A republic at any price?

Seen the Republic website? It's a strange campaign, working to "support a republican constitution in place of the monarchy". But what kind of republic?

It seems that for the folk at Republic anything will do. They say that after a successful campaign to replace the monarch with an elected head of state they will "facilitate a debate on the best model for a future republic" - but only AFTER?

The problem with Republic - and the reason that even as quintessential Roundhead I can't support their campaign - is that they seem to want to end the monarchy at any cost. Even at the cost of a unchecked Presidency that allows dictatorship to grow in its midst? Even if the reserved Presidential emergency powers allow immediate and unconditional suspension of the constitution? Even at the cost of forced coalitions to avoid Presidential intervention?

We need a grown up political dialogue in this country which isn't about not liking the Civil List, Prince Andrew's views on helicopter usage or Prince Charles' views on architecture as a reason for preferring a republic, but a solid case for a TYPE of republic that suits us. Not a borrowed form (whether American or European) but one that is made for the UK. Surely that is not beyond us?

The liberal prescription

How do you get out of a recession? Well, first - as Keynes taught us all if we had the wit to notice - you can't expect to do more than stimulate recovery, possibly at the cost of inflation. The liberal prescription for a recession ought to be, modestly, along the same lines. Whilst Gordon 'Batman' Brown claims he is saving the planet, liberals should be saving our sanity and hope by making it clear that old fashioned deep recessions like this (not the stagflation of the 1980s) are not easily remedied by fiscal or monetary policy alone - that governments can stimulate but can't cure, even if confidence in the financial system were miraculously restored. Liberals know that recessions require a mix of policies, to protect the most vulnerable on the one hand from the effects and to stimulate a macroeconomic response on the other. In this recession, a truly liberal response is to claim less, hope more. We don't only have to fear fear itself, we have to fear the mad machine politics of the Tories and Labour for whom the prescription is driven more by polls than by reason.

Keynes is back!

It seems to be an age ago that we could mention the name of John Maynard Keynes without howls of derision. Now, though, Keynes - a liberal intelligence of the highest order - appears to be back in fashion. If you don't believe me, have a look at the New Stateman for this week in which, with extraordinary zeal, the likes of Noreena Hertz claim him for their own.

Now, I don't know about you but as one of those for whom the bankruptcy of monetarism, then supply-side economics, then neo-liberal market economics and (that famous phase) 'post-neoclassical endogenous growth theory' came and went as so much froth and fluff, I am glad that the old boy is due for a serious examination again. But it should be a serious and sensitive rehabilitation - not a 'hero-fest' for socialists.

Let's be clear. Keynesianism (or the moderated neo-Keynesianism of the late eighties) isn't for softies. It is for real, thoughtful and purposeful liberals. Socialists beware. There are no easy rules for state management of recessions, and intervention is not - genuinely not - the simple prescription anywhere in Keynes. Keynes was, and remains, a difficult - sometimes even an unpalatable - thinker and that great trinity of works (The Treatise, the General Theory and How to Pay for the War) evolves an approach to economic analysis that is subtle and powerful.

What he did not offer was the sort of simple panaceas that Labour politicians seem to want and socialist commentators insistently believe are at least palliative in effect (never enough for them of course, but a means of mollifying the voters that usually eject Labour when recessions strike).


What he did offer was a thoroughgoing analysis of how, by concerted action allied to confident and assertive government leadership in the face of business apathy and loss of confidence, an economy like our own could be coaxed back to health.

Keynes knew that his prescription would allow capitalist economies to retain their liberal freedoms, but that other (similar but by no means identical) prescriptions - from the authoritarian left and right - were available. In the General Theory he wrote:

"The authoritarian state systems of to-day seem to solve the problem of unemployment at the expense of efficiency and of freedom. It is certain that the world will not much longer tolerate the unemployment which, apart from brief intervals of excitement, is associated - and, in my opinion, inevitably associated - with present-day capitalistic individualism. But it may be possible by a right analysis of the problem to cure the disease whilst preserving efficiency and freedom."

Keynes saved liberals the fate of sinking with the classical system that demanded constraints on the demand side of the economy in a recession, but more than that he outlined an economic liberalism that is still relevant today.

