When was liberalism anything other than left wing?

[matgb]

Really pleased that the radical shift to the left in taxation policy was passed at today's Lib Dem conference--couldn't make it into the hall to hear the debate unfortunately, but a genuinely redistributive policy that will genuinely help those earning the least in society has to be a bloody good thing.

Shift to the right?

For some reason there are a bunch of people convinced that it's some sort of shift to the right, and I haven't yet seen a decent explanation as to what definition of 'right' they're using. Admittedly, I've been utterly swamped on the registration desk and attending fringe events, so I've not had time to read through the debate, and as it's 3am and I'm back on the desk at 8.30am I'm not going to now.

Can someone please explain what the 'rightwards shift' is supposed to mean, as having finally read a copy of the Make It Happen paper I can see something that's both genuinely Liberal and nicely left wing in a genuinely radical way.

I'm not too keen on the tone of some of the marketing language they've used, and the over use of 'families' combined with 'no child left behind' did piss me off a bit, but having read the underlying ideas behind the rhetoric and knowing that it's aimed not at a BA politics type like me but at journalists and actual real, sane, normal people, I can get over that.

Decent left wing tax & reform agenda

So now we have a decent left wing tax policy reducing taxes for those earning the least combined with the traditional radically left wing political reform agenda. Now all we need is a commitment to level the playing field for those wanting to set up or convert to co-operatives, and this l'il liberal socialist will be very happy.

For the majority of non politics geeks that hang around this place, I'm at party conference in Bournemouth, I'm exhausted, and now I need to sleep. That's assuming Jennie's snoring doesn't keep me awake all night. Wish me luck...

Comments

[dmatthewman.livejournal.com]

Disclaimer: I'm sometimes a little blurry on the distinction between 'left' and 'right', and while I voted for the amendment, I also think the unamended motion is a thoroughly good and Liberal thing. But with that in mind:

Speech after speech opposing the amendment included an acknowledgment that we were going to cut funding to (at the very least) the NHS and education in order to fund these tax cuts. Reducing funding to the NHS and education may indeed (as Vince and several others said) be prudent in a recession, but using those cuts to fund lower taxes, even to the poorly-paid, could reasonably be looked at as a shift to the right.

No one opposing the amendment answered the point made (twice) that the very poorest members of our society don't pay tax, and wouldn't be helped at all by tax cuts even to the lowest-paid taxpayers. Even the lowest-paid taxpayers are relatively well off to someone in that situation, who's still being hit by rising fuel bills and rising food prices, and who will also need to choose between heating and eating. It may well be that we do have plans to help people in that situation just as much as those we're helping with the lower taxes. But Vince, Tim, Chris and Simon all failed to mention it, which is a pity.

I mean, I'm sure our position isn't really 'if you're low-paid but doing an honest day's work, we'll help you, but if you're a student, elderly, ill or can't find work that's just tough'. But that's what it sounded like, and that's why it looked like a shift to the right to some people.

Well, you did ask. ;-)

[matgb]

(there is no accepted definition of 'left' and 'right' thus I'm deliberately being slightly disingenuous, but the definitions I'm using are perfectly acceptable, just not as common--it's certainly closer to the traditional meaning than the general usage is)

we were going to cut funding to (at the very least) the NHS and education in order to fund these tax cuts

My understanding (again, based on discussion/writings elsewhere, it helps having a friend on FPC) is that the money cut from the NHS budget is money currently wasted on management consultancies and perpetual reorganisations and attached glossy brochures &c.

No one opposing the amendment answered the point made (twice) that the very poorest members of our society don't pay tax, and wouldn't be helped at all by tax cuts even to the lowest-paid taxpayers

That's a shame, as there are a couple fairly simple answers to at least part of that. Correct in that this doesn't directly assist those not working at all (students and pensioners), but it does help those currently not working and effectively prevented from starting work due to marginal withdrawal rates from benefit cuts and taxation.

If you remove people at the bottom from tax then part time jobs, etc are easier as they don't need to worry about bureacracy, but yes, additional help would be needed for the poorest, but that help currently isn't there in Govt policy either, thus a specific tax discussion might skip it--shame they did though.

that's what it sounded like, and that's why it looked like a shift to the right to some people.

