In a couple of weeks I’ll be attending the Blue Labour Midlands Seminar, a day of lectures and discussion headed by Professor John Milbank and Lord Glasman. The arrival of the seminar seems somewhat out of time; Blue Labour in some way feels like a [...]]]> Michael Buckley looks forward to Blue Labour’s forthcoming Midlands Seminar

In a couple of weeks I’ll be attending the Blue Labour Midlands Seminar, a day of lectures and discussion headed by Professor John Milbank and Lord Glasman. The arrival of the seminar seems somewhat out of time; Blue Labour in some way feels like a past trend, already overshadowed by changed political fortunes for Labour and the Coalition since the days of Red Tory, Blue Labour and Progress’ Purple Book. Labour is now resurgent, Ed Miliband far more confident and assured than earlier in his leadership, and the Coalition on the ropes. The future suddenly looks like it could be social democratic. Do we really need talk of political colours and Labour renewal, gurus and academics?

Despite the fact that the hype has passed and Lord Glasman is no longer to be seen at every Labour event I believe that the seminar, and the ideas behind Blue Labour, can still have something important to say to the party and to the country. The political situation has changed markedly since last summer, but the direction of travel, and the aims and strategy of a future Labour government are still not entirely defined. The future is there to be created, and the thinkers and ideas of Blue Labour I think still have something to say. That this is the case is I think evidenced by the continued involvement of Milbank and Glasman, and perhaps more so by the fact that key Labour figures involved, including John Cruddas and Chuka Umunna, are growing in influence and importance, not diminishing.

Entitled ‘The Primacy of the Social and Ethical – How Blue Labour speaks to the social, political and economic situation in the UK in 2012’, the seminar may be something of a relaunch. Blue Labour 2, maybe? The title certainly seems to suggest a recognition of changed realities; this is not 2010 and debates about economics, governance, financial crisis, and society have all been changed by political events, the Euro crisis, the failure of the Coalition to bring about promised economic growth, and last summer’s riots. I will be interested to hear what Milbank, Glasman and the other contributors have to say in Nottingham. Hopefully it will be more than a restatement of Blue Labour ideals and will respond to recent developments, integrating its ideas and sense of history as Glasman and others did before.

Labour has come a long way in a short space of time. Things still looked shaky at last September’s party conference. There were some good ideas in Ed’s leadership speech, but you had to hunt for them. When I heard him speak recently at a Progress event he was like a man transformed, far more coherent in his speechmaking and clear in his thinking. Some of this clarity was built on Blue Labour ideas. Next month’s seminar provides an opportunity for Blue Labour again to contribute to debate, and perhaps to Labour policy and direction.

For details of the conference and how to register click here:

http://www.bluelabour.org/2012/05/21/blue-labour-midlands-seminar/

6 July 2012, 9:30 to 17:00

Centre of Theology and Philosophy
The University of Nottingham

Email here to reserve a place

‘The Primacy of the Social and Ethical – How Blue Labour speaks to the social, political and [...]]]> Professors John Milbank and Adrian Pabst, alongside Richard Robinson and Ian Geary, host a discussion on the future of Blue Labour

John Milbank - JOHN MOI

6 July 2012, 9:30 to 17:00

Centre of Theology and Philosophy
The University of Nottingham

Email here to reserve a place

‘The Primacy of the Social and Ethical – How Blue Labour speaks to the social, political and economic situation in the UK in 2012′

The aim of this seminar is to gather Blue Labour thinkers, supporters and activists to explore and discuss substantive Blue Labour themes.

Professor John Milbank will give the opening address and Lord Glasman will close the conference. Our panel discussions will cover a broad and critical range of concerns such as political economy, regional and national identity and post-liberal politics.

We will meet, reflect, discuss, agree – and possibly disagree – but above all commit to act.

If you are interested in attending, please contact Ian Geary at idtommyg@hotmail.co.uk. The cost is £15 for those in employment and £5 for students and the unemployed. These tariffs are merely to cover the events costs and we will be asking people to pay on the day.

