Freedom matters

As a Liberal a belief in the importance of freedom has always been pretty central to my political philosophy.  There are many reasons why I dislike the authoritarian instincts of Conservatives or the meddlesome top-down approach of Labour but many of these come back to the central importance of freedom in the final analysis.

I’m not fundamentalist about it - freedom is not the only value in my universe - but without a large measure of both political and economic freedom we are all poorer – both literally and metaphorically.

So I naturally agree with a cry for freedom that reminds us that, 

The founding texts of the English Constitution – charter, petition, bill of rights – have one thing in common: they create nothing.  They assert old freedoms; they restore lost harmony.  In this they guided America’s Revolution, itself a codification of earlier colonial liberties.”

But herein lies a difficulty.  For the author is Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writing in the Telegraph of all places and the subject of his attack is the Lisbon Treaty which came into force earlier this week.   As he puts it,

Europe’s Constitution – the Lisbon Treaty, as we know it – began as a sort of Magna Carta.  EU leaders agreed at Laeken in 2001 that the Project needed restraining…   People do not want Europe inveigling its way into “every nook and cranny of life”, they said.  Needless to say, insiders hijacked the process …  The text says much about the heightened powers of EU bodies, but scarcely a word to restrain EU bailiffs and constables.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights … asserts that the EU has the authority to circumscribe all rights and freedoms…  In other words, our Magna Carta has been superceeded.

He concludes that in doing so the EU has crossed a subtle line and is no longer legitimate.  I agree.

And for my money that precipitates the EU into a crisis – but it is a crisis of ideas as well as of legitimacy as the Economist’s Charlemagne blog pointed out this week in a post headed “Europe: where are the big ideas?”   He quotes with approval Jacques Delors, the former European Commission boss,

“But we are not making any proposals … and to propose something, there has to be much more co-operation between us.  But no, everyone is in their own corner. Germany is run from Berlin, France has turned into “Greater France” and Britain is more and more anti-European…  If Europe does not take care, within ten years we will have a world run by two powers: the United States and China.”

He goes on to quote Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, president of the Socialist Group,

“The old democratic contract is broken. Globalization has taken sovereignty away from the nation state, leaving people vulnerable to forces outside their control. Europe is the only means to regain this lost sovereignty and to empower people once more. But if we do not act now, the danger we face is the withdrawal of democratic consent from the European project. It will happen slowly but surely if we do not change the way we do politics.”

 Perhaps the best summary comes from one of the comments (rewt66),

It seems to me that there are two Europes.

There is the Europe of the liberal democratic tradition, of the rule of law, of stable institutions, and of transparent and accountable government.

And then there is the EU, which essentially decided to force a constitution down the throats of those that didn’t like it. (“Ireland voted against? That’s unacceptable. They’ll just have to vote again. Nothing will be permitted to block this constitution – certainly nothing so trivial as a democratic vote!”) The EU creates a maze of bureaucracy (so much for transparency) and removes the decisions further from the people (making accountability harder).

It seems to me that the EU is, if not diametrically opposed to the best traditions of Europe, then at least not fully in keeping with them.

So what is going on?   In which direction does salvation lie?

The answer, I suggest is that we must rediscover our ancient freedoms and insist that the EU is remodelled to comply with them.  It means a Europe where power is clearly understood to be delegated upwards, not downwards and where bureaucrats are servants, not masters – in short a Europe where democracy (and hence legitimacy) is restored.

All of which is a little difficult for the Liberal Democrats.  In theory the party is fully subscribed to the idea that freedom should be a guiding principle, in practice the it is so clueless it has blundered into supporting the exact opposite.   Tragically, Nick Clegg and his coterie have not understood that there are different ideas about how Europe should work; instead of working up alternative proposals based around freedom and democracy they have naively swallowed the establishment party-line that ‘there is no alternative’ (shades of Margaret Thatcher) and, in limply surrendering to the establishment framing, they have lost the battle.

It has also left the Liberal Democrats in a terrible mess as a party that thinks it believes in freedom but actually promotes the opposite.  

We have by far the best and most trusted economic brain in Parliament at a time when that really matters, we regularly win local elections all round the country and the two big parties both looking utterly unconvincing;  yet despite all this we are nevertheless managing to flatline in the opinion polls?  Is there a connection between this lack of support at national level and our muddled message on freedom.  You Bet!   Not that it’s the only factor, but it’s certainly an important one and if we want to move forward and actually be a liberal party it’s one we have to resolve.

For one thing is certain; the ancien regime is dead – the political leadership is preoccupied with chasing poll ratings, the bureaucrats are consumed by office politics and the theologians have gone for the intellectual drivel that is neoclassical economics.   Do we, as a party, want to join the dead establishment or lead the revolution?   If the latter, we must lift our game but I see little evidence of this so far.

Stuck in a rut – but we can break free

Mark Thompson asks why we’re not doing better in the polls.   As he observes we are in the worst financial crisis in most people’s living memory, the government is deeply unpopular and out of ideas, politics itself is in crisis and politicians are seen as remote and untrustworthy;  yet for all this the Liberal Democrats are stuck at only around 20%, in the polls.  Clearly, something is very wrong.

