Election 2015: The campaign has started on Labour's terms, but beneath the surface there are negative undertones

After the first not-debate of the 2015 UK election campaign, the Labour Party is probably feeling like it has had the best of the opening exchanges. But not everything smells of roses just yet.

During the not-debate Labour's leader, Ed Miliband, showed himself to be at least credible. Now the party has staked out its territory on the NHS by committing to restricting private company profits taken from NHS contracts and to the repeal of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (Wintour, 2015{1}).

Furthermore, the Conservatives were forced to be defensive over leaks purporting to be their proposed welfare cuts for the next parliament (Wintour, 2015{2}) - which would involve the end of industrial injuries benefit (for £1bn), restrictions on child benefit (for £1bn), taxes on disability benefits (for £1.5bn), and reducing eligibility for carer's allowance (with 40% to lose out for £1bn).

The coverage of the leak largely overshadowed David Cameron's own announcement - accompanied by insults aimed at Labour, describing them as ''hypocritical holier-than-thou, hopeless, sneering socialists" (The Guardian, 2015) - to expand the NHS to a full-time 24/7 service (BBC, 2015{1}). He was hardly helped by a British Medical Association warning that an expansion of services would require extra funding (BBC, 2015{2}).

This will all have been precisely the start Labour will have wanted. Labour looking credible on the NHS, and the Tories looking nasty with their cuts agenda.

And yet. While everything may look rosy for Labour and progressives, there is a negative undertone bubbling away just beneath the surface.

Nowhere is that negativity shown best than in the debate on immigration. The latest outrage has come courtesy of the Labour Party itself. Diane Abbott, Labour MP, has expressed her anger at the party's merchandising of a 'Controls on Immigration' mug. The party is using it to promote one of its key election commitments, itself a platitude to cover themselves with voters for whom immigration is a concern (Perraudin, 2015).

The Labour Party's attitude on the matter of immigration shouldn't really be a surprise at this point. Their language during the European elections, at the possibility of a UKIP threat to its working class base, made clear their turn towards appeasement of anti-immigration rhetoric (Watt & Wintour, 2014; Cooper, 2014).

In many ways, Labour and the Conservatives have become mirrors of one another. Both have tried to court the voters of Britain's broad Centre-ground, and in doing so forsook some of their native territory - and they have both underestimated the level of resistance that they would face from their old, alienated, supporters who would refuse to move with them.

When the Conservatives couldn't keep their house in order while trying to modernise and claim centre voters it spawned an ugly offshoot. Those Right-wing voices have since been allowed to dictate the terms of the debate, and to tie together, in people's minds, their agendas with the insecurities people fear. The sad thing is that the solutions to insecurities of work, or to the lack of homes, are not to be reached by the Right's favoured response of shutting themselves in. There are far more open and progressive solutions.

A strong minimum wage and a citizen's income. House building and social housing. More money made available to the less well-off to create their own start-ups. More support and funding for workers to take over their workplaces as co-operatives when big companies pull the plug and reek havoc in communities. The publicly funded public healthcare system supported by health professionals and service users alike.

There is also support for these ideas. Labour, and the Greens and Lib Dems, are all on board with a rising minimum wage, with house building and with co-operatives. The three main parties of the left and centre are all half way there. All that tends to stand in the way is a commitment to an effective public sector, around which there might be an equitable redistribution of income for health & welfare, and for housing and public investment like co-operatives - whether centralised at Westminster or decentralised to regions and localities.

And yet. Once again Labour has found itself against a wall of public opinion and has not found a voice with which to cut through the propaganda. Instead, feeling weak and set upon, it has paid lip service.

Labour's health proposals are part of a similar theme. They have offered a check on privatisation which, by definition, precludes an end to PFIs (Private Finance Initiatives) in the NHS - which expanded first of all under Labour's stewardship (Dathan, 2015). While it would certainly raise more funds for the NHS, it is still only an attempt at making capitalism work for socialism - or at least democratic socialism - rather than a means of addressing or responding to the fundamental mistrust of private business becoming involved with public services.

Labour's attitude to healthcare and immigration are problems with a common root. On healthcare they have their same old idea - of using private investment to raise public funds - and are just looking for a new way to sell it to people redressed in new packaging. On immigration the party has a fairly positive core - one focussed on a minimum wage increase and working conditions - which it has now encased within a language and policies of anti-immigration scapegoating.

