I first read Tangled Up in Blue in October of last
year after the author, councillor and journalist Rowenna Davis, handed me a
copy at an event in my home Constituency Labour Party in Bermondsey & Old Southwark.
However, it is always worth a reread. Also speaking was Lord (Maurice) Glasman,
founder of the Blue Labour movement and the book’s subject. I was aware of
Glasman and Blue Labour, chiefly for some of their controversies, but never
fully understood either until I read Tangled
Up in Blue, which turned me into a supporter of Glasman’s
fresh brand of Labourism. The book was released in 2011, before Ed Miliband’s rebranding
of Blue Labour principles under the new label of One Nation, but it offers an
unparalleled insight into what this is all about.
The book is a great read - engagingly written and incredibly well researched. Davis goes deep into the intriguing details of Glasman’s personal history and his relationships with Labour, Gordon Brown and both Milibands and provides, as one reviewer put it, “a straightforward profile of a confusing man”. She reveals how Glasman influenced key events of the past few years in ways I had never known – in the 2010 election, he wrote Brown’s much-acclaimed Citizens UK speech and persuaded Brown to give it, despite the prime minister being reticent right up to the last minute. He put the Living Wage at the heart of the national agenda, forged relationships with both Miliband brothers during the tense months of the leadership battle and inspired David Miliband to set up Movement for Change, which David then kept his devotion to long after the contest was over.
The book is a great read - engagingly written and incredibly well researched. Davis goes deep into the intriguing details of Glasman’s personal history and his relationships with Labour, Gordon Brown and both Milibands and provides, as one reviewer put it, “a straightforward profile of a confusing man”. She reveals how Glasman influenced key events of the past few years in ways I had never known – in the 2010 election, he wrote Brown’s much-acclaimed Citizens UK speech and persuaded Brown to give it, despite the prime minister being reticent right up to the last minute. He put the Living Wage at the heart of the national agenda, forged relationships with both Miliband brothers during the tense months of the leadership battle and inspired David Miliband to set up Movement for Change, which David then kept his devotion to long after the contest was over.
It explores some of the other figures at the heart of Blue Labour, some of whom I had known (Jon Cruddas, James Purnell) but others I had known little of prior to reading (Duncan Weldon, Marc Stears, Jonathan Rutherford and so on). Davis also charts the sometimes tumultuous journey faced by the movement, including the unfortunate EDL and immigration outbursts by Glasman that warped the perceptions of so many about the idea, including my own before I read Tangled I must admit. Here, Davis’s explanations were particularly key. For example, although I still disagreed with Glasman’s call to embrace the EDL, the book at least explained his positive intentions (Glasman views such extremist movements as the result of pockets of isolated people being ignored and left out, and feels that including them in a dialogue is therefore necessary).
Trying to sum up and explain Blue Labour is
another key strand of the book, and was clearly not an easy task for Davis to
have taken on. However, she and her sources rise to the task and get it across
in a way that senior Labour politicians still seem to be struggling to do even
now. Davis extracts a one-sentence “relationships are transformative” summation
of Blue Labour from Glasman, but even this of course requires further context.
Blue Labour fundamentally stresses a vision of Labourism that rejects not only
the unbridled power of the market, but which also takes a bold step in
recognising that the state is not always the most positive influence in our
lives, as it too can become monopolistic and disempowering. In essence, as RSA
and former TUC economist Adam Lent argued recently in a
Labourlist post, the sentiment is that “a genuinely radical Labour Party would
adore the state far less”.
Glasman also argues that the Labour movement once knew this, pre-1945, and that we should trust unions, mutuals, local government, religious & voluntary organisations, families and community empowerment once again, rather than embracing direct nationalisation and central state paternalism in every instance (the idea that there can be a difference between public ownership and state ownership of services is another way this can be put).
Glasman’s vision is also pro-business but anti-deregulation, drawing a distinction between British entrepreneurialism, of which we should be proud, and a dogged devotion to global neoliberalism on all fronts, which can be harmful. He calls for community banking and a German-style corporatist model, in which both employees and employers are represented on the boards of public and private institutions, aligning the needs of workers with those of the managers and avoiding the more combative model of industrial relations so often seen in Britain and France. Essentially, he argues that we can restructure our economy and society to be a bit more like the German social market, an attractive proposition in light of their continuing economic and social successes and our comparative turmoil since 2007-2008.
Glasman also argues that the Labour movement once knew this, pre-1945, and that we should trust unions, mutuals, local government, religious & voluntary organisations, families and community empowerment once again, rather than embracing direct nationalisation and central state paternalism in every instance (the idea that there can be a difference between public ownership and state ownership of services is another way this can be put).
