The case for coproduction – made in March 1788

Karl Wilding – a brilliant and ridiculously nice man – recently tweeted:

It seems a bit of an indictment of where we've got to with designing services when 'human centred' is claimed as a new/novel characteristic—
Karl Wilding (@karlwilding) January 27, 2013

Karl’s is such a straightforward observation that belies how odd thinking about public services and the quest for innovation or newness is.

This reflection was further proven by this brief part of the Federalist Paper 73, where Publius (actually Alexander Hamilton) wrote the following in his discussion of the Executive branch’s powers over the Legislature:

The oftener the measure is brought under examination, the greater the diversity in the situations of those who are to examine it, the less must be the danger of those errors which flow from want of due deliberation, or of those missteps which proceed from the contagion of some common passion or interest.

It is far less probable, that culpable views of any kind should infect all the parts of the government at the same moment and in relation to the same object[.]

I’ve read many justifications and reasons for coproduction in public services. Hamilton’s two sentences above serve as one of the best there is, and was written in March 1788.

John Profumo: utterly contemptible little shit

… but probably not for the reason you’d think.

After being elected as an MP in 1940, Profumo voted against the Chamberlain government in the famous House of Commons debate on Norway. So angered was the government whip, David Margesson, that he wrote a letter to Profumo which included the memorable line:

I can tell you this, you utterly contemptible little shit. On every morning that you wake up for the rest of your life you will be ashamed of what you did last night.

(We’re keen followers of the intersection of swearing and politics here at arbitrary constant. Our favourite post on the topic is here, though many a selection can be found here. If you come across one you think we’d like, let us know.)

The Bell Curve, Federalist Paper 37, and public debate

In my work, it is more often than not the case that extreme examples are used – by both sides of an argument – to make the case for a certain policy or perspective.

It’s worse than policy-by-anecdote, and much worse than policy-based evidence.

It’s policy by the extreme ends of the bell curve (or “policy beyond two standard deviations”, if you’re mathematically inclined).

Not only is this frustrating, but it degrades the quality of public debate and the genuinely difficult issues that politics, policy, politicians and our society face. (It also helps sell newspapers, but that’s effect rather than cause.)

I was struck, therefore, by this passage from the Federalist Papers, specifically number 37:

It is a misfortune, inseparable from human affairs, that public measures are rarely investigated with that spirit of moderation which is essential to a just estimate of their real tendency to advance or obstruct the public good; and that this spirit is more apt to be diminished than promoted, by those occasions which require an unusual exercise of it…

[I]t has been too evident from their own publications, that they have scanned the proposed [work], not only with a predisposition to censure, but with a predetermination to condemn; as the language held by others betrays an opposite predetermination or bias[.]

It is right to be passionate about the causes we stand for and the work we do, and to bring values and views to inform these debates. But it is equally useful, I feel, to keep in mind the “spirit of moderation” highlighted above, and the conclusion the author of the Federalist Paper 37 (James Madison) came to:

[I] solicit the attention of those only, who add to a sincere zeal for the happiness of their country, a temper favorable to a just estimate of the means of promoting it.

150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation

I should have remembered to post this on Tuesday this week, it being 1 January, and so being the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.

That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.

You can read the rest here: the Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863.

Here’s a bit more info and context, and below is a picture of some guy showing a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation he has hanging on the wall of his office:

“… be reclaimed according to somebody’s theory but nobody’s practice”

Much mighty speech-making there has been, both in and out of Parliament, concerning Tom, and much wrathful disputation how Tom shall be got right. Whether he shall be put into the main road by constables, or by beadles, or by bell-ringing, or by force of figures, or by correct principles of taste, or by high church, or by low church, or by no church; whether he shall be set to splitting trusses of polemical straws with the crooked knife of his mind or whether he shall be put to stone-breaking instead. In the midst of which dust and noise there is but one thing perfectly clear, to wit, that Tom only may and can, or shall and will, be reclaimed according to somebody’s theory but nobody’s practice. And in the hopeful meantime, Tom goes to perdition head foremost in his old determined spirit.