That does make sense, and it is indeed why I asked, as on a pure tax-take analysis, this is a properly left wing position, helping people on the bottom rung (like me and SB) significantly.

Even if a lot of the savings are notional and not implementable first parliament anyway...

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

the money cut from the NHS budget is money currently wasted on management consultancies and perpetual reorganisations and attached glossy brochures.

Well, yes, this is always where political parties say savings will be made. How feasible this is is another matter. The Government has just finished one huge efficiency programme and just started another huge value for money one. There is not an infinite amount of fat that can be forever sliced away, at some point you are into the meat. I don't see any way this tax cut can be achieve without some cut in services.

This is also, returning to your original point, a classic right-wing small government policy which is another reason it could be seen as a move to the right.

[matgb]

a classic right-wing small government policy

Except small government has always been a liberal position, but that position got partially hijacked by Thatcher's tories who never really managed to implement it effectively despite all the rhetoric.

My main objective with any cuts is to reduce doubling up--someone on minimum wage pays a lot of tax that has to be processed by someone, then claims back a bunch of tax credits that has to be processed by someone else. Why not simply not take the tax in the first place?

Like I said, semantics to a large part and ultimately there can be savings (ID cards, number of MPs in the Commons daft doubling up) etc without the efficiency stuff, it's a matter of whether you actually want to do something.

Classic example of things like Govt IT projects, the new Number10 website costing £100K for something I'd have got done for no more than £2K and still been happy with the project, Welsh Office site costing £500 p/m to host for something that I could get hosted for £50/year, etc.

Effectively, just because right wing Govts have done something in the past doesn't make it a right wing policy...

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Why not simply not take the tax in the first place?

I agree entirely, tax credits are a ridiculous idea and we just need a genuine progressive income tax. This is one of the things that has always attracted me to the Lib Dems. Having discarded the 50% rate and now promising tax cuts it seems they are moving away from this.

I've just read Make It Happen and I find myself in agreement with it. By it's nature it is very vague though. Perhaps they will be able to cut some big unpopular programmes like ID and Trident, introduce some new green taxes and have some money left over for tax cuts without effecting services. I doubt it.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Except small government has always been a liberal position, but that position got partially hijacked by Thatcher's tories who never really managed to implement it effectively despite all the rhetoric

Their idea of shrinking government was more to do with centralisation, and drawing power back into London....

[caramel-betty.livejournal.com]

The bits I've heard from Vince, in particular, are less about cutting things like glossy magazines but more about cutting out unnecessary layers of quangos, so that you don't have the Health secretary instructing civil servants who instruct a random advisory board who issue recommendations to strategic health authorities who consult with PCTs and stakeholders who then come to a pro-active decision that balances the rights and responsibilities of oh God I think I want to kill myself. Obviously, there's a need for that sort of thing in terms of licensing new drugs and such, but the health issues in a given area would potentially be much more accountable and responsive to local needs and demographics. Many more care decisions would supposedly be made at a much more local level (PCTs, GPs, hospitals etc.), rather than from a centralized target.

This I like, and this I think is a good thing. If people can actually speak to the guy who makes the decisions, there's much more local participation. I hope it would also shave money off the budget, some of which could go on more front-line services, some of which could go elsewhere. (The key word in that sentence was "hope"; I am not so naive as to believe it's a cake-walk.)

This might, as a by-product, also cut the amount of crap publicity.

[caramel-betty.livejournal.com]

From what I can tell, the media are saying:

cutting public services and tax cuts = right-wing
large state services, with tax and spend = left-wing

Which to a rough, simplistic approximation is probably how Britain sort of split for much of the second half of the 20th century. But they're basing this on the usual assumption that you cut public services and give the money to the rich, whereas this is giving it to the poor. Additionally, for at least some of the savings, they're not talking about cutting public services, but scrapping some things like ID cards.

To be left-wing in the media view, this would probably need to be "We'll use the money we save to put more money into tax credits for the poor", I think. However, that would somewhat muddy the message about the 16p rate and similar, which are also intended to help middle income families. This would, obviously, undercut the policy's power to hold off Tory votes.

