30 years ago - 12th May 1994
Discussion
I think Smith was an ideal precursor to Blair and New Labour. I don't think he was as charismatic, he may have won one, maybe two terms but he seemed to be a bridging leader rather than the definitive leader we had in Blair.
As an old fashioned conviction politician who genuinely wanted to change the country for the better I wish we had more of them now.
SD.
As an old fashioned conviction politician who genuinely wanted to change the country for the better I wish we had more of them now.
SD.
He would not have won such a big majority in 1997 and he would have given the Conservatives a chance to come back in 2002.
We may not have had PM Blair at all since the Home Office is a terrible job that can destroy almost anyone who gets it.
Maybe no lasting peace in Northern Ireland if Mo Mowlam was not there to put so much work in.
We may not have had PM Blair at all since the Home Office is a terrible job that can destroy almost anyone who gets it.
Maybe no lasting peace in Northern Ireland if Mo Mowlam was not there to put so much work in.
I think that New Labour looked like a competent government, I don't think that Smith would have been radically different. Only when Brown took over after the financial crisis and then ordered two aircraft carriers without aircraft did the reality hit everyone.
The Con-Lib coalition also offered competent government, sadly since 2015 it is hard to recognise competence from any party. All the spin is on this week’s hot topic, rather than why we and NATO urgently need to be gearing-up for a potential conflict with Russia, China, or probably both.
The title of this thread is a genuine surprise - seems so recent, yet hard to believe that it has been 30-years.
The Con-Lib coalition also offered competent government, sadly since 2015 it is hard to recognise competence from any party. All the spin is on this week’s hot topic, rather than why we and NATO urgently need to be gearing-up for a potential conflict with Russia, China, or probably both.
The title of this thread is a genuine surprise - seems so recent, yet hard to believe that it has been 30-years.
Had Smith not died, I suspect he’d have won in 1997, but not as convincingly as Blair, possibly hung on in 2001 but definitely been out by 2005. Cameron would probably not have been PM, Hague may well have been and Blair would probably have had to wait until the 2010s to win an election. I do wonder how the “war on terror” would have been handled, maybe the UK wouldn’t have been involved in Iraq? We’d probably have been involved in Afghanistan though.
As an aside, there’s a swimming pool in Airdrie named after Smith, complete with various plaques etc commemorating him. There’s also a bust opposite the reception desk, but it’s not him! It’s a local councillor for some reason.
As an aside, there’s a swimming pool in Airdrie named after Smith, complete with various plaques etc commemorating him. There’s also a bust opposite the reception desk, but it’s not him! It’s a local councillor for some reason.
As an aside, do ppl realise that the “new” (She’s been there about a yr) BBC North American lass Sarah Smith is his daughter?
I saw an interview with her last yr about accepting that job, moving across the Pond from Scotland. She was saying she didn’t hesitate as she had come to hate covering Scottish politics so much and that Washington was LESS divisive and hate ridden than Edinburgh politics!
I saw an interview with her last yr about accepting that job, moving across the Pond from Scotland. She was saying she didn’t hesitate as she had come to hate covering Scottish politics so much and that Washington was LESS divisive and hate ridden than Edinburgh politics!
Speculation about what Smith would have done had he been in power (and if Labour would have had similar electoral success in the late 90s/early 2000s if he had not died) is frustrated by the fact that he was not in position long enough to even draft some party-level policy documents, let alone a manifesto.
So we don't know exactly what the combined "Smith + Labour" offering would have been. We know what John Smith's politics were, and what his personal vision of a left-wing politics in the neoliberal era was. But we don't know exactly how he would have put those into a manifesto and where (and to what extent) he would have adapted/compromised them to comply with the rest of the Labour party or broad political strategy.
I think it's pretty clear that, however things shook out, Smith would have put Labour (and left-wing British politics) in a very different place to what they became under Blair. Both were reformers and modernisers, and both called time on the Benn/Militant idea of re-treading 'classic' British democratic socialism, with its origins in the trade unions and Fabians of the industrial imperial age and the Cold War. But Blair's ideology was essentially a surrender to neoliberalism, which seemed to him and similar thinkers to be politically and economically unquestionable - the 'right answer' in the era of the End of History. Blair's 'Third Way' accepted all the same economic principles and assumption as Margaret Thatcher, and largely rejected the core social principles of classical socialism. The latter were replaced by the concept of Social Justice, and New Labour basically promised to use capitalist economics to achieve the same ends that socialist wanted, through socially liberal and market-orientated methods ("working class people can buy Audis on credit now, which is social advancement, right?")
Smith also saw the need to come up with something to replace the old sort of socialism (which had effectively lost its battle as far the UK was concerned in the 1970s, had lost it more broadly with the collapse of the Soviet Union and grew out of a world that essentially no longer existed). But he proposed a new sort of socialism rather than the basic acceptance of neoliberal capitalism.