This is from Bleak House, and I couldn’t agree with it more. We need less thinking and more doing.

FDR’s 1933 inaugural address

You may be most familiar with the line “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1933 inaugural address.

But it’s also well worth reading the rest of that address, because it speaks to our time as well. For example:

[T]he rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

… Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Man walks into a column, no.7: Church

I find Christianity absolutely fascinating. Not in a patronising ‘look at those poor deluded fools and their strange beliefs’ kind of way, but because, to me, the whole thing seems so exotic, complex, oscillating, old, violent, important, influential, impassioned, bizarre. And as with anything so deep-rooted and wide-ranging, the history of the Christian peoples holds a great deal that resonates with our troubled times.

Christianity pervades every corner of art, literature, cinema, politics, life, and for as long as I can remember I’ve been both mystified and intrigued by the arcane people, events and ideas that populate the religion’s history. Augustine of Hippo. The Nicene Creed. Antioch and Tarsus. Heresy, apologists, gnosticism. What do these things mean?

Oxford historian Diarmaid MacCulloch’s A History of Christianity triumphantly succeeds in bringing the swirling, shifting story of Christian worship to life. It’s a vast, scholarly book, but completely gripping. Frequently funny – he has a lot of material to work with, let’s face it, these fellas have done some odd stuff – he manages to chart the interdependencies and sheer happenstance that explain Christianity’s evolution in a way that makes it comprehensible, if not always understandable.

In one chapter MacCulloch explains how, in the early centuries of Christianity, once communities of Christians had begun to grow to a size such that they could no longer be dismissed as just another marginal cult, they did little to endear themselves to their non-believing neighbours.

This was not because they lived austere lifestyles which made a painful contrast to a world of debauchery and luxury around them; [...] Nor was it because they indulged in much public proclamation of systematic soliciting of converts, in the manner of modern Evangelicals. [...] What really offended was the opposite: Christian secretiveness and obstinate separation into their own world.

They did this because they were convinced of the falsity of the other religions that were all around them, and were worried about their own faith being ‘polluted’ by others’ beliefs and observances. One of the particularly noticeable manifestations of separation was refusal to use public baths, which as MacCulloch rather coyly puts it may have meant that ‘Christians smelled less sweet than their non-Christian neighbours’. But, paradoxically, this insularity was one of the things that helped maintain a steady stream of converts: a kind of ‘maybe they’re keeping whatever they have to themselves because it’s so good’ effect, you might say.

The other factor that made Christianity so successful in attracting new adherents was the way they looked after their own, including the poor. As strange as this may seem today, one of the most important aspects of this community caring was providing a decent burial service for everyone – MacCulloch points out that this was a really big deal in the ancient world. And in the early days a bishop got no more pomp or privilege than a pauper when it came to being laid to rest.

Which brings us back to the world we live in today. The church is mentioned less frequently than social enterprises, mutuals and charities as an agent of the Big Society (although of course many charities are backed by organised religion). However religious individual politicians may be there’s still – usually – a right and proper aversion to mixing god and politics.

But with state funding falling away by the minute, and the church still the owner of valuable assets, it’s not hard to imagine that its role in supporting those left behind by the spending cuts will grow. On the one hand this may not be a bad thing: better to be the recipient of kind Christian charity than out on the streets. It would not be a good thing, however, if this version of the Big Society brought with it an increase in insularity, with small communities (whether religious or not, actually) looking after their own at the expense of linking with others.

Any thoughts, comments, sacrificial offerings gratefully received on Twitter @philblogs.

Man walks into a column, no.6: Machiavelli

Jonathan Powell’s The New Machiavelli (sub-titled How To Wield Power In The Modern World) offers fascinating insights into the mind of a once-powerful man, but that man is Powell himself, not Machiavelli.