In each case, Labour has come to its own position but has not tried to win the debate over the fundamental ideas underlying them. They have merely looked for how they might sell the idea. That has produced the inconsistent result where the party has resisted public pressure to end NHS privatisation, and yet has caved to it on immigration.

Labour's mix of aloof policy-making and aggressive populism alienates them from the people they should be debating with, trying to convince them of the benefits of progressive alternatives. While the political Right scraps for dominance, Labour needs to wake up to the fact that the Left doesn't have to play the game the same way.

There is so much hunger on the Left for more engagement and less half measures. There is so much room for more co-operation, more optimism and more positivity. Diane Abbott speaking out against Labour's immigration policy is a positive constructive step. People are crying out for a radically positive vision and Labour, as the biggest party on the Left, have the responsibility to facilitate it.

The Battle for Number 10 between just two leaders and the Bercow Saga show just how desperately British politics needs reform

The first sort-of-not-a-debate was never likely to be all that exciting, but it suffers in comparison to the political machinations that preceded it earlier today. The Conservatives chose the day that their leader was making a very public appearance to try and oust the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow.

In an effort described as 'grubby', and condemned on all sides of parliament, the Conservatives attempted to pass a motion to change the rules by which MPs vote for the position of Speaker - seen specifically as an effort to remove Bercow (BBC, 2015). Considering Bercow's efforts to clean up Parliamentary politics and modernise Westminster (Dathan, 2015), it wasn't exactly the backdrop that David Cameron would have wanted for facing an interrogation by Jeremy Paxman.

The not-a-debate itself was predictably frustrating and tense - though there were some cracks. Cameron couldn't live on a zero-hours contract and Miliband claimed that his Labour predecessors were wrong on immigration and the deregulation of the banks.

The pretty odd absence of the Liberal Democrats from the debate was at least softened when their policies showed up. The Mansion Tax, and a Referendum on Europe if there is a treaty change, seem to have made it into Labour's repertoire.

However much their absence may leave them a bit isolated, the Lib Dems may be pleased not to have been on the same stage as the other leaders after all. Whatever they might have gained in terms of increased profile, that profile would have come with the great deal of frustration people will feel with the persistence of Cameron and Miliband in refusing to answer questions directly.

Early polling seems to have suggested a 'win' for Cameron (Clark, 2015), but it has been suggested that Miliband will likely be the one who gains in the long term - being seen to possibly be a capable leader will not hurt his party's election chances (Sparrow, 2015).

And yet, despite all of that, the main thing to be taken from the not-debate tonight will be the narrow focus on just two party leaders at a time when British politics has never been more open. The reality of British politics in 2015 is that there is unlikely to be a majority after the election in May, and there will be many smaller parties vying for attention.

Keeping the focus on these two - Miliband and Cameron, Labour and Conservatives - is about as bad for politics as the underhanded attempt to dislodge Speaker Bercow, a committed reformer, from office while everyone else is away or not paying attention.

The focus now switches to the debate between seven party leaders on 2nd April. That should be livelier, if for no other reason than the Clegg effect from 2010 - lots of parties and politicians entirely new to many viewers. That at least will hopefully mark a reforming step, more in line with reality.

British voters prefer moderate Centrism... so why are Far-Right groups making gains?

There has been much speculation over the years as to the dominant political attitudes of the British people. That debate has been reflected in the long term efforts of the Conservative Party to rebrand and modernise (Watt, 2015{1}). It has been the driving force behind movements within the Labour Party, such as Blue Labour (Berry, 2011).

The answer is, according to NatCen's British Social Attitudes Survey, that political attitudes in Britain appear to be very particularly Centrist and moderate (NatCen, 2015).

A recent study has shown that voters are Centrists who pull more to the Left, or more to the Right, to restrain the drift of the government in power (Watt, 2015{2}). These drifts to the Right, against Labour in 2010, and to the Left, against the Conservatives in 2015, tell us something very interesting about the electoral chances of the main parties.

The apparently determined Centrism of voters turns efforts to stay in government into a battle to stay in the middle ground, and to keep away the perception of drifting towards more extreme positions. The economic policies of the main parties - as demonstrated by the debates over last week's 2015 Budget announcement (18 March 2015) - despite being at apparent odds with one another, reflect this reality by all fitting tightly within the accepted economic consensus.