We know what Smith's personal political priorities were - he was a fervent believer in the modernisation of institutions and internationalism. He was not a great believer in centralised nation states, preferring to have meaningful and appropriate levels of democracy at a local, municipal, regional, national and international level. That included workplace democracy; Smith was a far more explicit supporter of trade unions and worker power than either Kinnock before him or Blair after him. He was also a passionate pro-European and wanted the UK to have a much closer and more enthusiastic role within the EEC as it transformed into the EU. He was one of the earliest and most prominent campaigners to integrate the EHRC into UK law, and much of the Blair government's early work in this regard (and things like the removal of the death penalty from even its token remaining cases) were a legacy of things he had set in motion. He mooted federalisation of the UK rather than 'celtic devolution' and wanted to replace the House of Lords with a federal-level governing chamber. He also supported the UK gaining a written constitution and saw federalisation as the perfect point at which to do that. He summed up his civic politics as "accountable democratic radicalism".
Smith abhorred secrecy in public and official life, and had plans for a series of Freedom of Information Acts (watered down versions of which did survive into the Blair years) outlying both the responsibility of the public sector to retain and make information available and the right of citizens to access it. One of his policy documents he wrote for the Socialist International (that he was a member of, and wrote papers for, such an organisation also shows neatly how he differed from Blair) favoured publically-available financial information for corporations and individuals, similar to the arrangement in certain Nordic countries. He spoke favourably of maximum corporate pay ratios.
Smith's Britain would have been far, far closer in ethos and form to our peers in northern Europe in embracing a model of consensual rules-based power. Blair's vision was of a sort of 'popular capitalism' where everyone was a consumer and used their consumer power and market forces to access markets for public services as well as private goods, all shepherded by a regulatory (but not managerial) government. A Smith government' would have been much more interventionist than we've been used to in this country and wouldn't have had the Blairite mania for privatisation and outsourcing. Smith had a political sense of the 'national body' that Blair (and most other British PMs of the modern era) have lacked, seeing part of government's role being to protect its people and its nation against global business interests. His pro-Europeanism partially stemmed from it being a power block large enough to thwart multinational corporate interests and as a counterweight to American political leverage.
It's very interesting to consider how the whole EU/Brexit/Europe thing would have shaken out had Smith made it into No.10. A Smith Labour government would have confronted issues like the Euro head-on, although I can't get enough of a sense to predict whether he would have been against it (on economic independence grounds) or for it (as a cornerstone of European unity and economic power). But he would have picked a firm yes/no course rather than the Blair/Brown 'we're up for it in principle but we don't think the time is right' fudge. I'd put a lot of money on Smith not following Bush into Afghanistan and Iraq, and instead forming a sceptical axis with Chirac and Schroeder. I'd like to think that a Labour Party running on something akin to Smith's principles would have won power in 1997 (maybe not to such a landslide since Tory voters would have found far more to disagree with him on, but then left-wing voters would have been much more enthused) and had it governed on those principled I don't think we'd have seen the social, geographical, cultural and economic divides that grew during the New Labour years. There would have been turmoil and a lot of argy-bargy as Smith reformed his way through Britain's established institutions and changed the entire political and cultural axis of the country (less global/trans-Atlantic and more European) but it would have been like lancing a boil rather than festering into what brought us to 2016 and beyond, backed up by a much more genuinely egalitarian economic situation and much less of the 'ex-industrial towns with expensive housing, poor jobs and rubbish transport links but a there's a branch of the V&A Museum in what used to be a cotton mill now' that was New Labour's legacy for much of the country.
I think Smith's unfortunate early death was a real Sliding Doors type moment for the UK, essentially dooming us to the consensus and narrow thinking that has led us to where we are 30 years later.
So we don't know exactly what the combined "Smith + Labour" offering would have been. We know what John Smith's politics were, and what his personal vision of a left-wing politics in the neoliberal era was. But we don't know exactly how he would have put those into a manifesto and where (and to what extent) he would have adapted/compromised them to comply with the rest of the Labour party or broad political strategy.
I think it's pretty clear that, however things shook out, Smith would have put Labour (and left-wing British politics) in a very different place to what they became under Blair. Both were reformers and modernisers, and both called time on the Benn/Militant idea of re-treading 'classic' British democratic socialism, with its origins in the trade unions and Fabians of the industrial imperial age and the Cold War. But Blair's ideology was essentially a surrender to neoliberalism, which seemed to him and similar thinkers to be politically and economically unquestionable - the 'right answer' in the era of the End of History. Blair's 'Third Way' accepted all the same economic principles and assumption as Margaret Thatcher, and largely rejected the core social principles of classical socialism. The latter were replaced by the concept of Social Justice, and New Labour basically promised to use capitalist economics to achieve the same ends that socialist wanted, through socially liberal and market-orientated methods ("working class people can buy Audis on credit now, which is social advancement, right?")
Smith also saw the need to come up with something to replace the old sort of socialism (which had effectively lost its battle as far the UK was concerned in the 1970s, had lost it more broadly with the collapse of the Soviet Union and grew out of a world that essentially no longer existed). But he proposed a new sort of socialism rather than the basic acceptance of neoliberal capitalism.