Monday 14 November at 7pm

Kings Place
90 York Way
London
N1 9AG

Book tickets here

Thursday 20 October 2011 at 7:30pm

Friends Meeting House
28 Regent Place
Rugby
CV21 2PN

Glasman’s frustration came to a head in a seminar with Blond in Westminster’s Portcullis House in the spring of 2009. Blond had been brought in to discuss his [...]]]> In these extracts from journalist Rowenna Davis’s new book, Tangled Up In Blue, Blue Labour’s Maurice Glasman and ‘Red Tory’ Phillip Blond speak about each other’s work

Rowenna Davis - ENGLISH PEN

Glasman’s frustration came to a head in a seminar with Blond in Westminster’s Portcullis House in the spring of 2009. Blond had been brought in to discuss his ideas with a set of left and Labour party activists, MPs and journalists. Glasman was clearly irritated by Blond’s presentation, but he was even more annoyed by the reaction of Labour party members in the room. Once again, no one seemed to be challenging Blond’s “corrupted” replica of Labour’s ideas. Instead, the audience seemed to be disowning their traditions by criticising Blond’s work on the grounds that it marginalised the state. As Glasman explains:

He [Blond] was talking and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing as a response, he was talking about friendship, solidarity, belonging and all the people on the left were talking about equality, diversity, basically the state, and not talking about the quality of relationships or most importantly, capitalism. No one on the left was talking about capitalism, which you will ?nd out if this goes ahead is a genuinely a life long obsession, so be aware that capitalism plays a central role in the story, and I remember sitting there and thinking sorry I got the wrong end of the stick, I think I remember saying I thought the Labour party was the party where people came together to resist the domination of the rich, I didn’t think it was some kind of welfare agency, you know, democratic welfare agency.

In one of the most unconventional but little-known friendships in political circles, Glasman ending up befriending the Red Tory himself, Phillip Blond. Although Blond had his own much grander apartment in North London, he took to coming around to Glasman’s crowded ?at in Stoke Newington. In a sign of genuine trust, Blond joined Glasman and his family on Friday nights. This was an intimate space where the family lit candles and ate together in honour of the Jewish tradition and rested after a hard working week. Several years later, Blond still refers to Glasman with genuine admiration, calling him a “deeply good man” and a “dear friend”. He used to call him up – only half jokingly – and ask Glasman to join the Red Tory camp.

This uncanny ability to form unexpectedly warm alliances in unexpected places was to become quite a trait for Glasman. There was an important political energy in this friendship; the two could make more noise together than apart. The two worked together in tension, going head to head in a public debate billed as Red Tory vs Blue Labour at Conway Hall, and publishing an email exchange in Prospect magazine. Later Blond went even further and said that he deliberately helped promote Glasman – whose name was at that time virtually unknown in Westminster – by participating in these joint debates. Blond had always had huge con?dence in the signi?cance of his ideas, which he believed would extend well beyond the Conservative party. There were good strategic reasons then, for supporting Glasman and his Blue Labour project. A “sister movement” would help push what Blond saw as a new political consensus:

I would only win and my ideas would only succeed if there was a similar movement on the left because we needed to create a new centre ground and that takes both sides to agree. Maurice and I genuinely differ which is right and proper and we differ most on markets, so it’s not like we agree but I think his insights are in authentic parallel to mine on the left and I know history and I know that to create a new centre ground you need two sides to agree.

Of course there were signi?cant differences in their ideology. Most notably, Blond thought that Glasman was too confrontational in style and too Marxist in substance. He believed Blue Labour lacked an appeal to a British sense of aspiration, and was unlikely to play well with the electorate as a result. Glasman for his part believed that Blond did not take the power of capital seriously enough. He also argued that Blond’s model for mutualisation was not sufficiently transformative because it didn’t include a range of interests. For Glasman, it was important to foster and encourage a diverse number of interests within any organisation. Handing over control of services to workers simply replaced a monopoly of the state with a monopoly of employees. Glasman’s model of mutualisation, in contrast, would encourage representation from di?erent groups to encourage pluralism.

It’s also interesting to compare the two men’s positions within their own parties. On a surface level, they were operating in a similar space. Both thought that their respective parties should change, but both lacked an official position of in?uence in their chosen institutions to achieve it. But although they were both party political insurgents, it would be a mistake to think of their positions as identical. Although Blond always had more resources than Glasman, he remained a much more isolated ?gure within his own party. He had none of the signi?cant and close relationships with the leadership that Glasman went on to have. Glasman could see that, for all the bluster, Blond’s project was a much lonelier one than his own. Talking to Glasman, it seems as if his affection for the Red Tory was tinted with a desire to look after him:

[Blond has a] very generous, gentle disposition to him and by far the best way of having a relationship with him was to embed him, for him to come over, he never has a cooked meal, he only has takeaways, was to come over have a Friday night meal, with children, it turns out he is brilliant with children, he gives them quizzes, he and Isaac, can you imagine have a kind of equality of ego, with a ?ve year old child Phillip, he and Isaac can go completely head to head it’s brilliant and he’s very loving with children.

