Individual integration
If people do what’s best for themselves, Northern Ireland could become more integrated. Matthew Taylor, who heads up the RSA think tank, talks to Peter Cheney about how individualism can help overcome division and looks back on his time working with Tony Blair in Downing Street.
Conflicts are often put down to the self interested streak in human nature but the same qualities can help bring about something better. That’s the thrust of the argument put forward by Matthew Taylor at a seminar organised by the Chartered Institute of Housing.
Taylor has been Chief Executive of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) since November 2006. He was previously on Tony Blair’s policy team from October 2003 up to the last election and Chief Adviser on Political Strategy thereafter.
Speaking to agendaNi after the event, he explained his conclusion that individualism – “people just doing what they want” – is the best way to tackle the problem of segregation.
Community and religious groups can say that integration is a ‘good thing’ but that will only bring about slow, gradual change. So government has to be persuaded to support integration more strongly. The key thing, in his opinion, is to create incentives for people who want to get on with their lives and have a good life.
“If the only way to find a nice house, or to have a good job, or to have a good time is to mix with people, well then mix with people.”
As segregation is seen sharply in housing, this also perhaps provides the best opportunity for a solution. Around 39,000 people are currently on the housing waiting list and he thinks that if mixed housing developments were the normal ‘new housing’, then that would be an attractive option for applicants, even if integration is not their first thought when choosing where to live.
Manifesto
Coming from leading the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), he found Downing Street hard to adjust to. For the first year, Taylor recalls, he was “incredibly miserable” as he was no longer able to put his views forward as freely as before.
However, after a year, he settled in as he started working on the election manifesto and the 18 months after the poll were clearly enjoyable.
“The great thing about working in Number 10 is that you’re working with incredibly talented, hard-working people because there’s nobody at Number 10 who says: ‘That’s not my job’ or ‘It’s time for me to go home’ or whatever,” he remarks.
At the time, there was also a sense of solidarity – “almost gallows humour” – as Blair’s popularity went down over Iraq, cash for honours “and various other people trying to get rid of us”.
Under the name ‘Britain forward not back’, Labour’s 112-page programme five years ago was penned in more optimistic times, far removed from today’s economic problems. It is an upbeat read, more ambitious as Blair was seeing the end in sight.
Taylor comments that there was “absolutely no awareness of what was coming along” economically but its broad direction on public services is right and “holds up very well”. The word ‘choice’ is a running theme and devolving power is also emphasised.
“The 2005 manifesto was more radical, more challenging for Labour even though Tony Blair’s position was much weaker, than the 2001 manifesto which in my view could have been more radical than it was.”
Taylor adds: “I think Tony knew he didn’t have that much time and he wanted to have a manifesto that gave him the scope to do radical things.” It was also important not to have “hostages to fortune” e.g. Labour had pledged in 2001 not to introduce ‘top-up’ fees and was nearly defeated when Parliament voted on this in 2004.
His own assessment of Labour’s time in office is positive but not smug. The UK is “more socially just” than it was in 1997 and certainly more so than if Labour policies had not been put in place. Welfare and public service spending has redistributed wealth and he points to “all time high” satisfaction in health and education services. He is also confident that the country will emerge from this downturn stronger than last time round. However, some opportunities were lost along the way.
“Did Labour make the great leap forward that it could have done in terms of social justice given the economic and political advantages it had in 1997? No, I don’t think it did. And also I think that Labour failed to mobilise the public behind a kind of progressive crusade.”
One example is Blair’s announced target of ending child poverty. In Taylor’s view, this should have been presented as a pledge for society as a whole informed about what they had to do to achieve this.
“It was just: ‘Here’s something the Government’s going to do.’ So too often Labour was top-down and bureaucratic when progressive movements need to have a story about mobilisation.”
As for Gordon Brown, Taylor thinks he will be “judged well” in policy terms, for making good decisions in the financial crisis. Public services have also continued to improve. That said, the PM is limited politically and has sometimes governed in a “flawed” way, as seen in the Damien McBride episode and the sense that difficult decisions have been put off.
Taylor had been spending a lot of time thinking about Labour’s electoral prospects, comparing 2009 back to previous pre-election years. Two stood out: 1991, when the Tories lagged in poll figures before pulling off a victory, and 1996 when they lagged again before a disastrous result.
At the time, he was drawn to the 1991 comparison as the economy is “quite fragile” and people may be worried about “going into the unknown.” Likewise, Labour was and is very weak but, significantly, not “fatally divided”.
Taylor elaborates: “A lot of Conservative MPs in 1996 explicitly thought that Tony Blair was better than John Major. Now there’s very few Labour MPs who think that David Cameron is better than Gordon Brown. I mean, I don’t know if there are any at all.”
Statistically, it will also be “quite hard for the Conservatives to win”; indeed, they need a larger swing than they have had since their 1931 landslide.
His current thinking is that some elements are like both 1991 and 1996, but there are now some aspects that are not like either.
His current thinking is that some elements are like both 1991 and 1996, but there are now some aspects that are not like either.
In his view, a good think tank is clear about its purpose and willing to keep asking “why are we doing what we’re doing?” It has a creative culture, where people throw around ideas and everyone is interested in everyone else’s work. To work in such an organisation, you have to love ideas.
The RSA, in contrast to the IPPR, is over 250 years old and a more complex organisation. In addition to its research, publications and meetings, the society also has 28,000 fellows, a hospitality branch and the largest free lecture series in the UK.
Taylor sees the RSA’s role as enabling people to be “fuller citizens”, based on a belief that “human fulfilment and social progress require a richer account of what it is to be a social being, to be a human being, to be a citizen.”
This has three angles, encouraging people to understand the decisions that affect them, to be more self-reliant, and also to treat other people well and give something back to socie
ty.
“Our model is that change starts with people in communities. It starts in society. And then it’s up to government to decide whether it backs that change or stands in its way,” he says.
In Number 10, he recalls that two different types of people crossed his path. One group would say: “Everything’s terrible. The Government’s not giving us enough money. Everything’s going wrong. You’re all to blame. Give us lots more money. Give us lots more recognition. Everything will be fine.”
Naturally, they were ignored. Others would explain: “We’ve done something practical. We’ve taken an initiative. We’ve pursued an innovation. We’ve made a difference. Imagine how much more difference we could make if you helped us or if you took away barriers.”
It was their views that were noted down and passed on to the Prime Minister.
Iraq: Time to draw a line
The interview took place just as the first public hearings of the Iraq Inquiry got under way in London. Taylor was not in Downing Street at the time of the war – he joined in mid-2003 – but he stands by Blair’s motives for taking military action.
Three inquiries have now been held – by Hutton, Butler and now Chilcot – and he thinks that many observers want to get to the bottom of a perceived plot.
“I just wonder how often do we have to go through this process before people will say: ‘Well okay. There were mistakes made, things that were exaggerated, plans that weren’t done properly’? It’s as if they want to try and find something at the heart of this that explains it all, and I think the world’s more complicated than that.”
He recalls how the war’s opponents sincerely said it would be long and have knock-on effects, but then the immediate reaction afterwards was “well done”. There was then a pause before another conflict started, involving sectarian groups and foreign extremists.
That second conflict, between Sunni and Shia, was predictable because of Iraq’s divisions and he accepts that the UK and US governments failed to prepare and guard against it. It is also important, he stresses, to remember what went before – a tyrant who killed thousands of own countrymen.
“If there were things that we wrong, [if] there were mistakes, they were not part of some terrible conspiracy. And we’ve got to try and out of that mindset, I think, because I don’t think it helps.”
