Guy Beres

The British Labour Party has published a list of its top fifty achievements in office since Tony Blair lead “New Labour” to power all the way back in 1997, on a wave of enthusiastic public support. As is often the case with lists of this nature, what has been omitted from the list is arguably just as interesting as what has actually been listed. There is not a single reference to the “war on terror” or any related measures aimed at improving security for British citizens. There is not a single reference to the war on Iraq. There is not a single reference to the Blair Government’s involvement in the conflict in the Balkans during the late 1990’s. There is not a single reference to the party’s somewhat conflicted position on adopting the Euro. In total, this all seems to represent an implicit admission by the party that the Labour Party’s foreign policy actions over the last decade are not something which it is proud of.

What I would like to see from the Labour Party here in the UK is a refreshing outburst of honesty. Accompanying this inescapably jaundiced list of fifty greatest achievements over the last decade, why not issue a list of the party’s ten greatest failures over the last decade, and then issue a comprehensive policy platform to address each of these failures? The Howard Government did the best it could to hide its numerous policy failures over the years, and by the end had far too much pride (or perhaps, hubris) to highlight the things it had done wrong and the things it could have done better. Its favoured approach was to soldier on practically regardless of what ordinary people thought of its policies, admitting as little fault as possible, and persistently attacking the Opposition’s credibility. That approach worked a treat in 2004 when Mark Latham proved quite vulnerable to a sustained smear campaign centred on his experience and temperament, but Kevin Rudd proved a much more teflon-like Opposition leader throughout 2007 and the rest is now history.

The British Labour Government, with a new leader in Gordon Brown, has an excellent opportunity to make a clean break from the past, and set a dynamic new course for the future. This may well entail the public disownment of some of the less attractive political legacies of the Blair years, but unless a clean break with the past is made, it is all too easy to see a similar scenario enfolding at the next election in Britain as unfolded in Australia last year. There are lots of criticisms that one can make of Tory Leader David Cameron, but he is certainly an Opposition Leader of the teflon-coated variety. That means that Gordon Brown in his team need to start rolling out some big, positive policy ideas if they are to emerge triumphant from the next election.

Being a member of parliament is doubtless far from an easy job. In addition to all the public opprobrium regarding politicians and the dirty world of politics more generally, today’s twenty-four hour news cycle ensures that the average politician works far more than fourty hours per week. The need for almost perpetual preparation and briefing on public policy issues and of course the media issues of the day induces many of our representatives to put in hours day and night, no matter what day of the week it might be. Consequently, it’s easy to conceive how someone with a full-time job in politics could become quite estranged indeed from their partner and immediate family. In Australia, I imagine it must be particularly tough for those serving parliamentarians who live more than an hour’s flight away from Canberra.

One imagines that UK Tory MP Derek Conway had seeing his family in mind when he originally decided to hire his wife and two of his sons to work in his parliamentary office. In the last week, unfortunately, things have now turned a bit pear-shaped. A House of Commons committee found that one of his sons, Henry, was paid some £32,000 for “research work”, and that his other son Freddie was paid £45,000 while he was studying full-time at Newcastle University. In a turn of events that Prime Minister Gordon Brown must be thanking the gods for, Mr. Conway has hence been suspended from parliament, forced to repay £13,000, and now plans to leave politics at the next general election.Since the discovery, which has blotted out headlines in London over the last few days, Tory leader David Cameron has made a somewhat nervous discovery:

David Cameron yesterday disclosed that his party whips had discovered more than 70 of the 193 Conservative MPs employ members of their family.

In the wake of the Derek Conway scandal, the Conservative leader said he would be requiring his front bench from April 1 to disclose in the register of MPs’ interests if they were employing family members.

Now it’s not really surprising that a fairly large proportion of MPs in the UK (or in Australia, one would think) employ a family member or two. To a fairly strong extent, particularly for those in high profile positions, a life in politics forces one’s partner and family to come along for the ride or to be isolated altogether. However, it does make sense that some formal controls are put in place to ensure that MPs do not abuse their privileges. Cameron’s move is an intelligent one, although one would have to think that legislating some safeguards in this area would probably be a good thing for the Brown Labour Government to do.Of course, for the time being, I am sure all three major parties in the UK are desperately checking with all their parliamentarians to verify that nothing suspect is going on, before they come out in a truly aggressive way for increased transparency.

Does anybody know what the rules state in this area in Australian federal politics? If I had to guess, it would be that Australian federal parliamentarians need not publicly register who is working for them at any given time. Sounds like one for Special Minister of State John Faulkner to investigate further, in the light of this scandal in the UK. You would have to think there are one or two parliamentarians around the traps across the country who are abusing the privileges of their offices.

