Transcript of question and answer session at 'Change the World', the Fabian new year conference 2008.

Click here for more information on the New Year Conference 2008.

Question

What can we do about the situation in Kenya?

Question

Mayer Hillman, the underlying theme of the foreign sec's statement is surrounding the issue of democracy and the will of the majority of the people. I think nearly everybody in this room is engaged in lifestyles far exceeding the planet's capacity to absorb the consequent greenhouse gas emissions. My question therefore is to ask him to explain what to do in circumstance when time is running out fast, what we do in circumstances in which the will of the majority, as indicated by this audience, is not prepared to make the necessary essential changes to our lifestyles. Does democracy have to be put in second place to the survival of life on earth?

Question

Roger [Lyons] David made the important point about the need for devolution to regional security. This is actually a crucial priority because unless we're going to consider to overwhelming majority of states in the world, faltering states who are incapable of helping with collective security we should be looking for surely regional security so that the African Union is far better able to handle many of the issues including Darfur, that Asia comes in in Afghanistan, and we stop sending Europeans – other than technical back up and support and training support – and the regions do a lot more.

David Miliband

I think that in respect of Kenya, the three most important things are that we are united with the rest of the international community in calling for responsibility in Kenya's leaders against violence; secondly that all of the allegations of electoral irregularity, which have been well documented by the EU mission there, are properly investigated, using democratic means; and thirdly that there is the sharing of political power between the leaders, and one way we can influence that is by making clear that we're not going to recognise a government that is forced through in the face of credible challenges to the election result.

Now, it raises in profound terms, what's our power there? We have power in respect of things we do in Kenya – the links that we have with them and it's right we keep them under review. But Kenya's an independent country. I think its own future significantly depends on its ability to find a political system which shares power rather than concentrates it, and it has to be a Kenyan solution, but if you look at the ethnic divisions that exist there and then at the political system that concentrates power in one party's hands, you see a fundamental problem. And that's why Kofi Anan's visit as an African Union representative is so important because what he's trying to create there is a mediation process following on from President Kufuor of Ghana who's the president of the AU, it's a process that builds a durable political solution, it's not just about running an election, it's about a constitutional process which needs to embody the sharing of power. We used to be the colonial power there, we're not now – it's an independent country – that changes the relationship. We can work with others to try to ensure that all the incentives are to Kenya's government and opposition, and also to Kenya's business and civil society to take forward that constitutional process and that's certainly what we're trying to do.

Mayer Hillman's point is really important. 20 years ago if you'd said we were living beyond our means you'd have thought that was an economic concept, whereas now it's an environmental concept. Where I have to disagree with you is that I think we should try to mobilise democracy to face the challenge, rather than to sideline democracy. The truth is the price of our pollution is not factored into many of the things that we do. So it's not that the will of the majority is to destroy ourselves, but we've got to make it easy for people to live in a more sustainable way, and I think that does mean factoring in the price of carbon…you're shaking your head, sorry…I'll try and do a better job [laughter]…The thing is I think it is about government leadership but it's also about innovation by business, in Britain and elsewhere. In China we need them to leapfrog to low carbon industrialisation without making the mistakes we've made. But it's also about mass mobilisation and mass mobilisation needs to be clear and easy. The clearest and easiest way of that is to reflect the price of pollution in the cost of what we do. You can talk them about institutional mechanisms in terms of local communities making changes so that people are mobilising together and don't feel disempowered, but my answer is you mobilise democracy – and you mobilise markets actually as well rather than excluding them.

Roger's question is really important. When I talk about the EU as a model power, it's interesting to look at [Asean] in Asia, the Africa Union, none of them have developed in the way the EU has, all of them are recognising that you need transnational as well as intergovernmental cooperation if you're going to tackle the problem. And we're not going to leap to global governance today or tomorrow or even the day after, and that's why regional cooperation is important. It's remarkable we take an EU of 27 for granted, but the 12 new entrants into the EU over the last few years represent a triumph for democracy in their own countries but the power of the EU's magnetism to drive reform within those countries, and that's something that we've got to build on. It's a club that people want to be members of, it's got clear rules and I think that can incentivise change and reform within countries.

Question

I'm Belinda Mackenzie from the Campaign to Make War History, which is a direct sequel to the Stop the War Campaign. We want to go a little bit further and actually make citizens aware of the laws of war, and I have to say they've been breached five times by your government in the last few years and it's very clear. Under each of those laws, Tony Blair and most of the cabinet could be held prosecutable and we need to look at this from a fresh angle and say, if we really want to stop war – which I think as part of the civilian surge most people in this room would agree – we don't want to see these bloody, destructive and very environmentally damaging wars in the 21st century – then we need to begin by enforcing the laws of war and at least we need to be aware of them. I'd like your comment on that please

Question

Titus Alexander, Action for a Global Climate Community. On climate change and cooperation, given the danger greenhouse gases and the very slow pace of negotiations, isn't it time for the government to put much more diplomatic effort into creating a coalition of willing countries, north and south, based on convergence to equal per capita rights so that south can be included in the emissions trading regime and a radical increase in the amount of transfer of technology and resources and support to the south so they can create prosperity without being based on carbon emissions. So investment in building a global climate community.

