December 2024
The question ‘Why don’t socially progressive politics get more traction in the UK?’ with an added thought that could the UK turn into a fascist state? won the vote today. In explaining the topic it was asked why people and the planet don’t matter more than profit? Isn’t what matters is the whole of society not just a select few? Wealth concentration seems just to benefit a minority. The notion of ‘trickle down’ has not worked: inequality has increased year by year.
One reason is that the wealthy have the ear of government. They are able to stir up fears of progressive policies. Remember the fuss around minimum pay? There was a dangerous combination of power and vested interests. An example might be farmers who have protested a lot recently concerning government plans to widen the scope of the capital gains tax. They own 40% of the land yet contribute only 0.6% to the national income.
Labour won a big majority in the recent general election yet how progressive are they in fact? The plain fact is that the Tories keep winning and have been in existence for 2 centuries. Labour had to water down their policies to enable them to win it was claimed. They had ‘caged themselves in’ it was said. Politicians played to the media. It was politicians who dominated the airwaves. Rory Stewart’s book was mentioned and his unsuccessful attempts to improve policy making.
Was it another example of media power. A handful of wealthy owned much of the print and online outlets and sites. Oligarchs were not known to be fans of progressive policies and their publications echoed that. It was claimed that the civil service were ‘not keeping up with the times’ and that ministers could not rely on the successful implementation of policies. A remark very similar to those made by the Prime Minister recently in his ‘managed decline’ speech. However, it was easy to blame the service someone said but were we clear about its value?
An anomaly was the court system which was clearly falling apart. People are waiting years for justice and cases are abandoned because of the lapse of time. The courts are there to protect the establishment yet they are failing. The judges are a powerful component of the elite yet they have not been able to improve matters.
Was tax an issue? People clearly want the NHS to be fixed, to get dental care and the potholes to be filled in but they do not want to pay higher taxes. Any politician saying ‘I will do these things but I’m going to put 2p on your income tax’ is unlikely to get voted in. The problem was that people who were already poor would resent paying more. The question was how to tackle the wealth issue and the idea of a maximum income. An aspect of this topic was that the wealthy do not use buses for example and therefore have little interest in their provision or efficiency. (Mrs Thatcher famously never used a bus). Cutting public spending was popular and the president of Argentina Javier Milei was quoted as being an enthusiastic cutter of public spending. (Argentina does have massive economic problems and one of the highest inflation rates in the world. Strange to think as an aside that the country was once tipped to become one of the wealthiest in the world. The name derives from the Spanish word for silver which was found in abundance by the colonists). Back to the plot …
‘The message of the rich is always in the ascendant’
We talk of ‘trickle down’ it was noted but what about ‘trickle up’? It was about the distribution of wealth. Currently, considerable wealth was in very few hands and much of it was invested or went overseas rather than spent. If wealth was better distributed then more of it would be spent thus increasing the size of the economy. Perhaps, sardonically, it was noted that ‘trickle down’ obeys the law of gravity whereas ‘trickle up’ requires a revolution. Well, maybe not so sardonic. The message of the rich is always in ascendant. The same speaker spoke favourably of Marxism.
The tax point was taken up and the fact that economics was not taught in schools – a point discussed at previous meetings. We needed a more literate society in these matters. There was a need for both economics and politics to be taught. The problem with the latter is that politicians were fearful of ‘lefty’ teachers indoctrinating children – a ghastly thought.
Scandinavia was mentioned as a society which was more egalitarian and where there was high levels of tax to pay for welfare. Finland was the country with the happiest citizens.
We got onto neoliberalism and the history of the project. It started in the University of Chicago with the ‘Chicago Boys’ and their first ‘experiment’ was Chile where a revolution was instigated by the CIA to oust President Allende and install President Pinochet. It was all about a small state, low taxes and free market ideas. The UK was next under Mrs Thatcher and it spread thence to the USA. The UK was little more than a vassal state to the US it was claimed yet it was something which seldom appeared in the media.
There was a brief diversion discussing Syria (Assad had been deposed this week and it was the main feature of news programmes).
Finally, the protests in Westminster by farmers protesting about CGT. It was noted that despite blocking chunks of the capital with tractors and disrupting traffic, no one was arrested. Contrast with climate protestors some of whom are in prison. Yet no outrage in the media about the disruption. Odd that. Who’s interests are being protected someone asked?
