Author Archives: nathangamester

Republicans Can Learn from the CSJ

Commentary CoverBack in February I posted some thoughts on an essay published in Commentary Magazine by Mike Gerson and Peter Wehner called ‘How to Save the Republican Party’. At the time I also submitted a letter to the Editor of Commentary Magazine picking up on the suggestion that the Centre for Social Justice could provide a model for the US.

The letter has now been published in the June 2013 edition of the magazine and I have reprinted it here:

To the Editor:

IN THEIR superb essay, Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner highlight the considerable challenges for Republicans. As the authors state, the current troubles are not simply the result of a communications problem. In some key areas, policy needs updating, too. The big question is how.

In the final section of their essay, Gerson and Wehner suggest that a British think tank, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), could provide the answer for the GOP.

The CSJ has been one of the most influential think tanks in the UK in the last decade. It was founded by the former leader of the Conservative Party (and current secretary of state for work and pensions) Iain Duncan Smith, following his 2002 visit to a deprived housing estate in Glasgow where he saw firsthand the damaging effects of poverty. Duncan Smith and the CSJ focused their work on overcoming the “pathways to poverty”: family breakdown, educational failure, economic dependence, indebtedness, and addictions. What accounted for the CSJ’s success and what can the GOP learn?

First, all findings and recommendations from the CSJ are firmly rooted in evidence, including the use of thorough public polling. The 2007 report Breakthrough Britain, for example, included two waves of polling, which collected the opinions of almost 50,000 people. In an era of pontificating and punditry when evidence can be relegated below opinion, this approach is powerful.

Second, the CSJ is a superb example of how politicians and policymakers can make the most of their time in opposition. The result is that once the Conservatives were back in government, crucial reforms were pre-packaged and ready to go. This gave the party a huge head start on the current welfare reforms that are being introduced in the UK (led by Duncan-Smith).

Third, the CSJ is a conservative organization with conservative beliefs and principles. However, it has never been bound by partisanship or tribalism. When the Labour Party was in government, the CSJ was actively engaged in working together with Labour MPs to see their policies implemented. Perhaps the best example of this approach is seen in the 2008 report Early Intervention, co-written with Labour MP Graham Allen. This report led to all of the main party leaders’ signing up to the new social policy of “Early Intervention.” This willingness to reach across the aisle has given the CSJ a coalition of supporters from different political spheres.

If it is to change in any meaningful way, the Republican Party must resist the temptation to do what many political parties do following defeat: repeat more loudly the same failed policies under the assumption that the people simply didn’t hear the message the first time around.

The Washington D.C. think tank scene is highly competitive. If, however, there is space for one more, modelling it on the Centre for Social Justice would be an excellent starting point. And the good news is that work has already begun at state level. The Georgia Center for Opportunity seems to be following the CSJ model. Perhaps it will be only a matter of time before we see this scaled up to the national level.

Nathan Gamester
Legatum Institute, London

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Commentary Magazine provides space for the authors of the original essay to also post their response to the published letters. Concerning my letter, Mike Gerson and Peter Wehner said this:

And we thank Nathan Gamester for his insightful letter on the Centre for Social Justice. We’re great admirers of the CSJ, and we believe there is much the Republican Party can learn from it.

Upcoming Movies

1) Captain Phillips (Dir. Paul Greengrass)

The true story of Captain Richard Phillips and the 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of the US-flagged MV Maersk Alabama, the first American cargo ship to be hijacked in two hundred years.  More…

 

2) The Butler (Dir. Lee Daniels)

A look at the life of Eugene Allen, who served eight presidents as the White House’s head butler from 1952 to 1986, and had a unique front-row seat as political and racial history was made. More…

 

3) The Way, Way Back (Dir. Nat Faxon, Jim Rash)

Over the course of his summer break, a teenager comes into his own thanks in part to the friendship he strikes up with one of the park’s managers. More…

 

4) The Hangover Part III (Dir. Todd Phillips)

This time, there’s no wedding. No bachelor party. What could go wrong, right? But when the Wolfpack hits the road, all bets are off. More…

 

5) Now You See Me (Dir. Louis Leterrier)

An FBI agent and an Interpol detective track a team of illusionists who pull off bank heists during their performances and reward their audiences with the money. More…

What’s Happening in Wellbeing?