Oh, and if Mervyn King happens to read this, he also said - as Mervyn will know - "a decline in the rate of interest will be a great aid to recovery and, probably, a necessary condition of it". Go to it, Mervyn!

News coverage and recessions

The BBC is at it again. Cataclysmic economic disaster is just around the corner, the soup kitchens will be open this weekend and sales of Down and Out in London and Paris are set to skyrocket...

News broadcasters are insensitive - or, more worryingly, hypersensitive and very, very aware -to the power they exercise over the fate of the economy during recessionary episodes. Research seems to suggest that news plays an important effect in actually shaping our economic behaviour - and it is an effect more pronounced in periods of recession than in periods of prosperity or boom. Two studies worth reading are this one by Goidel and Langley from 1995 and this one by Wu et al. Both analyse the impact of news during the recessions of the 1990s. Both conclude that the reporting of 'bad' economic news has an effect, and that it can exacerbate behaviour, which must include 'dis-saving' (as Keynesians used to call it) and putting off purchases.

What does this mean for the BBC? Well, it must mean that this great public service institution is currently doing all of us a tremendous disservice. It is actually stoking the recession gleefully. Interviews during news bulletins today have included 'vox pops' insisting that a largely bemused public shares stories of 'how the downturn has affected them this lunchtime'. Not only is this editorially silly, it is potentially damaging.

Yes, the economy is faltering. Jobs will be lost. Businesses will go to the wall. But this is a cyclical phenomenon we have lived with for centuries. That, of course, is the BBC's argument - they proclaim that they are holding a mirror up to nature, not shaping it.

My point is that, with evidence showing so strongly the very real effect of news coverage in exacerbating the recession, should they take the risk?

Or are ratings worth that much to the BBC?

Lembit for Party President?!?

Like thousands of others, I have received an email from Lembit Opik soliciting my vote for the position of President of the Liberal Democrats. I have to say almost the first line put me off voting for him: "I have always believed the Party President is the ideal job for me", he writes, as if that is a recommendation. Hmmmm. Modesty? Evidence of fitness? Strategy? No, just vote for me to make me happy. Encouraging, isn't it?

No, spelled with a 'B'...

Bankers. Don't you just love 'em? Not content with creating a crisis in their own industry by mispricing risk on doubtful derivative instruments and accumulating them to the point of near destruction, they have the temerity to wonder whether the taxpayer is 'doing enough' to bail them out of the mess. Moreover, after a helpful and well coordinated move by the central banks to cut interest rates as an assistance to them - not taxpayers and savers, by the way - they have the further effrontery to say that they 'might not pass the benefit on' to mortgage borrowers. Yet more indifference to the rest of us comes from the 'shock' that the governments of the western world are apparently not saving all of their banking bretheren, and are not quite prepared to back the hunch that interbank lending might get going again with borrowed cash and taxpayers' money to the tune of 1.5 times GDP.

Can we get this right for once? Banks are the servants of our economy, not the masters of it. The government has to assert the basic principle - which voters have now clearly realised and politicians should quickly understand - that our finance system is too important, should be made less important, and should be placed in the hands of people with common sense. Spivs, self-regarding quants and 'masters of the universe' need not apply this time.

As winter comes on, and pensioners on low incomes face hypothermia again, bankers railing at the rest of us for our 'indifference' will be an affront.

Still on the Chartist list...

Liberals will be cheering and supporting the continuing attempts by MPs of all parties, and others, to institute fixed term parliaments, but what about the old Chartist demand for annual parliaments? Of course the case for annual parliaments was made much earlier than the Chartist movement of the 1840s, but while four of the six points of the People's Charter were achieved in the last century (I'd argue that we've not really achieved 'equal constituencies, however fleetfooted the Boundary Commission may be) there is still that one glaring omission - annual parliaments.

Now you could argue that the fact of party politics, and the party nature of government, would make annual elections impossible. Every election would produce, potentially, a different government and, well, that would be awkward. Continuity of policy...long-range strategy...time to achieve our objectives. But that's all a bit like saying that you can't have the sweets you want from a pick and mix stall because the paper bag is the wrong colour.