A concluding remark was to say that complex problems are reduced to binary issues. Then to demonise one part (immigrants for example or the ‘workshy’). We were left with the original question – where is the compelling narrative from progressive politics? This perhaps was a clue to the problem. Society is complex and the problems are complex also. Solutions had to be nuanced and were unlikely to be simple let alone able to fit the binary narrative. This made ‘selling’ them to the electorate challenging.
The second half debate was on prisons and the question was ‘Why do we go on locking up more and more people and for longer?’ Prisons, and prison overcrowding, are much in the news presently and the new government was forced to release many prisoners early to find space. Is sending people to prison a deterrent? Someone who visits prisons said research has shown that it doesn’t work. By this we meant that the recidivism rate was extremely high. Many came out with crime skills enhanced rather than reduced by better behaviour.
Politicians like Ken Clark and Rory Stewart were mentioned along with David Gauke and Lord Timpson all of whom in different ways have realised that the system is ‘broken’ and we cannot go on simply stuffing more and more people into already overcrowded gaols. Attempts to reform the system have quickly failed because of various prime minister’s fears of public reactions. This was summarised by the phrase ‘tough on crime’ and all politicians are nervous that any reform will dent their reputation for toughness. The public are fearful someone said (of criminals I assume they meant) and this was driving a lot of media hostility.
There were good ideas and Lord Timspon, the Minister of State for prisons, was a hopeful appointment. His firm appointed many ex-offenders in their shops we were reminded.
The current 2024 Reith lectures were mentioned as they discussed aspects of this problem and in particular the issue of evil. It was argued that therapy could change people. People have to want to see changes it was said (quoting Lord Timpson). Some US states – including some Republican ones – were adopting these principles. If the prevailing view however, was ‘lock ’em up’ then change was unlikely: actually, not ‘unlikely’, it won’t happen. If you dehumanise people in prisons (and many were infested and there were two prisoners in each cell in many cases), it was no surprise they came out worse.
We were fortunate to hear from someone who works with sex offenders coming out of prison. Most had made up their minds not to reoffend. Their work was to help them stay away from reoffending by offering them help and support. They would like some of the experiences fed back to influence policy. It was noted (and almost passed unnoticed) that this work was being done by volunteers. The inference being (I am suggesting) that this should be an organised programme of activity, not something that depends on a small charity which has to scramble for funds to survive. We were reminded that many in prison had emotional problems, were abused as children and literacy rates were low.
Perhaps we should try the Socratic method it was suggested. Ask the prisoners: is it doing you any good?
The discussion moved to causes. In a sense, imprisoning people is the end of the line of society breakdown. If inequality is rising and people are living in poverty there is a tendency to criminalise social conditions. We need to explore the underlying causes not endlessly talk about symptoms. If you reduced the ‘input stream’ as it was expressed, you reduced the ‘outputs’ of criminality.
There was a problem however. The discussion was focused on rational argument. The assumption being that by establishing facts and finding out what worked, policy could be changed for the better. As already noted, some ministers have tried this and come unstuck, as in sacked. Prison policy was fixed on emotional reactions and, as someone said, vengeance.
It was noted that when John Glen first became MP, he was asked about voting for prisoners in their final year or two of their sentence, say. He did not agree with this. David Cameron, the then Prime Minister, said ‘it made him sick’. It was subject to a long-standing row with the EU.
Finally, religion made its entrance and Old Testament beliefs. There was the doctrine of original sin although this was a late addition to the Christian faith. The Quakers were in the forefront of prison reform and the Methodists were active in the anti-slavery movement.
These were two good debates and it was interesting that a key element in both was the issue of how the media treated the various topics. Whether it was around how society is run or the reform of the prison system, if people are bombarded by negative attitudes, if argument is reduced to simplistic notions and the owners of newspapers and social media sites can exert such power, change will be difficult to achieve.
[Added 6 January 2025] On the question of tax, the following link was suggested https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/
Peter Curbishley
Next meeting on Saturday 11th January 2025. Seasons greetings to all our readers!
Latest posts:
Salisbury Democracy Alliance 
Leave a comment