***

Others share this concern that Blue Labour might not be able to speak to the demographic it claims to represent. Phillip Blond of the think tank ResPublica, for example, argues that Blue Labour’s appeal to the working class cannot work because Britons no longer label themselves in that way. They are too aspirational, which means the brand won’t appeal to them. It is worth keeping in mind that over a third of Britain’s school leavers now go on to university, and with manufacturing industries still largely in decline, there is less respect associated with the working class label. Blue Labour, says Blond, hasn’t really caught up with this:

[Blue Labour] hasn’t really recognised what Blair was writing about and speaking to, Blue Labour still won’t appeal to the majority of British people, it still remains an appeal to a type of working class that is very much in the minority, that’s unionised, and low waged, there is no appeal here to small business people, or workers who wish to be high wage and high skill, no appeal to the modern structures that most people live in or desire.

Even if voters did accept Blue Labour labels, Blond does not believe that Labour would ever be able to swallow the socially conservative values it proposes:

I think Labour will always be hostile to social conservatism, or as I term it “social conservation”, it will always privilege Liberal autonomy above all things, so I never think it can be a radical party for that reason.

Although Blond does not rate Blue Labour’s ideas as they stand now, he does think they are underestimated by his colleagues in the Conservative party. Blond says that although current cabinet members do have Blue Labour “on the radar” they are not worried that it will steal capital C Conservative voters. This, Blond believes, could be a mistake:

I think they underestimate him [Glasman] and Ed Miliband, but if Ed keeps with the notion of squeezed middle, transmutes Blue Labour into that space and I think that’s a potent mix.

Tangled Up In Blue is published by Ruskin

David Cameron said the rioters represented ‘pockets’ of society that were ‘sick’.

His analysis was both wrong and worryingly misguided.  To say someone is sick is to suggest they are not responsible for [...]]]> Luke Bretherton says irresponsibility at the top is just as much to blame for the riots as that of the rioters themselves

Reeves Corner, Croydon, August 2011 - DULCIE LEE

David Cameron said the rioters represented ‘pockets’ of society that were ‘sick’.

His analysis was both wrong and worryingly misguided.  To say someone is sick is to suggest they are not responsible for what is happening to them.

Of course the use of medical analogies to diagnose what ails the body politic is an ancient one. But to understand what was going on in the riots we must turn to another ancient metaphor, one found in the stories of Cain and Abel and Romulus and Remus, namely, fraternal rivalry.

When my two boys were toddlers, if one had a toy, the other desired it and after a while, if he could not get it by legitimate means he would snatch it.

To add injury to insult, and with a certain frenzied and spiteful glee, he would then thump his sibling from whom he stole the toy.  The anthropologist Rene Girard calls this process ‘mimetic rivalry’.

It is beyond simple envy. It is a deep desire sparked by copying what another has or does. In wanting what the other has, we seek to affirm our own worth and value.

The ‘shopping with violence’ we saw in the riots was the outworking of a consumer culture in which self-worth is measured by material gain and identities expressed through brands.

It is a culture where desire for what others have not only drives the whole economy but mediates social relations: what we gossip about, watch on TV and how we spend our leisure time mostly revolves around consuming and observing what others consume.

The rioters wanted to participate in what they felt excluded from and given the opportunity took it by any means necessary.  But like all projects of self-justification, it is not enough to get what you want, there is a need to hit back at what made you feel bad, held back or deprived in the first place. Hence the arson and the attacks on the police.  Mimetic rivalry eventually spins out of control, until it leads to violence.

But if this all sounds a bit over theorised, we should not forget that for some rioting is fun. Studies of early modern English riots – an equivalent time of rapid social change – suggests that among a range of factors, some of which included genuine grievances, was the fact that many taking part were bored young men looking for something to do.

Rioting was a laugh, a way to vent frustrations and circumvent the normal boundaries that limited their actions. Most riots were not proto-revolutionary protests but carnivalesque upsurges that made the fools kings for a day.

If the lists of those arrested are anything to go by, most of those taking part were foolish young men aged between 17-25.  This is the same demographic who take the most illegal drugs, who drink to excess the most, and whom we send to fight our wars.

They are risk takers who don’t consider the consequences. It is the same high risk, short-term thinking and wantonly destructive behaviour we saw among the (mostly male) bankers who traded away our future and indebted us for a generation.

We are a society that rewards one ‘pocket’ of self-interested risk takers for privatising profit and socialising the cost, but is busy incarcerating another ‘pocket’ for the same actions.

But the identification of irresponsible and destructive risk taking in many sections of society suggests a further problem with Cameron’s analysis of the riots.