We know what Smith's personal political priorities were - he was a fervent believer in the modernisation of institutions and internationalism. He was not a great believer in centralised nation states, preferring to have meaningful and appropriate levels of democracy at a local, municipal, regional, national and international level. That included workplace democracy; Smith was a far more explicit supporter of trade unions and worker power than either Kinnock before him or Blair after him. He was also a passionate pro-European and wanted the UK to have a much closer and more enthusiastic role within the EEC as it transformed into the EU. He was one of the earliest and most prominent campaigners to integrate the EHRC into UK law, and much of the Blair government's early work in this regard (and things like the removal of the death penalty from even its token remaining cases) were a legacy of things he had set in motion. He mooted federalisation of the UK rather than 'celtic devolution' and wanted to replace the House of Lords with a federal-level governing chamber. He also supported the UK gaining a written constitution and saw federalisation as the perfect point at which to do that. He summed up his civic politics as "accountable democratic radicalism".
Smith abhorred secrecy in public and official life, and had plans for a series of Freedom of Information Acts (watered down versions of which did survive into the Blair years) outlying both the responsibility of the public sector to retain and make information available and the right of citizens to access it. One of his policy documents he wrote for the Socialist International (that he was a member of, and wrote papers for, such an organisation also shows neatly how he differed from Blair) favoured publically-available financial information for corporations and individuals, similar to the arrangement in certain Nordic countries. He spoke favourably of maximum corporate pay ratios.
Smith's Britain would have been far, far closer in ethos and form to our peers in northern Europe in embracing a model of consensual rules-based power. Blair's vision was of a sort of 'popular capitalism' where everyone was a consumer and used their consumer power and market forces to access markets for public services as well as private goods, all shepherded by a regulatory (but not managerial) government. A Smith government' would have been much more interventionist than we've been used to in this country and wouldn't have had the Blairite mania for privatisation and outsourcing. Smith had a political sense of the 'national body' that Blair (and most other British PMs of the modern era) have lacked, seeing part of government's role being to protect its people and its nation against global business interests. His pro-Europeanism partially stemmed from it being a power block large enough to thwart multinational corporate interests and as a counterweight to American political leverage.
It's very interesting to consider how the whole EU/Brexit/Europe thing would have shaken out had Smith made it into No.10. A Smith Labour government would have confronted issues like the Euro head-on, although I can't get enough of a sense to predict whether he would have been against it (on economic independence grounds) or for it (as a cornerstone of European unity and economic power). But he would have picked a firm yes/no course rather than the Blair/Brown 'we're up for it in principle but we don't think the time is right' fudge. I'd put a lot of money on Smith not following Bush into Afghanistan and Iraq, and instead forming a sceptical axis with Chirac and Schroeder. I'd like to think that a Labour Party running on something akin to Smith's principles would have won power in 1997 (maybe not to such a landslide since Tory voters would have found far more to disagree with him on, but then left-wing voters would have been much more enthused) and had it governed on those principled I don't think we'd have seen the social, geographical, cultural and economic divides that grew during the New Labour years. There would have been turmoil and a lot of argy-bargy as Smith reformed his way through Britain's established institutions and changed the entire political and cultural axis of the country (less global/trans-Atlantic and more European) but it would have been like lancing a boil rather than festering into what brought us to 2016 and beyond, backed up by a much more genuinely egalitarian economic situation and much less of the 'ex-industrial towns with expensive housing, poor jobs and rubbish transport links but a there's a branch of the V&A Museum in what used to be a cotton mill now' that was New Labour's legacy for much of the country.
I think Smith's unfortunate early death was a real Sliding Doors type moment for the UK, essentially dooming us to the consensus and narrow thinking that has led us to where we are 30 years later.
2xChevrons said:
Speculation about what Smith would have done had he been in power (and if Labour would have had similar electoral success in the late 90s/early 2000s if he had not died) is frustrated by the fact that he was not in position long enough to even draft some party-level policy documents, let alone a manifesto.
So we don't know exactly what the combined "Smith + Labour" offering would have been. We know what John Smith's politics were, and what his personal vision of a left-wing politics in the neoliberal era was. But we don't know exactly how he would have put those into a manifesto and where (and to what extent) he would have adapted/compromised them to comply with the rest of the Labour party or broad political strategy.
I think it's pretty clear that, however things shook out, Smith would have put Labour (and left-wing British politics) in a very different place to what they became under Blair. Both were reformers and modernisers, and both called time on the Benn/Militant idea of re-treading 'classic' British democratic socialism, with its origins in the trade unions and Fabians of the industrial imperial age and the Cold War. But Blair's ideology was essentially a surrender to neoliberalism, which seemed to him and similar thinkers to be politically and economically unquestionable - the 'right answer' in the era of the End of History. Blair's 'Third Way' accepted all the same economic principles and assumption as Margaret Thatcher, and largely rejected the core social principles of classical socialism. The latter were replaced by the concept of Social Justice, and New Labour basically promised to use capitalist economics to achieve the same ends that socialist wanted, through socially liberal and market-orientated methods ("working class people can buy Audis on credit now, which is social advancement, right?")
Smith also saw the need to come up with something to replace the old sort of socialism (which had effectively lost its battle as far the UK was concerned in the 1970s, had lost it more broadly with the collapse of the Soviet Union and grew out of a world that essentially no longer existed). But he proposed a new sort of socialism rather than the basic acceptance of neoliberal capitalism.
