Give us back our Big Idea, Mr Cameron

john problem

So that's what our leaders do during their hols - go 'around the country' talking to eloquent old ladies. I thought they toddled off to Tuscany. It's good to know that Mr. Byrne has found the answer on his travels - 'we must be radical, imaginative and inventive.' But surely one read that last week from one of his colleagues, and indeed the week before from another - in fact at my last count, those words had been used by all 16 Cabinet members and at least 37 of their immediate juniors. Takes some gall, after eleven years of power.

Kram Ekosum

A well written piece by a rising politician. It was a well chosen quote but exposes the hypocrisy at the centre of his and his colleagues argument. "When the world is moving on apace, a puritanical reliance on ‘traditional institutions’ alone is frankly difficult when those very ‘institutions’ are under pressure." Just substitute the state inside those first set of inverted commas! Most sane people agree that the Blairites saved us(thank God) from rigid statism, so "conservatives" and "progressives" can both celebrate New Labour. However, for these so called intellectuals to tell the ordinary public that all we need is even more tax and intervention from a kleptocracy who are really interested in enriching themselves and their associates is terribly obscene. The 'breakdown' of society did not magically start in 1979 as Mr Byrne acknowledges. It has been a gradual process, accelerating after hyperinflation and speeding further with the subsequent de-industrialisation. New Labour has lived off the back of rampant consumerism, work-force flexibilty, free credit, tax on pension funds, increased alcohol consumption, cheaper travel, the super powerful City fatcats, Sunday trading, net immigration - the majority of which continue to erode at traditional institutions which bind people together. Since 1997 few of these changes were put into reverse, if anything they have been eagerly promoted. Very few of them were ever 'traditional' Conservative ideals. They could be called "neo-thatcherite" but most intelligent observers do not regard Thatcher's acolytes to have been traditional conservatives. To say that our society is not broken, as Mr Byrne claims is to contradict one of the central tenets of the Labour party's critique on Thatcherism! I suppose that is what New Labour has always been about?! To seriously argue that 'solidarity' only belongs to the so called Left implies that communities barely existed before the advent of welfarism. The daily news reports tell us that 'atomised' people - the single persons, the elderly, single parents are increasingly vulnerable to the vicissitudes of daily life. Politicians say little about incentivising individuals to give of their time, not just wealth for their neighbours. They are happy to ask for money for someone else (an agency) to then take on the responsibility of providing support to the weak. Politicians say next to nothing about rural areas and how they cope with poverty, some of which is the worst to be seen. Very few politicians actually live in the countryside and nowadays very few have ever been either rich or really poor before entering parliament. They are mostly middle class, therefore their attitudes and concerns are middle class. The dichotomy between allowing people individual liberty and collectivisation is difficult to sustain. Serious politicians who are committed to sustaining our democratic civilisation ought to be bending over backwards to support any volunteer, any charitable organisation, any retired persons(including MPs!)who contribute to the soul of this country. They should lead by example and cut their own personal salaries, reduce their pensions and behave like serious adults when attending Prime Minister's questions. After this Joe Public is more likely to get interested in listening to what they have to say.

Silent Hunter

What a nasty 'little' piece of invective Mr Byrne.

You really don't 'Get it'...do you?

The electorate keep telling you in by-election after by-election to simply 'get lost' but you're clearly not listening despite protestations by the crowned prince of ZaNuLabour to the contrary.

You tried the Tory Toff thing at Crewe & Nantwich; which was as crass as it was unsuccessful.

You came FIFTH behind the awful BNP in Henley......THE BNP FFS!!

And in Glasgow East.....Labours third safest seat in Scotland.....you were utterly destroyed!

The problem is Liam; we all know exactly what New Labour stand for; that's your problem......no one wants to vote for SLEAZE & CORRUPTION.

Ken

Minister of state for borders and immigration? Hmmmm...Well, I don't think we need look towards Mr Byrne for a cohesive policy on our nation's future.

Dazza

Let's get this straight: Baldy Byrne wants us to have a national day to celebrate “the huge programme of regeneration — new homes, schools and health centres as an opportunity to renew both civic fabric and civic pride”.

An outstanding idea, worth a year’s ministerial salary alone.

Let’s all take to the streets to say thanks to a Labour Government for having the decency for providing us with these amenities. With our flags held high let us march and say thanks to our British (not Scottish) PM.

The lights are on but the living, working inhabitants of government left the building a long time ago.

Rob Slack

"We must be radical, imaginative and inventive"

Why do you feel you can lump us all into "We"? "We" doesn't exist in reality. You do, I do and so do many other individuals. It is often convenient to use "we" but we remain individuals and I want o stay that way. Soci's butt out.

Christopher Chantrill

Yes, well. The point is that there is such a thing as society. It's just not the same thing as the state.

The "huge constellation of working-class organizations" were "society." They were demolished by the state. You cannot have "fraternity" when you have collapsed "society" into the "state."

Evidently, from Lian Byrne's article, Labour still doesn't get it.

But then you wouldn't expect the heirs of the Webbs, Nye Bevan, Tony Crosland, Harold Wilson, and Tony Blair to get it, would you?

Martin Pearce

‘We can learn to live together, if we only put our minds to it.’ Eloquent? Trite, perhaps. Vague, possibly. Vacuous, certainly. But 'eloquent'?

Guy Incognito

I doubt very much that any 'national story' that could be told using the Olympics as a 'stage' would be worth hearing.

Anglica

Re the Eloquent Old Lady of Edgbaston and Martin Pearce @ 7:06 : I couldn't agree more. This thread has helped me see, however, that ageism is more than just an excuse for the criminal mind. It's more than a 'justification' of the propensity for despising the victim of, e.g, robbery, rape, murder - be the offence literal or metaphorical. You know, in the ways of the other -isms: racism, genderism, elitism, Nationalism, etc.

My new thesis: Like the other -isms, ageism has become a tool of its most sophisticated practitioner, the mother and father of Modern -isms, Marxism.

Luckily for the recently aged, the mighty Doctrine itself is getting a bit long in the tooth - and I don't think it's aging gracefully. It may even have a touch of Alzheimer's.

John Maister

By stating that David Cameron is worth some 3.2 million pounds, I presume that Byrne is suggesting that people of similar or greater wealth are not entitled to comment about the social ills of poor people. Old Labour, New Labour, nothing ever changes, they are as tired now as under Michael Foot!