Tragedy is said to be unfolding within the UK Labour Party.

Phil Collins (former speechwriter for Tony Blair) with Richard Reeves argue that the Party has lost touch with its liberal tradition.

The full text is in Prospect (subscription only). But the core thought is here:

Labour politicians too often see a social problem—obesity, children at risk on the internet or declining interest in high culture—and make two assumptions: first, that the problem is amenable to a policy solution; and second, that this solution ought to involve the establishment of a council, commission or task force. But many of the issues facing modern society are too complex and too cultural for such a wooden approach.

And this:

Brown and his allies retain a benign view of the power of the central, expert state to build a fairer, better society.

Hmm.

A bit hard to blame all this on Gordon Brown after Tony Blair spent years announcing one new ‘initiative’ after another?

The authors go on to propose all sorts of different schemes which they claim to be unreservedly ‘liberal’:

Liberals have always insisted that actions become subject to legal sanctions if they harm others. It is now irrefutable that the emission of greenhouse gases, mostly by rich nations, is causing climatic changes which will harm those in the low-lying, equatorial nations, which are mostly poor: a clear form of "passive killing."

… A new liberal fiscal policy would be based on two clear principles. First, tax "bads" (like carbon) not "goods" (like work). Second, tax "unearned" rather than "earned" income … The riches flowing from inheritance or soaring house values should be taxed more heavily than at present. While people should be able to take some increase in the value of their house free of tax—up to, for example, what they could have received from a risk-free investment like a gilt—anything above that should be subject to substantial taxation.

Hard to know where to start demolishing all this.

Is not the ‘active killing’ of their own citizens by many equatorial nations through deliberate repression (Zimbabwe) or sheer socialistic incompetence (Burma, N Korea) a much more immediate problem than long-term environmental risks?

Why should inheriting a family house be treated as ‘income’?

If the problem is a neurotic ‘authoritarian’ insistence on state power, surely the best thing to do is cut taxes and ergo cut the state’s role?

And what about the UK’s soaring contributions to the European Union, a major multiplier of high-level meddling, waste and regulation?

Above all, why are the Labour Party’s agonies a ‘tragedy’? It is not a ‘tragedy’ that CD sales decline while on-line music sales rise. That’s simply the result of better options emerging, even if those who have banked on CD sales face some tough times.

Thus the Labour Party’s misery is in fact a valuable market signal, telling us all that the accumulated policies and taxes of Blairism and Brownism are not working.

The real tragedy lies in the fact that such stunning sums of money have been wasted by Labour in finding this out, as Labour’s own Denis MacShane bravely acknowledges:

I do not know of a single minister who privately does not despair at the waste of money on pointless projects, publications, or legions of press officers that add no value. The taxpayer has given more than £1 billion of aid to India, even though that great country has more billionaires and millionaires than Britain and runs its own well-financed development aid programme. I was baffled as Europe minister to be told I had to waste 90 minutes being quizzed by a consultant when the kindly but shrewd tea ladies in King Charles Street knew what needed to be done. How much was paid to the consultant? What happened to his report? No one in Whitehall knows or cares.

Madness.

All that said, Collins/Reeves are on to something important.

Many government processes exist simply because they reflect clunky information flow options of many decades ago.

It now is possible to give citizens a far greater say in how their money is spent, and how much of it they want spent on ‘collective’ purposes. The role of government surely has to move from ‘controlling’ processes to setting reasonable but flexible frameworks and incentives for shared private differentiated action.

Unfortunately far too many vested state-funded interests are now far too well established to let this happen without serious and painful disruptions.

Incoming.