ELSEWHERE: The Daily Mail, from the Murdoch stable, has been particularly scathing about the affair.

I am currently reading The Blair Years, an epic tome of political diaries written by Alastair Campbell, who was Tony Blair’s Director of Communications and Strategy from 1997 to 2003. Although the book suffers from my subjective standpoint due to my lack of knowledge about Labour politics and politics in the United Kingdom more broadly, it has offered a fascinating “fly on the wall” insight into one of the most historically important governments of the late twentieth century. Ever wondered what newly elected George Bush was like as President? (”a curious mix of cocky and self-deprecating, relaxed and hyper”, p.506) Or what Tony Blair and Bill Clinton used to talk about on the phone as leaders of their respective countries? Campbell has the extremely privileged position of being able to inform us.

The impression that I have formed of Campbell is that he is someone who has his heart firmly in the right place when it comes to politics, but is capable of being fairly brutally pragmatic if required and is quite intolerant of what he perceives as incompetence or a focus on the wrong issues. What is also obvious is that the time Campbell has spent on both the journalistic and political sides of the fence over the course of his career has profoundly informed his views on media and politics and the way the two interact in the modern world. His views on the state of the modern news media, perhaps unsurprisingly, are bitterly critical.

Last night he delivered the Hugh Cudlipp lecture at the London College of Communication. The full speech is here [PDF], and there is also a summary article from the Guardian here. The full speech is well worth a read, and is packed with succinctly phrased nuggets of observation on the modern media such as this one:

One of the reasons for the sheer volume of coverage attached to big events now is the near infinity in scale. Something has to fill it. A lot of the time, anything will do, whether political speculation, an airhead columnist, or the latest guff from last night’s reality TV shows. In radio, “text us your views” is seen by some no doubt as a great contribution to debate. In reality it is random people, identity unknown, making random comments to help broadcasters fill space. Sit down in front of your TV and channel hop, and the “something” filling the space tends to be a depressing combination of the downmarket, the dull, the cheap, the occasional good repeat plus, thank God, sport, where it is the event, rather than the surrounding hype and commentary, that really matters.

I defy anyone who is not a human drone to read that without nodding their head in agreement. The “something” that fills the space in media programming and publications these days so often seems to be there for no compelling reason at all, other than to “fill space”.

But perhaps even more worryingly is this thought from Campbell as he winds up his speech:

When I left Number 10, because there was a lot of coverage, I got a lot of letters. Some saying Good Riddance. Some saying thanks for what you did for Labour and for Tony. And some, fewer than the other two categories, but worrying, from people saying they have thought about going into politics, but they see what happens to people who put their heads above the political parapet – the near universal media contempt, the refusal to see much good in any of them, the difficulty in ever having complex points about complex issues debated let alone understood, the rooting through dustbins, the targeting of families – and they think why bother with all that
when they could have easier, more pleasant, more lucrative lives in business or in the media or others walks of life?

It is a damned good question, isn’t it?

I don’t know what, if any sense, everyone is getting of it down in Australia, but British Prime Minister Gordon Brown (aka “great clunking fist”) is enduring a pretty torrid spell in political terms at the moment. In several months the man has not been able to take a trick, with the government shuddering to embarrassing scandal to embarrassing scandal. Tory leader David Cameron is doing a pretty good job of delivering ruthless soundbites to the media, and there is a certain sense out there that Brown might not be able to dig his way out of the hole he and Labour find themselves in post-Blair. After the former Prime Minister’s somewhat acrimonious departure, people need to find a reason to elect a Brown Labour Government. For the time being, at least, they’re still looking.

Well for once, UK Labour is following the lead of its Australian counterpart rather than vice-versa, and engaging YouTube in a concerted manner, with Labour:vision (warning: Gordon Brown video plays on page load). In general I am fairly sceptical that YouTube can play a really significant role in improving the current relationship between Labour and the electorate. On the other hand, there is little point denying that such a venture does actually stand a chance of getting through to people who otherwise would not have thought twice about the Labour Party or what it stands for. However, its scope is limited. As part of a comprehensive and coherent online strategy to engage people and interest people in public life and policy, something like Labour:vision can play a role. However, I think Brown Labour still has some way to go towards cultivating that sort of robust approach to the online world. The danger is that this latest move may be dismissed as desperate gimmickry by some.

Probably the best thing Labour could do right now is to deliver some positive policy proposals for debate, and seize the news agenda back from the Tories. At the moment, the government is in the strange position of being left in the lurch as its world disintegrates (due to circumstances variously within and beyond their control), whilst David Cameron jabs them rather assiduously with a red hot poker. It’s not a very pretty sight.