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A frank look at Labour's values Samuel Brittan: Financial Times: 27/02/04 Some months ago I wrote a column on the harm done by party leaders concentrating on their so-called grassroots supporters instead of the broader electorate. At that time the main examples were of the harm done by misguided Conservative reforms introduced to give more say to constituency party members. In the period ahead we are more likely to hear of grassroots Labour values and it is time to take a look at them without red rose-tinted spectacles. What follows is a rule-of-thumb guide to policies and attitudes likely to meet with approval by Labour activists. 1. The group is more important than the individual. Tony Blair rewrote Clause Four of the Labour constitution, which formerly dealt with nationalisation, to stress group values. The Conservatives are not free of this belief, which they tend to associate with the nation. Labour speaks more of the "community" and of groups such as workers in manufacturing and in so-called public services. 2. National resources belong to a common pool rather than to individuals. It may be expedient to allow some people to keep some of their earnings, but no more than that. Therefore it is not taxation that has to be defended but "tax cuts". Under a progressive system, these will tend to benefit the better off and are best regarded as dirty words. 3. The French revolutionary slogan of "Liberty, equality and fraternity" is cherished. But if there is a clash between them, equality must triumph. Sophists redefine true liberty to be identical with equality. It is not a very coherent goal as greater equality in some directions, such as income, is likely to mean greater inequality in other directions, such as power or prestige. Cynics paraphrase the doctrine as: "If everybody cannot have something, nobody should have it." 4. The supreme value is something called "democracy". This means that any brake on the people's will, such as an effective second chamber or judicial review of legislation, cannot be tolerated. But democracy has to be interpreted as first-past-the post in a constituency system. Pedants who call this plurality, which enables a minority to rule, are written off as opponents. 5. There is a real sympathy for the poor and disadvantaged. But it sometimes clashes with another Labour slogan that policies should benefit "the many, not the few". As long as there was a pyramid-shaped distribution of income and wealth in which the poorest also formed the majority, there was no problem. But with the current diamond-shaped distribution, where the poor themselves are among the few, difficulties emerge. 6. The maxims of economics do not apply to labour markets. Wages and other elements of labour cost can be increased without affecting employment if the government keeps an eagle eye on cheating employers. Labour activists are therefore free to regard trade unions as the salt of the earth and to desire that pre-Thatcher legal privileges should be restored. 7. Rationing by price is evil. Public services should be "free at the point of delivery". This applies above all to medical services and education. It is never explained why this should not apply to food, which is even more important for maintaining health. 8. The public sector is to be preferred to the private one. While the belief in nationalising further activities may be dormant, transfers to the private sector are seen as obscene. 9. There is a nostalgia for the second world war, when individual aims were subordinated to a common purpose and we "all mucked in together". 10. There is a genuine dislike of repressive foreign dictatorships. But this is directed in a one-sided way at so-called rightwing dictatorships, such as General Augusto Pinochet's former regime in Chile. Visits to London by those associated with Soviet repression are not denounced or even noticed. There are further subtleties. The toleration extended to the former Soviet Union does not extend to present-day China. Here the blind eye is mostly the prerogative of business people and Conservative leaders. There are subtleties within subtleties. Although it would have been the kiss of death for anyone in Labour circles to have had dealings with the Chilean military dictatorship, it was relatively easy to get away with being associated with the Argentinian one. A problem in debating Labour values is that politicians of other parties tend either to share many of them or to be on the defensive if they do not. An example is provided by the contortions the Conservatives have got involved in on tax and public spending. Critics of Labour values can be disregarded as ultra-rightwing or "market fundamentalist". This column can be dismissed as a "gaffe" and its author encouraged to get back to inflation targets and exchange rates.
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