There is, however, something paradoxical in all this: the rise of the far right.

It has not happened in isolation. Across Europe and in the United States, Right-wing and Far-Right groups have gained a lot of ground. From the Tea Party in the US, to Movimento 5 Stelle in Italy, there are anti-establishment protest groups springing up across Europe that have a distinct conservative overtone. In the UK and France, Right-wing parties UKIP and Front National have been the main benefactors.

These rising reactions - with their nationalist, religious and cultural overtones - seem to defy the analysis. While UKIP have yet to break through 10% of the popular vote at an election, in France Marine Le Pen's Front National look set to become France's largest party.

It is not impossible, though, to bring these events within the findings of the study. First to consider are the groups and movements themselves which seem to have two components:

• First, an anti-establishment vote, acting in response to the government or political consensus of the day,
• and second, the deep sectarianism to which these movements have frequently appealed.

Taking the assessment of the study as a starting point, it is possible to imagine - as others have done before (Bogdanor, 1983) - the mainstream of politics not as a struggle between Left and Right, but between the Centre and extremisms on all sides.

Most multi-party, majoritarian, political systems feature the Left and the Right revolving around a centrist, moderate (even liberal) core of voters, with those centrists swapping between the two options to Centre-Left and Centre-Right. Wherever these parties began on the spectrum, competitive politics pulls everyone towards a consensus - though not necessarily at the centre.

In Britain, and in Europe, the consensus is currently firmly within in the Centre-Right. In the face of the dominant forces driving that consensus - capitalism, globalisation, modernisation - the anti-establishment element of the Far-Right movement fits well within the expectations of NatCen study.

The harder to explain element is how the anti-establishment movement has fed the Far-Right, rather than the Left - as the study predicts. The answer to that lies, again, in comprehending the political spectrum in terms of the Centre and extremes.

With multiple parties, the emphasis is placed heavily upon taking a moderate course so as to have the broad appeal needed to catch the broad range of voters needed for a majority, or to present greater grounds for co-operation in the event of a coalition. While the system forces out extremism, it reduces political debate down to a few digits here and there in a fiscal plan.

In the UK, for example, the closeness of the main parties has effectively shut out alternatives. In 2010 the Liberal Democrats were seen as the alternative, not to Labour or the Conservatives, but rather to Labour and the Conservatives - as the keepers of the establishment. With the Lib Dems joining the ranks of the governing parties, alternative debate is closed down further still.

That exclusivity can breed alienation.

In France, it has been suggested that the concerns of the working class have been ignored - allowing the far-right to feed on their discontent. While the mainstream has focused on the politics of austerity, capitalism, modernisation and globalisation - forces alienating enough - the Left has focussed itself (so the assessment goes) on the plight of 'minority groups', leaving a section of white, working-class, men feeling 'left behind' (Willsher, 2015). The last US elections certainly showed that the Right had become deeply connected to a predominantly white, older and male, Christian voter base. That tendency is also reflected in UKIP's supporters (Goodwin & Ford, 2014).

Herein lies the dangerously effective power of the Far-Right narrative. Rather than a narrative of Right versus Left, it becomes a matter of this section of the people against the establishment - frequently depicted as a detached and privileged minority.

By calling out an establishment that is detached and corrupt, and deriding an opposition as being unconcerned or dismissive of the concerns of the majority, Far-Right groups are able appeal to people beyond those who would normally find the Right-wing brand of tradition, hierarchy and nativism. It feeds on alienation and discontent, and fuels it with stories of the threat posed by immigration and European bureaucracy to the 'traditions' of 'natives' (Skey, 2013).

In short, the very same political system that pushes extremism to the fringes, also fuels it with anti-establishment fodder when it fails to address the common good.

So can the establishment respond?

Both the Conservatives and Labour seem to think that the answer lies in moving further to the Right. Both parties have made efforts to step up their anti-EU and anti-immigration rhetoric (Watt, 2013; Sabin, 2015) and Labour has seen the internal faction Blue Labour argue that the British people are inherently conservative, and that Labour has to accept that and adapt (Berry, 2011).

However, this displays a misunderstanding of the social forces involved. The rising anti-establishment movement is being exploited by Far-Right sectarian, extremist elements, against the civic consensus - but it is not of the Far-Right. Moving to the Right would do nothing but reinforce negative attitudes and confirm conspiracies and suspicions about the motives and habits of the mainstream establishment parties.

