No Left Turn
In the UK, the Labour Party seems to be taking a lurch to the old-style left but in France and Italy the European left is taking a very different tack combining support for fiscal discipline and low taxes along with policies that still attack the old, established political order.
I imagine that both politicians would be enthusiastic supporters of equal pay and would scratch their heads in amazement at the struggle there has been in the UK over the past 15 years, especially when the old, established Labour order was in power for so much of that time.
Hopi Sen is a Labour supporter, I believe I'm right in saying, which only goes to show that not everyone in the People's Party is brain dead because it's a very big mistake to equate left-wing, trade union politics with being radical or on the side of the underdog.
If that were true, the Labour Party and the trade unions would have delivered equal pay years ago.
Renzi & Valls the left-wing twins the Tories might like
To help fund his tax cuts Renzi sells off ministerial limousines
By Hopi Sen
France’s new Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, has a political twin, his Italian equivalent, Matteo Renzi, who was in London yesterday to meet David Cameron. Both these new centre-left leaders are lean, youngish men with glossy dark hair, studied casualness and combative natures.
Style aside, the ascension of Renzi and Valls is a big shift on the European left, with implications for Britain’s politics. Two years ago, Labour leaders were delighted by the election of François Hollande, seeing in him and Denmark’s Helle Thorning-Schmidt leaders who could develop a new anti-austerity radicalism. Today, both leaders are in trouble, stumbling and unpopular.
Renzi and Valls provide an alternative. Renzi is a former Christian Democrat who has said Italian politics needs demolition, while Valls has said he “was accused — the worst of insults — of being a social democrat. Even worse, of being of the ‘American left’ ”.
Both are outsiders to their national establishments. Significantly, they share an agenda of economic centrism but institutional radicalism, favouring enterprise, fiscal discipline and reduced taxes. Valls has supported abolition of the 35-hour working week. Renzi plans spending cuts and labour reforms that might be approved of by British conservatives.
At the same time, they aim aggressive attacks at the old political order. This agenda is populist — backing ordinary people against the powerful. Renzi’s tax cuts are aimed at poorer workers and he symbolically sells off ministerial limousines to help to fund them. Valls attacks the French elite’s bureaucracy and complacency.
At heart, their argument is that there is no easy path ahead. Government can help only those who wish to work and who accept society’s values, and it must do far better for those who do, even if it means overturning national traditions.
Renzi and Valls are popular today, but this will be fleeting. Both will be lightning rods for their parties when things go wrong. Their task will be making their reforms work and holding the Left together as they impose painful change.
Labour’s leaders face the same challenge, and will be watching Renzi and Valls closely, hoping their hard-edged approach will be more successful than the one that led to François Hollande’s spectacular fall from grace.