Question

Jean Seaton. All through the Cold War we were perceived as being on the side of peoples against oppressive governments and I think we're in danger of being seen now as, places like Pakistan, as being seen on the side of oppressive governments against peoples. And I think that's a real maybe a perception problem but I'd like to know your answer…

DM

We take very seriously our obligations under international law and we're absolutely committed to them and we don't accept the allegation that we've been in breach of international law, and to be fair at the end of your contribution you did say 'could be' which I think allows for the fact that we have a disagreement about that. I think that of course war is a terrible terrible thing for the obvious reasons you stated. The question we have is to what extent does hard power have any role in preventing war as well as in fighting it, and I do think the example of what's going on in the Western Balkans at the moment is instructive and important. The fact you've got NATO troops there. The ethnic cleansing that happened in the Balkans in the mid-late 1990s has left a huge scar on the European psyche, rightly. The impulse to ensure that never happens again is leading to pre-emptive and preventative soft and hard power and I would say that the deployment of NATO troops in the Western Balkans is helping to prevent war rather than starting it. People can take the view that whenever you deploy hard power you're always going to make things worse. In Darfur the problem is not that there are too many international troops but that there are too few because the international community has pledged 26,000 troops in an AU/UN mission and there are 9,000, or is it 14,000, that are there. Does that mean there's a military solution on its own? No. obviously there's a political process that is key and in Darfur it's not just the situation in Darfur, but in Chad where the EU is developing a force to go there, and critically the north/south comprehensive peace agreement that is in the rest of Sudan. I think that soft and hard power complement each other.

Titus, you said we should develop an international coalition, you're obviously absolutely right and we certainly shouldn't be in a position where the willing do nothing until the unwilling do something. I would say to you, let's embody that coalition in international agreements. That's what, for all its imperfections, the Kyoto Protocol was, Kyoto doesn't run out in 2012 – the first set of commitments run out, they need to be replaced by 2009 so you've got two years for countries to ratify agreements, and it's got to be a global agreement that everyone's participating in on a socially just basis. There is this brilliant book which shows how the world would be a sustainable place if we had contraction and convergence of emissions so we were all emitting the same amount on a per capita basis. It's brilliant book but looks good in theory but how do you make it work in practice? What we do have to learn from that book though is that the social justice principle is essential, you'll never get India and China to do something unless they know that the richer countries are going to do more, and that's why it's right that we take our responsibilities seriously and we lead the way, and I have no hesitation in saying that.

Jean, it's very important that we're seen to be on the side of the civilian. I would argue in respect of Pakistan, we have always tried to back systems, open and democratic systems, rather than personalities, and that applies in respect of institutions of the state but also, as we've tragically seen recently, political parties. Pakistan's tragedy is that the organisation that is most effective in the country is the military and it's been in power for 30 of the last 60 years. The independent judiciary, media and political parties haven't developed in the way they need to. The economy is now developing. I think our job is to build up independent systems rather than to invest in personalities. The tragedy of even before Mrs Butto's assassination, the explosion of new media in Pakistan I think has been one of the signal achievements of the last five years and it's been rolled back by the state of emergency in October. We've got to be seen to be backing institutions on the basis of clear values and, whatever the optics of it, I think that's what we're trying to do.

Question

Michael Elliott. Since its birth the Labour party has always been committed to creating a more equal society, not only I think because it's morally right, but because inequalities of wealth create social disasters. Do you not feel it's a matter for concern that after almost 11 years of a Labour government we have greater inequalities of wealth now than we did before and what do you think we can do to address this situation in the future? It's something applies not only in this country but more globally as well. [applause]

Question

David, you agree with me that the moral justification of any civilisation depends more on the moral forces it is capable of generating. I'm very concerned because Europe is getting more powerful and prosperous and we are leaving the Third World behind, and our worlds are intricately linked together. What are we doing to help the developing countries develop their technology, human rights values and other areas? We cannot leave them behind.

Question

Ellie Reeves from the Labour party's National Executive Committee. David, in your speech you talked about intervening in countries to uphold human rights, you gave examples of Burma and Pakistan. Last August I was in Columbia, which is the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist and human rights abuses are widespread. Often the killing of trade unionists is carried out by the military and the UK gives military aid to Columbia. So my question is, how are important decisions about which countries we intervene in to uphold human rights are made and which abuses we decide to ignore?

