This is for occasional short pieces, thoughts on how the lens of holistic political economy and system thinking can add a perspective to current events. Readers are encouraged to register and submit comments.
‘It’s the economy – stupid’ was a bullet point on a whiteboard in Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign war room (1). It subsequently got into general usage. I take it to mean that the economy is basic, it matters to people. The economy is at the centre of everything from the denial of global warming to resource depletion, environmental degradation, extinctions, pollution and the mechanisms of global heating itself.
Our first order problem is the voting system; we have a first past the post system but have become a multi-party country. There is no guarantee that changing the voting system alone will fix things but without it we don’t seem to be able to even get started on the huge challenges we face. This has significant political implications and, if not fixed, is ultimately a threat to society [1]
The case of steel brings the debate about nationalisation back into politics. Nationalisation conjours up the wrong image. Owen Jones nicely captures both the economic and democratic case for proper public ownership, by which we mean with a form of governance that involves all stakeholders. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/15/british-steel-nationalisation-labour-keir-starmer-privatisation?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
In this article George Monbiot nails the problem with the governments housing policy. Now housing policy is surely something that should be a priority for a Labour Government and thorough policy work would have been done in opposition, I mean they had 14 years right? Well apparently not.
On 15 October I published a short essay about participation. Gavin Stephen’s has called for a shake up in the way the police are organised and call for biggest shake-up since the 1960s, it was reported in the Guardian here https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/18/police-chief-calls-for-biggest-shake-up-of-england-and-wales-policing-since-1960s
I am sure there is a lot in what he says but I also think there is a much more fundamental issue; policing is too important to be left to police officers, it matters to us all.
On 15 October I published a short essay about participation. Since then Wes Streeting has launched a consultation into the NHS.
In the 1970's I served as a councillor. The council could make appointments to the local and regional hospital trusts. Of course the objection is that these were party hacks but in practice they could also be well intentioned public service minded people. When the Labour party was in control this often extended to TU delegates. Very far form perfect but, in theory at least, through the local democratic process there was a mechanism by which lay participation on the management of the health service was possible.I do not propose a return to this old system. But we do need to replace it with something that puts citizens in the loop.
Wes Streeting has doubled down on outsourcing in the NHS, calling it pragmatic [1]. Pragmatism, is defined as “concerned with practical outcomes rather than theories” but also “concern with practical consequences”. We need to look at consequences, it’s not just about getting some operations done, it will certainly do that for the patient [2] it also has consequences for the NHS itself and it is those that we need to be concerned about, there is a high likelihood that this will have an undermining impact on the NHS. These risks are known, ignoring them is a choice.
During the election campaign there was a lot of talk about PR and tactical voting, however given the result, PR is not likely to be on the agenda anytime soon. The new government has said it will involve regional Mayors and leave it to local government to deliver against mandatory targets for housing but we need a lot more than regional mayors to fix democracy on the UK.
Rachel Reeves has rightly called for a review of government finance but has given few clues about what might be on the cards and little by way of encouragement with the message that there is no money. We have been told that we cannot afford to do the things that are needed, whether that is the transition from oil, fixing the NHS and Social Care or revitalising the infrastructure.
Any new government has to be better than the tories over the last 14 years; party-gate, ordering ferries from a company with no ships, crashing the economy, gambling on the election date with insider knowledge…and on an on. It’s time for change, it’s palpable; the TU campaign aptly called Enough is Enough captured the mood.
So with the apparently nailed on prospect of a Labour victory why is it so uninspiring?
Read more: The 2024 Election; A lament for the road not taken
It is an observation of holistic political economy that our politicians are out of step with what people think with all that entails for disengagement and disillusionment. The war in Gaza can be added to the list of things that throws this into high relief. The the ICC issue of arrest warrants (and their rejection even though we are signatory) demonstrates, once again, how "the west" is seen as hypocritical on issues of justice and out of step with reasonable world opinion. Circa 27 June 2024, postscript added.
There has been a lot of comment on the Rochdale by-election results. Four things stand out.
- Mainstream politics doesn’t reflect where the public are
- Local candidates can do well
- Labour has totally lost its way
- There is no room on the right, that is where the Tories are
Holistic Political Economy gets a new look site.
I have fixed the issue with footnotes, updated the software and given the site a new look which I hope is more user friendly. Essays are now on the top menu and in future will allow comments. I have added a BLOG which will also allow comments.