The difficulty as I see it is that we have got stuck in a rut, winning a measure of success as a (largely) protest party, but with little idea of how to get out of the rut.  So, where are we going wrong and what do we need to change?  

There is so much one could say on this subject that I will confine myself for now to just two things that we should stop doing.    In a later post (or maybe posts) I will consider things we should do differently.

Firstly, we should stop complaining about the unfairness of the media and the voting system.   Of course they’re unfair (what do you expect?) but if we use that as an excuse it  becomes all too easy to stop right there and never get on with the things we can do.   If we had a coherent understanding of where the the country was at and what we would do about it, we would certainly get reported.  Vince Cable has shown that this works; unfortunately he is seen as a sage distinct from the wider party.  The conclusion is surely that developing a compelling narrative is a top priority; once this is done the ‘media problem’ will solve itself. 

Secondly, we should stop being so complacent.  After the last general election and yet another bad defeat, the Tories debated briefly what their strategy should be.  They all agreed (after debating in very much these terms) that it came down to a straight choice between (a) a radical reform of their platform, and (b) a ‘one more heave’ approach.   Almost without exception Conservatives from all wings of the party understood from the outset that the ‘one more heave’ strategy was, in fact, a hiding to nothing and that they had to change, distasteful as it might be to many.  The issue for the ensuing leadership debate was then what sort of change and, as we now know, that was won by Cameron.   His platform?  An superficially greener, more liberal interpretation of Conservatism based on an accurate perception of a gap in the market created by the weakness of the Liberal Democrats rather than on any ideological conviction.

Contrast this with the response of the Liberal Democrats;  we had no debate but just blithely assumed that, of course, it was back to ‘one more heave’;  it’s what Liberal Democrats do, it’s what we’ve always done.   In doing so we effectively surrendered any chance of winning the forthcoming election preferring instead to reheat and represent policies that voters had just rejected by a large margin.  Only now, belatedly, are we beginning that debate.  (Which makes me think that the election after 2010 might at last be the breakthrough). 

As Mark hypothesizes, this is the best chance we have had in decades.  It’s up to us whether we choose to throw it away or run with it.

After school – the black hole that swallows hope

The A-level results came out last week leaving many wondering about the significance of the 27th year running in which grades have increased and whether or not they still represent the ‘gold standard’ in school education etc.

These are perhaps interesting questions, but … are we missing the elephant in the room?  I think so.

The long-standing primary purpose of A-levels has been to act as university entrance exams common across the whole country.   Once upon a time that meant that they were designed to be attempted only by the 20%-25% most academically-gifted of the school-leaving cohort and ‘passed’ (in the sense of leading to university or polytechnic) by a tiny minority.   Thirty years ago this was around 10% but  it has risen erratically ever since.  When Tony Blair became Prime Minister he famously introduced a target of 50% and it now stands at about 43% with the government increasingly constrained by funding difficulties.

So, A-levels are still doing their primary job, albeit in a context changed almost out of recognition.   In doing so they provide a large MINORITY of school students with a clear goal for their school work.  Even though in one sense this applies only to those in the sixth form in reality the benefit of this clear goal riffles down into the middle school and even perhaps to primary.   I can still remember being distinctly bored by school aged around 14 but equally knowing that this was something I just had to get through because – well – because that was what one did on the way to getting A-levels, then to university and, in due course, getting a job. 

But … that leaves the MAJORITY of school students with no clear target for their school days.  It is a smaller majority than 30 years ago to be sure, but still a very substantial one.  For them there is a black hole instead of the comparative simplicity of A-levels.  What for them is the point of school?  It’s not entirely clear although (or perhaps because) generations of initiatives have left a bewildering array of options.  It’s a system that’s grown like topsy over the years; insiders may perhaps understand it but for ordinary mortals it’s far too complicated.

On last Thursday’s BBC R4 ‘Today’ program (the relevant bit starts 5 minutes in) Evan Davis put this very point to Higher Education Minister David Lammy, “It’s quite a complicated [system] isn’t it now.  We have A-levels and we have all these other things – everything from HNDs, NVQs, BTEC, City & Guilds….  When you got to the Department did anyone sit down and try and explain it all to you… ?”  and a little later, “…we seem to introduce one [a new qualification] every Parliament and never get rid of the old ones…”

The Minister did the normal political thing of answering another question so Evan came back with the thought behind his earlier question (at 7 mins in), “But you’re comfortable with the system?   It doesn’t need tidying up or anything?   It’s a logical and neat system?“  Again, the answer was to a different question leaving Evan to wrap-up by joking that, “We could introduce an exam in the different qualifications“

At this point I must declare an interest – or perhaps a prejudice – that dates back to my first job.  Head office imposed on our manual staff a bonus system of byzantine complexity that had been developed in another Division.   With our very different circumstances it was quite mad and led to perverse and illogical results, but worst of all, it was understood by almost no-one, and certainly not by the staff it applied to.   With the link between effort and reward no longer clear and transparent output slumped and cost soared.  Since then I have been a devotee of the KISS principle so I think Evan was right on the money when he implied that it’s not a logical and neat system and suggested that a tidy up is needed.  Make that a total overhaul.   The ‘system’  for those not aspiring to go to university is not, in fact, a coherent system at all, but merely the residue of failed initiatives accumulated over many years.   

