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| Anthony Giddens |
| Just Carry On Being New |
| Seite 2 |
| Redistribution, in other words, tends to take place more at the spending end than on the taxation side. In their recent pamphlet The Future of American Progressivism, Roberto Unger and Cornel West point out that, on the face of it, the US has one of the most progressive tax systems of any industrial country. Yet it also has one of the highest levels of economic inequality. Third, new Labour has emphasised the centrality of work - "work for those who can, security for those who cannot". Again, it has been taken to task for so doing, notably over the reduction in benefits for single mothers. Yet this reduction was accompanied by the offer of increased opportunities for education and job training via the New Deal. It is in countries such as Denmark, where 90 per cent of them are in work, that single mothers fare best. Again, Labour is in tune with modernising social democrats elsewhere. The slogan of the Dutch social democrats is "work, work, and work again". There is a very sound reason for such an orientation, one that relates to the points made about tax. A society that has a high employment ratio - a high proportion of the available labour force in work (with a decent minimum wage) - is not spending vast sums on social benefits. It can, therefore, devote revenue to other spending areas. The UK is also now well placed in this respect, with an employment ratio of roughly 75 per cent in 1999 (compared to 61 per cent in the EU as a whole). The fourth area is probably the most controversial: crime. In the past, the left saw crime as largely an artefact of poverty and inequality. Conquer those and crime would disappear. It is true that many types of crime are linked to deprivation. But crime has to be tackled in the here and now; and the right to be free from the fear of it is as important as other rights of citizenship. Being "tough on crime" and "tough on the causes of crime" does make sense. Strong policing can help reduce crime directly, especially in deprived neighbourhoods. It thereby not only aids social inclusion, but also encourages responsible behaviour by penalising those who act without thought for others. Labour has made reducing "the causes of crime" a basic part of the brief of the Social Exclusion Unit. Labour's policies on crime are part of a wider strategy. This is to leave no issues to the Tories to "own". Crime used to be just one such issue, on which voters trusted Labour much less than the Tories. The point is not, or shouldn't be, to adopt policies similar to those of the right, but to devise leftist solutions to "right-wing problems". Politically, the strategy has been successful. If the Tories, for so long seemingly the natural party of government, have been marginalised, it isn't only because of their travails over Europe or the limitations of their leadership. It is because new Labour has successfully invaded political territory that used to be the Tories' preserve, while maintaining its lead on Labour's "own" issues, such as health, education and pensions. None of this is to deny that Labour in government has made many mistakes. One of its prime errors was originally thought to be its great strength: "creative" media management. The government has a serious communications problem. Its policy agenda has been comprehensive and effective; yet the view persists that this has been a government empty of content, driven only by media spin. Nor do I mean to say that the second term should follow the same pattern as the first. As Tony Blair has stressed, the first term established a platform for further development. Some innovations will only make their full impact over the next few years, such as the working families and children's tax credits. The same applies to the party's policies in health and education. But there are also core issues about Labour's outlook and policies that need to be either clarified or developed much further. The transition from Labour to new Labour was never a matter of succumbing to the vagaries of the markets. It was a question of creating a party that would sustain most of the classic concerns of the left, but bring these into line with the demands of a new world. Labour should at this point put its hand on the table. As a left-of-centre party, it stands above all for the mobilising of public power, necessary for both economic prosperity and social solidarity. Public power is a means to secure individual as well as social objectives. That is why egalitarianism is so important to the left: every member of society should have the resources needed to develop his or her talents and capacities to the full. In this context, Labour should articulate a clearer vision of what sort of country it wants Britain to become. Constitutional reform so far has been partial and inadequate. The limited extent of devolution is likely to threaten the integrity of the UK rather than help sustain it. Britain should become a more decentralised, explicitly pluralistic society, with further devolution to the English regions and also to cities. The government would not have got into such a mess over the Tube if it had given the London mayor tax-raising powers and if it had not tried to manipulate the London elections. |