Here’s a post I wrote for the recently-launched Legatum Institute blog. The post provides a short summary of some of the current initiatives, reports, and programmes involving wellbeing … 

Right now wellbeing is very topical. Around the world governments are beginning to warm up to the idea of measuring something more than just economic progress. Countries currently engaged in measuring wellbeing in some form include Germany, Australia, Bhutan, Ireland, France, Japan, Korea, China, Germany, Norway, Italy, Spain, Slovenia and, of course, the UK.

Broadly speaking this new focus from government and policy organisations fits into what is known as the “beyond GDP” movement. Essentially, this is the belief that when we measure a country’s progress/success/development we should include more than just its wealth.

Different initiatives are currently being undertaken around this topic. I have listed some of these below. The first relates directly to policy making, while the remainder are mainly concerned with the issue of measurement:

1. Firstly (and most importantly!) is the Legatum Institute Commission on Wellbeing Policy. This high level commission – chaired by Lord Gus O’Donnell – will report in Jan 2014 on how wellbeing data can be used by central government during the policy making process. When the report is launched, the Commission’s recommendations will set the standard for using wellbeing data in policy making.

2. The OECD recently published a superb set of guidelines on measuring subjective wellbeing. The aim of these guidelines is to introduce uniformity in how subjective wellbeing is measured so as to be most useful to governments and other decision-makers.

3. UNICEF has just published a Report Card on Child Wellbeing, which places the UK 16th out of 29 countries. The summary of the UK findings does not make for pleasant reading: “high rates of teenage pregnancy, and high numbers of young people out of education, employment and training… one of the highest alcohol abuse rates among 11-15 year olds, and…in the bottom third of the infant mortality league table.”

4. The French government is getting ready to launch the first report into what it is calling the “Positive Economy”. This initiative, which was commissioned directly by President Hollande, is a “platform to develop relationships and create knowledge about an economy that seeks more than profit”.

5. Next month the German Parliament is set to vote on a new report entitled “Growth, Wellbeing and Quality of Life”. The report was drafted by a Parliamentary Inquiry Committee and proposes that societal welfare should be measured across three dimensions: material wealth, ecology, and social aspects including social inclusion. Further details are here.

6. Last month, the Social Progress Index was launched. This new index aims to measure how countries “provide for the social and environmental needs of their citizens.” Comprising 52 separate indicators spread across three broad categories and including both subjective and objective data, this index is one to watch in the years to come.

7. And while new initiatives are emerging, several international organisations continue to provide cross-country measures of wellbeing. See for example the OECD Better Life Index, the UN Human Development Index, and our own Legatum Prosperity Index™.

Parliament, Show Some Class Today

Today Parliament has an opportunity to show some class.

When Parliament returns later today to pay tribute to the life of Margaret Thatcher, there will be some, perhaps many, MPs who will want to speak vigorously in opposition to her policies and her premiership. If conducted respectfully, this should be welcomed. We should always welcome an open and free debate among those who disagree with each other.

A strong democracy relies on the freedom of expression and the British Parliament has always set the standard, globally, for robust debate.

There will, however, be some who will be tempted to attack Lady Thatcher personally. They may wish to step beyond the line of political disagreement and into the realm of personality attacks.

Baroness Thatcher is a former Prime Minister who held some very strong views and divided people’s opinions. But she was also a wife, a mother, and a grandmother. Launching a personal attack on a frail, elderly woman who died only this week and whose family are still in mourning is neither big nor clever. It belittles the person doing it and, more significantly, it belittles our parliament.

Parliament, the world is watching. Show some class today.

Poverty in the UK

A recent FT article describes a child in Liverpool who chews on wallpaper at night to relieve his hunger. He. Chews. On. Wallpaper.

I have no idea how to even process this information. This is England, 2013.

A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with some friends in their house in a deprived area of Liverpool when they showed me a haunting crayon picture. Drawn by a local child, it featured a large, empty plate with wobbly letters stating baldly: “Do you see any food?”

“There’s a lot of little kids going hungry round here,” explained one friend, who works in a local community centre. Indeed, just the other day she had spoken to a family where the child had been chewing wallpaper at night. “He didn’t want to tell his mum because he knew she didn’t have the money for supper,” she explained. “We hear more and more stories like this.”

Source: Where Austerity Really Hits Home, Gillian Tett, Financial Times

What Do Mums Do All Day?

