Open Letter to a professor of Politics
Dear D. R.,
In your recent article in the London Review of Books, you raise some interesting topics but, to my mind, do not carry them far enough; do not resolve anything.
I rather like it that you are coyly frank about your own position as a critic of the conservative establishment. I hesitate to call you a ‘leftie’ as I would probably reject that label for myself, preferring to call myself a liberal-democratic-socialist (seeing the Liberal element as referring to a Lloyd George/Beveridge type of intelligent interference with the brutalities of the free market; the democratic element as an acknowledgement that on questions of morals everyman has an equal say; the socialist element as acknowledging my preference for society as ‘one big happy family'.)
You say that Constitutional Reform really matters, but I cannot see what reforms you are thinking of (apart from an elected upper house either to oppose or to rubber-stamp the lower house).
You rhetorically ask “who can put together a coalition of the disaffected capable of defeating [the present Tory government]?” Accepting your analysis, I would go further, and ask “Why does the ‘left’ appear fragmented, and unable to oppose the right?” Is it simply that the right is motivated by a single common interest — that of ‘Self’; while motivation on the left is more diverse; the intellectual Fabian element being altruistic, the Labour Left being rooted in the sectional interests of labour, while regional parties are preoccupied with their regional interests.
You mention a number of divides: metropolitan/rural, north/south, Scotland/England, old/young, Brexit/Bremain. Then go on to opine that the ‘First-Past-The-Post’ voting system will split any anti-Tory coalition long before it will split the Tory party. It seems empirically true, but again provokes the question ‘why’. Why was the Tory party not split on the question of Europe? It was split in the nineties, but this time round seems to be rallying to the flag.)
Then you come to an interestingly novel, if dispiriting, idea. Social Democracy, you suggest, is failing at the national level, right across Europe; but may survive at a subordinate level in city governments (London, Manchester, and possible abroad also; at the ‘metropolitan’ level as you call it.) Dispiriting, indeed.
Is it that the British people recognise, perhaps subconsciously, that there is more ‘ability for government’ in the Tory party than in the non-Tory opposition; more first-class degrees, six-figure salaries, barristers, stock-brokers and bankers? If this is a valid conclusion, two questions: why and what do we do? Was Labour’s Economic Advisory Committee pointing the way we should go?
Regarding Constitutional Reform, what can we suggest? Would proportional representation help? I have believed so for 60 years, but [a] it is clearly not coming soon, and [b] I am no longer convinced. It will not come until the non-Tories coalesce, it won’t help unless they coalesce, and it would be unnecessary if they did coalesce. I am currently more optimistic about what I call ‘weighted voting in the Commons’, where the mathematical strengths of the parties in the country are used to balance up the voting strengths of the MPs that accept party whips. Thus one Green MP might be worth 20 Tory MPs, etc. This scheme has several obvious merits (and doubtless some flaws).
The other ‘hope’ for the non-Tory voters would be a motivating idea so general (and motivating) as to match that giving coherence to the Tory party. Any candidate ideas? Perhaps grabbing the moral high-ground; doing the "Right Thing"; Justice, Equality, Honesty, etc.
Yours sincerely, Cawstein
——
Middleton Cheney,
BANBURY, Northamptonshire
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