Do Something About It

www.DoSomethingAboutIt.org.uk

I'm sorry but is this an apology?

Within the last few days, both David Cameron and Gordon Brown have made apologetic noises in the press. Have they gone far enough? Or should we continue campaigning?

David Cameron

On Friday 13 March, David Cameron delivered a speech that was billed as an apology of sorts by the Telegraph. But was his apology what we were looking for? You can judge for yourself by reading the whole speech here.

The 'apologetic' passage was: 'if we're honest, we must also recognise that some of our economic difficulties today relate not only to what has happened in the last ten years, but also to certain fundamental weaknesses that have been there for decades'. There is no explicit recognition of Conservative responsibility for the atrophy of industry that began in the 1980s, no explicit apology for the free market philosophy that underpinned it. While Cameron is correct to point out that 'in the last decade, the Labour government abandoned manufacturing - letting it lose over a million jobs - in favour of financial services and housing', that's not quite the whole story:

Despite believing that 'we just don't have the regional economies, the skilled workforce or the different industries and markets to fall back on and drive us through this recession', Cameron nevertheless refuses to do anything about it, once again renouncing fiscal stimulus and claiming 'Britain can't afford to do very much'. This is not strictly true. Although the bail-out of the banks has burdened future generations with colossal levels of debt, further public spending would be no bad thing provided the extra liability incurred improves our overall ability to repay. Conversely, if foregoing fiscal expansion means mass unemployment, economic stagnation and social unrest, we will be hard-pressed to meet our existing obligations. Yet that seems to be precisely the scenario that Cameron is predicting.

Gordon Brown

In an interview with the Guardian on Tuesday 17 March, Gordon Brown makes his own pseudo-apology: 'I take full responsibility for all my actions, but I think we're dealing with a bigger problem that is global in nature, as well as national. Perhaps 10 years ago after the Asian crisis when other countries thought these problems would go away, we should have been tougher'. There's no mention in that article, or its companion piece, of the UK's unique difficulties, and New Labour's failure to address Britain's unhealthy dependence on the financial services sector, spiralling levels of household debt, and extreme disparities between the richest and the rest. But Brown apparently 'refuses to rule out a further British economic stimulus in the April budget', and does admit that 'laissez-faire has had its day. People on the centre-left and the progressive agenda should be confident enough to say that the old idea that markets were by definition efficient and could work things out themselves is gone. That doesn't mean to say that what government does is always right.'

Summary

Neither statement is particularly satisfying, though Brown's proposals are slightly closer to the agenda that DoSomethingAboutIt.org.uk advocates. Is that enough? No. And it doesn't have to be. The next election need not be a two-horse race. Although there are, in some constituencies, Labour and Conservative candidates who are more progressive than their party leaders, there are also many progressive Lib Dem candidates, Green candidates, SNP, Plaid Cymru and independent candidates, all of whom could be electorally viable - provided progressives coordinate their votes and pool their energies, constituency by constituency. That's why we have to do something about it.

NOD, 17 March 2009

Leave a Comment

Of course the politicians have to sneak in some face saving bullshit in their apologies, but still, to get both leaders up there was quite a result. I wouldn't waste time bellyaching over whether the apologies were unconditional or sincere enough. We now know we are being taken seriously so lets try and push for one of our other policies.

-Ben Wilson

I agree with Ben Wilson. To get the headline "David Cameron apologises ..." was significant, never mind too much about the details. New Labour is deservedly in difficulty, but it's important not to let the Conservatives make political capital from that because we know (as described above) that their policies would make things worse. We need an alternative to both.

-Chris Main

I think it's important not to let them off the hook, since these apologies amount to "okay, I SUPPOSE I could have done this better... but everyone else did it wrong too!" The second we say "well at least they've made apologetic noises", then they'll just forget about it. They need to be shown that we can't just be brushed aside with an insincere comment anymore. But even if these had been real apologies, what we're really after is for them to SHOW they're sorry with actions, not words. Brown says the thinking that markets are no longer assumed to be more efficient, yet there is no word of PFI and PPP being shelved in favour of keeping things public, and I don't recall reading an announcement that the plans to privatise parts of Royal Mail have been dumped.

-Douglas Daniel

That should be "Brown says that markets are no longer assumed to be more efficient", obviously.

-Douglas Daniel

Any apology from a politician is effectively worthless. The only accountability they understand is the ballot box. Kicking them out of their cushy numbers, especially ministers, is the wake up call they will understand. We need a root and branch reform of how we are served by our governments as they seem to have forgotten that they were elected to serve, not to govern.

-Craig Cartmell

I agree with Craig Cartmell. Kicking all these politicians out of Westminster is the only real lesson they will understand. That's what Do Something About It should really be about - a campaign to kick the whole lot out of Westminster. Ultimately, the buck stops with them. Now that's a campaign a large section of the electorate would be happy to get involved in!

-Martin Smith


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