We know what Smith's personal political priorities were - he was a fervent believer in the modernisation of institutions and internationalism. He was not a great believer in centralised nation states, preferring to have meaningful and appropriate levels of democracy at a local, municipal, regional, national and international level. That included workplace democracy; Smith was a far more explicit supporter of trade unions and worker power than either Kinnock before him or Blair after him. He was also a passionate pro-European and wanted the UK to have a much closer and more enthusiastic role within the EEC as it transformed into the EU. He was one of the earliest and most prominent campaigners to integrate the EHRC into UK law, and much of the Blair government's early work in this regard (and things like the removal of the death penalty from even its token remaining cases) were a legacy of things he had set in motion. He mooted federalisation of the UK rather than 'celtic devolution' and wanted to replace the House of Lords with a federal-level governing chamber. He also supported the UK gaining a written constitution and saw federalisation as the perfect point at which to do that. He summed up his civic politics as "accountable democratic radicalism".
Smith abhorred secrecy in public and official life, and had plans for a series of Freedom of Information Acts (watered down versions of which did survive into the Blair years) outlying both the responsibility of the public sector to retain and make information available and the right of citizens to access it. One of his policy documents he wrote for the Socialist International (that he was a member of, and wrote papers for, such an organisation also shows neatly how he differed from Blair) favoured publically-available financial information for corporations and individuals, similar to the arrangement in certain Nordic countries. He spoke favourably of maximum corporate pay ratios.
Smith's Britain would have been far, far closer in ethos and form to our peers in northern Europe in embracing a model of consensual rules-based power. Blair's vision was of a sort of 'popular capitalism' where everyone was a consumer and used their consumer power and market forces to access markets for public services as well as private goods, all shepherded by a regulatory (but not managerial) government. A Smith government' would have been much more interventionist than we've been used to in this country and wouldn't have had the Blairite mania for privatisation and outsourcing. Smith had a political sense of the 'national body' that Blair (and most other British PMs of the modern era) have lacked, seeing part of government's role being to protect its people and its nation against global business interests. His pro-Europeanism partially stemmed from it being a power block large enough to thwart multinational corporate interests and as a counterweight to American political leverage.
It's very interesting to consider how the whole EU/Brexit/Europe thing would have shaken out had Smith made it into No.10. A Smith Labour government would have confronted issues like the Euro head-on, although I can't get enough of a sense to predict whether he would have been against it (on economic independence grounds) or for it (as a cornerstone of European unity and economic power). But he would have picked a firm yes/no course rather than the Blair/Brown 'we're up for it in principle but we don't think the time is right' fudge. I'd put a lot of money on Smith not following Bush into Afghanistan and Iraq, and instead forming a sceptical axis with Chirac and Schroeder. I'd like to think that a Labour Party running on something akin to Smith's principles would have won power in 1997 (maybe not to such a landslide since Tory voters would have found far more to disagree with him on, but then left-wing voters would have been much more enthused) and had it governed on those principled I don't think we'd have seen the social, geographical, cultural and economic divides that grew during the New Labour years. There would have been turmoil and a lot of argy-bargy as Smith reformed his way through Britain's established institutions and changed the entire political and cultural axis of the country (less global/trans-Atlantic and more European) but it would have been like lancing a boil rather than festering into what brought us to 2016 and beyond, backed up by a much more genuinely egalitarian economic situation and much less of the 'ex-industrial towns with expensive housing, poor jobs and rubbish transport links but a there's a branch of the V&A Museum in what used to be a cotton mill now' that was New Labour's legacy for much of the country.
I think Smith's unfortunate early death was a real Sliding Doors type moment for the UK, essentially dooming us to the consensus and narrow thinking that has led us to where we are 30 years later.
Thanks, as ever, for this informative post. So we don't know exactly what the combined "Smith + Labour" offering would have been. We know what John Smith's politics were, and what his personal vision of a left-wing politics in the neoliberal era was. But we don't know exactly how he would have put those into a manifesto and where (and to what extent) he would have adapted/compromised them to comply with the rest of the Labour party or broad political strategy.
I think it's pretty clear that, however things shook out, Smith would have put Labour (and left-wing British politics) in a very different place to what they became under Blair. Both were reformers and modernisers, and both called time on the Benn/Militant idea of re-treading 'classic' British democratic socialism, with its origins in the trade unions and Fabians of the industrial imperial age and the Cold War. But Blair's ideology was essentially a surrender to neoliberalism, which seemed to him and similar thinkers to be politically and economically unquestionable - the 'right answer' in the era of the End of History. Blair's 'Third Way' accepted all the same economic principles and assumption as Margaret Thatcher, and largely rejected the core social principles of classical socialism. The latter were replaced by the concept of Social Justice, and New Labour basically promised to use capitalist economics to achieve the same ends that socialist wanted, through socially liberal and market-orientated methods ("working class people can buy Audis on credit now, which is social advancement, right?")
Smith also saw the need to come up with something to replace the old sort of socialism (which had effectively lost its battle as far the UK was concerned in the 1970s, had lost it more broadly with the collapse of the Soviet Union and grew out of a world that essentially no longer existed). But he proposed a new sort of socialism rather than the basic acceptance of neoliberal capitalism.