It would help in communication if they could identify a particular tax they'd want to cut, in my view. The short sound-bite then becomes: "16p basic rate, scrapping Labour's wasted spending, cutting <foo> with the savings." That's short enough to get into a TV news clip.

[matgb]

Media spin is about right, the whole document is definitely designed to sell and explain existing policies to journalists who can't be arsed (although it's theoretically a mini-manifesto aimed at voters).

It would help in communication if they could identify a particular tax they'd want to cut,

The thing is the objective is a significant increase in the threshold (ie removing those hit by the 10p tax debacle from income tax completely), which isn't a 'cut' as such. The short term objective is the green tax switch but...

Ah well. There was going to be more sense to this comment but it's taken me an hour with interruptions so I've forgotten the rest :-(

[caramel-betty.livejournal.com]

"16p basic rate, scrapping Labour's wasted spending, use the savings to take the poorest out of income tax altogether." 20 words, ish.

I think if shadow ministers could bang on that in interviews as a response, it might help. At the moment, they're articulating vague tax cut proposals, which can be made to sound like Tory-lite.

At the moment, they're having to get two or three questions into interviews to get to that point, when fighting past "Doesn't that make you like CallMeDave?" and "Isn't this the reverse of what you stand for?" when "Help the poor" is one of the core things the Lib Dems do stand for, IMO. A consistent message of "taking the poorest out of income tax altogether" in response to allegations of right-wing tax cuts could and should cut past that - "Isn't this the reverse of what the Lib Dems stood for?" "No, Mr Bumblebee, the Lib Dems have always stood for helping the poor, and that's what these proposals do." not "No, Mr Bumblebee, we wanted to raise taxes when they were too low, but now they're too high, so we want to cut them, and give that money back from the bottom up." I hate the phrase "from the bottom up", by the way - I think I heard Nick using it on the Today programme this morning.

You can substitute other words for "poor" - disadvantaged, vulnerable, whatever. But I think the "too low/too high/just right" Goldilocks talk is just too waffly. Like this comment.

[matgb]

All true I think, and you're right, the rhetoric needs working on--I might buttonhole someone from the press team of Nick's staff if I get the chance.

[caramel-betty.livejournal.com]

One of my ambitions in life is to be Toby Ziegler. I wish I was good enough. :-(

[paulatpingu.livejournal.com]

It's a 'shift to the right' because that's a simple, convenient term that can be used by the media to sum up the Lib Dems new taxation policy to the uneducated masses.

It also doesn't help that it's a weighted comment that is generally followed by the hack pointing out that not even the Tories are stupid enough to want to cut taxes this time around - making the Lib Dems out to be typically out of touch.

The problem is, for most people, it will just come across as a cynical move. Obviously it's the party's job to persuade these people otherwise (me included, I've not read the details yet). At least they've got another couple of years to point out exactly what they mean.

[matgb]

It really is media froth based around some weird definition of left/right that makes no sense to me at all.

The first stage of the policy has already been pushed heavily as the green tax switch--reducing taxes on the lowest paid (combined basic rate cut and threshold increase) by increasing taxes on environmental externalities (gotta love Pigou). Second stage is a medium term "if we find savings then" thing--for a start you can't reduce the number of MPs within a Parliament, and that's been a policy since I was at school.

I actually think it's a good move politically depending on how the press team and spokestypes manage to sell it, the tax threshold shoud be above minimum wage full time anyway, and environmental taxation just makes sense.

We'll see, I guess.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

it will just come across as a cynical move.

It is, isn't it? It is a deliberate attempt to poach/retain Tory voters.

[matgb]

Gah, meant to link to Rawnsley in reply, while his facts are wrong at the top I think he's got some strong points later:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/14/libdemconference.nickclegg?gusrc=rss&feed=global

Also, in response to your headline:

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

When was liberalism anything other than left wing?

When it was classical liberalism.

Re: Also, in response to your headline:

[matgb]

But classical liberalism was always opposed to the protectionist Toryism, people like Ricardo, Smith and Mill were seen as dangerous extremists by a lot of the traditional ruling classes.

By any sane definition, the classical liberals were the radical left wingers of their age. Which is why the left/right terminology is effectively useless (and why I'm being deliberately provocative, not something I've done for ages).