DM

I want to start with the third one because it's a very important. The charge is that we're giving military aid to people who are then killing trade unionists. I can absolutely assure you that's not the case. £335,000 is given by the UK, not in military aid but in training to reform the Columbian military. I met the President of Columbia at the UN in September and you do have to form a judgement in politics and foreign policy as well. I believe that the president of Columbia, who I assure you I took to him the arguments about this, I believe he is trying to reduce the attacks on trade unionists. When you go through the figures, they are shocking – I think I'm right in saying that 41 trade unionists were killed in Columbia in 2006, and that is a shocking and terrible statistic. In the previous year I think the number was 140, in the year before that 440, and that is a country where I believe the government is trying to improve the human rights situation, not exacerbate it. But it's only because of some of the difficulties that exist with their armed forces it's very clear the basis on which we're willing to support the efforts of the government. I'm very happy to send you more information about this because it's very important there's no stain on the character of the government in this regard. If there was any suggestion, or any allegation of substance that we were somehow conniving on the attacks against trade unionists, that would be an incredibly serious thing and completely contrary to what our foreign policy is doing.

Many people have talked at Fabian conferences over the last 10 years about how our development aid funding has increased. And in 1997 development policy was about aid because shamefully the Tories had cut the amount of aid that was given as a share of national income. We're now a country that is proud to reach the UN target of 0.7% of national income going in aid by 2013. But, as significant as that, I think there's been a fundamental change in how we perceive development. In 1997 development was about aid, now it's not. It's part about aid, but it's also about trade, it's about conflict, it's about governance, about independent institutions of civil society. And Douglas says very powerfully he's not just a bank manager or account holder, he's there as someone trying to support sustainable development in its broadest sense. And I would say to you the arguments Douglas makes in terms of how support is given to capacity building, how John Hutton is arguing for a world trade deal that is good for the developing world, how we try to do our work in conflict prevention.

Michael, the answer to your question is yes. Is it a problem that levels of inequality – you highlight wealth inequality which is significantly driven by the housing market. In respect of income inequality, I think I'm right in saying the rise in inequality in income that characterised the period of 1983/4 up to 1997 has been arrested, but the income inequality is not yet coming down. Is inequality too high in our country? Yes. The nature of those inequalities are not just about income and wealth, they're also about opportunity and it's also important to register that in some aspects of national life, not least through anti-discrimination legislation, inequalities of opportunity have been reduced over the last 10 years. The answer needs a separate conference but I commend to you a Fabian lecture I gave in April 2005 which was exactly about the relationship between social equality and social mobility.

We've had I think a ridiculous problem in the Labour Party in the last 30-40 years which is that some people say they believe in equality of opportunity and some people say they believe in equality of outcome. One band are damned as meritocrats and one band call themselves egalitarians. It's interesting if you look round Europe, the countries with the highest levels of social mobility have also got the highest levels of equality. So the signal challenge is for us to get over this idea that either you're in favour of meritocracy or you're in favour of equality. We've got to bring the two together.

Question from Sunder Katwala, Fabian General Secretary:

This is a very important year for China. Do you see the Beijing Olympics as an opportunity to increase pressure for free expression and human rights in China, and if you do, what do you think governments or civilians can do to achieve that?

Question

As a government we haven't engaged the public in what Europe is about and what it can give us and what we can give Europe. Most people in this country are pretty negative about Europe, so the elections next year what can you as a government do to lift and engage and put as the need for us being in Europe so the Tories don't march us out?

Question

We're facing a crisis of indifference in Britain, especially among the young, if you look around there's not that many people here under 30….how do we start a civilian surge in Britain and why do you think we have a lack of one over here? And how do we make ourselves more effective in campaigning, lobbying and so on?

DM

For the last question, in view of my advancing years I have to start by saying that 40 is the new 30 [laughter]. The crisis of indifference is a good phrase. I wonder if you'd agree with me that if there is a crisis of indifference it's in respect of the traditional mechanisms of politics rather than indifference about the issues that confront young people. I don't think it's a sort of apolitical or get lost generation, it's a generation that is more educated and informed about international issues, environmental issues, conflict issues. But I agree with you that traditional politics struggles to have either the speed or the openness to engage. My answer to this actually is about pluralism and the distribution of power. The fact that politics is so centralised around Westminster is a huge problem for us. America has all sorts of problems, Germany has all sorts of problems, but the sites of political engagement are multiple – they're national, state level, and local. In the end Britain in the 19th century was powered forward politically as well as economically by politics in cities, that's what mobilised people. And in the 21st century it's going to be the 100 biggest conurbations – the 100th biggest in Britain is Worthing with 70-80,000 citizens – a Britain in which 100 towns and cities have the social, economic and environmental drive to take their cities forward is a way to engage people in politics. People often say America has got two parties – the people who vote and the people who don't vote – but if you look at the engagement that's going on in the primary process at the moment, obviously that's for the top job in the land, but I think it's also born of a deeper political culture at a local level. So my pitch would be, yes we should try and make people interested in Westminster politics and we've got to open it up and reform it, but the way in is to make your politics a site of real engagement and then open it out from there.

