Which way for democratic politics: Westminster or Davos
Each year at this time industrialists, the rich and would be rich and a range of hangers on gather at Davos to discuss the world economy, or at least how they can profit from it. Labour leader Keir Starmer was there to declare that a Labour Britain would be open for business. Indeed this is the kind of thing that Labour leaders traditionally say (it may be that not the history man Starmer doesn’t know that). The spin is that this marks him out from Jeremy Corbyn who obviously wanted to smash capitalism. Except of course he didn’t. What he was after was a more socially responsible and accountable capitalism.
Starmer spoke to Emily Maitlis about Westminster politics and Davos:
‘Westminster is too constrained..once you get out of Westminster, whether its Davos or anywhere else, you actually engage with people you can see working with in the future. Westminster is just a tribal shouting place’
Certainly Westminster can, thanks mainly to Tory MPs (think Jonathan Gullis) be a rowdy and boorish place. That said everyone there has been elected in a broadly democratic election. Very few people at Davos have been elected to anything or even thought about trying.
In his 1961 book Parliamentary Socialist Ralph Miliband argued that Labour was the most obsessive of parties, not about socialism but about Parliamentary process and procedures.
It can of course be agreed that Westminster is not particularly democratic or representative of popular feeling, However compared to Davos it doesn’t do quite so badly.
Maitlis also asked which Arsenal support Starmer would prefer Piers Moron or Jeremy Corbyn. Starmer said Moron. Perhaps it was a sort of joke but I don’t think the Labour leader will have a career as a stand up comic
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