We know what Smith's personal political priorities were - he was a fervent believer in the modernisation of institutions and internationalism. He was not a great believer in centralised nation states, preferring to have meaningful and appropriate levels of democracy at a local, municipal, regional, national and international level. That included workplace democracy; Smith was a far more explicit supporter of trade unions and worker power than either Kinnock before him or Blair after him. He was also a passionate pro-European and wanted the UK to have a much closer and more enthusiastic role within the EEC as it transformed into the EU. He was one of the earliest and most prominent campaigners to integrate the EHRC into UK law, and much of the Blair government's early work in this regard (and things like the removal of the death penalty from even its token remaining cases) were a legacy of things he had set in motion. He mooted federalisation of the UK rather than 'celtic devolution' and wanted to replace the House of Lords with a federal-level governing chamber. He also supported the UK gaining a written constitution and saw federalisation as the perfect point at which to do that. He summed up his civic politics as "accountable democratic radicalism".
Smith abhorred secrecy in public and official life, and had plans for a series of Freedom of Information Acts (watered down versions of which did survive into the Blair years) outlying both the responsibility of the public sector to retain and make information available and the right of citizens to access it. One of his policy documents he wrote for the Socialist International (that he was a member of, and wrote papers for, such an organisation also shows neatly how he differed from Blair) favoured publically-available financial information for corporations and individuals, similar to the arrangement in certain Nordic countries. He spoke favourably of maximum corporate pay ratios.
Smith's Britain would have been far, far closer in ethos and form to our peers in northern Europe in embracing a model of consensual rules-based power. Blair's vision was of a sort of 'popular capitalism' where everyone was a consumer and used their consumer power and market forces to access markets for public services as well as private goods, all shepherded by a regulatory (but not managerial) government. A Smith government' would have been much more interventionist than we've been used to in this country and wouldn't have had the Blairite mania for privatisation and outsourcing. Smith had a political sense of the 'national body' that Blair (and most other British PMs of the modern era) have lacked, seeing part of government's role being to protect its people and its nation against global business interests. His pro-Europeanism partially stemmed from it being a power block large enough to thwart multinational corporate interests and as a counterweight to American political leverage.
It's very interesting to consider how the whole EU/Brexit/Europe thing would have shaken out had Smith made it into No.10. A Smith Labour government would have confronted issues like the Euro head-on, although I can't get enough of a sense to predict whether he would have been against it (on economic independence grounds) or for it (as a cornerstone of European unity and economic power). But he would have picked a firm yes/no course rather than the Blair/Brown 'we're up for it in principle but we don't think the time is right' fudge. I'd put a lot of money on Smith not following Bush into Afghanistan and Iraq, and instead forming a sceptical axis with Chirac and Schroeder. I'd like to think that a Labour Party running on something akin to Smith's principles would have won power in 1997 (maybe not to such a landslide since Tory voters would have found far more to disagree with him on, but then left-wing voters would have been much more enthused) and had it governed on those principled I don't think we'd have seen the social, geographical, cultural and economic divides that grew during the New Labour years. There would have been turmoil and a lot of argy-bargy as Smith reformed his way through Britain's established institutions and changed the entire political and cultural axis of the country (less global/trans-Atlantic and more European) but it would have been like lancing a boil rather than festering into what brought us to 2016 and beyond, backed up by a much more genuinely egalitarian economic situation and much less of the 'ex-industrial towns with expensive housing, poor jobs and rubbish transport links but a there's a branch of the V&A Museum in what used to be a cotton mill now' that was New Labour's legacy for much of the country.
I think Smith's unfortunate early death was a real Sliding Doors type moment for the UK, essentially dooming us to the consensus and narrow thinking that has led us to where we are 30 years later.
2xChevrons said:
Speculation about what Smith would have done had he been in power (and if Labour would have had similar electoral success in the late 90s/early 2000s if he had not died) is frustrated by the fact that he was not in position long enough to even draft some party-level policy documents, let alone a manifesto.
So we don't know exactly what the combined "Smith + Labour" offering would have been. We know what John Smith's politics were, and what his personal vision of a left-wing politics in the neoliberal era was. But we don't know exactly how he would have put those into a manifesto and where (and to what extent) he would have adapted/compromised them to comply with the rest of the Labour party or broad political strategy.
I think it's pretty clear that, however things shook out, Smith would have put Labour (and left-wing British politics) in a very different place to what they became under Blair. Both were reformers and modernisers, and both called time on the Benn/Militant idea of re-treading 'classic' British democratic socialism, with its origins in the trade unions and Fabians of the industrial imperial age and the Cold War. But Blair's ideology was essentially a surrender to neoliberalism, which seemed to him and similar thinkers to be politically and economically unquestionable - the 'right answer' in the era of the End of History. Blair's 'Third Way' accepted all the same economic principles and assumption as Margaret Thatcher, and largely rejected the core social principles of classical socialism. The latter were replaced by the concept of Social Justice, and New Labour basically promised to use capitalist economics to achieve the same ends that socialist wanted, through socially liberal and market-orientated methods ("working class people can buy Audis on credit now, which is social advancement, right?")
Smith also saw the need to come up with something to replace the old sort of socialism (which had effectively lost its battle as far the UK was concerned in the 1970s, had lost it more broadly with the collapse of the Soviet Union and grew out of a world that essentially no longer existed). But he proposed a new sort of socialism rather than the basic acceptance of neoliberal capitalism.
