Darren Murphy's View of the World

Time to walk and chew gum at the same time

Sitting in my hotel room in Washington DC on Wednesday evening I managed to catch a speech President Obama was making to a town hall meeting in Orange County, California. It was, as usual, an inspirational speech from an inspirational president. Within it, President Obama set out some important contrasts with how the British government is handling the current political and economic crisis.

First of all, the President began by stressing that when it comes to economic problems and mistakes made in how to handle them he stressed that ‘the buck stops here’. The specific issue he was referring to was about bonuses paid to AIG executives. Of course, the Obama administration isn’t really to blame for the bonus payments – any more than Gordon Brown is responsible for big bonuses paid to bad bankers – but President Obama didn’t try to shift responsibility he took it. He knows that that’s what leaders do. The town hall meeting lapped it up. This is what Gordon Brown should have done to defuse the apology issue: to take responsibility for the situation rather than try to shuffle off the blame to others. By doing so, Obama looks in control, rather than the victim of events.

Secondly, the President made a vitally important point about priorities. He said that whilst he was facing criticism for dealing with more than one problem at a time, he believes that it is vital to address the economic crisis and to reform healthcare, improve schools, reduce reliance on carbon fuel and win the war in Afghanistan. He said that he wouldn’t choose between dealing with the economic crisis and reforming public services because people didn’t get to choose between dealing with their personal economic circumstances and the quality of the schools their children use and the healthcare they rely upon. It was, he said, time to chew gum and walk at the same time.

This is absolutely the right analysis and one which the Labour government would do well to emulate. As I have said here before, the government’s standing with the electorate is suffering from its failure to set out a radical and challenging reform programme for health, schools, energy and the wider public services. The Labour government too often looks like it has forgotten how to be radical reformers; that the ability to walk and chew gum at the same time is beyond them.

If Labour is to have any chance of winning the next election it is vital that Gordon Brown and the Labour government learns some lessons from how President Obama is communicating on the economic crisis: taking personal responsibility even when it isn’t his fault; and making radical public service reforms even whilst dealing with the economic crisis. Labour has to show it can walk and chew gum at the same time.