ONE NATION. ED’S THIRD WAY

If you had asked me before the end of last September about One Nation politics I would have pointed you in the direction of Benjamin Disraeli and the One Nation tradition in the old Conservative Party.

I say old Conservative Party because One Nation as a Tory philosophy is dead and buried. It was steamrolled by Margaret Thatcher who asked her party members “Are You One of Us” and if you replied “I’m a One Nation Tory” you certainly weren’t in her gang.

That was to last year’s Labour Party Conference in Manchester when party leader Ed Miliband captured the concept of One Nation for the socialists. He did it just a stone’s throw from where Benjamin Disraeli had first used the term in a speech at the Manchester Free Trade Hall some 140 years before on April 3 1872.

Now I presumed at the time this was the second coming of One Nation politics but I was wrong. It was the third. The second happened in the mid-1990’s when Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party. It was part of his New Labour journey from One Nation politics to the Stakeholder Society to the Third Way.

Nobody refers back to the Blair One Nation vision but it is there and that is why I ask is One Nation Ed’s third way? He is certainly not a Disraeli Tory and he is now in his speeches distancing his One Nation Labour Party from many of the core beliefs of both Old and New Labour. Ed has grasped One Nation politics and is proposing a new way of doing things.

So to his speech at the Fabian Society on Saturday January 12. The last time I saw Ed Miliband speak in public was to the Labour Party Conference when his unscripted address was without doubt the best speech I have ever sat and listened to. In contrast his speech to the Fabian Society was more low key, was scripted and even in places hesitant. Perhaps being in front of a supportive crowd, the largest Fabian Society conference in modern times, lessened the drive compared with his Manchester tour de force where critical union leaders were in the stalls.

Certainly the Fabians were anxious for flesh to be put on the One Nation bones. Did Ed achieve that? He certainly did for me but then I have long embraced the notion of One Nation politics, so for me it was a case of “welcome Ed, where have you been all this time?” Some of those around me shared my satisfaction but others didn’t and I wonder if they are waiting for Ed’s One Nation to fit their agenda, which I am not sure it is ever going to do.

I was interested to see that Ed reprised in his speech the remarks he made in Manchester about faith. Ed is an atheist which in some people’s eyes disqualifies him from the concept of faith, which is of course abject nonsense. He told the Fabians:

“I talked about it in my Labour Party conference speech a few months ago about why I came into politics.

“It was because of my personal faith.

“A faith that we are better, stronger together than when we are on our own.

“A faith that when good people come together they can overcome any odds.

“For me, that’s what One Nation Labour is all about.

“This faith isn’t unique to me.

“It is deeply rooted in our country.

“One Nation Labour is different from the current government.

“And from New Labour and Old Labour too.

“It will take on the vested interests in order to reshape our economy in the interests of all.

“It will insist on responsibility throughout society, including at the top so we can build a united, not divided, Britain.

“It will strive to spread power as well as working for prosperity.

“We must build One Nation.

“It is what the British people demand of us.

“And, together, it is what we can achieve.”

I asked someone close to Ed Miliband and the “faith” concept had he helped script the speech. He replied: “No. He is really there.” It now remains to be seen whether the nation becomes one behind Ed’s One Nation beliefs.

To read Ed Miliband’s speech in full click on the Labour List website link below:

http://labourlist.org/2013/01/ed-milibands-fabian-conference-speech/

(The above article appeared in the London Progressive Journal on January 12 2013)
 

ED’S SPEECH OF FAITH

“That is my faith. One nation: a country for all, with everyone playing their part. A Britain we rebuild together.”

You would have to be begrudging in the extreme not to acknowledge that Ed Miliband’s speech to the Labour Party Conference on Tuesday was not one of the most remarkable of modern times. He had to speak both to party and nation to convince them both he has what it takes to be Prime Minister. In an hour long speech, without notes or prompts, he delivered that message without a hitch.

During his discourse Ed mentioned another speech made 140 years ago in Manchester close to where he was speaking. It was Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli’s “One Nation” speech. “One Nation” conservatives believe societies exist and develop organically, and that members within them have obligations towards each other. In my formative years in the 1950s and 60s “One Nation” Tories were the norm.