We know what Smith's personal political priorities were - he was a fervent believer in the modernisation of institutions and internationalism. He was not a great believer in centralised nation states, preferring to have meaningful and appropriate levels of democracy at a local, municipal, regional, national and international level. That included workplace democracy; Smith was a far more explicit supporter of trade unions and worker power than either Kinnock before him or Blair after him. He was also a passionate pro-European and wanted the UK to have a much closer and more enthusiastic role within the EEC as it transformed into the EU. He was one of the earliest and most prominent campaigners to integrate the EHRC into UK law, and much of the Blair government's early work in this regard (and things like the removal of the death penalty from even its token remaining cases) were a legacy of things he had set in motion. He mooted federalisation of the UK rather than 'celtic devolution' and wanted to replace the House of Lords with a federal-level governing chamber. He also supported the UK gaining a written constitution and saw federalisation as the perfect point at which to do that. He summed up his civic politics as "accountable democratic radicalism".
Smith abhorred secrecy in public and official life, and had plans for a series of Freedom of Information Acts (watered down versions of which did survive into the Blair years) outlying both the responsibility of the public sector to retain and make information available and the right of citizens to access it. One of his policy documents he wrote for the Socialist International (that he was a member of, and wrote papers for, such an organisation also shows neatly how he differed from Blair) favoured publically-available financial information for corporations and individuals, similar to the arrangement in certain Nordic countries. He spoke favourably of maximum corporate pay ratios.
Smith's Britain would have been far, far closer in ethos and form to our peers in northern Europe in embracing a model of consensual rules-based power. Blair's vision was of a sort of 'popular capitalism' where everyone was a consumer and used their consumer power and market forces to access markets for public services as well as private goods, all shepherded by a regulatory (but not managerial) government. A Smith government' would have been much more interventionist than we've been used to in this country and wouldn't have had the Blairite mania for privatisation and outsourcing. Smith had a political sense of the 'national body' that Blair (and most other British PMs of the modern era) have lacked, seeing part of government's role being to protect its people and its nation against global business interests. His pro-Europeanism partially stemmed from it being a power block large enough to thwart multinational corporate interests and as a counterweight to American political leverage.
It's very interesting to consider how the whole EU/Brexit/Europe thing would have shaken out had Smith made it into No.10. A Smith Labour government would have confronted issues like the Euro head-on, although I can't get enough of a sense to predict whether he would have been against it (on economic independence grounds) or for it (as a cornerstone of European unity and economic power). But he would have picked a firm yes/no course rather than the Blair/Brown 'we're up for it in principle but we don't think the time is right' fudge. I'd put a lot of money on Smith not following Bush into Afghanistan and Iraq, and instead forming a sceptical axis with Chirac and Schroeder. I'd like to think that a Labour Party running on something akin to Smith's principles would have won power in 1997 (maybe not to such a landslide since Tory voters would have found far more to disagree with him on, but then left-wing voters would have been much more enthused) and had it governed on those principled I don't think we'd have seen the social, geographical, cultural and economic divides that grew during the New Labour years. There would have been turmoil and a lot of argy-bargy as Smith reformed his way through Britain's established institutions and changed the entire political and cultural axis of the country (less global/trans-Atlantic and more European) but it would have been like lancing a boil rather than festering into what brought us to 2016 and beyond, backed up by a much more genuinely egalitarian economic situation and much less of the 'ex-industrial towns with expensive housing, poor jobs and rubbish transport links but a there's a branch of the V&A Museum in what used to be a cotton mill now' that was New Labour's legacy for much of the country.
I think Smith's unfortunate early death was a real Sliding Doors type moment for the UK, essentially dooming us to the consensus and narrow thinking that has led us to where we are 30 years later.
Our politics don't completely align but I really enjoy your posts. Very informative and insightful.So we don't know exactly what the combined "Smith + Labour" offering would have been. We know what John Smith's politics were, and what his personal vision of a left-wing politics in the neoliberal era was. But we don't know exactly how he would have put those into a manifesto and where (and to what extent) he would have adapted/compromised them to comply with the rest of the Labour party or broad political strategy.
I think it's pretty clear that, however things shook out, Smith would have put Labour (and left-wing British politics) in a very different place to what they became under Blair. Both were reformers and modernisers, and both called time on the Benn/Militant idea of re-treading 'classic' British democratic socialism, with its origins in the trade unions and Fabians of the industrial imperial age and the Cold War. But Blair's ideology was essentially a surrender to neoliberalism, which seemed to him and similar thinkers to be politically and economically unquestionable - the 'right answer' in the era of the End of History. Blair's 'Third Way' accepted all the same economic principles and assumption as Margaret Thatcher, and largely rejected the core social principles of classical socialism. The latter were replaced by the concept of Social Justice, and New Labour basically promised to use capitalist economics to achieve the same ends that socialist wanted, through socially liberal and market-orientated methods ("working class people can buy Audis on credit now, which is social advancement, right?")
Smith also saw the need to come up with something to replace the old sort of socialism (which had effectively lost its battle as far the UK was concerned in the 1970s, had lost it more broadly with the collapse of the Soviet Union and grew out of a world that essentially no longer existed). But he proposed a new sort of socialism rather than the basic acceptance of neoliberal capitalism.
