If there is a strong case for greater not less state intervention, does that, as the right charges, inevitably mean a ‘Big State’ with its overtures of remote, inflexible bureaucracy and even authoritarianism?

The answer is emphatically no. The right cannot be allowed to get away with such a caricature. But equally the left must be very clear what our vision for the state is – what sort of socialist state do we envisage?

Democratic socialism should mean an active, democratically accountable state to underpin individual freedom and deliver the conditions for everyone to be empowered regardless of who they are or what their income is. It should be complemented by decentralisation and empowerment to achieve increased democracy and social justice.

And whereas the right advocates a small state for public services, it runs a big state for those who challenge its policies.

Neoliberalism, democratic legitimacy and society

The right’s neoliberalism means the smallest small state possible, out of the way to leave space for a free-for-all. In schools for example, the left aims to empower parents, teachers and school governors within a framework of strong support for, and enforcement of minimum standards by the local and national state to ensure equal opportunities for all, rich or poor. Whereas for the right, schools should be ‘set free’ to compete in a marketplace – hence ‘free schools’, grammar schools and private schools.

Yet, despite being promoted in the name of ‘individual freedom’, the more ascendant the right’s agenda has become, the more disempowered all but a few feel and the more democratic legitimacy has been endangered. Political cynicism and disaffection is probably greater than ever before in industrially advanced, democratic societies. In Britain, democratic accountability has been undermined both by a powerful global economy and by the centrifugal impact of the right’s agenda of privatisation, contracting out and marketisation, including in the NHS and schools. In turn, popular support for parliamentary democracy has been undermined because, for the ordinary citizen, it no longer seems in charge of the vital public services that matter in daily life.

The response to this from the right has been to exploit its compliant media crescendo for austerity by promoting still further marketisation and government downsizing, on the one hand, and centralised bureaucracy to police the consequences, on the other.