So the British version of the ‘Tea Party’ movement was apparently launched in Brighton today.  Seemingly, most of that delightful seaside resort responded with indifference at this apparently ‘historic’ event.  Personally, I’m pretty alarmed that the most crankish part of an increasingly crankish Republican Party (see my post here about the rightward drift of an already right wing GOP) seems to want to replicate itself over here.  The last thing we need is a British version of the tea party movement.

The first reason I don’t like this idea is that it is an unwelcome and unnecessary distraction from the election campaign to come.  While we should be resolutely and absolutely focused on the election, some members of the Party  seem to think that their time is better spent on British ‘tea parties’.  It seems like a very curious sense of priorities on the part of the ‘tea party’ organisers to me.

Secondly, the entire ‘tea party’ movement in the States is driven by a near hysterical anti Government agenda.  There is no coherent theory of Government in the tea party movement.  There is no acceptance that Government is necessary and can be a force for good.  The American tea party movement is driven by a divisive, shrill, simplistic view of politics that is driving moderate Republicans like Charlie Crist out of the GOP.  This is just the kind of politics we do not need in the UK.

Thirdly, look at the nature of the tea party movement in the US.  They are driven by the hysterical and frankly at times delusional agenda of Fox News presenters like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, as well as various right wing shock-jocks.  The Times talks of a “dark underbelly” at the heart of the tea party movement, crystallised by the utterly offensive speech by Tom Tancredo at the start of the tea party convention in Nashville last month.  Conservative  journalist Jonathan Kay turned up at the tea party convention and was shocked by the “toxic fantasies being spewed from the podium”, including the thoroughly horrific and offensive ‘birther’ movement, which was well represented at the convention.

Kay argued that the US tea party is “dominated by people whose vision of the government is conspiratorial and dangerously detached from reality.”  Of course, any movement that looks to Sarah Palin as a potential President surely fits the definition of being “dangerously detached from reality.”

Fox News, Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh et al can keep their right wing conspiracy theories.  The tea party movement is something that British politics can absolutely do without.

James Purnell’s announcement last week that he is stepping down from Parliament is a great shame to anybody who wants politics to achieve progressive ends.  I have written before about how Purnell underestimates the ideas put forward as part of the ‘progressive Conservative’ umbrella.   Having said that, his contributions, particularly since leaving the Cabinet, have been genuinely thought provoking and pretty compelling.  Read last week’s speech at the LSE as an example and compare it with Miliband’s particularly substance light Demos speech yesterday.

Despite the protestations of the likes of Liberal Conspiracy (and quite a few left wing friends of mine) who still seem to detest Purnell, we should all be sad that people who are radicals and thought leaders think it is better off for them to be outside of Parliament rather than inside.  What does that say about the health of our politics and our political process?  Witness, as well, the announcement by Tony Benn before the last election that he was resigning from Parliament “to devote more time to politics.”  Or the fact that, love him or hate him, Daniel Hannan prefers to be outside rather than within Parliament.  Or even the resignation of the likes of the highly talented Bryan Gould a few years ago.

It is worth reading Kenneth Morgan’s excellent life of Keir Hardie, or looking at the causes of Chartism and the other great radical movements to understand the emphasis placed on gaining working class and radical representation inside the House of Commons.  Indeed, that is one of the many things that sets British radicalism aside from continental radicalism.  What does it say about the modern House of Commons that so many people of radical views feel that the best place for them is outside of Parliament?

Of course, there are many potential reasons for this.  The growth of unelected institutions, at a national, European and international level has, undoubtedly weakened the power of Parliament.  The judiciary, rather than elected decision makers, plays an increasingly activist role. The power of the 24 hour media has probably diminished the capacity for ‘thinkers’ to gain breathing space whilst under the media spotlight.  The power of the party hierarchy and the whips has undoubtedly grown, to the detriment of a healthy democracy.  The rise of the blogosphere and think tanks means that radical ideas can potentially gain as much emphasis when expressed outside of Parliament than outside.

There is little doubt that political reform is urgent and overdue.  The role of Parliament undoubtedly needs to be strengthened.  It is, surely, tragic that some of the best thinkers and most talented politicians no longer see being in the House of Commons as being the pinnacle of political life.

The phoney election campaign continued last week.  The media seems to have decided that the Tory “wobble” is over, after the launch of some pretty good posters and a warm media welcome for their policy announcement on cooperative public services.  With their whole campaign operation now transferred from Norman Shaw South into Milbank as of last week, the Tories are now all set for the vote.

It was a funny sort of “wobble” anyway, as none of the last 24 polls have shown the Conservatives more than 2 points in either direction from 40%.  Given that the statistical margin of error on these polls is plus or minus 3%, none of the them have shown a statistically meaningful shift.  But little things like that don’t affect the Westminster narrative.

One of the incidents in the “wobble” related to a screw-up by the Tories about a decimal point.  They released an otherwise excellent report on how inequality has grown under Labour.  The document shows how the gap between rich and poor has grown in not just in income, but in health, education, housing – you name it.  However, due to a cock up the document initially claimed that in poorer areas 54% of teenage girls in poor areas got pregnant, rather than the real figure of 5.4%.

