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Paul Mason
Economics editor, Newsnight
Mandelson on what modern social democracy means
I have just come back from a gruelling trip across the southern USA. My report - on the real economic woes underpinning the debt-ceiling crisis - will be shown on Thursday 28 July 2011 at 2230 on BBC Two.
Lord Mandelson on inadequacies in Labour's industrial policies.
In the meantime tonight I go on a journey, no less gruelling, to the north east of England with former business secretary Lord Mandelson.
He is on a mission to re-sell the idea of globalisation to a Labour multitude that has being sorely tested by it.
And he delivers a 'mea culpa' - for what he now sees were inadequacies in Labour's industrial policies. He really does deliver a mea culpa onscreen - though I could not tempt him into a Hartlepool chippy for some mushy peas, so Labour-era urban myth remain unexplored.
The biggest nightmare for Labour is: what if the Coalition are right, and cutting the state, reducing benefits and implementing austerity succeed where growing the state did not succeed: in promoting growth?
Follow me from Kings Cross station, via the Port of Tyne, Newcastle City Council and a Hartlepool FE college as I doggedly try to get Lord Mandelson to define what modern social democracy means, if trickle down economics has failed.
Oh, and we will be keeping an eye on whether what Lord Mandelson's successor, Vince Cable MP, calls "right wing nutters" if the US Congress succeed in technically bankrupting America.
(Mandelson is leading an inquiry into globalisation for the IPPR think tank, more here.)
Watch my film from the north east in full and see Lord Mandelson join Jeremy Paxman in discussion live in the studio on Newsnight on Monday 25 July 2011 at 2230 on BBC Two.
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Comment number 48.
Im_alright_jack1st August 2011 - 14:50
cont..
The problem is that without Labour doing the social bit to the Tories business bit the whole thing got out of balance. Previously the UK lurched from left to right making a small shuffle forward in the process. Now for 30 years we have gone further and further to the right and have abandoned the ordniary man.
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Comment number 47.
Im_alright_jack1st August 2011 - 14:44
It seems to me that New Labour was just the symptom not the problem. In the mid 90's it was clear that traditional 'left wing' Labour wasn't going to get re-elected, and that if they were ever to regain power they would have to move to the middle ground. By doing this Labour ditched their traditional beliefs and followed Thatcher's path, which they clearly didn't understand.
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Comment number 46.
Jericoa31st July 2011 - 20:21
Paul, further to my earlier comment i posted this on tullet prebons blog..hope you find it interesting.
The assessment is correct, but why now?
In the economic debating underworld I habitually inhabit many people (not involved in financial services directly in any form) have been saying these things and tearing our hair out FOR YEARS trying to get someone to listen.
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Comment number 45.
Jericoa31st July 2011 - 20:05
Paul, not sure if you bother to read the comments in the wasteland that was once a fantastic blog anymore. But just in case you do, i found this which may interest you.
http://www.tullettprebon.com/Documents/strategyinsights/Tim_Morgan_Report_007.pdf
No space to discuss it here obviously (sadly) but could this sort of thing the the prerequisite to a run on uk assets.
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Comment number 44.
charlesbeckett30th July 2011 - 22:54
Paul,
just wanted to say that I thought your piece for Newsnight on Thursday (Grapes of Wrath/In Steinbeck's Footsteps on America's declining middle class) was excellent. Compelling journalism with some very powerful interviews and clear analysis, underpinned by an appropriate historical comparison.
Great stuff.
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Comments 5 of 48