We know what Smith's personal political priorities were - he was a fervent believer in the modernisation of institutions and internationalism. He was not a great believer in centralised nation states, preferring to have meaningful and appropriate levels of democracy at a local, municipal, regional, national and international level. That included workplace democracy; Smith was a far more explicit supporter of trade unions and worker power than either Kinnock before him or Blair after him. He was also a passionate pro-European and wanted the UK to have a much closer and more enthusiastic role within the EEC as it transformed into the EU. He was one of the earliest and most prominent campaigners to integrate the EHRC into UK law, and much of the Blair government's early work in this regard (and things like the removal of the death penalty from even its token remaining cases) were a legacy of things he had set in motion. He mooted federalisation of the UK rather than 'celtic devolution' and wanted to replace the House of Lords with a federal-level governing chamber. He also supported the UK gaining a written constitution and saw federalisation as the perfect point at which to do that. He summed up his civic politics as "accountable democratic radicalism".
Smith abhorred secrecy in public and official life, and had plans for a series of Freedom of Information Acts (watered down versions of which did survive into the Blair years) outlying both the responsibility of the public sector to retain and make information available and the right of citizens to access it. One of his policy documents he wrote for the Socialist International (that he was a member of, and wrote papers for, such an organisation also shows neatly how he differed from Blair) favoured publically-available financial information for corporations and individuals, similar to the arrangement in certain Nordic countries. He spoke favourably of maximum corporate pay ratios.
Smith's Britain would have been far, far closer in ethos and form to our peers in northern Europe in embracing a model of consensual rules-based power. Blair's vision was of a sort of 'popular capitalism' where everyone was a consumer and used their consumer power and market forces to access markets for public services as well as private goods, all shepherded by a regulatory (but not managerial) government. A Smith government' would have been much more interventionist than we've been used to in this country and wouldn't have had the Blairite mania for privatisation and outsourcing. Smith had a political sense of the 'national body' that Blair (and most other British PMs of the modern era) have lacked, seeing part of government's role being to protect its people and its nation against global business interests. His pro-Europeanism partially stemmed from it being a power block large enough to thwart multinational corporate interests and as a counterweight to American political leverage.
It's very interesting to consider how the whole EU/Brexit/Europe thing would have shaken out had Smith made it into No.10. A Smith Labour government would have confronted issues like the Euro head-on, although I can't get enough of a sense to predict whether he would have been against it (on economic independence grounds) or for it (as a cornerstone of European unity and economic power). But he would have picked a firm yes/no course rather than the Blair/Brown 'we're up for it in principle but we don't think the time is right' fudge. I'd put a lot of money on Smith not following Bush into Afghanistan and Iraq, and instead forming a sceptical axis with Chirac and Schroeder. I'd like to think that a Labour Party running on something akin to Smith's principles would have won power in 1997 (maybe not to such a landslide since Tory voters would have found far more to disagree with him on, but then left-wing voters would have been much more enthused) and had it governed on those principled I don't think we'd have seen the social, geographical, cultural and economic divides that grew during the New Labour years. There would have been turmoil and a lot of argy-bargy as Smith reformed his way through Britain's established institutions and changed the entire political and cultural axis of the country (less global/trans-Atlantic and more European) but it would have been like lancing a boil rather than festering into what brought us to 2016 and beyond, backed up by a much more genuinely egalitarian economic situation and much less of the 'ex-industrial towns with expensive housing, poor jobs and rubbish transport links but a there's a branch of the V&A Museum in what used to be a cotton mill now' that was New Labour's legacy for much of the country.
I think Smith's unfortunate early death was a real Sliding Doors type moment for the UK, essentially dooming us to the consensus and narrow thinking that has led us to where we are 30 years later.
Thank you.
Looking at the Smith shadow cabinet there are a lot of NL faces, I do wonder whether he would have been able to resist the internal pressures; Brown and Blair were common-minded confidants well back into the Smith era, and were in line for Great Offices.
That said, in 1997 Labour was in receipt of the most virtuous inheritance any new government has had in the last 100 years, and the goods times rolled for a decade. Any incumbent could not be easily dislodged until after 2008; whatever game Smith wanted to play, it was his to lose.
And, not to speak if of the dead, Smith has become a misidentified totem for the left of the party, a whatever-you'd-like-to-imagine socialist hero to contrast with the villainous third-way Blair. That view ignores that both those men stood at the end of the road back from 1983, and both were committed "beyond Kinnock" reformers, just of different shades.
That said, in 1997 Labour was in receipt of the most virtuous inheritance any new government has had in the last 100 years, and the goods times rolled for a decade. Any incumbent could not be easily dislodged until after 2008; whatever game Smith wanted to play, it was his to lose.
And, not to speak if of the dead, Smith has become a misidentified totem for the left of the party, a whatever-you'd-like-to-imagine socialist hero to contrast with the villainous third-way Blair. That view ignores that both those men stood at the end of the road back from 1983, and both were committed "beyond Kinnock" reformers, just of different shades.
AmyRichardson said:
And, not to speak if of the dead, Smith has become a misidentified totem for the left of the party, a whatever-you'd-like-to-imagine socialist hero to contrast with the villainous third-way Blair. That view ignores that both those men stood at the end of the road back from 1983, and both were committed "beyond Kinnock" reformers, just of different shades.