Glasman’s vision is also pro-business but anti-deregulation, drawing a distinction between British entrepreneurialism, of which we should be proud, and a dogged devotion to global neoliberalism on all fronts, which can be harmful. He calls for community banking and a German-style corporatist model, in which both employees and employers are represented on the boards of public and private institutions, aligning the needs of workers with those of the managers and avoiding the more combative model of industrial relations so often seen in Britain and France. Essentially, he argues that we can restructure our economy and society to be a bit more like the German social market, an attractive proposition in light of their continuing economic and social successes and our comparative turmoil since 2007-2008.
Glasman also argues that Labour should be
bolder about talking about the family, a crucial area of daily life that we
tend to uncomfortably cede to the right, and embraces British patriotism and
ethnic and religious identities. “Faith, flag and family” is therefore stressed
- not quite in the sense that Cornerstone Group Tories or US Republicans use
that phrase as many may understandably fear, but in a much more positive,
uniquely Labour sense that still sits with many (though crucially, not all) of
our more liberal modern-day presumptions. Davis for example pointed out to me
that while Labour is keen on talking about same-sex marriage, it is only a
small part of the broader of issue of marriage, which we tend to neglect. Such
nuanced distinctions have unfortunately still left Blue Labour prone to
misinterpretation and attack, however.
In spite of the fact that Rowenna Davis is a supporter (twentysomething professional female Guardian writers are generally not in the business of promoting reactionary doctrines, I’d note) and most prominent Blue Labour-affiliated MPs have progressive records on race, gender equality and gay rights, it has been criticised publicly for its perceived illiberalism by Blair, Mandelson and Helen Goodman MP, among others. I personally remember discussing Blue Labour online with a fellow Labourite who feared the movement was misogynist, xenophobic and “pale, male and stale”, an image I hope will not persist, but it is clear there is work to do if we are to address the fears of party liberals and entrench the Blue/One Nation ethos fully within the party.
In spite of the fact that Rowenna Davis is a supporter (twentysomething professional female Guardian writers are generally not in the business of promoting reactionary doctrines, I’d note) and most prominent Blue Labour-affiliated MPs have progressive records on race, gender equality and gay rights, it has been criticised publicly for its perceived illiberalism by Blair, Mandelson and Helen Goodman MP, among others. I personally remember discussing Blue Labour online with a fellow Labourite who feared the movement was misogynist, xenophobic and “pale, male and stale”, an image I hope will not persist, but it is clear there is work to do if we are to address the fears of party liberals and entrench the Blue/One Nation ethos fully within the party.
Tangled also helped make
clear to me what role Blue Labour can play in helping Labour to reconnect with
the electorate. At one point in the book, Davis describes how Duncan Weldon
bonded with Glasman over his concern about the disconnect between the middle-class
liberals who made up local constituency Labour parties in his home area of
north London, whom he whimsically characterised as people who “if they had
their ideal manifesto, it would appeal to people who liked The Killing, watched a lot of BBC4 and voted Yes to AV”, and the
voting public at large.
If I’m brutally honest in self-assessment, I’m basically what Weldon described down to a tee in many ways, but campaigning on the doorstep for Labour has long tended to reinforce my view that many of the people who vote for us or who we seek to persuade are already ‘Blue Labour’ at heart. It was the vague sense that Andy Burnham’s “aspirational socialism” (a rough mix of social-economic progressivism and small c-conservatism blended with a renewed commitment to grassroots activism) was what we needed that led me to vote for him for Labour leader in 2010, but Blue Labour offers perhaps an even better defined and more historically-based version of those aims, and one which will allow us to reconnect with people and restore public faith in both our party and our politics.
The public don’t want an unethical and rampant free market, but they are commonsense, pro-business and aspirational. They believe in fair play and equality, they don’t think the Tories speak for them and they think we do to some extent, but they’re not down-the-line lefty-liberals either and need to know we understand their communities, their values and their concerns on issues like wages, housing, immigration, crime, Europe and welfare.
The best example I can think of this is a cab driver me and some other Young Labour activists spoke to on the way to a party fundraiser a couple of years ago. He was a disaffected non-voter, angry about things like immigration and feeling he had no way to influence politics himself, but begrudgingly described Labour as “the best of a bad lot” of parties. I think Blue Labour may be the best way to turn people from just seeing us as the “best of a bad lot” (or worse) to a party they can be enthusiastic about again. The Lib Dems have lost people’s faith and under the Orange Bookers, they define the centre as a combination of metropolitan left-liberal social values and classically liberal economic ones, the opposite of Britain's natural centre. The Tories currently better speak to people’s small-c conservative concerns than we can do at a gut level, but are hopelessly out of touch with people’s day-to-day lives and their economic circumstances. Moreover, they continue to suffer from a problem where people agree with their policies right up until they find out that they are Tory policies. Blue Labour, meanwhile, is the country, put simply.
