Labour splits on crime and the family
Published 11 December 2000
Those Tory Mods and Rockers - the cool Michael Portillo libertarians and the Ann Widdecombe authoritarians - have given us all a lot of amusement this autumn, falling out over sex, drugs and, for all I know, rock'n'roll as well. How we mocked. But the truth is that the government has its very own gang fights, too: there's just the same divide, on crime, the family and timeless moral values. These turf wars take place less publicly, but they are happening.
In fact, Labour's split on social issues is far bigger than the gap between old and new Labour on tax and spending. There, the two sides have shaken hands and agreed to rub along together for now.
That is certainly not the case on social policy: Labour is little short of schizophrenic when it comes to issues such as law and order and the family. Nobody, least of all the electorate, really knows where Labour stands. On the one hand, there are those who are itching to get out there and march young ruffians off to the nick - Tony Blair and Jack Straw among them. On the other, there are the traditionally liberal Labour supporters - and I include many ministers here - who are deeply uneasy with some of the government's authoritarianism. The one issue guaranteed to set Labour against Labour is not taxation, but Jack Straw's drive to limit trial by jury for certain minor crimes.
The same went for the bogus asylum-seeker campaign, and still goes for policy on soft drugs. Similarly, some of the "bash the yob" measures in the Queen's Speech, which went down well with the right-wing press, have left a section of the Labour Party wondering if this is really what their government should be doing.
Does it matter that Labour has an identity crisis over its social agenda? It certainly does. Why? Because it's the new election battleground. Just look across the Atlantic. Like new Labour, the new Democrats had delivered a sound economy. And what was their reward? It wasn't "the economy, stupid" that determined the American election. It was the new agenda, built on social unease and fear of the ghetto. Countries that are successful economically have more time to worry.
Armed with this unintentional last-minute lesson from Al Gore, Tony Blair has been looking for new ground. Quite sensibly, in my view, he has chosen "the quality of life". Crime, whatever the statistics say, feels as though it's on the up. Violent crime really is. Most people can tell you of a friend, a relative or someone up or down their street who has been burgled or mugged in the past couple of years. And the yobbishness that is making many of our towns and cities into " no-go" areas on a Saturday night seems to involve younger and younger teenagers.
The head of the Metropolitan Police, Sir John Stevens, produced some frightening statistics for Londoners this month: 70 per cent of all crimes are now committed by teenagers under the age of 17. Social liberals and Labour lawyers complain about police racism and incompetence; increasingly, Labour voters, including black ones, complain about the lack of police on the beat. Significantly, Harriet Harman, the MP for Peckham, where Damilola Taylor was murdered, reports that her constituents on those bleak housing estates have no time for theories about social exclusion. They want more bobbies to catch the criminals and put them away for as long as possible.
That chimes with the latest British Social Attitudes report, from the National Centre for Social Research. It shows that on law and order, sexual morality and ethnic minorities, the working class is consistently more conservative or right- wing than the middle class. And while the class gap has narrowed on economic issues over the past decade or so, it is actually getting bigger on the social agenda.
Labour's inner confusion extends to the family, too. Tony Blair, we know, is very proud of his. Others in the Labour Party are less convinced that two parents and 2.4 children is the ideal model. The minister for women, Tessa Jowell, was howled down recently for making the perfectly obvious remark that "families come in all shapes and sizes". Given British society today, I'd have thought that's about as controversial as saying "it's cold in winter" - but it led to much wailing and gnashing by the right-wing press. These are the very same papers, incidentally, who will be the first to condemn the government's plan to give new dads paternity leave - which can surely only bolster family life.
Jack Straw, who has been chairing Labour's working party on the family, is not - as he's been portrayed - a 2.4 man, so to speak. He is quite happy with Jowell's view that families come multi-shaped and multi-coloured, and has said so on many occasions. But his concern for good parenting is being confused by arguments about the family model. Good parenting is something the left needs to talk about with enthusiasm, but good parenting can be achieved by one parent, two parents, natural parents or step-parents.
All this shows that Labour is horribly hypocritical on social issues. It sees the votes in toughness and order, yet squeals with liberal embarrassment at the ways of getting there.
But any Labour hypocrisy on this is more than matched by that of the electorate as a whole. We have become a "little of what you fancy" country, living more morally relaxed private lives but also wanting order and civility. This means that a successful party now has to refashion social morality, to accept equality between different forms of private life and different sexual practices, but also to demand higher standards of behaviour out on the streets. A Mod in private, a Rocker in public places. And if this is hypocrisy - well, there are worse ways to live, as millions of our fellow citizens could confirm.
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