We could have annual parliaments, easily. We could insist on parties putting up all seats for reelection annually, while retaining the present government unless a clear majority was obtained by another party. Would annual parliaments, though, have any advantages?

Well the old Chartist argument was that it would be a "check to bribery and intimidation" at a time when the rotten boroughs of England were notorious and many remained unaffected in that way by the 1832 Act. That wouldn't be an argument for establishing them today though.

I'd argue that there may be - just maybe - a couple of good solid arguments for annual parliaments worth considering:

(i) annual parliaments would make it impossible for the electorate to ignore politics; they'd have to become involved since voting would be an annual event.

(ii) it would, paradoxically, give rise to more stability in the political process. Knowing the proximity of an election, MPs would be more dutiful, governments more careful and voters more aware of change.

In all of this I am being only half serious. After all, the thought of David Dimbleby Election programmes annually is too much. Besides which, annual canvassing....?

Obama liberalism

Is Senator Obama a liberal?

At first blush this may sound like a question with a strightforward answer - of course he is a liberal, he believes in fairness, social justice, personal freedom, the responsibility of communities for their members and of their members for the community. He is, most people, would say, very much a liberal. No question.

Hold on, though. His acceptance speech at the Democractic convention, filled though it was with references to plans for changes in taxation, social security and public spending was light, nonetheless, on clearly liberal values. Instead Senator Obama talked the tactical talk of a man seeking office and keenly aware that he needs to attract those for whom the word 'liberal' makes them slightly uneasy.

So he said thigs like this:

"We [Democrats] measure progress by how many people can find a job that pays the mortgage; whether you can put a little extra money away at the end of each month so you can someday watch your child receive her college diploma."

and this:

"We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have or the profits of the Fortune 500, but by whether someone with a good idea can take a risk and start a new business, or whether the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off to look after a sick kid without losing her job - an economy that honours the dignity of work."

This is ameliorative liberalism. It says that the liberal values of a secure and thriving society that matter are those that make middle class voters vote for this candidate.

Now, I hope that President Obama wins the election in November. The alternative is not a pleasant one for the world, let alone the people of the United States. Let's pause, though, and wait to hear more from Senator Obama before we take the tactical talk of a salesman for the genuine article. He may turn out to be a credible liberal; it is, paradoxially for a man so often feted as one, much too soon to tell.

One in three!

One in three young people, according to a survey by the Prince's Trust reported here, "do not think of their own parents as people they respect". I can't say I have ever been more moved by a single statistic about the attitudes of young people. Now we could become very Daily Mail about this and call for measures to make them show respect (National Service/ prison-meaning-prison/ 'make them clean it up' etc - choose your own favourite), but the essence of the problem is surely to do with a rootlessness of mind that is now endemic in whole generations - and not just young people.

This 'rootlessness' is now particularly strong among the young. Many of them lack confidence in themselves in this society, and express that lack of confidence in aggression and a bigger, more showy, version of teenage arrogance. This is the teenage arrogance that thinks nothing of shootings in supermarkets, the teenage arrogance that thinks nothing of robbing single pensioners at knife point, the kind of teenage arrogance that regards authority of any kind as being not protective of common interests but necessarily antithetical to your own.

How do we deal with it? It is easy to decide on solutions, and Lib Dems are announcing some of their own at the moment (see here), but solutions to youth violence are not the same as solutions to the deeper, more pervasive, rootless inaction and fatalism that grips the Jeremy Kyle generations. This isn't (for the Marxians among you) alienation since alienation is a conscious and active rejection of a social order; this is a strange mix of separateness and a dependency that leaves mothers at once indifferent to their childrens' violence, afraid of it, yet clinging to state solutions for both the violence and their separation from 'grown up' living.

No amount of brave talk about 'zero tolerance' on the one hand or "understanding the roots of young peoples' alienation" on the other will help. We need to tackle the much more grave problem of the generations of people - grandparents, parents, kids - who no longer think of themselves as influential in their own lives.