Alongside mimetic rivalry, Girard points to another social process we saw in the riots: scapegoating. As the righteous anger and fear erupted, society sought to heal the social fabric in the face of its violent rupture by heaping all the blame on certain groups: parents, feral youth, gangs, and in one particularly shallow, but nonetheless troubling case voiced by David Starkey, black youth culture.

Society could then form a solid phalanx, re-affirming its own values and innocence in contradistinction to the irresponsible actions of scapegoats who were condemned as outside of ‘normal’ behaviour.

Scapegoating seems to shape the government’s whole response to the riots.  But in scapegoating particular groups, we seek to avoid taking responsibility.

And this gets to the heart of the problem: the refusal of all involved – rioters, government, the police and society in general – to take responsibility.

This is a profound malaise at the heart of our body politic.  As Peter Oborne pointed out in one of the most perceptive comments on the riots, the riots were of a piece with the irresponsible actions of bankers, politicians, the police and journalists who think they can bend and break the law, acting with impunity and with no regard for the common life we all share and on which they themselves depend.

Those guilty of criminal acts must be made to take responsibility and be taught and set an example of how to act otherwise.  But to do this we must all take responsibility for creating a culture that lauds as rational self-interest desiring what others have and using any means necessary to get it; treating others with contempt in order to get ahead; taking risks without considering the consequences for others; and not taking responsibility for polluting, destroying and desecrating our common life, on which all our flourishing depends.

Thankfully, we saw signs of an alternative culture to the one displayed on the streets of our cities and in the boardrooms of the City, one that is not hell bent on sacrificing all we hold dear to the maw of mammon.

Those who came together to clean up, support those in distress and defend their neighbourhoods from attack invested in building a common life before self-aggrandisement, took personal responsibility, and did not leave it all up to the state or the market to decide. Rather than hide away in gated communities, they valued cooperative action and mutual support.

They met public squalor with public spirit. These citizens point to the virtues and values we must foster if we are to heal our body politic and inhibit both low morals in high places and heightened immorality in ordinary places.

Throughout modern history, political discourse has been governed by the most dominant ideological strands of thought.

Democracy, founded above all on the principle of equality, is struggling to function properly in contemporary Western societies, primarily due to the insatiable individualism that these cultures currently [...]]]> Jack Reid puts the case for religious organisation as a transformative force in our political culture

Democracy, founded above all on the principle of equality, is struggling to function properly in contemporary Western societies, primarily due to the insatiable individualism that these cultures currently foster.

This observation is not new, having been discussed by a wide range of social commentators including critical theorists like Jurgen Habermas, Christian theologians like John Milbank, and more recently Blue Labour’s very own founding father Maurice Glasman.

In the process of undermining democracy’s core ethos, the recent onslaught of neo-liberalism – an economic ideology that celebrates consumerism and individual autonomy – has forced us to recognize that even democratic regimes can degenerate into tyranny.

Contrary to the conviction of enlightenment figures, this regression does not require the prior influence of a strangling sacred ideology, but stems instead from an problem rooted within democratic culture itself.

The nature of the problem is curiously paradoxical. Democratic culture is fundamentally based upon the principle of equality of condition.

Yet equality of condition – or at least the type endorsed by neo-liberal philosophy – is in fact the fundamental enemy of democratic culture, having a doubly negative impact upon democracy’s potential for success.

First, the principle of equality of condition results in making individuals feel entirely independent, and has thus produced massive social atomisation. Every individual is primarily concerned with his or her own material interests.

As a result, the complete loss of social solidarity renders it impossible for democratic culture to flourish. At the same time, increased societal disunion makes it extremely easy for governments to deceitfully manipulate public opinion, mainly for their own gains.

More often than not, this manipulation centres upon atomised society’s fears. Democratic governments frequently use claims that the public need defence from the terrorist or the immigrant as an excuse for spurious measures, including the suspension of basic democratic tenets such as habeas corpus, free speech, freedom of the press and humane treatment. This opens the path towards petty autocracy.

An example of such a slide is illustrated through the case of Guantanamo Bay detention camp, created during the Bush administration by capitalizing on the post 9/11 climate of fear sweeping across the United States.

Second, in democratic cultures where everyone is equal in principle, the real exercise of power rests upon public opinion, the clearest expression of the will of a majority of citizens. However, there is no reason to assume that public opinion will equate to what is morally good, or that it will accord with the law.

This problem comes to the fore when a majority public opinion dominates that of a minority. Here, democratic culture runs the risk of imposing what de Tocqueville deemed ‘the tyranny of the majority’.

