http://hopisen.com/2013/the-toynbee-zone-or-i-would-if-i-could-but-i-cant-so-i-shant/
The Toynbee zone: or I would if I could but I can’t so I shan’t
This morning Polly Toynbee wrote a column which totally clarified Labour’s strategy under Ed Miliband for me. I doubt it was intended to do this, but sometimes political observations have a truth that frees them from their intended meaning.
As those of you who ploughed through yesterday’s monster post will know, I’ve been struggling over how Labour should approach the next election. Today, Polly Toynbee did the same, and in the course of her defence of the Labour leader’s cautious bravery, she said the following:
“The great dilemma is always the same. How far can you go? I have a pretty good notion of what Miliband would like to do, if freed of the need to win all kinds of voters.
I read this, and the scales fell from my eyes. Let us assume Polly is right, and her reading of Labour’s leader is correct. (It should be, everyone tells me that she is the lode star of the leader’s office).
This means there is what we would like to do, and what we think it would take to win a huge majority. It follows therefore that there is a political position that provides just enough concessions to electoral reality to ensure a majority, while not conceding so much as to be a treacherous sell-out.
Not likely to be an effective election poster
We could call this position theToynbee zone, defined as the furthest left point in the Overton Window.
In this light, the task of a Labour leader is to locate the Toynbee zone and occupy it.
There are several problems with this approach.
First, no-one can know where the Toynbee zone is at any given moment, as it is constantly moving, depending on the popularity of the government, the appeal of the leader, global and economic events and so on. Neil Kinnock thought he knew where the Toynbee zone was in 1992, but it turned out to be a couple of notches to the right.
Second, a search for the Toynbee zone means that you don’t mean what you say. It is hard enough to persuade someone of anything, let alone of something which is not what you want to do. This is where the critique of “insufficient boldness and lack of clarity” generates its force. How can you convince people of the justice of your cause, when you cannot even advocate it?
Next, since the Toynbee zone is constantly shifting, the attempt to locate it itself creates uncertainty. A political leader hunting the Toynbee zone will delay announcing what they will do until they think the zone is stable for the election. Before this, they will give off contradictory signals about the direction they will take, dependent on events and outside pressures. These signals might appear incoherent, or even nonsensical, to the outside observer, but they are actually an exercise in Toynbee zone range finding.
Finally, the policies that result from this process are rarely satisfactory, being a compromise between what you would like to do, and what you think you must concede. There is always a good argument for not conceding and as you essentially agree with that argument, your response to such a critique can only be ‘I would if I could, but I can’t so I shan’t’. This is less than convincing, especially when you’ve previously hinted you might.
Yesterday I wrote of Labour’s position that
“This leads to a curious back-and-forth in which an overall strategy is proposed, there is a reaction to the limitations of that strategy, policies are hinted at to ameliorate that reaction, but these hints undercut the message of the overall strategy, so are reduced in scale to meet the needs of the overall strategy. Worse, when policies are finally announced, they underwhelm (since they are paler echoes of intended desires) and appear to contradict the central strategy, even when they do not……This latter problem is magnified when … the political strategy outlined above has been arrived at only reluctantly, as events have made a more radical reformist strategy appear unrealistic or unpalatable. This then allows other figures.. to…, call for boldness and a challenge to the consensus, etc.”
The search for the Toynbee zone is the perfect explanation for this phenomenon. It not only explains why it is essential to talk about radical intent (as this signals that you areseeking the Toynbee zone) but also why the subsequent zig-zagging of messages is unavoidable (as it is the way in which you establish where the Toynbee zone is).
This also explains the betrayal cycle among the left commentariat, as the way to win hearts early on is for a putative leader to suggest that they know how to shift the Toynbee zone leftwards, closer to what we really want to do. Then, of course, they fail, and columnists go through the familiar cycle of cheerleading, re-assurance, nervousness, disappointment, anger, then a search for a new champion once more. Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband are merely the latest in a long line of Labour leaders to endure this.
Of course, there is a way out. It is to junk the search for the Toynbee zone and say what you think.
Let us assume that Polly Toynbee is right again, and that
“My guess is his gut views are closely allied to most in his party: tax the rich, abolish the bedroom tax, build a million homes, use every lever to spread a living wage, try to cap high pay, stop the house price boom, don’tprivatise Royal Mail, do let rail franchises fall back to public ownership, only use private provision where the public sector palpably needs it, clean up party funding, impose a fair admissions code on schools, abandon Trident but keep a token nuclear weapon, reform the Lords, bring in proportional representation, and refuse an EU referendum because Labour will not lead Britain to doom outside Europe.”
Then Ed should argue for the thrust of these policies, rather than the ones he is apparently saddled with in order to win.1
I happen to think that much of that agenda is a load of old hooey, but not from tactical necessity. I just think many of the policies make no sense.
What is the moral, political or fiscal justification for a token nuclear weapon? How does one extract the maximum tax from the rich while capping high pay? Who decides which public services “palpably” need private provision, and if it’s possible for the need for private provision to be palpable, surely that means it has some general useful quality?
Now, this is an argument about what the next government should do, and what is actually fair and workable. As I said yesterday, I think one of the keys is to acknowledge the basic weakness of the state, which helps you escape from the betrayal trap and into an argument about effectiveness.
Whatever, though. I might be wrong. Polly might be right. In any case, committing to what you really want is more effective than desperately seeking the Toynbee zone, and making yourself look vague, weak, and inauthentic in the process.
- One aside. Imagine if some Tory columnist had written the above about David Cameron, simply reversing the poles, seeking what we might call the D’Ancona angle. They’d say something like “My guess is his gut views are closely allied to most in his party: cut taxes on the rich, abolish corporate tax, use every lever to spread home ownership, abolish the minimum wage, privatise Royal Mail, squeeze inflation out of the system, let private providers take over most NHS services, return to grammar schools, increase our nuclear weapons, leave the EU” but then imply he lets I dare not wait upon I would, purely out of tactical calculation. Would we think of this of as a quality to admire or as evidence he’s a typical tory not to be trusted? [↩]
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