The British Attitudes Survey tells us that voters in Britain are Centrist, and that they move Left or Right as a countervailing force to reign in extreme governments. This tells us something clearly: these movements are predominantly against the establishment and the predominant consensus, and Far-Right parties have merely been a way for, some, to express an opposing opinion in a system that has become closed to alternative voices.

An important lesson can be learned from the anti-establishment movements that have leaned to the Left - Occupy, Syriza, Indignados and Podemos. They have all carried a strong and positive message of inclusion and engagement. They have challenged mainstream narratives with the common good in mind, and have sought the decentralisation of government and the devolution of its power.

These ideas have to be at the heart of a reformed establishment if it is to retain its legitimacy as a facilitator of the common good in the face of an aggressive assault by Far-Right groups.

UK Budget 2015: Conservatives back down over austerity cuts - but only slightly

In the run-up to the announcement of the 2015 UK Budget Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, stressed that Chancellor George Osborne did not have room to manoeuvre if he intended to achieve the Conservative target of a budget surplus of £21bn by 2020 (Wintour & Watt, 2015).

After accusations in autumn 2014 that Conservative cuts would take government spending in Britain back to the levels of the 1930s (Wintour & Elliott, 2015), Chancellor Osborne seems to have responded. The Chancellor confirmed in his announcement that the Conservatives were no longer aiming for a surplus of £23bn, but instead £7bn (Reuben, 2015).

That easing back on what the Conservatives are pursuing has left them with room for tax cuts, with Corporation tax falling to 20%, cuts to required national insurance contributions for under-21s and the self-employed - as well as a further extension of the Liberal Democrat's policy of taking the poorest out of tax altogether. There is also a small concession in the form of an increase in minimum wage, which offers an increase in income at a time when prices are falling, and in advance of an expected slow rise (Peston, 2015).

Big cuts are, however, still planned. £30bn will be cut by 2018, £13bn coming from government departments, £12bn from welfare, and a further £5bn from tackling tax avoidance (Osborne, 2015). But even with those concessions, that still leaves, between the Labour and Conservative spending plans, a gap of around £40bn.

And yet, the difference between Conservative and Labour positions - with the Liberal Democrats advocating something in between the two - comes down to one major difference: the balance to be struck between tackling the overall amount of debt and the amount of spending on providing public services.

That difference is primarily one of ideology. Or, at least, the perception of ideology. By spending more, Labour is able to give the perception that it is taking care of people. By spending less, the Conservatives can make themselves appear to be favouring those that stand on their own two feet.

However, whatever the party rhetoric, the budget is more about politics than finance. All sides, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour - as well as UKIP - are all committed to a general view of public finances that means more austerity cuts, and much lower public spending.

The concessions made by the Chancellor - that Vince Cable predicted that the Conservatives would have to make - did nothing to fundamentally alter the basic assumptions. The reality remains that no party is offering a comprehensive alternative to the dominant Conservative narrative.

For those on the Left, the fact that no one has seized upon those concessions by the Right - in the face of dissatisfaction with austerity - to present a more truly progressive alternative, will be a source of significant disappointment.

The Liberal Democrat Spring Conference - their last chance to define themselves

The Liberal Democrat Spring Conference represents probably the last chance the party will have to present its own vision, on it own terms, before they face an election campaign that could result in massive disappointment (Perraudin, 2015). It is not, however, a problem with which the Liberal Democrats are unfamiliar. They are long used to being marginalised and struggling for visibility.

Since the party was established - in a 1988 merger of the old Liberal Party with the Labour Party breakaways the Social Democratic Party, after a decade long electoral alliance - it has struggled to make itself heard in the political arena. 2010 had promised a major breakthrough, but, yet again, promising surges at the polls and 23% of the popular vote did not ultimately translate into seats.

The decision that followed, to go into coalition with the Conservatives, and for the leaders of the party - though not the majority of its MPs or the party membership itself - to drop direct opposition to tuition fees, turned public opinion definitively against them.

The great surprise is the difficulty which has faced the Liberal Democrats in getting across to people what it is that liberalism represents, this despite - with the exception of the pretty significant blip over tuition fees - the fact that the party has otherwise shown remarkable consistency over time. The conference speech of Party leader Nick Clegg could as easily have been promoting the 1997 manifesto as it is the 2015 manifesto.