Both the individuals concerned and the wider economy suffer terrible damage from this wholly unsatisfactory approach.

Although I’m sure all the civil servants and ministers at the DCSF would hotly deny it, the reality is that young people are treated as statistical objects, gaming counters to be manoeuvred into desirable outcomes.   It is, of course, the archetypal producer-push approach that invariably fails in other sectors as it is failing here.   Moreover, the education establishment in Whitehall (and the education industry in the country) has a one-eyed view of education that sees ’academic’ as good and anything else as ‘failure’.   The ‘failures’ are treated just like the sports ‘left-overs’ at my old school - the not-very-sporty ones who would never play for the school football team.  Staff went through the motions because it was timetabled and they were paid but that was it; no passion, no energy, no inventiveness and certainly no attempt to discover the hidden talents that certainly abounded outside of  football. 

For the individuals concerned the damage was highlighted this report last week of the youth drop-out rate hitting new highs.  It seems that a shocking 1 in 6 or 835,000  18 to 24 year-olds are now NEETS (Not in Education, Employment or Training) after rising by 100,000 over the last year.   At this rate it will soon be 1 in 3 of those not likely to go to university.   But there is worse – recent research looking back at those who were NEETS 10 years ago discovered that 15% had already died.   Even if that figure proves to be very much less going forward, the human cost will still be incalculable.

Is it possible to overstate just how obscene this is?   I don’t think so, and that’s even before considering the economic costs to the nation which is immense as  young people who should be contributing socially and financially are reduced to dysfunctional overheads.

The establishment’s inability to comprehend the importance of vocational skills and do something about it is a traditional failing of the British political system - there has been a black hole at the centre of our economy since the industrial revolution.   As early as 1835 Richard Cobden wrote after a visit to America that “our only chance of national prosperity lies in the timely re-modelling of our system, so as to put it as nearly as possible on an equality with the improved management of the Americans.”   Then again just after the Great Exhibition of 1851 the scientist and Liberal politician Lyon Playfair observed that  European industry was bound to overtake Britain if she failed to alter her outlook and methods.  In 1882-84 the Samuelson Royal Commission on Technical Instruction visited many continental countries and reported, inter alia,  that “The one point in which Germany is overwhelmingly superior to England is its schools, and in the education of all classes of its people … the dense ignorance so common among workmen in England is unknown …”  (my emphasis).   In 1942 the Permanent Secretary to the English Board of Education noted that over a wide range of German industries there was  100% vocational training as against 10% for the UK.   (Sourced from Corelli Barnett’s ‘Audit of War’ ).

The educational establishment may be all at sea over non-academic alternatives but parents are not.  As the BBC reported only last week, “The majority of parents (90%) believe schools should teach vocational and practical courses, as well as academic subjects ...” and that, “…78% thought schools did not equip young people adequately for the world of work“.  Wow!   That’s way off the usual scale of political consensus.   The difficulty here is not parents or employers but the political establishment;  the Westminster Village (and I mean ALL parties) just DOES NOT GET IT any more now than it ever did.   Time and again unflattering comparisons have been drawn (the above are only a small selection) and yet invariably the establishment response has been either to ignore the evidence or, at best, to tinker round the edges.  When panics periodically erupt in response to the manifest system failure, the Westminster Village responds in the only ways it knows – by stretching traditional definitions of  ’academic’ to breaking point, by loudly announcing  ’initiatives’ and by throwing money at the problem in the hope that some will stick and that public disquiet will be appeased by evidence of action.

Sadly, the Liberal Democrats are not immune from this sort of failed thinking.  For instance in Policy Paper 92 “Thriving in a Globalised World - A Strategy for Britain” (pdf) (circulated recently with the Conference agenda) the section on “Improving skills” kicks off by waffling about the changes globalisation has brought to cross-border working patterns (paragraph 2.1.1 et seq.), goes on to discuss statistical changes to demand for unskilled labour and the difficulty of competing on wages with workers from the new EU accession states before making a raft of detailed policy proposals.  Some (not all) are fine, but taken as a whole they reflect a top-down approach, amount to yet more tinkering round the edges and simply don’t do the business.  

This needs to change.  Specifically Liberal Democrats should make a total rethink a top priority with a view to making a proper system a major plank of our platform at the next election.  After all, it might prove popular with the 90% of parents who already agree with this view!   And that’s not to mention employers and the rest who understand perfectly well that the existing system is badly broken.

Which just leaves one final thought:  a ‘proper’ system of practical and vocational training would probably be far cheaper and would definitely be far more cost-effective than what we have now so the financial case points us in the same direction.