Today that is not the case. When Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron said “we are all in this together” he wasn’t talking to the nation but his millionaire colleagues around the Cabinet table as he promised them a forty thousand pound tax rebate to be paid for by the country’s pensioners. In capturing the “One Nation” concept for Labour Ed has stolen the Conservatives’ clothes they wrap themselves in when wanting to deceive the voters in to believing they are not the “nasty party”.

However it is not the Disraeli speech I want to dwell on here but one delivered towards the end of the 2010 General Election campaign. I will quote from Rowenna Davis’ excellent book “Tangled Up in Blue”. Here she writes about Maurice Glasman who has been trying to persuade the Prime Minister Gordon Brown to address a London Citizens assembly shortly before polling day.

“In a moment of frenzied passion, Glasman wrote all the words he wished Brown would say. It was a speech grounded in the Citizens UK tradition – it was about Brown’s personal life, his motivation and his identity. It referenced his childhood and his upbringing. It went right through Brown’s campaign as a student to get a decent wage for university cleaners to the introduction of a minimum working wage during his time as chancellor. It talked about his role in pressuring authorities to disinvest in apartheid South Africa, and the power of the people. It was emotional, heartfelt and genuine. And it was sent directly from Glasman to Ed Miliband’s inbox three days before the assembly was due to take place.”

Well Glasman, with Ed Miliband’s help, did persuade Brown to make the speech and although some changes were made in essence it remained in the Citizens UK tradition. Such was the power of the speech that although Brown’s back was against the wall his popularity shot up six percent. Coincidently in the initial days after Miliband delivered his leader’s speech on Tuesday six percent more British voters believed he was prime ministerial than before.

At the time of writing Brown’s speech Glasman, who was not close to the Prime Minister, was associated with the “Blue Labour” movement. The title “Blue Labour” has now fallen by the way side but if the adherents to that philosophy had to choose a new name “One Nation” would do very nicely.

In contrast to Brown, Ed Miliband has remained close to Glasman and made him a Lord in February 2011. Hence the university political professor has become a professional politician but there are many voices crying out to be heard by the Labour Party leader and it isn’t always Glasman who has his ear.

However if there is one word in the Miliband speech de force that convinces me Glasman had some input it is the word “Faith”. Glasman was Director of London Metropolitan University’s “Faith and Citizenship programme”.  “Faith” is a word Miliband highlighted time and again.

“Hold on a minute” you might say, “Miliband is a confirmed atheist, as was his father, as is his brother. How can he have faith?”

I have long argued in print that atheists, as with people of religion who truly believe in their God, are all people of faith. The truth is until we die we do not know if God exists or not. The act of faith is to say when there is no certainty “there is no God”. Hence Miliband is fully entitled to speak of his faith and indeed he based his entire speech on it.

Here are just three examples: “But I do believe the best way me for to give back to Britain, the best way to be true to my faith, is through politics…..That is who I am. That is what I believe. That is my faith……And I know who I need to serve in Britain with my faith. It’s the people I’ve met on my journey as Leader of the Opposition.”

Rowenna Davis tells us that Glasman’s Brown speech was about his personal life, his motivation and his identity. It referenced his childhood and his upbringing. It was emotional, heartfelt and genuine.

Miliband in his speech said: “I want to tell you my story. I want to tell you who I am. What I believe. And why I have a deep conviction that together we can change this country. My conviction is rooted in my family’s story, a story that starts 1,000 miles from here, because the Miliband’s haven’t sat under the same oak tree for the last five hundred years.” He closed with: “That is my faith. One nation: a country for all, with everyone playing their part. A Britain we rebuild together.”

I am sure Rowenna Davis would use the exactly same words to describe Miliband’s speech as she did for Brown’s – and what’s more, they would be true.

PS: Benjamin Disraeli was Britain’s only Jewish Prime Minister. If Ed Miliband is elected to that high office he will be the second.

(The above article appeared in the London Progressive Journal on October 7 2012)