I recently came across this story. Needless to say it made my wife and me smile…

A man came home from work and found his 3 children outside, still in their pyjamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn around garden. The door of his wife’s car was open, as was the front door to the house and no sign of the dog. Walking in the door, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over; the throw rug was against one wall; in the front room the TV was on loudly with the cartoon channel; the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing.

In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door. He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened. He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls.

As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pyjamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked, ‘What happened here today?’ She again smiled and answered, ‘You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day? ”Yes,” was his incredulous reply. She answered, ‘Well, today I didn’t do it.’

Bush vs. Clinton. Again.

Bush_Clinton_92I predict the 2016 US Presidential race will be Bush vs. Clinton.

I’m not the first to say this and I definitely won’t be the last. But there are good reasons to believe that the surnames printed on 2016 bumper stickers will match those from 1992.

Here are a few reasons why. First, Hillary.

Without even doing or saying anything related to the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton is already the run-away favourite to secure the Democratic nomination. Her record of public service and her public profile are unmatched by anyone else in the Party. Politco neatly summed up Hillary’s very impressive credentials like this:

A first lady-turned-senator-turned-presidential candidate-turned Secretary of State with 100-percent name ID and deep popularity who would, oh yes, make history as the nation’s first female president.

Jeb_Bush_Hillary_ClintonHillary was the first First Lady in history to have her own office in the West Wing of the White House, no doubt to signify that she is serious about policy. In the Senate she sat on several committees including the Armed Services Committee and her record is positive although, curiously, there are no substantive legislative achievements to her name.

As Secretary of State she has gained her praise from the likes of Google chairman Eric Schmidt who described her as “the most significant Secretary of State since Dean Acheson.”

Her time at the State Dept. coincided with some major global achievements: the liberation of Libya, the death of Osama Bin Laden (who can forget that picture), the freeing of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, a diplomatic opening to Burma, and the isolation of Syrian President Assad.

There are, however, questions over the extent to which any of these can be chalked up as Clinton victories, rather than events that happened on her watch.

This is partly a result of her relationship with President Obama, as Stephen M Walt explains: “Clinton isn’t a great secretary of state because that is not the role that she’s been asked to play in this administration.”

While there is no doubting Hillary’s energy and activism as SoS, perhaps the recent New Yorker headline describes it best: “Hillary Was a Great Ambassador, Not a Great Secretary of State”.

What is clear is that Hillary Rodham Clinton is a formidable candidate with a formidable record. Whoever runs against her in 2016 will need to be a seriously impressive republican with a first-class record.

Step forward Jeb Bush.

After losing in his first attempt at the Florida Governor’s mansion to incumbent Lawton Chiles, John Ellis Bush ran again four years later – and won – focussing on issues normally reserved for Democratic candidates. Jeb Bush was only the third Republican Governor in Florida’s history, and the only one to be re-elected.

Jeb Bush’s record as Governor includes some notable achievements – not to mention a departing favourability rating of over 60%, an achievement beyond many two-term governors who tend to leave office with declining ratings (it’s worth noting that Hillary also left the State Dept. with high favourability ratings).

On healthcare, Jeb Bush enacted Medicade reforms to give patients greater decision making powers by allowing them to choose the coverage that best meets their needs.

He has strong green credentials having succeeded in a project to restore America’s Everglades.

On the economy, Bush cut taxes every year he was in office, he reduced the number of government employees by over 14,000, he vetoed spending programmes, and he created the Centre for Efficient Government to improve government effectiveness.

On education – the area he says he is most proud of – Bush established the A+ Plan for Education, which increased accountability of schools and which in turn resulted in significant grade improvements among students, and he introduced a scholarship programme for low-income students.

Recently, former Chief of Staff to George W Bush, Andy Card expressed glowing support for Jeb Bush as President. This is significant because it suggests that there might be other senior republicans like Card who were loyal to George W Bush and who would also get behind Jeb.

Finally, one major feather in Jeb Bush’s cap is that he will do very well among Latino voters. He speaks Spanish and is married to a Mexican American – Columba Bush – and is even considered by some as an Hispanic Republican!

So there you have it. My prediction. Bush vs. Clinton in 2016.

There are many reasons why this prediction may not come true, not least of which being that neither Jeb Bush nor Hillary Clinton have said that they will even run in 2016. Add to that the much talked about “Bush fatigue” on the one side and, on the other, the sense that Hillary has been here before, and you begin to see why Bush vs. Clinton in 2016 may not materialise.