If there is anything that could save Liberal Democrat seats at a general election, that consistency is one of them - if they can finally make a breakthrough in getting across what being liberal really means. And getting to the bottom of that, means understanding what the party has stood for over time.

The modern party's origins are in the old Liberal Party, the classical liberal, free trade, small government party that believed in laissez-faire administration, where the government does not interfere. Yet by the beginning of the 20th Century they had evolved - through struggles with old Tory landowners, and in response to the revelations of the poor reports - into the party in government under Campbell-Bannerman, Asquith and Lloyd George (governments that included Winston Churchill) that pursued the liberal welfare reforms. Those efforts established a national insurance to cover sick pay and unemployment, introduced pensions, and expanded access to schools.

That work was later further expanded after the Second World War, when the ideas of Liberal Party thinkers like William Beveridge and John Maynard Keynes had a decisive influence on the work of the post-war Labour governments. While the Liberal Party itself was at the time riven by splits as a result of different views regarding the two wars and various coalitions, the ideas and work of individual Liberals still had huge impact. The work of Beveridge and Keynes were key in the expansion of government action to intercede against the instability of the market economy, and to create cradle-to-the-grave social security in the form of welfare, pensions and the NHS.

In the face of the emergence of a virtual two-party system, split between the Conservatives and Labour while the Liberals were divided, it took decades for the party to recover. When the Liberals recovered, they did so in an electoral coalition as the SDP-Liberal Alliance - alongside the Social Democrats (SDP). The SDP had broken away from the Labour Party, uncomfortable with the far left-wing and right-wing factions that were struggling with each other for control of the party. Senior Labour figures Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams - both former ministers, and in Jenkins a former President of the European Commission - were amongst those who defected to create the SDP, and who were later to become Liberal Democrats when the SDP-Liberal Alliance merged.

The Alliance enjoyed some success in the polls - polling as high as 50% in the early 1980s- but they continued to fail to win seats. Despite, in 1983, securing as much as 25.4% of the popular vote, they only received 23 seats in parliament. Having again struggled to establish themselves and make a breakthrough with voters heavily invested in the two-party dynamic, the Alliance elected to merge and form the Liberal Democrats.

Under their first leader, Paddy Ashdown, the Liberal Democrats made their first big breakthrough in decades, by gradually increasing their seats in parliament up to 46 by 1997. During that time the party pursued a close relationship with Labour, with talk of coalitions leading up to 1997, and over the possibility of introducing proportional representation for elections (BBC, 1999).

Looking at the party's commitments in 1997 (Liberal Democrats, 1997), it shows a remarkably consistency in message over time. In the 1990s, under Ashdown, there were commitments to raise tax by 1p in the pound to increase education funding, with the priority put on early years. A commitment to increase NHS funding, and increase choice for care. Balance borrowing against public investment, and cut wasteful spending. Championing civil rights, supporting small businesses, investing in research, devolving power through reforms of the economy and the constitution, supporting Britain's place in Europe, and encouraging a fairer society - all of these policies could have represented liberal ideas anywhere from the 1910s through to the 2010s.

The next leader, Charles Kennedy, continued to push these priorities as the party finally became widely known. However, its rise in prominence seemed to come almost exclusively from its noted socially liberal stances. The party was celebrated for campaigning for civil rights and opposing the War in Iraq (BBC, 2004). While they continued to increase their representation in the House of Commons, up to 62 by 2005, they still failed to make a major electoral breakthrough - even with an aggressive strategy aimed at defeating the Conservatives head-on (Carlin & Sapsted, 2005). When Kennedy's leadership ended in acrimony in 2006, he was replaced in the short term by Menzies Campbell.

By the end of 2007 there was a fresh leadership election, at which Nick Clegg was elected leader. Nick Clegg defined the party as the exclusive representative of the radical centre (Stratton & Wintour, 2011):

"Lloyd George's 'people's budget' to make the wealthy pay their fair share and give a pension to all those who had worked hard. Keynes's plans to make our economy work for everyone and provide jobs for all. Beveridge's radical blueprint for a welfare state to give security and dignity to every citizen... We are the heirs to Mill, Lloyd George, Keynes, Beveridge, Grimond. We are the true radicals of British politics."

