More on Gordon and the Vision Thing

Here's what I wrote earlier today over at Liberal Conspiracy.

I've already given my initial reaction to yesterday's Queen's Speech on my own blog, pointing out that while there are some very good things in the package from a progressive or liberal-left point of view, politically the whole thing suffers from the lack of a single "Big Idea" or connecting narrative which would enable Gordon Brown to regain the initiative he lost by not calling an election.

I'm not about to depart from that view. While ideas like giving all parents the right to request flexible working hours are extremely welcome, it is not the kind of thing that is going to stuff the Tories, particularly when they are claiming they thought of it first. By contrast scrapping ID cards, or announcing a Speaker's Conference on proportional representation, or even bringing in fixed-term four-year Parliaments to ensure no repeat of this autumn's non-election debacle, would have done.

However Jonathan Freedland in today's Guardian has a slightly different take on it. While acknowledging that Brown effectively stitched himself up by promising to set out his "vision" when he made his election announcement, he argues that in fact it was the wrong word, and that what Brown can really offer the nation is a programme -"something less than a grand vision but more inspiring than a mere to-do list."

Is he right? Does Brown need a new over-arching vision or narrative to renew Labour in office, or is the country sick of all that kind of stuff after ten years of Blair? I'm not going to attempt to answer this question, but I think it will provide a good talking point!

Tell Gordon what his vision is

One of the most wounding jibes against Gordon Brown that has been made in recent weeks was David Cameron's comment at PMQs that "he talks about his vision - but has to wait for us to tell us what it is!" Unfortunately today's Queen's Speech with its emphasis on new anti-terror measures that could just as easily have come from the Conservatives will do little to dispel that claim.

So if it's true that the Prime Minister has to be told what his vision is, we may as well try to do that ourselves than wait for the Tories to supply the answers.

I've drawn up a list of ten policy suggestions which I personally would like to have seen in today's programme, ranging from progressive ideas such as extending maternity pay over a full year and doing more to tackle inequality to democratic reforms such as an elected Second Chamber and giving the people their rightful say on the EU Treaty.

To see the full list, and to vote on your own preferences, click HERE.

Good luck Bob

Sincere congratulations to my old Lobby colleague Bob Roberts on his promotion to Mirror political editor. Although one of the nicest guys in the Press Gallery, Bob is well-used to coming first, having once won an Alan Shearer lookalike competition at his local boozer in Sarf London.

Julia G 4 Us!

I have noticed over recent weeks that there seems to be much less interest in the current Lib Dem leadership contest among readers of this blog than there was last time round in February 2006. Perhaps this is because people are simply not inspired by the two candidates.

If the results of my recent poll are anything to go by, what most of you really wanted to see was a generational/gender contest between Julia Goldsworthy and Charles Kennedy. I certainly agree that those two would have made it a much more interesting battle.

Question: Who would you have voted for in the Lib Dem leadership contest had all these candidates been standing?

Julia Goldsworthy 28%
Charles Kennedy 24%
Nick Clegg 8%
David Laws 8%
Vincent Cable 7%
Steve Webb 7%
Simon Hughes 6%
Chris Huhne 6%
Susan Kramer 4%
Ed Davey 1%

Still waiting for that Big Vision

When Gordon Brown decided not to hold a General Election this autumn, he said it was because he wanted to set out his "vision" to the country first. That phrase has haunted him ever since as candid friends such as Compass, the Fabians and myself urged him to set out that vision, while opponents such as Michael Gove concluded that he had none, that his sole remaining political objective was to remain in power as long as possible.

Sad to say, I think today's Queen's Speech lends some further credence to the Gove analysis. If this is the full extent of Gordon's Big Vision, then heaven help us.

In my Saturday Column a few weeks' back, I wrote: "If [Mr Brown] is regain the political initiative, he will need to set out an agenda which people will see as authentically and distinctively his own - one based on fairness and social justice."

While there is some stuff in today's package that might merit that description - for instance the initiatives on housing, hospital cleanliness, flexible working and the school leaving-age - in terms of the overall message they will be completely drowned-out by the renewed focus on anti-terrorism measures, and the pledge, from a self-proclaimed champion of "liberty," to extend the detention-without-charge period to 56 days.

