Shift in electorate not good news for Labour

We are all familiar with arguments that the old left-right divide is being replaced by one between those in favour of/benefitting from globalisation and those who have lost out from it. It is reflected in tensions within the Labour Party between the metropolitan faction from Remain voting constituencies and those MPs from the north representing Brexit voting areas.

A paper in the British Journal of Political Science by Will Jennings and others using data from the British Social Attitudes Survey from 1985 to 2012 found that British young people are more right-wing and authoritarian in their views than previous generations. Although they are more socially liberal on matters of equality and women's rights, they are also more consumerist and individualistic on issues such as the welfare state.

The generation that grew up in the period of Conservative rule starting with Margaret Thatcher hold more right-wing views than their predecessors. But 'Blair's babes', who came of age while Tony Blair and New Labour were in power, are even further to the right of the political spectrum. New Labour essentially reinforced Thatcherite policy values, reproducing them and making them more embedded.

There has been a clear rise in negative attitudes towards the benefits system, the unemployed, benefit recipients and the welfare system. Younger people also take a harder line on previous generations, despite crime levels having fallen.

The privatisation story

The Institute of Government held a 'policy reunion' last night for ministers, civil servants and others involved in the Thatcher privatisations. Talking to Andrew Gamble beforehand, we agreed that it all now seemed very long time ago. It was very difficult to convey to contemporary students just how nationalised industries had dominated the economic and political landscape.

Privatisation had been selected because it was a policy success selected in a survey of PSA members. The story told last night was a familar one: privatisation had not been a significant part of the Government's original plans, but had developed into a political and administrative programme. There were a variety of motivations: raising money; reducing the role of the state in the economy; curbing the trade unions; widening share ownership (although this did not really succeed in the longer run); building political support etc.

The general tone of those involved was rather self-congratulatory and they explained the failure of the programme to do enough to boost competition in terms at the pace at which decisions had to be taken and the influence exerted by the existing managements of the industry who did not want competition at any price. Breaking up an industry would have extended the time line for a privatisation from two to five years and would have meant that the key BT sale, which really started the process, would have not gone ahead.

While I did not obtain any major new insights, there were some interesting points of detail which I may deal with in a subsequent posting.

Milk snatching

There is no evidence that free milk for under 5s makes any significant impact on their diet and nutrition and in any case it is a blanket subsidy that is not targeted on those in most need. Given the current fiscal climate, it would be a good way of saving £150m a year.

However, David Cameron quickly knocked down his health minister when she suggested getting rid of the free milk. No doubt he remembered the 'Thatcher the milk snatcher' that attached to Margaret Thatcher for so long. That was in part because it rhymed and someone actually made a song of it. I was reading a compilation of remniniscences the other day and it was pointed out that the milk was often in poor condition when it reached the children. Its original introduction in the 1930s reflected the power of the dairy lobby.

What this episode shows is the risk that relatively ineffective programmes will survive the cuts and more effective ones may take the hit.

Peter Walker

The death of Peter Walker announced yesterday reminded me of a couple of incidents that happened round about 1980. I happened to get in the lift at the Department of Trade and Industry building in Victoria Street at the same time as the 'mad monk' Sir Keith Joseph. As we ascended to the top floor, Sir Keith stared at me all the time as I was something that the cat had brought in.

In the old MAFF building in Whitehall Place, I got in the lift with Peter Walker. 'How are you. How's everything going?' he asked. He didn't know me, but clearly thought I was a relatively junior civil servant.

Peter Walker came from a skilled working class background in London (something we share). By the age of 30 he was self-made millionaire. As chairman of the Young Conservatives, he bagged what was then a safe seat at Worcester (Worcester Woman delivered it to New Labour in 1997 and it has only just returned to the Cameroonies).

Walker got over his antipathy to the common market and hitched himself to Ted Heath's bandwagon, running his successful leadership election campaign in 1965. His managerial approach fitted in with Heath's modernising style and he headed up the new Environment department in 1970 before going to Trade and Industry.

However, he lacked that extra something that singled out a future party leader and in any case his brand of Conservatism was going out of favour. He could certainly spot an emerging issue as in the case of the 1972 Deposit of Poisonous Wastes Act which presaged later environmental legislation (and about which I wrote a case study in our book on the CBI). However, it is arguable that he botched the reform of local government and also took a 'courageous' decision to invest heavily in the steel industry just when it was going into decline.

Mrs Thatcher, whom he had turned down as a minister of state, put him into the relative backwater of the Ministry of Agriculture. Here he bought into the productivist agenda, producing a white paper called 'Food From Our Own Resources'. He wasn't too pleased to be shifted to Energy but was then in charge of defeating the miners' strike, as well as privatising British Gas and laying the groundwork for electricity privatisation (arguably not well done).

Before the 1987 election he was so much on the edge of the platform that he was in danger of falling off at an election launch event involving the Cabinet. However, he outlived all the other 'wets' in the Cabinet like Sir Ian Gilmour and Jim Prior. This was exemplified in the title of his memoir 'Staying Power'.

Mrs Thatcher made him Secretary of State for Wales and gave him a free hand to pursue interventionist policies in the principality where he went down well. 'Just look at what Peter Walker is doing in Wales,' Ian Gilmour once said to me.

Peter Walker had a happy family life. He stayed married to Tessa and had five children. He had few interests outside business and politics, but he pursued those interests to the full.

Cat's death sparks panic in Canada

The death of a cat led the Canadian prime minister to think that Mrs Thatcher had died, but in fact it was a cat named after the former prime minister: Thatcher

New think tank

Located in Carlton House Gardens, the new Institute of Government is clearly not short of money. Is this the British Brookings that many people have called for:
Think Tank

It's a cross-party body concerned with evidence-based work on the effectiveness of government. Transitions of government is one interest. The executive durector is former top mandarin, Sir Michael Bichard.

An early report has some interesting and relevant things to say on the core executive. Despite the popular belief that British government is highly centralised, the three departments at the centre - Number 10, the Treasury and the Cabinet Office 'actually have less power over people and budgets, and fewer sanctions to apply than many of their international counterparts.'

This is an issue that is known to concern Dave Cameron and the Conservatives have signalled that they intend to create a 'power house' at the centre of government. Unfortunately, we have heard this before, not least from Harold Wilson. Margaret Thatcher did exert a grip on government through force of personality rather than new structures, but she lost that grip as she surrounded herself with courtiers who would not challenge her.

Sir Michael commented that a small centre had some advantages: 'It avoids bureaucracy and second-guessing. But there are questions to be asked about whether the UK's centre of government has the power and authority to set a clear strategic direction for government as a whole.' These are, indeed, important questions that need to be asked and pursued.