Although Clegg's leadership would be seen as a shift to the Right, the party continued to be perceived as a centre-left, 'radical alternative' to Labour. Students, in particular, aligned with the Liberal Democrats - with a little help from a pledge to abolish university tuition fees. Under Clegg, the party seemed to be on the verge of a major breakthrough. However, the strong polling numbers didn't turn into seats. When the election came around for real, a lot of voters seem to have retreated to their safe havens.

The disappointment of winning only a few seats turned first into consolation at entering government, for the first time in a century, and having the opportunity to implement policies. The second turn was to astonishment and despondency as the party was assailed over the decision of Lib Dem leaders to go against their own party's official position on tuition fees, and vote for them with the government (BBC, 2010). Public anger turned into media campaigns assailing the Lib Dem leader, and now Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg (BBC, 2012). That situation has persisted and the party is now struggling desperately in the national polls. Yet, even without being vilified for a broken promise, the Lib Dems might still be struggling.

Across Europe there has been a very definite struggle faced by liberal and centrist parties. The FDP in Germany, the long time Liberal alternative to the conservative CDU and the centre-left SPD, collapsed at the last election to less than 5% of the vote - and so didn't even qualify for a seat in the German Parliament. In Italy Scelta Civica - Civic Choice - was founded to support the technocratic Prime Minister Mario Monti. In 2013 it received 8% of the vote and 37 seats. However, at the European Parliament elections in 2014 the party received only 0.7% of the vote.

For all their liberal social policies, liberals and centrists are still largely struggling to find persistent support. Part of the problem is that they are still seen as being nowhere in terms of economic policy. They are perceived to be right-wing capitalists by those to the Left who believe in a policy of taxing, borrowing and spending, and too left-wing by conservatives on Right who preach the economics of austerity.

Despite a lot of consistency between liberal and centrist parties across Europe, and consistency of policies and priorities over time, they struggled to get their message out. When they do, it is often distorted to fit into the narratives of the dominant, mainstream political-economic spectrum.

At their Spring Conference over this weekend it was precisely this message that the Liberal Democrats made with their last chance before the 2015 UK general election to put out a controlled message out to the public, announcing who they are and what they stand for. In his speech to the conference, Clegg made one last pitch to the public, in a speech that was praised (Walter, 2015), identifying Liberals with a moderate, decent, and fair centre-ground that had been abandoned by the other parties:

"And here at home and across Europe, reactionary populism and divisive nationalism are on the rise, slowly moving from the margins to the mainstream... If we want to remain an open, confident, outward-looking society, it will only happen if political parties who believe in compassion and tolerance step up to the plate.

Instead, the opposite is happening. Labour and the Conservatives are deserting the centre ground. Compromise is treated like a dirty word. Everywhere you look there is blame and division.

It’s in the angry nationalism of UKIP, setting citizen against citizen as they pander to fear. It’s in Theresa May’s Go Home vans. In the glint in George Osborne’s eye as he announces that the working age poor will bear the brunt of the cuts. It’s in the red-faced bluster of the Tory right wingers who are determined to scrap the Human Rights Act and drag us out of Europe. It’s in the ‘us versus them’ scaremongering of the Labour Party, as they condemn every decision to balance the books as a betrayal and then make wild predictions about mass unemployment or the death of the NHS that they know are not true.

As the Conservatives and Labour veer off to the left and right, who will speak up for decent, moderate, tolerant Britain?

...We have shown that we are prepared to put the national interest first, even if it means taking a hit to our short-term popularity. And we will continue to put the national interest first."

The Liberal Democrats remain sanguine (BBC, 2015). They are placing their focus and their hopes on the positive response they are apparently receiving in those places where the Lib Dems have spent decades building up a local base of support (Wintour, 2015). It would be sad to see the parliamentary influence of liberalism diminish in Britain as elsewhere, as the influence of liberalism has been a force for good.

But whether or not the Liberal Democrats manage to get themselves across to voters, liberalism will continue play an important role. From Beveridge and Keynes and their ideas backing and underwriting social security, to the Liberal Democrats who opposed the War in Iraq, to those in government campaigning for civil rights - like the end of child detention or the moves to expose and end gender inequality in pay - liberals have shown that their ideas carry weight, and play an important role, regardless of the number of seats a particular liberal party holds, and whether or not they were doing their best work inside or outside of parliament.