In the modern state, the democratic system is beset by a multitude of contrary interests, making it simply impossible for democracy to satisfy each individual concern.

There is no ultimate equality of views, only a competition of interests, and eventually democracy will recognise the interest upon which there is the most consensus. At this moment, the democratic ideal of egalitarianism is lost.

The November 2009 minaret controversy in Switzerland offers an example of the ability of majority public opinion to become oppressive. Following a referendum, a 57% majority of the Swiss general public voted in favour of a ban on the building of new minarets across the country.

The initiative, which has since caused international controversy, had been supported by right wing Swiss groups including the Swiss People’s Party and the Democratic Union.

Those groups offering the strongest opposition to the initiative included the Swiss government, NGOs and Catholic bishops, who had warned prior to the referendum that the proposal did not represent ‘the Christian values and democratic principles of Switzerland’.

In sum, it is evident that the crisis democratic culture finds itself in stems from the limited social parameters of neo-liberalism, which has brought with it massive atomisation, inequality and injustice.

With the failure of the secular creeds – socialism, communism – to challenge neo-liberalism’s social ills, it may at first glance seem that democratic culture, lacking an antidote to the corrosive effects of the neo-liberal virus, is doomed.

To rescue democratic culture from this irreversible slip into consumerist despotism, we must re-focus our train of thought upon a fresh openness towards religion, and the redeeming qualities it holds.

Primarily, religion promotes solidarity. This then, stands in direct opposition to the neo-liberal principle of discord. A solid community of individuals can operate as a strong social unit and does not easily become enslaved to tyrannical institutions.

Additionally, religion provides a source for morality and the moral guidance of people. Democracy can only function within a framework of tolerance, and the pursuit of truth and justice for its own sake.

Religion can influence public opinion and direct the customs of a community towards this ideal. As a result, religion can provide the moral soil upon which democratic culture can bloom.

Finally, in direct opposition to the fundamental aspirations of neo-liberal philosophy, religion deals in immaterial matters and centres the individual’s train of thought upon eternal issues not of this world.

Religion, then, can provide a remedy against the unrestrained, avaricious individualism that modern society harbours. In doing so, it might provide one of the only paths to democratic culture’s salvation.

There are some who think that blue Labour ideas are all about nostalgia.

Madeleine Bunting’s article in today’s Guardian highlights some important challenges for the party in reconnecting with working [...]]]> Patrick Macfarlane says that investing in families and communities can – and should – be a clear sign that society is looking towards the future

There are some who think that blue Labour ideas are all about nostalgia.

Madeleine Bunting’s article in today’s Guardian highlights some important challenges for the party in reconnecting with working class voters.

But she makes two key mistakes. Firstly, the working class is not the only group that Labour needs to engage.

And secondly, it is a sense of belonging to the present, not a morbid dwelling on the past, which will breathe life back into communities and bring Labour back into government.

Last week’s Radio 4 Analysis programme contains an important warning for blue Labour sympathisers. The aspiring middle classes are the fastest growing group in British society, and they need to feel in tune with Labour’s message too.

This group doesn’t root its identity in a 1940s Blitz spirit; it works in modern industries, lives in new-build homes, and sees its own image reflected in contemporary culture.

As Roy Hattersley said in his interview for the same programme: “if there is a golden age, it is in the future – not in the past”.

The mistake of the past 15 years has been to fail to imbue all parts of society with this feeling. Working class voters have felt abandoned for so long that they no longer link positive associations with modernity.

That is no reason for Labour to retreat to nostalgia in an attempt to recapture support. Indeed, such a move would be a grave error, as it would fail to assemble a broad coalition from across society.

Instead, Labour needs policies that reinforce our relationships and temper the overarching power of both globalisation and the modern welfare state.

Pledges that demonstrate Labour’s commitment to protecting the most vulnerable.

And a language that recognises freedom as key to fulfilment, while respecting the crucial need for a sense of belonging.

Launched in 2009 by academic and Labour peer Maurice Glasman, the organisation is dedicated to reclaiming distinctive traditions of reciprocity and mutuality in the labour movement.

It combines respect for family, faith and work [...]]]> Blue Labour is the Labour Party pressure group that aims to put relationships and responsibility at the heart of British politics.

Launched in 2009 by academic and Labour peer Maurice Glasman, the organisation is dedicated to reclaiming distinctive traditions of reciprocity and mutuality in the labour movement.

It combines respect for family, faith and work with a commitment to the common good: sustainable politics that helps people lead meaningful lives.