Re: Also, in response to your headline:

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Classical liberalism was always opposed to the protectionist Toryism

Yeah, but that has no bearing on the current debate. Left/right is always going to be imprecise but I don't agree that it is useless. I have no problem with calling classical liberalism right wing. I am a liberal but I am not a libertarian so it is understandable that I react uneasily to attempts by the party I vote for to capture the libertarian wing of the Tory Party.

Re: Also, in response to your headline:

[matgb]

Well, it does in some respects but I'm specifically annoyed with some of the Liberal activists who object to any attempt to use rhetoric that actually works and/or use of labels such as 'liberal socialist' to their idols like JS Mill (who was a socialist but in no way a marxist, let alone a Marxist).

But the thing is some of the Libertarians in the tories are headbanging loons, but others, like for example Alan Duncan, are fairly liberal, and the modern Conservative and Unionist party could, if it wanted and Cameron wasn't a twonk, claim a greater part of the party of Gladstone than the Lib Dems--the old Liberals split 5 times, 4 of those splits ended up in the Conservatives, Churchill being the most prominent.

But meh, it's not their activists or members I'm interested in, it's their soft supporters, especially in cities like Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford where the Tory party hasn't got a cat in hells chance of getting anywhere.

Re: Also, in response to your headline:

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Ah, since I fall on the Social Democrat rather than Liberal side of the party I guess none of this applies to me. (Gladstone, my arse :p) It does leave me without any one to vote for...

especially in cities like Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford where the Tory party hasn't got a cat in hells chance of getting anywhere.

Last time I looked they made up half of Bradford Council and it was the Lib Dems who were nowhere?

Re: Also, in response to your headline:

[matgb]

Odds are I'm getting cities mixed up, I know we've got Cllrs, the Lord Mayor and a target seat there but haven't looked at the numbers. Sheffield is definitely true though, and there are areas all over the place where the Tories are dead, which ones matters little (replace Hull and Liverpool into the above if you want).

But the thing is with any party that under FPTP it needs to be a broad church--jaws drop at times when I describe myself as a Liberal Socialist, which confuses the politically illiterate. Current policy is taking the party in a more avowedly liberal direction, whether that's left or right is, as we're essentially proving, pure semantics.

Without the SDP merger, we'd be nothing, and there are a large number of members who are still avowedly social democrats (the authors of reinventing the state being some, one of whom is also conference chair).

But...

The 5th split I mentioned was a bunch of the old Radical wing who went to join Labour instead. A bunch of them came back with the SDP (obviously, not the same people)...

Anyway, another half hour of interruptions for the comment, so apologies for unedited ramble.

Re: Also, in response to your headline:

[caramel-betty.livejournal.com]

On the (rather poor) Political Compass type things, I usually end up pretty much central on the economic scale, and most of the way out towards liberal on the other scale. The last time I did one, they had Simon Hughes plotted on it in about the same place I was.

I believe in things like trying to give everyone opportunities (like helping the poor go to the university of their choice), progressive taxation and the like. I also tend to favour small amounts of Law but a relatively large State - where, in my mind, Law is the regulation of everything to hell and back and invading people's private lives, but the State should be providing public services and safety nets for people.

But at heart I try to be pragmatic. Sure, a small law approach might embrace completely free markets, but I want some regulation. And while I have a lot of sympathy for socialism (in the "helping out other people who aren't me" sense, rather than necessarily nationalized industries and such), I find it hard to endorse for Britain on a grand scale, because there are situations where it doesn't work out well, and other things can be better.

I don't know what that makes me. Confused?

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

I agree totally with your comments on Make It Happen - I think everyone who's annoyed with it got annoyed at the form, and only pretended to themselves it was to do with the content. It's actually a very good attempt at co-opting the right's rhetoric to sell left/liberal ideas (Clegg's main skill, I think).
Having said that, I would like the party to move further leftward - there are definitely things in there that make me uneasy - but overall I don't find it worrying.
Also, whenever people talk too much about policy documents, manifestos etc, I remember being in the car with two council candidates last May:
"Well, we're against that according to the manifesto"
"Are we? I haven't read it. What does it say?"
"Oh, it's just *stupid*. If I actually had to pay attention to it I'd join the bloody Greens..."