Italy shows the UK the dangers and difficulties involved in fixing a broken political system

The UK has once again been forced to let out a rather despairing sigh of exasperation as yet another politician is caught with a hand in the cookie jar (Toynbee, 2015). It is the third such scandal in only a matter of weeks that has called political funding into question. There is an obvious need for wholesale changes in Britain's political process.

The trouble is, changing a political system is a delicate task that is never straightforward. Italy has been caught in this particular trap for decades, and the UK can learn some important lessons from that country's struggle. In short, this kind of cash-for-influence exposé is at its worst only the tip of the iceberg, and at it's best the top of a very slippery slope.

Back in 1994, virtually the entire Italian political party system collapsed around a similar, though ultimately broader, cash-for-influence scandal, known as Tangentopoli (Carroll, 2000). The arrest of Mario Chiesa of the Partito Socialista Italiano in 1992, on charges of Bribery, triggered the tumbling of a whole house of cards. When the party distanced itself from Chiesa with accusations of his being simply a bad seed, he began to provide damning information to investigators regarding the activities of fellow politicians.

Over the next two years, as the Mani pulite ('clean hands') Judicial investigation spread across Italy, more and more politicans were implicated. To try and stem the crisis, the Socialist Prime Minister Giuliano Amato attempted to use the power of decree to alter certain criminal charges for bribery, only for it to be seen as an attempt to extend an amnesty to corrupt politicians (Moseley, 1993).

In the 1994 elections that followed, the four largest pre-scandal parties collapsed and all but disappeared. That year also saw the rise of Silvio Berlusconi and his Forza Italia party. Out of the ashes of the old discredited order rose the populist power that has since dominated the last 20 years of politics in Italy - with more than its own fair scandals.

As Silvio Berlusconi and Forza Italia were symptomatic of Italy's political sickness, so Nigel Farage and UKIP are a symptom the UK's, and Marine Le Pen and Front National are a symptom of France's (Peston, 2015). These kinds of scandals embed themselves within political systems and eat away at its legitimacy. When the cracks show through, and the rotten core is exposed, it leaves access open to an exploitable opportunity. These populist groups - with their simplistic message and solutions, and often scapegoats - seize the initiative.

Since the scandal, in response to the general public outcry, Italy has attempted to redraw its political system several times (Pastorella, 2014).

The first major reform attempted to make individual politicians more accountable, and to introduce more stability to Italy's fractious parties and coalitions, by scrapping proportional representation in favour of first-past-the-post. The second was to give the largest party, in terms of the popular vote, a prize of 55% of seats regardless of the actual size of the majority they had won (Garovoglia, 2013). The first system, led to party fragmentation and frequently collapsing coalitions. The second was ruled unconstitutional in 2013 - essentially for misrepresenting voters by handing out a large electoral prize to the biggest party, or electoral coalition, even when it had won far less than a majority.

A third major attempt is currently under way, but that has already faced criticism across the Left - including from former Partito Democratico leader, and former Prime Minister, Pier Luigi Bersani (La Repubblica; 2015). It proposes to reduce the majority prize, but also to reduce the power of the Italian Senate - a move designed once more to address the fractious nature of Italian politics - and groups on the Left are objecting to this centralising of power and diminishment of oversight.

Despite these attempted reforms, despite the investigations and the political transformations, Italy is still mired as before in the same kind of corruption allegations (Barber, 2013). There are similar concerns about connections between private business interests and political parties, and with the government through the state held ownership stakes. There are even concerns surrounding some of the same figures who were connected to Tangentopoli in the 1990s.

Italy's struggle to reform, against the influence of a tight network of vested interests, is an important lesson for the UK. Failure to reform means feeding a rising populist anti-establishment feeling, that can and may be exploited in ways that threaten both justice and liberty. Attempting reform means taking on wealthy and powerful people, embedded vested interests who have a lot to lose from changes.

The first steps to reform are clear though, even if how to achieve is not necessarily as obvious. A realistic alternative needs to be found for party funding, and outside business interests for elected representatives has to come to an end. The example of Italy shows clearly: if the UK fails to pursue - as a first step - these ideals of political independence, with greater reform to follow, it could leave the country mired in populism and scandal for decades to come:

'The danger in all of this is that if sufficient people conclude that there is nothing in the conventional political process for them then they may opt for more simplistic and extreme options on offer. I remain an optimist. But across the mainstream political spectrum there is a candid recognition of the danger.'
(Mr Charles Kennedy, 2006)

Gender Inequality, Laissez-faire and Positive Action

Last week, in the run-up to International Women's Day, there were efforts made in Germany to tackle inequality between the genders in the workplace. While a new law was passed for gender quotas to be introduced to the boardrooms of large companies (The Guardian, 2015), there was still ongoing resistance to legislation aimed at exposing, and ultimately undoing, gender inequalities in pay (Osborne, 2015).