Powell, Tony Blair’s chief of staff, says in the preface that the book ‘is an attempt to test whether Machiavelli’s maxims still hold in the world of modern politics’. But it turns out that this is just a handy excuse (or ‘washing line’, to use Peter Mandelson’s term for the over-arching theme of a speech) for the second and third objectives: drawing lessons on leadership based on Powell’s experience in Number 10, and recounting anecdotes to illustrate what life at the top was really like.

JP is being a bit disingenuous when he says this is ‘not another memoir of the Blair years’, because that’s exactly what it is. I’m no Machiavelli scholar, but the breadth of the Italian apparatchik’s theorising allows Powell to find enough quotes to bolster his argument, most of the time anyway – towards the end it feels like Powell just gives up, and the chapters on ‘War and Peace’ and ‘Europe’ in particular are almost all anecdote, no Prince.

Still, I guess most people will read The New Machiavelli for the behind-the-scenes stuff – I know I did – and there’s certainly fun to be had. We hear how during the 2005 election campaign Powell assumed that Tony’s faltering delivery of a speech on immigration was due to a bust teleprompter, when it was actually the PM not looking at the camera on purpose, thus ensuring that the media didn’t report on the most politically sensitive bits of the speech. Or, when Blair was in hospital for a heart operation, we learn that Prince Charles sent a get-well card and box of Duchy of Cornwall fudge, signed from ‘Dr Wales’, which the security service thought was a suspicious package and proceeded to blow up, fudge and all.

What lets this book down, however, is the bloody-mindedness of Powell’s determination to defend the record of the Blair governments. I’ll leave aside the rightness or wrongness of the arguments he puts forward for specific decisions; the fact of the matter is that after only a short time the one-sidedness of the account really grates.

A big part of this defence is a hagiographical approach to Blair himself. Powell is convinced that Tony was a Truly Great Leader, and that the only things holding him back were Gordon Brown, an inexperienced and inept bunch of ministers, and the lying media. Whatever you may think of Blair, the complete and utter lack of balance is really distracting.

The stuff about Gordon is frequently hilarious (unintentionally and not) for the depth of hatred – there’s no other word – that it reveals. So on page 37 we have this entirely typical example:

Gordon’s influence on those around him was at times extraordinary. After a few years working with him his aides became changed people. Ed Balls, who had been a pleasant young man as a Financial Times leader writer, was transformed by his connection with Gordon. He reminds me of Quintus Fabius in [Machiavelli’s] The Discourses, who came under the influence of the tyrant Appius: ‘though an excellent fellow, [he] was after a while blinded by a little ambition and, under the evil influence of Appius, changed his good habits for bad and became like him’.

Blair, on the other hand, can do no wrong: consistently strategic, conciliatory, reforming, self-deprecating, visionary. His only failing, it seems, was being too much of a nice guy and not sacking people soon enough. I was talking to a colleague about this, who said that a friend of theirs also worked in Number 10 for a time under Blair, and that they (the friend) felt exactly the same way and would not hear even a modestly critical word against the ex-PM. The power of charisma, I guess: Machiavelli would’ve been proud.

“Dad, who was Nick Clegg?”

Today’s tuition fees vote will make for an interesting bit of history in 20 years’ time.

Before I say why, here are a few (probably unpopular) thoughts on the issue of tuition fees:

• I agree in both principle and practice with tuition fees. A university education is a choice, and something to be valued by the individual who makes that choice. Once the principle of fees had been established by the Labour government the politics of funding higher education was always going to be about where the cap on fees was, not whether there were fees.
• I don’t happen to think of any education in the utilitarian way politicians seem to think of it – utlitarian as demonstrated by the fact it’s the responsibility of the Business Secretary and not the Education Secretary. Thus, if a higher education is valuable in its own right (whilst also having an economic benefit to the individual and the economy), it should be paid for (at least in majority part) by the individual.
• Admitting the possibility of fees means a market will, and probably should, develop. Yes, this effectively makes it a US-type model, but I’m comfortable with that. A University Fund for young ‘uns in a family is a good idea.
• A graduate tax is a nonsense because an individual would never stop paying it and their repayments could be more than the cost of the fees. It has elements of progressiveness in it, but it’s also a disincentive on social mobility.