Richard Hofstadter

Wednesday sees the anniversary of the birth in 1916 of Richard Hoftstadter, American historian and thinker who, perhaps more than many others, gave shape to the liberal centerist critique of American affluence and its politics in the post-war world. Brilliant and engaging, his writing on a wide variety of themes (party politics, radicalism, political paranoia and populism, academic freedom and social darwinism to name a few) influenced a generation shaped by totalitarian conflict on the one hand and political conceit and self-satisfaction on the other.

I first read him in my teens and thought the pure unfussy cadences of the American east coast made him approachable, easy to read and engaging. After years away from the books I happened to dip into my two favourite the other day (The Paranoid Style in American Politics(1965) and Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1963)), and my view of him has changed, slightly.

Let me explain. Yes those easy cadences were still there and yes the essays in Paranoid Style were as engaging and interesting as ever. But 'easy to read'? Perhaps not quite. Now I don't mean by that that the style or the substance was difficult. Rather, that more than 40 years after they were written these books provide an eerie echo of an era (the 1960s) straddling the uneasiness of a Cold war world and the burgeoning hope for a better future - an era in which politicians could hope to win elections by pure, unadulterated populism, from the cynical right and the calculating left. Hoftadter showed, possibly more acutely than any other historian of American thought, just how close to the surface of democratic life are the impulses to punish the non-conforming, to deny reason in order to hijack voters' anger, and to divide in order to rule. Democracy can hurt when it embraces populism, and it is uncomfortable to see just how.

In Anti-intellectualism in American Life, perhaps the most challenging argument of the two, Hofstadter showed that Americans had become used to denying the force of special knowledge, expertise and know-how. It wasn't just that intellectuals had been regarded since colonial times as dangerous but anyone setting themselves apart from a created orthodoxy or a manufactured populist concensus was deemed to be 'un-American'. Hence - and it hardly needed to be pointed out to readers - the vitriol of McCarthyism but also the hatred of the technocrat among many on the left.

Hofstadter only on rarely touched on the roots of anti-intellectualism and populism in Britain. but is it too far fetched to believe that he would have found - in the resurgence of the New Right from the 1970s, in the populism of Blair and Brown - the very same forces that shaped the condemnatory and heckling politics of the US for generations?

And is Barack Obama, perhaps, an antidote for liberals?

Future generations

I have been reading Nigel Lawson's rather strange book on global warming, An Appeal to Reason: a cool look at global warming and his even more curious dialogue with Oliver Letwin in the July edition of Standpoint magazine. Both pieces by Lawson are impassioned and at times intemperate (appropriately), but aside from that does he say anything that - policy differences aside - a liberal ought to pause over? Certainly the book has huge weaknesses (much for example depends upon his analysis of surface climate data for the first 8 years of the current century as an 'eccentricity' that cannot be explained by global warming theorists, while ignoring the fact that the data he uses has since been re-based by the Hadley Centre to give a more accurate picture of what's actually happening to our climate).

But there is one key point that ought to strike a chord with most liberals and it is about that old chesnut of intertemporal choice. (By the way, Lawson's discussion of it is has technical errors in presenting the economics of discounting future costs, but let's put that aside since it doesn't materially affect the value of the point he is making).

The question that I think most liberals would pause over is the extent to which we would choose to benefit future generations at the expense of our own. Is it, as Lawson says, largely a matter of moral choice rather than economics? I think he has a point.

Liberals like me are often too fond of arguing that future generations need to be endowed with some benefit by our forgoing some pleasure now and that this is a matter determined by some external necessity. 'Gosh,' we say, 'we must protect our granchildren from the prospect of not having X, the loss of which must surely be greater than the pain we'll suffer from not having it today'. It's a pure utilitarian argument, and there is nothing wrong with it.

What Lawson says, quite rightly in my view, is that liberals deceive themselves if they think that the liberal calculus isn't a moral preference rather than some abstract economic one. If we do want to preserve something for our grandchildren at the expense of ourselves that is a moral decision; but if we want to preserve something for our grandchildren at the expense of our children that is also an (albeit different) moral decision.

The question he quire rightly puts is, who has the right to make that scale of moral decision?

Can governments elected for four years ever be in a position to do it? What alternatives are there that are democratic? And how do we entrench the moral decisions of one generation with regard to the life chances of future remote generations as generational moral choices and not just the arbitrary decisions of one government to be overturned by another?