On Europe, if anyone can think of a way to make an institution unpopular it's to get it to spend seven years talking about itself, and that's what the EU has done for the last seven years. It's had seven years of angst-ridden self-examination in respect of institutional reform. At the end of it it's produced a reform package. My belief has always been that Europe's problem is a delivery deficit, not a democratic deficit, and that it's by engaging in the issues that we will mobilise people around Europe. And the answer to that is always, 'yeah but unless you reform the institutions you'll never get anything done.' I think what's going on in European foreign policy in respect of Kosovo at the moment is that even in respect of national vetoes on foreign policy you can get a strong common position. So we've got to use the period, especially with the reform treaty starting in the Commons on Monday, but especially once that's through, we've got to make the argument that Britain is better off in Europe, that Europe is better off for Britain playing a leading role, and that we use the period when we're not talking about institutions, because there's a sort of agreed bar on institutional reform, that we actually show that Europe makes a difference to people.

It's important that we don't treat China like a sort of errant child which needs to be disciplined, which is sometimes when you hear people talking about 'let's put 'pressure' on them'', it's a bit of a naughty corner sense about it. What I think we should be recognising is that China is undergoing massive change. There is pressure within China to use the fact that the world's attention will be on China to forge ahead with internal reform. It's right - and I did this with minister Yang, my opposite number in November, the prime minister did it yesterday, and I will do it next month when I'm in China – to talk very plainly, in public and privately, about why issues of democracy and human rights mean a lot to us and why we think they're very important. In our own country the checks and balances on state power, the assertion of individual rights are an important part of our own stability and I think the same argument can apply in China. And there's no question in my mind that the world's attention on China does create an opportunity for deeper engagement on economic issues, on environmental issues, but also on political issues. So with that caveat it's important to say it's a massive opportunity for engagement, one the Chinese government want to engage in very strongly, and one I think we should join them in.

Question

Alastair Oakley. You spoke about equality of opportunity, yet there was an interesting Guardian article the other week claiming that although our GCSE and A-level results are a record high, our rating in terms of skills among the international community has plummeted. We're living in a country after 10 years of a Labour government and over a decade since we heard the immortal words 'Education, education, education', where your parents' income, and even in some schools your religion, can determine the standard of education you get in our country. Where does this stand in the achievements and legacy of the social democratic movement in this country which you spoke about earlier, or would you say it's more feudalistic?

Question

Malcolm Savage. As you'll know this week in the Wall Street Journal Henry Kissinger and Sam Nun and George Shaltz renewed their plea for us to take nuclear disarmament far more urgently, and of course Margaret Beckett in her speech at Carnegie responded very positively to that from the British government. Could you say a bit more about what you feel we could do to support these initiatives and whether we could make this a priority along with climate change and global poverty.

Question

Since we are facing such global issues such as global environmental change and global security and global energy, hasn't the time come to also teach those values in the new educational system? A school that starts four or five months after birth and goes on throughout life. Since the world changes so fast don't we have to prepare for that in the new school?

DM

On education, I am proud of what we've done but I'm not satisfied. I was at an Anglo-French meeting yesterday and the expert there said the transformation of under-5s education in Britain has been more dramatic than any other country in the postwar period, and that reflects how far we were behind but it is a dramatic change. The revival of apprentiships as well. But have we got a long way to go? Yes. There's been big process which lays the foundation, we've got to go a lot further. My pitch is always, you shape the curriculum and the teaching style around the nature of the pupil rather than vice versa. The same arguments we've got in the economy and other aspects of political life about specialisation apply in education and the truth is the most interesting work while I was schools minister is people have got different sorts of intelligence and they think and learn in different ways. I'm a big believer in small schools as well.

Malcolm, yes both conventional and nuclear disarmament issues are important. On the conventional side we strongly support the Arms Trade Treaty, Margaret Beckett's Carnegie speech was very important and we're committed to that. Four policy issues we've identified, the first is to reduce terrorism and tackle weapons of mass destruction which I think speaks directly to your question about the priority, and the fact there's now a wider coalition for that is a good thing.

Chris's question about education, I don't know the answer to that…sorry [laughter]. I guess you're saying how do you create a learning culture where people want to…my dad always used to say to me 'we know 1% and there's 99% out there that we don't know', and that thirst for knowledge is something that can be inculcated in people or developed in people, I think you've got to have an optimistic view of human nature which says that people do want to widen their horizons and some of the tools at our disposal allow us to do that. I need to take a lesson from you on how we do that probably.

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David Miliband gave the keynote speech at 'Change the World', the Fabian New Year Conference 2008 on Saturday 19th January 2008 at Imperial College London.