A strike at The Guardian exposes a deeper crisis of solidarity and purpose within the liberal left.
There was a proud and defiant atmosphere outside the headquarters of The Guardian newspaper in London last week. The “chapel” (that is, workforce) had voted overwhelmingly to go on strike, and here they were, good comrades from the National Union of Journalists, trying to keep their spirits up. Friends and colleagues from other walks of life dropped by to offer support. Passing drivers hooted their horns in solidarity. And there was cake.
The cause of the (ongoing) dispute is the proposed sale of The Observer newspaper to Tortoise Media, an interesting new media start-up which has produced some award-winning journalism and podcasts but never made a profit in six years of existence. The union has not been properly consulted over this hastily executed transaction, which affects their future. Indeed, the current owners (the Scott Trust, set up in 1936 to protect The Guardian and liberal journalism) decided to proceed with the sale before the second day of the strike was over.
The financing for this proposed deal is uncertain. The forecasts of future profitability are based on heroically wishful thinking. It is, as the late Ian Jack, a distinguished Scottish journalist, used to say, “a bad business”.
If you wanted to find a symbol of the anxiety and confusion which surrounds progressive causes and liberal-left philosophy today, then a picket line of disappointed trade unionists, standing outside the HQ of one of the world’s most important liberal newspapers, would probably do nicely. It is no exaggeration to say that The Guardian management has behaved in a way that The Guardian journalists, ordinarily, would have been encouraged to criticise in the strongest terms possible. Only they can’t – because these managers are their bosses. It sounds like a plot dreamt up by Eugène Ionesco.
What is causing this liberal loss of nerve and confusion, a moment in which, as WB Yeats put it a century ago, “the best lack all conviction”? Is this another manifestation of what is sometimes called “Trump derangement syndrome”? The second coming of Trump is not merely a setback but a rebuke. The liberal left has failed again to persuade enough people – especially people on lower incomes – that it has their interests at heart and the competence to do something good for them. Noisy, raucous populism has won. The clever people have lost out to the happily less clever people. This is unsettling for progressives everywhere.
In France, Germany, Italy and now Romania we see an emboldened right advancing, denying the liberal-left nostrums many had taken to be timeless and assured. Social democrats are worried. Even in the UK, where a Labour government with a huge majority was elected in the summer, the talk is already of a faltering administration failing to convince the electorate and looking vulnerable to another populist surge. This is all highly (to use a fine old word) discombobulating. Perhaps these are the circumstances, this is the context in which a liberal newspaper decides to jettison loyal and long-standing colleagues in a rough and ready manner. The balance of the leadership’s mind has been temporarily disturbed.
What I witnessed on the pavement in London last week was that rare but important thing: solidarity. This really should not be a provocative or alien concept to anyone who thinks they are on the centre-left. One of the strikers’ many supporters is Neil Kinnock, the former Labour Party leader, who famously condemned the excesses of some “comrades” in local government in the 1980s. “A Labour council,” he declared with emphatic disbelief in his voice, “a Labour council…!” Today many look on with similar amazement at the actions of The Guardian…The Guardian…!
The liberal left in Britain – and beyond – needs this dispute like it needs a hole in the head. I am reminded of a phrase my late father taught me, a piece of Yiddish wisdom sometimes heard in Viennese coffee houses back in the day: “Der Dalles schlägt sich”. It means, roughly translated, “Those who are struggling take it out on each other”. Two more days of industrial action (so far) are planned for the 12th and 13th December. Everyone stands to lose. You cannot produce a quality newspaper (or website) without people. All that the employees want is time to discuss the future calmly and properly. It is not too late to pull back from disaster. But it is very late indeed.
Stefan Stern is an accomplished writer who has contributed to the BBC, Management Today magazine, and the Financial Times, where he served as the management columnist from 2006 to 2010. He is currently a Visiting Professor in Management Practice at Bayes Business School, City, University of London. Previously, Stern held the positions of Director at the High Pay Centre and Director of Strategy at Edelman.