This was a bad mistake and caused a big Westminster row.  But hang on a minute.  The real figure should give us serious pause for thought.  More than one in twenty teenagers getting pregnant is really, really high. A larger proportion of teenagers in Britain have children than any other EU county apart from Romania and Bulgaria.  The rate is more than double the European average and five times higher than countries like Denmark, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

And teenage pregnancy is very concentrated in poor areas. For example, in leafy Rutland the teen pregnancy rate is 1.4%, while in less leafy Lambeth it has averaged 8.9% in react years. Given the concentration of the problem in poverty hotspots, and the fact that 92% of teenagers who have children are not married, teen pregnancy often kicks off a cycle of intergenerational poverty which can last for many decades.  In the long term, this costs the state a fortune – quite apart from the mass misery involved.

Part of the problem is about poverty, and part of it is about culture.  Hence Cameron’s continuing criticisms of the premature sexualisation of children.  But the bully pulpit alone won’t solve these difficult problems.  I don’t believe that we have the policy answers to them yet – although they are soluble.  For this reason Policy Exchange’s work in this area will continue to grow.

Meanwhile, we are now seeing all the hoopla of an election campaign: student stunts, bizarre poster spoofs, weird viral web trends (e.g. “Dave Facts”) and – God help us - novelty records (cf.“There’s no-one as Irish as Dave Cameron”).

What we aren’t seeing yet is any discussion of the big issues.  It isn’t just the big missing discussion about deprivation and social breakdown. Britain’s media seems generally unable to grapple with the detail of big policy questions, so instead reports on easy-to-grasp personality clashes and Westminster spats.

With such an information-poor public debate, it is sad that James Purnell has decided to step down at the next election.  He was not only one of Labour’s better potential leaders, but also one of the few people on the left really able to step back and question their policies.  There is far too little thinking in British politics, and there will be even less in the Labour Party without Purnell.

Neil O’Brien is Director of Policy Exchange

An audience of around eighty or so gathered at the British Library to listen to Dr Anthony Seldon, biographer of Tony Blair and Master of Wellington College, and Toby Young, author and Swedish-style free school activist, discuss Bright Blue’s second theme of the year, “What are we educating for?”

Young began by bemoaning the rise in vocational qualifications and the dumbing down of traditional academic rigour, leading so it would seem, to a collapse in social mobility and the entrenchment of privilege for those still allowed access to a “proper liberal education”. He spoke of a culture of indoctrination, whereby knowledge is transmitted rather critically digested, and welcomed the prospect of schools being freed up to allow the value of subjects, subject knowledge and subject specialisation to return.

Characteristically, Seldon was controversial and to the point: the great experiment of state education had failed and in such a homogenised system, where teaching to the test was allowed to dominate, we were failing our children. It was time for a new national conversation on education, a freeing up of schools, a move away from central state control, greater choice, the empowerment of teachers as professionals not technicians, and ultimately the restoration of the pursuit of knowledge, and the love of learning, at the heart of what schools are about.

The audience were not completely converted, and there were those keen to point out the progress made in the education system since 1997 brought about by increased investment: renewed and rebuilt buildings, more diverse, more market-appropriate skills being examined and tested, and improved access to higher education.

Others focused on the role of discipline, the failure of the examinations system, the potential for a de-politicisation of the education field, and with it a strengthened role for universities and employers in policy. For some, divisions between state and independent education and the extent to which money drives choice was most important; for others the definition of “success” in education and whether that can be agreed upon. One audience member simply asked the panellists to define education in a single sentence.

But overall, the tenor of the debate was positive, constructive and engaged, with broad agreement on the crucial role that schooling plays in creating opportunity and with that the potential for overcoming inherited inequality. “Would either of the front benches have the balls – forgiving the pun – to do something about improving education after the general election?” Yes, the speakers agreed, Michael Gove would.

James Marshall is part of Bright Blue, committed to promoting a fairer, more socially just Britain in the next Parliament and beyond.

You can also watch some of the discussion:

Anthony Seldon at Bright Blue

Toby Young at Bright Blue

The best poster and viral campaign of the election was launched this morning, with the Conservatives launching a campaign aimed at people who have never voted Tory before but may do so this time round.

This is exactly the kind of poster campaign we should be pursuing.  It is based on a set of factors that will determine the next election result:

• Success at the next election will depend upon us forming a new electoral coalition.
• A key part of this coalition will be people who have never voted Tory before and, in some cases, may never have even considered voting Conservative before.
• Elections are won on the centre ground.  That is where we, thankfully, now are and where we must remain if we are to build and maintain this electoral coalition.

People who have voted Labour all of their lives who have grown sick and tired and are looking for an alternative.  We must make clear that we are a real progressive alternative and that we can be trusted with the vote of lne natifelong Labour voters.   As I mentioned in a talk to the TRG last week, there are millions of working class ex Labour voters who feel that they have been let down by the Labour Party they placed so much faith in.

We must make our message to voters who feel let down by their traditional party thoroughly compelling.  We must make clear how a progressive Conservative government will make them and their families better off; lead to a better quality of life for all; and protect and improve public services.

If we are successful in attracting and retaining the support of first time Tory voters then the progressive Conservative project could lead to a fundamental realignment of British politics.