Furthermore some of the more "progressive" aspects of the package are themselves problematical, for instance the pledge to build 3m new homes, which will involve some difficult trade-offs with the environmental lobby, and the requirement to keep all under-18s in some form of education, which some will see as another infringement of individual liberties.

I will probably have a bit more to say about this on Liberal Conspiracy tomorrow and in my next Saturday column at the weekend. But take out the stuff about housing - a notorious blind spot of the last Prime Minister's - and what we have here is a Queen's Speech which Tony Blair could have delivered.

Why I am joining the Liberal Conspiracy

A few months ago I got an email from Sunny Hundal of Pickled Politics asking me if I would be interested in contributing to a new liberal-left group blog designed to bring some balance to what has become an increasingly right-wing political blogosphere. To which the gist of my response was: too damned right I would.

After much planning and hard work, most of it by Sunny, the new site, Liberal Conspiracy, is now live. Here is a piece I have written to explain why I will be getting involved, which also appears HERE.

A Labour government in its tenth year of office is reduced to nicking ideas off the Tories. The leading contender for the Liberal Democrat leadership is a pro-market “Orange Booker.” And the political blogosphere has degenerated into an increasingly shrill right-wing mutual admiration society.

“What’s Left?” you may well ask yourself. It’s as good a summary as any of the state of British politics – and British blogging – today.

Different people will have different interpretations as to how we got here. From where I’m standing, the responsibility lies very clearly with the last Prime Minister who, though armed with two majorities of 160 plus at a time when the opposition couldn’t run a whelk stall, failed to build that progressive consensus of which he so often spoke.

Damaged irreparably by the Iraq War and its grisly aftermath, he also failed to stand down soon enough to give his successor a similar opportunity to capitalise on the Tories’ weakness, waiting instead until they had revived under a new and charismatic young leader before finally departing the scene earlier this year.

As a result, Gordon Brown now finds himself trapped in a lethal political conundrum by which he dare not set out an agenda that is too distinctively his own for fear ceding the fabled “political centre ground” to David Cameron, even though that centre ground has already shifted several degrees to the right.

The Tory intellectual Michael Gove last week described Brown, woundingly, as a tragic figure, a thwarted idealist now unable to give effect to any of his old ideals, and for whom staying in power as long as possible has become the only remaining political objective.

I am not sure things are quite as bad for him as all that, but the problem was well illustrated by a single headline in the Comment section of The Guardian last week: “Brown's fightback must be built on a real shift to the left.”

Jon Cruddas and Jon Trickett, the joint authors of the article so headlined, did not use those words. Like “Crisis? What Crisis?” they were convenient journalistic shorthand. But they demonstrate how hard it is for those who articulate a liberal-left or “progressive” vision of society to explain that without recourse to labels the public finds unhelpful or alienating.

In a sense, that’s also the challenge facing liberal-left bloggers: how do we make left politics engaging, exciting even? It’s easy to take refuge in the old saw that blogging is essentially oppositional, that it’s better to be a right-wing blogger when Labour is in power - harder to do anything about it.

The truth is the right has had things its own way for far too long. The liberal-left blogosphere, still divided over Iraq and more generally over the whole New Labour project, has been too disparate to mount an effective challenge to the right-wing uber blogs, which by virtue of their size are now effectively part and parcel of the mainstream media

The opportunity has long been there for a group of like-minded bloggers to come together to offer an alternative perspective on current political developments, and to set out an alternative vision for where politics might go in the post-Blair era.

Liberal Conspiracy which is being launched today, is a possibly somewhat belated attempt to fill that vacuum. I am very pleased to have been asked to be a part of it.

Other left-of-centre bloggers and writers taking part in the project include: Aaron Heath, Alan T, Chris Dillow, Daniel Davies, Dave Hill, Dave Osler, Davide Simonetti, David T, Donald Strachan, Garry Smith, Henry Midgley, Jamie K, Jess McCabe, Justin McKeating, Kate Belgrave, Kerron Cross, Natalie Bennett, Padraig Reidy, Robert Sharp, Unity and Sunny Hundal.