The fact that these moves are necessary in a wealthy and developed country like Germany - or in the UK where the Liberal Democrats have been pushing for similar moves for some time, particularly in the face of a failure of the Conservative 'voluntary' reporting system (Wintour, 2015) - highlights the scale of the problem. Quotas, in turn, represent the practical response to the continuing inequality (Saul, 2015).

And yet, resistance remains to levelling the playing field. There is an insistence in the Western world upon trusting in laissez-faire - removing the obvious formal institutional obstacles and letting the world right itself. That attitude is not helped much by gender quotas being considered an imperfect solution (White, 2015).

However, the world is uncomfortably unequal. In the face of plain unfairness, the simplistic, and false, answer to the struggles of others is victim-blaming (Burkeman, 2015). There is a determination, witnessed in the wider struggle against inequality, to shift the responsibility for unfairness from the established order and those who benefit, and to turn it into blame to be placed on those who aren't succeeding (Seabrook, 2014).

The facts are pretty clear: matters can't just be left to right themselves (Topping, 2015). It was true for the poverty and desperation in Victorian England that led to the collapse of the old Laissez-faire economics, and made way for the gradual rise of social insurance, pensions, welfare and the public healthcare. It is true now tackling gender inequality. The world needs a helping hand to combat problematic institutional biases (Dudman, 2015).

The feminist rallying-calls of public figures like Emma Watson is a reminder of how to tackle these great challenges (HeForShe, 2015): positive thought and positive action, in the pursuit of progress.

In the pursuit of social progress, the old ways of thinking have to change. The 'let alone' attitude is not good enough, particularly when the solutions of negative liberty - simply keeping people free from outside interference - don't, and can't, bring meaningful equality of opportunity, or offer the people the path to the better, and more fair, lives they want.

There is a pressing need to demand a more positive liberty. Affirmative action, in this sense, is about acting to make the principals of fairness in a free society a fact. That burning heart of feminism, is the same one that beats in the breast of all struggles for equality and fairness. Quotas may not be a perfect solution, but they are a positive and practical solution in a world that is imperfect and unfair.

Leonard Nimoy and Star Trek's lasting legacy of hope

The sad passing of Leonard Nimoy (Lambie, 2015), gives cause to consider the actor's legacy. Of the performances and contributions left behind, the by far most well-remembered will be his role in Star Trek.

Star Trek, before it received a flashy reboot, had long since become a lazy shorthand. When a scriptwriter wanted to let the audience know a character was "geek" or a "nerd" in the most rudimentary stereotypical way possible, they were always a Star Trek fan. However, underneath that simplistic surface impression, there was a show with a virtually unmatched optimism. Through the medium of science-fiction, it celebrated science, peace and reason.

The show was set in an aspirational far future where humanity had finally gotten beyond its penchant for violence and destruction. At the centre of it all was Leonard Nimoy's Spock, a near-human alien from a people who abhorred violence and cherished logic. Regardless the danger, the threat or the crisis, he always remained an island of calm and reason.

Nimoy's character, and the crew of the USS Enterprise around him, were frequently cast as heroes. Yet, in contrast to so many others shows, the mission of the protagonists was one of exploration and diplomacy. The stories still stand apart today for the positivity of its outlook (with the possible exception of Parks and Recreation).

The crew of the USS Enterprise were often faced with impossible choices, and their heroism was in their willingness to stand for up for peaceful resolutions. They were great for their skills, for their knowledge, for their humanity, and for their diplomacy.

In a pop cultural field that, at times, seems only to revel in darker and grittier stories, and in cynicism lightened only by beautiful aesthetics, those geeky, nerdy, stories championed a peaceful humanity exploring space, and trying to uphold noble ideals. A TV show that finds room for hope can be like a beacon in the dark, and Leonard Nimoy will remain a part of that legacy.

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+ Ryan Lambie's 'In memoriam: Leonard Nimoy'; on Den of Geek; 27 February 2015.