysis is to assume that the centre ground has become intrinsically social democratic. It’s more complex than that. It was such an assumption in the face of the global financial crisis that led Labour to make a social democratic argument for re-election. With Which only 29% of the electorate agreed.

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Sunday review: Back from the brink, by Alistair Darling

11/09/2011, 11:16:44 AM

by Anthony Painter

Like the Kennedy assassination, new camera angles on the decline and fall of Labour in office will be discovered for many years to come. What’s more, each new piece of undisclosed footage will end with the same dreadful, bloody result. So why do we do it to ourselves? We just can’t help it.

The latest offering from a senior Labour figure, the ‘never knowingly over-optimistic’, Alistair Darling’s Back from the

"A wise voice of reason"

brink has the same literary merit as the others in the genre: structure and style are put in the service of proving a point. But like the chick lit, executive biography or self-help genres (the political memoir may be a subset of this latter category- for the author) it is not full-throttle, florid prose that is the attraction. The author gets to have their say, settle a few scores and we get to vicariously sit in the room while momentous decisions are made.

Perhaps only Chris Mullin’s diaries would be worth recommending to a non-Westminster obsessed friend amongst the New Labour memoirs. For the rest, twenty minutes in the company of exclusive in the Sunday Times would be enough. None of this is particular to Darling; it should be clear by now that this is not my favourite genre. If it’s your taste then Back from the Brink is no better or worse than most of the others.

The Alistair Darling who emerges from these pages is decent, honourable, intelligent, courageous, and resolute. He’s rather like Alistair Darling in fact: very likeable and engaging. When events have subsequently proved him right, he makes his point and then moves on. There is no great crescendo of self-justification. But there’s no real mea culpa either. We simply see things- most of which we knew already- from his perspective. Kennedy gets shot and dies. (more…)

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Sunday Review: There ain’t no black in the Union Jack, by Paul Gilroy

28/08/2011, 12:00:45 PM

by Anthony Painter

If the riots hadn’t spread beyond Tottenham, there is little doubt that we would now be having a far more heated discussion about “race” and British urban culture, rather than a generalised moral moan. The book that many would turn to would be Paul Gilroy’s 1987 classic: “There ain’t no black in the Union Jack”. In it, Gilroy outlines “race” as an agent of historical change alongside “class” or “gender” (note the inverted commas). And after riots in the early and mid-1980s that were more political in their nature than those we have just seen – in the sense that there was a deliberate political point being made – Gilroy’s theory of “race” as historical agent of mobilisation was forceful. But then things went a different way.

What marks out the latest edition of the book, is its introduction. Gilroy has substantially revised his approach. In fact, he declares that race is now “ordinary”. It has blended with poverty, material deprivation and inequality as a complex interplay of power, injustice and exclusion. Like other motivating social forces such as class, race has been shattered.

The “rise of identity politics, corporate multi-culture, and an imploded, narcissistic obsession with the minutiae of ethnicity” have fragmented “political blackness”. Bonds of solidarity have weakened. Rather than huddling together, the oppressed and excluded are wandering alone, facing the cold and the rain without protection. Where “blackness” was a motivating political force a quarter of a century ago, it no longer fulfils that role. (more…)

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