To be fair, this happens across the spectrum to any figure whose mettle is not tested and a definite verdict isn't given, especially when their tenure is as short and so lacking in definite statements as Smith's.He's also a totem for not-Labour right-leaning people to adopt a tone of reasonableness and to contrast with their dislike/loathing of Blair and New Labour - they often talk about Smith as a principled intellectual who was more in touch with Labour's voters base than the craven Blair. Someone who they have to respect even if they didn't agree with him.
When you can be pretty sure that if Smith had gone into an election on a platform remotely like what his personal beliefs would predict, he'd get both barrels of the usual 'looney left' campaign and he'd be someone who wanted to trash Britain's 1000-year old political system and hand us over to Europe, put the unions back in charge, nationalise your BT shares, let your neighbour see your bank statement and destroy the Special Relationship. Multiply x100 if he actually won an election.
See also Hugh Gaitskill and David Miliband - the conservative's favourite Labour leaders because they never did or threatened to do anything, and therefore can be safely praised and also used as a stick to beat Labour with (castigating them for choosing the wrong leader).
Edited by 2xChevrons on Sunday 12th May 21:22
2xChevrons said:
He's also a totem for not-Labour right-leaning people to adopt a tone of reasonableness and to contrast with their dislike/loathing of Blair and New Labour - they often talk about Smith as a principled intellectual who was more in touch with Labour's voters base than the craven Blair. Someone who they have to respect even if they didn't agree with him.
When you can be pretty sure that if Smith had gone into an election on a platform remotely like what his personal beliefs would predict, he'd get both barrels of the usual 'looney left' campaign and he'd be someone who wanted to trash Britain's 1000-year old political system and hand us over to Europe, put the unions back in charge, nationalise your BT shares, let your neighbour see your bank statement and destroy the Special Relationship. Multiply x100 if he actually won an election.
They fight with the tools that are to hand, as any serious political party ought to.When you can be pretty sure that if Smith had gone into an election on a platform remotely like what his personal beliefs would predict, he'd get both barrels of the usual 'looney left' campaign and he'd be someone who wanted to trash Britain's 1000-year old political system and hand us over to Europe, put the unions back in charge, nationalise your BT shares, let your neighbour see your bank statement and destroy the Special Relationship. Multiply x100 if he actually won an election.
Edited by 2xChevrons on Sunday 12th May 21:22
Honestly, I suspect the Tories really do like it when Labour are being Labour and they can differentiate themselves within effort, "naturally" if you will. A close tussle over the middle ground tends to be divisive for the Tories (those who want to have that fight, those who think there's more hay to be made way-off to the right); but if Labour is positioning a clear step to the left then the Tories can work the clear-cut fiscal divide and keep the rest of their offer uncontroversial (in the eyes of the breadth of their likely electorate.)
It helps if the Labour leader is a hapless character like Corbyn. But even if Labour was led by a intellectually consistent, but also worldly and sensible, character like Smith, the parties still "enjoy" campaigning from their comfort zones.
2xChevrons said:
He's also a totem for not-Labour right-leaning people to adopt a tone of reasonableness and to contrast with their dislike/loathing of Blair and New Labour - they often talk about Smith as a principled intellectual who was more in touch with Labour's voters base than the craven Blair. Someone who they have to respect even if they didn't agree with him.
When you can be pretty sure that if Smith had gone into an election on a platform remotely like what his personal beliefs would predict, he'd get both barrels of the usual 'looney left' campaign and he'd be someone who wanted to trash Britain's 1000-year old political system and hand us over to Europe, put the unions back in charge, nationalise your BT shares, let your neighbour see your bank statement and destroy the Special Relationship. Multiply x100 if he actually won an election.
He was before the time that I took an interest in politics, but I had the impression he was regarded as a traditional social democrat rather than a globalist like Blair. That is likely why he is regarded more positively.When you can be pretty sure that if Smith had gone into an election on a platform remotely like what his personal beliefs would predict, he'd get both barrels of the usual 'looney left' campaign and he'd be someone who wanted to trash Britain's 1000-year old political system and hand us over to Europe, put the unions back in charge, nationalise your BT shares, let your neighbour see your bank statement and destroy the Special Relationship. Multiply x100 if he actually won an election.
If that was mistaken, and he would have been just been Blair with higher taxes, then you might be correct.
Edited by JagLover on Tuesday 14th May 08:43
Thanks for all this.
I started this thread because my MIL reminded me of the date. She was the cleaner at the Parliamentary Office of Monklands East and so she knew the whole Smith family.
In addition I was reading an article regarding the current staff that SKS has around him at Labour Party HQ in the run up to the next General Election (Sue Gray and others) and I was really concerned at the way that the Tony Blair organisation is heavily involved at that level and what ramifications that would have on the country if / when Labour get into power.
I maybe talking out of turn but I think many voters today are looking for real "Conviction Politics" once again.
I started this thread because my MIL reminded me of the date. She was the cleaner at the Parliamentary Office of Monklands East and so she knew the whole Smith family.
In addition I was reading an article regarding the current staff that SKS has around him at Labour Party HQ in the run up to the next General Election (Sue Gray and others) and I was really concerned at the way that the Tony Blair organisation is heavily involved at that level and what ramifications that would have on the country if / when Labour get into power.
I maybe talking out of turn but I think many voters today are looking for real "Conviction Politics" once again.
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