17 June 2021
All Together Now
by J.R. Thomas
There is little sign of original thinking in the Conservative Party nowadays. The message seems to be “…and repeat”, as the government comes up with old ideas again and again, or no ideas at all. Though one cannot help admire the sheer gobblydegook of a policy which will allow increased numbers of guests at a wedding reception, on the basis that there is to be “no dancing”. That must be setting Chief Constables an agony of enforcement issues. What, for instance, is “dancing” in this context? Your correspondent can move his legs to a simple rhythm, but not, at the same time, his arms or hands; and nobody has ever been kind enough to consider these odd movements dancing. But would a police officer? May the bride and groom at least walk round the floor, swaying to music? Mid seventeenth century puritans would be in agony of definitions as to such potentially louche behaviour. In a general female pursuit when the bouquet is flung, might that be thought “dancing” by Levellerish police officers? If some guests are dancing and others not, should the police prosecute all present or just those who move their hips? What about those couples where the lady dances and the gentleman merely smiles from a standing position?
No, this won’t do as an example of imaginative and original government, even in the time of covid. And if the cabinet cannot start to come up with something more appealing, Tory voters may start to look at the Labour offer. Not much at the moment, it is true.. Sir Keir is having a bad time with serious losses in the May elections, no longer able to call Hartlepool his own, his deputy refusing to be blamed or be sacked, and a policy on almost everything which seems to be Me-Too, But With Mustard.
But do not underate the Starmer leadership. Sir K is still trying to consolidate his grip on his argumentative party, but the signs are that he may succeed. What he must be most hoping for is that Mr Corbyn and his Corbynistas will finally flounce off, at which point Labour can claim to have returned to its more moderate roots and recapture some of those voters that it lost anciently to the LibDems and more recently to the Tories.
Never mind lost Momentum feet in the street, loss of activists matters little. Knocking on doors and intense leafletting really is not needed in the electronic age, as Dominic Cummings can confirm. Indeed, for a fee he might well be prepared to show how digital campaigning is done. But voters matter still, and any political party with a reasonable chance of success has somehow to capture their imaginations, or at least offer them bribes in reasonably subtle ways. Expect the Starmerites to emerge in the next couple of years with a range of policies which excite at least a measure of admiration, particularly aimed at the Red Wall. Boris may have demolished it but the building materials are still lying around, ready for reconstruction. Keir is a bright lad, knows his party history well, and is at heart in tune with what typical Labour voters might go for. He is a lawyer and good on detail; his 2024 manifesto will be carefully crafted and well thought-out, and contain attractive cakes and ales.
Which brings us back to the Tories. Disraeli in 1872 compared Gladstone’s Ministry to “a range of exhausted volcanoes”, and any Labour front bencher could with justice repeat the jibe at Boris’s team. The population overall tends to approve the reduction in the foreign aid budget, but it is not exactly the basis for broad electoral appeal. Tax will have to go up and Mr Sunak is subtle enough to hide the effects of that in the short term , but nobody can in the long term. Likewise, green programmes do not hurt much today, but they will tomorrow, as the price of electricity continues to climb, the countryside becomes industrialised by wind turbines. Car prices will rocket as carbon fuel versions are banned in nine years time; public transport may have money poured into reopening what Beeching closed, but has lost its appeal for the time being at least
Readers living outside Belgravia will note little in this programme for poor and hard working families living in northern towns. We all admire the speed of the vaccination programme, but, alas, that will soon be forgotten and the stumbling bizarre restrictions on personal liberty will be remembered as just that (however terrified we were in April 2020). But there is something that the government, or at least some bright Tory thinkers, could draw out and polish as part of a programme to win that unprecedented fifth term. Vaccination programmes worked because they were inspired by, and mostly run by, persons from private enterprise. So was the development of the vaccines, very much a case of private enterprise rising to a challenge, and let’s face it, seeing an opportunity for profit.
So, Boris, capture the spirit of free enterprise, with new ideas. Not so much capitalism, a naughty word now. Free enterprise. Start your own business. No need to commute to the office, to be scolded by distant bosses, to see the fruits of your hard work eaten in the board room or paid away to lord knows where. Set up your own business. And you do not have to be alone. Get together with mates. Start a cooperative. Of course, they are not a new idea. Like the sadly vanished mutuals in savings and banking, they are a very old idea, but one whose time should come again. For the Conservatives, backing the concepts of cooperatives would be something very original and kick the ground right away from under Sir Keir’s feet. Modernise the law, polish to the advantage of participants the tax treatment, get some great minds working on modern ways of managing such structures.
The John Lewis Partnership is just that, a partnership; and a very successful one until it lost its way under a succession of chiefs who seemed to find their partners a nuisance rather than potential diamonds to be polished. Come along, Dame Sharon White – capture that unique magic and rebuild the partnership ethos. The Cooperative movement itself was undermined by bizarre forays into financial services, but is still a strong food and funeral retail brand (cradle to grave indeed) in the North. The red wall voters know what a co-op is and what it does. So how about railway franchises as cooperatives, insurers (NFU Mutual is one of the best insurers). Why not car dealers and garden centres? And such an obvious one – farmers. Nothing new there; most small French and German farmers work through cooperatives in selling their produce, in converting their raw materials into retail ready, and in machinery and storage. Farmers indeed are uniquely well suited to such structures – lots of small independents in geographically far flung locations are no match for a few vast retail chains, bakers and dairies. Get it together lads and lasses, reduce costs by sharing capital equipment, and develop your own brands to give retail strength.
Cooperatives fit perfectly with the traditional Conservative ethos of supporting private enterprise. They have a long history of appeal to working people. Modern technology makes creating and running them much easier. And how brilliant to steal that old Labour northern appellation of M.P’s standing as Labour Cooperative, to a C21st “Conservative and Cooperative Party”. Ring Mr Cummings somebody, three months of that brain on the concept and it will be a winner.
Tile photo: Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash
