Small State for a Small Future

Political parties are defined by their view of the role of the State. States' expenditure principally concerns the security and well-being of its citizens. How there are supported depends on the flavour of those in the ascendency at any time. Those governing parties accepting responsibility for the greater burden of the people's needs perforce raise the largest funds with which to pay for these, usually via taxes as the principal repeatable source. Governments deeming taxation to be theft of citizens' hard-earned income; and believing that individuals should shoulder the burden of their own well-being, regardless of circumstance, typically tax less - though frequently with little similar compunction when it comes to paying for those outgoings they favour. It seems that Small State believers will pare back ruthlessly services for well-being whilst lavishing tax receipts on arms used to assault citizens of other States.

Small Staters take a harsh view of needy citizens, so intent are they on allowing the economically successful to keep hold of their wealth. Healthcare, education, housing, and retirement are matters for personal decision, even for those who for any reason are unable to afford to pay. Impecuniousness is a sin in a market economy - or a disaster. It is clear that in a Big State citizens want for less, insofar as services are provided for them, paid for by tax receipts; but those earning most must share more of their income accordingly. In some States the payment of taxes for such common benefit is accepted as a right and proper part of citizenship.

How politicians explain their preferences for the type of State they would create is instrumental in how the public takes sides. Small Staters tend to demonise terms regarded as anodyne by others, like "tax", "borrowing", "poverty" and "entitlement", in attempts to persuade the general public that any party suggesting increases in tax or welfare is unpatriotic. Citizens undergoing temporary shortage of income, long-term disability or simply old age are contemptuously treated in media as second-class, while those riding high on commercial success are placed on a pedestal. But in such a climate, what do we, the people, lose? Once the State has shrunk such that only the rich can afford hospital care or education, how can Big State ever be restored, no matter how desirable to the majority; and how are the ordinary people to achieve well-being?

First, the country loses the capacity to provide universal education and care of a reasonable quality. Society then polarises into haves and have-nots, with a growing risk to cohesion. Second, the failure of the State to invest for the long-term in basis science, technology and infrastructure on which depend jobs, decent pay and commerce may deprive enterprise of the platform for their future success. Third, lack of capability in meeting the needs of ordinary people within the public sector may place the country at grave risk as under-paid private sector providers fall away, leaving the State in crisis with responsibility but no means to fulfil it. The Small State will lead to a small future.

Instead of shying away from those things demonised by the Right, believers in public services and State investment must reclaim or rewrite the lexicon and ruthlessly describe the benefits of the Big State, and publicise just how they spend money for the citizens.

Progress? How can social justice be in decline?

How do we come to 2015, almost 7 decades since the UN Declaration on Human Rights, 6 since the European Convention, 5 since the Race Relations Act and 4 since the Sex Discrimination Act and yet find an apparent upsurge in behaviours associated with blind prejudice, both in Government and wider society?

The media regularly reports incidents of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Feminism has had to be re-awakened in the face of everyday sexism. Politics itself is being fought out in a pitched battle couched in barely-masked xenophobia, if not racism. The current Government is all too ready to stereotype and demonise millions of its own electorate, simply because they are less fortunate: old, young, poor, temporarily workless or disabled.

This has surely happened gradually and through a creeping change in social attitudes, coinciding with the rise and rise of the Market as the driver of what passes for a political philosophy. If this is true, reversing the trend will also take time, assuming there is the will to do so. Deliberate leadership will be required. So is this where a Labour Government can come in; and if so, what could it actually do to pump-prime the re-establishment of a values-driven polity?

First must come implementation of legislation already in place, led by equal pay for women. There can be no excuse for passing laws and failing to enforce them. This should be followed by mandatory gender equality targets for Parliament, local authorities and boardrooms.

Secondly, political and media influencers must be challenged in their vicious use of false syllogisms about particular groups, drawing generalisations from extreme instances. Could there be a case here for an Office for Data Responsibility?

Third, no part of society, whether through power, wealth or celebrity should be above the discrimination laws. All prejudice should be challenged and held to account and those uncovering it protected from any backlash.

Fourth, divisive or privileged institutions should be banned, including private and faith schools. Workplace childcare should be mandatory for major employers, private as well as public, to allow parents regardless of gender to pursue careers.

Labour must preach - and deliver - social justice or it is nothing.

Justice - for whom?

All political parties must embrace a justice system but there are no absolutes in justice. Despite what those in power may claim, there are options as to how justice can be defined and achieved. These options must be based on the values of the Party. A government which values wealth above all else has focused on reducing the amount of money allowed to the poorest, as if this money were stolen from others. The justice system is increasingly used to the disadvantage of the weakest in society, unprotected increasingly by legal aid. Trust in policing has become frayed by decades of practices revealed as corrupt or prejudiced. Prosecutions are common for petty crime while those responsible for the loss to society of billions are seen to be immune. Trust needs to be restored in the institutions for justice to be done and perceived to be done for all.

As demonstrated by "The Spirit Level", trust [as well as health] is lower in countries with higher income difference, which has gone out of control in UK. An alternative government which prioritises social justice is more likely to create a culture of mutual trust. Can a society in these days be less unequal? The gulf between richest and poorest is almost half in the Nordic countries that in USA and UK.

Labour must return to power, with an agenda to restore justice for all: detection and prosecution focused on the crimes which most damage the country, tax fraud, digital theft, financial malfeasance, people trafficking, unfair rents and employment practices, on a national or international level; but at a local level, crime prevention through local knowledge and a presence in communities, with mediation, community resolution and restorative justice as tools to keep costs down and reduce prosecution and imprisonment for those least equipped to function in society. Labour can be the ground-breaking Party which decriminalises drug-taking, to expose and squeeze out the illegal dealers and introducing controls to make safe what people buy and consume.

By targeting the right resources at what most damages society, justice can still be achieved affordably, without removing from those most in need of it the vital resource of legal aid from properly remunerated lawyers. This is everyday justice affecting employment, housing, clinical negligence, and unfair arrest, protecting people instead of criminalising them.

Grayling is failing; Sadiq can succeed.

Tom Serpell