If I’m brutally honest in self-assessment, I’m basically what Weldon described down to a tee in many ways, but campaigning on the doorstep for Labour has long tended to reinforce my view that many of the people who vote for us or who we seek to persuade are already ‘Blue Labour’ at heart. It was the vague sense that Andy Burnham’s “aspirational socialism” (a rough mix of social-economic progressivism and small c-conservatism blended with a renewed commitment to grassroots activism) was what we needed that led me to vote for him for Labour leader in 2010, but Blue Labour offers perhaps an even better defined and more historically-based version of those aims, and one which will allow us to reconnect with people and restore public faith in both our party and our politics.
The public don’t want an unethical and rampant free market, but they are commonsense, pro-business and aspirational. They believe in fair play and equality, they don’t think the Tories speak for them and they think we do to some extent, but they’re not down-the-line lefty-liberals either and need to know we understand their communities, their values and their concerns on issues like wages, housing, immigration, crime, Europe and welfare.
The best example I can think of this is a cab driver me and some other Young Labour activists spoke to on the way to a party fundraiser a couple of years ago. He was a disaffected non-voter, angry about things like immigration and feeling he had no way to influence politics himself, but begrudgingly described Labour as “the best of a bad lot” of parties. I think Blue Labour may be the best way to turn people from just seeing us as the “best of a bad lot” (or worse) to a party they can be enthusiastic about again. The Lib Dems have lost people’s faith and under the Orange Bookers, they define the centre as a combination of metropolitan left-liberal social values and classically liberal economic ones, the opposite of Britain's natural centre. The Tories currently better speak to people’s small-c conservative concerns than we can do at a gut level, but are hopelessly out of touch with people’s day-to-day lives and their economic circumstances. Moreover, they continue to suffer from a problem where people agree with their policies right up until they find out that they are Tory policies. Blue Labour, meanwhile, is the country, put simply.
Davis ends her book with a summation of what
the state of play was at the time of writing in 2011, noting that Blue Labour
was competing for Ed Miliband’s attention with old Labour thinking in the form
of the Red Book and the voice of neo-Blairism in the form of the Purple Book.
While the former line of thinking may be stale and minimal in its influence, as someone who continues to admire much of what Blair and Brown instilled in the party, I do feel that exploring to what extent Blue Labour’s fresh perspective is compatible with the core ideals of New Labour is essential. Earlier on in the book, Davis notes New Labourite IPPR research director Graeme Cooke and Tessa Jowell MP as supporters of such a “Blue and New” approach. Cooke has published articles to this effect. Ivan Lewis’s contribution to the Purple Book, entitled ‘One Nation Labour: tackling the politics of culture and identity’, stressed similar themes to Blue Labour and perhaps gifted the movement a new name. Davis says that Ed may respond by “taking something from Red and Purple”, but implores him to be bold at taking on old orthodoxies.
Since then, we have seen Jon Cruddas take the helm of the party’s policy process and Ed Miliband wrap himself and the party in the flag of One Nation and begin stressing ‘primary colours’ themes like making work pay (‘predistribution’), English nationalism and sensible immigration. However, as Blue/One Nation Labour continues to develop and advance and increasingly comes to define Labour’s offer for 2015, Davis’s fascinating account of its complex origins and her helpful explanations of its deep meaning continues to make Tangled required reading for anyone who hopes to truly understand this at-times elusive idea.
While the former line of thinking may be stale and minimal in its influence, as someone who continues to admire much of what Blair and Brown instilled in the party, I do feel that exploring to what extent Blue Labour’s fresh perspective is compatible with the core ideals of New Labour is essential. Earlier on in the book, Davis notes New Labourite IPPR research director Graeme Cooke and Tessa Jowell MP as supporters of such a “Blue and New” approach. Cooke has published articles to this effect. Ivan Lewis’s contribution to the Purple Book, entitled ‘One Nation Labour: tackling the politics of culture and identity’, stressed similar themes to Blue Labour and perhaps gifted the movement a new name. Davis says that Ed may respond by “taking something from Red and Purple”, but implores him to be bold at taking on old orthodoxies.
Since then, we have seen Jon Cruddas take the helm of the party’s policy process and Ed Miliband wrap himself and the party in the flag of One Nation and begin stressing ‘primary colours’ themes like making work pay (‘predistribution’), English nationalism and sensible immigration. However, as Blue/One Nation Labour continues to develop and advance and increasingly comes to define Labour’s offer for 2015, Davis’s fascinating account of its complex origins and her helpful explanations of its deep meaning continues to make Tangled required reading for anyone who hopes to truly understand this at-times elusive idea.
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