But I hope it does. Both Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton possess a rare quality: statesmanship. Today’s serious issues need to be met with serious solutions by serious politicians. No doubt the 2016 race will have its fair share of gimmicks, slogans, and mud-slinging (as all modern political campaigns do) but perhaps it will also be defined by the quality of debate between two statesmen. I hope so.

Short-Termism

Short-termismShort-termism is a major hindrance to economic prosperity in the UK, says a new report published today. While I am sure this is true, I would add that short-termism is also a significant hindrance in political life too.

Perhaps one of the best examples of short-termism in politics is found in the campaign slogan of Ronald Reagan during the 1980 Presidential election. One week before the American people went to the polls in 1980, Reagan famously asked: are you better off than you were four years ago?

As a piece of rhetoric this is superb. As a basis for serious political discourse it is not.

While there are, no doubt, some policies that can be assessed after a single term in office, there are many that cannot. This is even more pertinent in times of austerity than in times of plenty.

Transforming the economic performance of a nation is not something that is achieved in a single term (I doubt very much whether it can be achieved in two). Not only is the path uncertain, but along the way it is inevitable that many – if not most – members of the public will be worse off than they were previously.

It’s like paying-off a huge credit card bill whilst expecting to live at the same high standard to which you became accustomed when you were spending all the credit in the first place. There’s only one way to do that: get another credit card and run up more debt, thereby exacerbating the problem and delaying the inevitable repayment.

It’s worrying that Ed Miliband has decided to adopt Reagan’s famous campaign slogan. Not because it is highly effective and will gain traction come election time (it is and it will), but because it ignores the bigger political reality: UK plc has run out of money. This country has huge public sector debt and regardless of who is in power after the next election we cannot keep spending more than we take in.

Asking the electorate if they are better off than they were at the last election is irresponsible. It implies that things can be significantly different under a new regime. The reality is that any government – whether Conservative, Labour, or Coalition – will need to make cutbacks that will be felt by members of the public.

To suggest otherwise is to prioritise short-term political gain over our future economic security.

Dinner with David Frum

DFrumAt the Legatum Institute we recently hosted a dinner featuring David Frum as the guest of honour. The topic of conversation was the future of conservatism (US and UK). Below is a short summary of the evening, which first appeared here. 

 

“Insult fewer people next time.” This was David Frum’s advice to the Republican Party following its defeat in the 2012 Presidential Election.  While this analysis is no-doubt deliberately facetious it can almost certainly be filed under the “it’s funny because it’s true” category of jokes.

Over dinner at the Legatum Institute David Frum explains that there are three dominant theories circulating inside the Republican Party as to why, in 2012, it lost one of the most winnable elections in modern history. The first, he says, is trivial, the second is false, and the third is pernicious.

Theory number one says that the Republicans were simply caught off guard by a better organised, more social media-friendly Democratic Party. This, of course, may well be true but it is not the reason for defeat. In fact, Frum suggests that the failure to be as well organised as the democrats was more a symptom of defeat rather than a cause.

Theory number two says that the Republican message on immigration was wrong. The Party failed to tailor its message towards non-white voters and ultimately paid the price at the polling stations. Again, there is some truth to this theory but it is not the main reason why the GOP lost in 2012.

The third explanation is that the Republicans were simply the victim of a huge historical tragedy in which the American public made a grave error in not picking the right party. Put another way, the Republicans didn’t lose the election, rather the American people failed in their responsibility to elect the right person! “If the customer doesn’t like what you are selling, that’s not the customer’s problem”, suggest Frum.

While these reasons may provide a partial answer, the primary reason why the Republican Party lost the 2012 election,  explains Frum, was much simpler than that: it did not have a message for middle class Americans. Rather than focussing on immediate issues such as jobs, Republicans instead focussed on a deficit reduction plan, the effects of which will not be seen for 20-30 years. That message, argues Frum, lacks relevance for the middle class American voter.

In a wide ranging discussion on the future of conservatism – on both sides of the Atlantic – David Frum concluded with another piece of advice to conservatives seeking election: to be successful conservatives need to have an inclusive message that is culturally relevant. On top of that, the manner of discussion needs to be more responsible, less socially reactionary, and less rage-filled. On this point he is certainly right. Let’s hope he is listened to.