WarrenEvans.net

www.warrenevans.net

You are in the company of Roger Warren Evans

My views

COPYRIGHT > The originating content of this website is my own work, and subject to my copyright. But on one condition only, I hereby give my con-
sent to its unrestricted reproduction for any purpose: the condition is that its source is subject to proper ack-
nowledgment, giving my name, my assertion of copyright, and the name of this website as it source, namely >
www.warrenevans.net

Diary Note /0023
Thursday 7 February 2002

For earlier comment, follow Diary Note Archive (left)

One of you has challenged my January weight-loss - these were my actual Monday/am weights...
Mon 31 Dec = 19st 6lbs
Mon 7 Jan = 19st 3lbs
Mon 14 Jan = 19st 2lbs
Mon 21 Jan = 18st 11lbs
Mon 28 Jan = 18st 7lbs
Mon 4 Feb = 18st 5lbs
For my weight-loss theory, see
Obesity and Me

Labour Party Wreckage

Tony Blair’s words, in his weekend speech at Cardiff, were ill-chosen. In defending his public service reforms, and in designating the trade unions as “wreckers”, he made unnecessary enemies, without pleasing any friends. What’s more, he drew the wrong line in the sand, and triggered the wrong debate. And politically, that was not clever.

He was , however, compounding a prior error. That was made by the trade union leaders themselves, John Monks, Bill Morris and - above all, John Edmonds of the mighty GMB. Now: I am a GMB member myself, and proud to be. But John has not called this one well. In opposing Private Public Partnerships outright, he has chosen the wrong spot to stand and fight. He threw down the gauntlet of outright rejection, and Tony Blair has responded with an outright rebuttal. Hence the escalation of the conflict, almost in the style of gladiatorial combat. Both men seem determined to square up for a fight, and GMB’s hard-hitting Press advertising has reinforced that impression.

But both positions are wrong. And before too much damage is done to the Labour movement, the lines of this debate must be re-drawn. These are not black and white issues. The unions should recognise that the PPP principles are in themselves unexceptionable. The public sector has always achieved many of its public service ends with private-sector contracts, particularly in local government. Yet there are certain key functions which should always be performed by salaried public servants, and we should assiduously cultivate a high-morale public service to assure the performance of such functions.

The political debate ought to be a pragmatic one. We should seek to differentiate those functions which are capable of satisfactory “management by contract” and those which are not. We should also differentiate between the private-profit sector and the not-for-profit sector (including charities): it may be satisfactory to contract-out to the latter, even if not to the former.

These are practical, pragmatic issues. They pose interesting and intellectually demanding questions, worthy of the best brains. For example, most building and civil engineering works can be contracted out, on deferred payment terms: hospital and school premises provision can perfectly well be contracted out, as well as public office-accommodation. Most “physical services” (cleaning, road-cleansing, refuse collection, waste recycling, cash-collection, all janitorial services, running buses) can properly be contracted out, given the right legal documentation. And as a lawyer, I am keenly aware of the inadequacy of contract law as a managerial framework: there should be no out-sourcing of public functions unless the appropriate legal techniques are to hand. Related professional services can also be contracted out: public agencies no longer have any need to employ project architects or engineers.

On the other hand , local authority planning officers should always be on the staff, as should the senior highway engineers, and all chief officer and related teams. The same is true of the National Health Service, and its major component units. In the education sector, there is clearly no need for teachers to be public servants, although I would not favour contracting out to the private-profit sector. The emergence of an “informal public sector”, consisting of a network of educational charities working in partnership with the state sector, would be ideologically acceptable to me. The new Hackney arrangements (a special-purpose educational trust) may be a straw-in-the-wind, although its details are not yet clear to the outside world.

These are not simple black/white matters. Labour has admittedly not handled the debate skilfully. I remember crossing swords in 1996 with John Prescott, at the Labour Finance & Industry Group. The occasion was his use of the term “Private Finance Initiative”, which he had pioneered within Labour circles. The usage implicitly gave the City financiers credit which they did not deserve, I argued. They were merely conventional corporate creatures seeking (as they always do) to get their teeth into public fiscal flesh. Labour was essentially pioneering a Public Finance Initiative, to be distinguished clearly from the subservient Tory model, and Labour should take the political credit. The public sector was making the running in seeking new ways of mobilising private finance for public services, without raising taxes. Properly understood (I contended) that was a public initiative, not a private one.

John Prescott rejected my point out of hand. I doubt if he gave it another thought. Labour went on to make a dog’s dinner of its promotion. And the present spat is merely another consequence of this analytical failure.

My conclusion is that Tony Blair is right to stick to his guns, in spite of past errors and his Cardiff mistake. The “wrecker” slur will haunt him, just as “crap” haunted Gerald Ratner. I am sure Blair regrets it already, even though he will not apologise. On the other hand, the unions have also chosen the wrong battle to fight, and risk tearing the Party apart.