Watching the Lib Dems struggle on the topic of university tuition fees has, I’ll be honest, brought me some pleasure. Their position was and is a nonsense, as follows:

• Their position on tuition fees was pretty much the most distinctive and best-known domestic policy they had. They’ve traded that at the fist sniff of power; either that, or they knew their policy was a nonsense but had worked on the basis they would never need to implement it. (This is partly supported by the idea Nick Clegg privately urged his colleagues to drop the position.)
• I don’t know that anyone had anticipated Clegg’s “New Politics” being the explicit reneging of a personal and party pledge to oppose not just a rise in tuition fees, but the removal of tuition fees.
• Clegg has tried to defend the move by saying previously 1 in 7 people went to university and now it’s 1 in 3. What is that if not a huge rise in opportunity for people from a wider range of backgrounds?
• That government ministers even considered not voting for their own policy (even if they end up doing so) tells you what an incredibly ridiculous position the Lib Dems got themselves in.

All things considered – and even taking into account the short memories and fickle nature of the British voting public – the tuition fees debacle as applied to the Lib Dems makes me think they may never in a generation or two be thought of as any sort of credible, governing force at a national level.

When the future comes and I potentially drop my one-year-old as 18-year-old off at university, I’ll think back to today and mention to him the peculiar time when a small party called the Liberal Democrats, led by a pub-quiz question politician called Nick Clegg, abandoned their policy and principles because they happened to have a bit of power.

“Dad, who was Nick Clegg?”

Today’s tuition fees vote will make for an interesting bit of history in 20 years’ time.

Before I say why, here are a few (probably unpopular) thoughts on the issue of tuition fees:

• I agree in both principle and practice with tuition fees. A university education is a choice, and something to be valued by the individual who makes that choice. Once the principle of fees had been established by the Labour government the politics of funding higher education was always going to be about where the cap on fees was, not whether there were fees.
• I don’t happen to think of any education in the utilitarian way politicians seem to think of it – utlitarian as demonstrated by the fact it’s the responsibility of the Business Secretary and not the Education Secretary. Thus, if a higher education is valuable in its own right (whilst also having an economic benefit to the individual and the economy), it should be paid for (at least in majority part) by the individual.
• Admitting the possibility of fees means a market will, and probably should, develop. Yes, this effectively makes it a US-type model, but I’m comfortable with that. A University Fund for young ‘uns in a family is a good idea.
• A graduate tax is a nonsense because an individual would never stop paying it and their repayments could be more than the cost of the fees. It has elements of progressiveness in it, but it’s also a disincentive on social mobility.

Watching the Lib Dems struggle on the topic of university tuition fees has, I’ll be honest, brought me some pleasure. Their position was and is a nonsense, as follows:

• Their position on tuition fees was pretty much the most distinctive and best-known domestic policy they had. They’ve traded that at the fist sniff of power; either that, or they knew their policy was a nonsense but had worked on the basis they would never need to implement it. (This is partly supported by the idea Nick Clegg privately urged his colleagues to drop the position.)
• I don’t know that anyone had anticipated Clegg’s “New Politics” being the explicit reneging of a personal and party pledge to oppose not just a rise in tuition fees, but the removal of tuition fees.
• Clegg has tried to defend the move by saying previously 1 in 7 people went to university and now it’s 1 in 3. What is that if not a huge rise in opportunity for people from a wider range of backgrounds?
• That government ministers even considered not voting for their own policy (even if they end up doing so) tells you what an incredibly ridiculous position the Lib Dems got themselves in.

All things considered – and even taking into account the short memories and fickle nature of the British voting public – the tuition fees debacle as applied to the Lib Dems makes me think they may never in a generation or two be thought of as any sort of credible, governing force at a national level.

When the future comes and I potentially drop my one-year-old as 18-year-old off at university, I’ll think back to today and mention to him the peculiar time when a small party called the Liberal Democrats, led by a pub-quiz question politician called Nick Clegg, abandoned their policy and principles because they happened to have a bit of power.