8/14/2019 It is Not Enough for Labour

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8/14/2019 It is Not Enough for Labour

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That's what we mean by the post-bureaucratic age: the satisfying clunk-click of political philosophy matchingcontemporary reality to produce a genuinely historic shift in how we organise our affairs. That's why theidea of the post-bureaucratic agenda is so central to all the changes we want to make, and why, onreflection, it makes those big myths about the current political situation seem so ridiculous.

It is the post-bureaucratic age that allows us to deliver progressive goals through conservative means, andthereby stick to the changes we've made and stick to the political centre ground. In the past, there was anassumption that the only way you could make society fairer, make opportunity more equal and help the

poorest live a decent life was through central government redistributing money and running programmesaimed at tackling disadvantage.

Today, that assumption no longer holds. After 12 years of intense and committed bureaucratic interventionthe poorest have got poorer, there are more of them, and social mobility has stalled. So while there willalways be a role for redistribution, we can confidently argue that what is called for today is apost-bureaucratic response to poverty: advancing social justice by really understanding the causes ofpoverty, family by family, and giving people and organisations in local communities the power and theresponsibility to help themselves and each other.

Similarly, there was an assumption in the past that you could only achieve improvements to environmentalprotection through central government regulation and rules laid down by experts in the bureaucratic

machine, both nationally and locally (and under New Labour, regionally). But we've seen the results of that:over the past decade of Labour government, despite its endless green pronouncements and initiatives andplans, and its new armies of highly paid environmental analysts and inspectors and off icials - our carbonemissions actually went up.

Contrast that failed approach with a simple fact from the post-bureaucratic age. In pilot studies around theworld where people have been provided with accurate information about their energy use in the home -information which technology now allows anyone to have - their energy consumption fell by at least 10 percent and in some areas much more, without any other change in their circumstances. If we achieved thatkind of change in Britain, we would save the amount of electricity produced by two large nuclear powerstations.

Just giving people more information, more power and more control over their lives makes them moreresponsible. That's the way to change people's behaviour for the better, not the top-down nanny statebossiness of Labour which simply makes people resentful - not least about the vast, unproductiveexpansion of government that it has required. It's because we know that individual happiness and socialprogress will only come from personal and social responsibility that all our key reforms - in schools, inwelfare, in family policy, in prison rehabilitation and in fighting crime - are designed to transfer power fromthe political elite at the centre to people and communities across the country - and it's the post-bureaucraticage that makes it possible.

So it is the post-bureaucratic age that offers this country a route map out of recession, towards recovery,renewal and a bright economic future. It is the post-bureaucratic age - as we will be setting out in a London

conference next week - that shows how we can properly regulate capitalism without crushing its wealth-creating benefits. And it is the post- bureaucratic age that offers our best hope of winning the next electionas people see the real change on offer. The task for us now is to explain this vision clearly and confidently.

Our crusade to give power to the people is terrifying to a statist Labour establishment that can't imaginehow things will work without them being in control. That's exactly why, for us, it's so exciting.

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Promoted by Alan Mabbutt on behalf of the Conservative Party, both at 30 Millbank, London, SW1P 4DP

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