Our gladiators should cool it. Labour needs the stimulus of competition to ensure progress in the public sector, where it is appropriate – although I disagree with many of its attempted applications.

I also favour positive action to develop the not-for-profit sector [ see Public Interest Companies , active lobby group, of which I am Secretary ]. I am privileged to be a Trustee and Director of a marvellous leisure charity in Islington, which is currently competing with leading private-profit providers for the next Islington leisure services contract – I predict that trusts like Aquaterra will play a major role in future public service provision Check us out

Blunkett's Basic Instincts

What is David Blunkett up to? He has clearly decided to make positive use of his great office to make waves on several fronts – drugs, immigration, prison management, the Police – and now, local government. This is a formidable agenda. Last week, his speech to the Labour Local Government Conference in Cardiff was, on the face of it, simply about improving public services. That is the current second-term mantra, and all Ministers are on-message. But Blunkett turned the argument around. He used the occasion to raise a quite different issue. Speaking for the Cabinet, he said -

“We cannot run or do everything in 21st century Britain. We have now the worst of all worlds. Ministers are felt, believed and presented as having responsibility for aspects of our life, our well-being and our public services, over which they do not have any direct control. We need a public debate on where power lies, a mature debate on the issues of power and responsibility in contemporary society”.

That is self-evidently true , even though the complaint is disingenuous. Britain is now the most hopelessly overcentralised state in Europe, far worse than France, with her 36,000 communes. And these centralist expectations have been assiduously cultivated by Labour Ministers over a very long period, both before Thatcher and since her downfall.

Thatcher , for her own megalomaniac reasons, trod the same path. But it was Tony Crosland who signalled the downturn in local council fortunes, with his infamous “the party’s over” speech in 1975. That speech carried a wholly unwarranted slur which has ever since seemed to justify progressive centralisation. For although municipal politics figured prominently in early Labour politics, Labour Governments since WW2 have been ruthless centralisers. Local government has been systematically diminished, talked down. Both Blair’s Governments have continued the same process. Indeed, there must be some doubt whether local government will survive the awful Local Government Act 2000, which is proving wholly destructive of local democracy.

Could this be the U-turn to end all U-turns? David Blunkett, as a formidable Sheffield City Leader by political origin, is the one man who might deliver such a U-turn, if he were to succeed Blair. Because he knows that the quality of democracy is being sorely strained by the decline of local government. He knows that the only way of improving the lot of the urban poor is by cultivating politically strong and economically vibrant city regions. He knows that local councils are much more efficient and sensitive, in the deployment of public funds, than central government departments can ever be. He knows that this theme is close to the political hearts and motives of tens of thousands of Party activists who feel abandoned by Blair. Was he flying a kite?

If Blunkett were to lead Labour into a 2005/06 Election, preaching the theme of good city government coupled with regional devolution, abandoning key Westminster powers and cutting the number of MPs, my Party would carry the day.

Cardiff may yet prove to have been the start of something big.

The unmusical Welsh

While I am talking Cardiff, let me tackle the Ł104,000,000 contract, shortly to be let, to build the Welsh Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay. Jenny Randerson AM, the LibDem who is Culture Minister in the Assembly’s Lab/Lib coalition, gushed - “This project will promote and define our culture, its achievements and its potential across the UK and the world. It will help to shape Wales’s modern profile” [ Check out The Guardian ]

What pretentious nonsense! Classical opera forms no part of Wales’ cultural heritage, Bryn Terfel or no Bryn Terfel. I am delighted he makes a good living out of it, good luck to him. But ours is not, properly understood, a musical culture in any real sense.

Welsh culture, of which I am intensely proud, is a vocal culture. We love everything about the human voice, in all its manifestations – good singing, good poetry, good speaking, good preaching, good conversation, we understand the Irish craic because we form part of the same oral peasant tradition. We thrill to male voice choirs, we love the grass-roots character of Eisteddfodau, with their profound educational dimensions. The values of community and equality are at least as important, in this culture, as the music of the voice. We are talkers, singers, teachers, preachers, politicians – and inveterate conversationalists. We revel in the human voice. Its musicality is accessible to everyone, and we are natural egalitarians. The Welsh harp is the equivalent of the folk-guitar in the hands of Bob Dylan. When it comes to serious music we are not even in the Second Division. My own musicality is of the same low-grade order.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am delighted that Cardiff is to have a Ł104m opera house, with the largest orchestra pit in the world, and seating an audience of 1,800. Cardiff needs it, just to compete in the sanitised international city-to-city competition that is emerging throughout the world, not only in Europe. Barcelona, London, Hamburg, Lyons and Cardiff. Every self-respecting city must have one. It will be good for Cardiff and its region, and ultimately good for Wales. But it has nothing to do with Welsh culture. Apart from the sterling efforts of the BBC, there has never been such a thing as a Welsh orchestra.

And those 1,800 operatic seats will not see many operatic Welsh bums.

What do you think? Drop me a line.

Back to today's Home Page

You are in the company of Roger Warren Evans