Now is the winter of our discount tents

Chancellor of the University Sir Richard Lambert made a rare appearance on campus last Tuesday to join former Labour MP and socialist activist Tony Benn in a discussion on potential industrial unrest this autumn.

Organised to celebrate the re-opening of Warwick’s Modern Records Centre, the conversation was chaired by Rodney Bickerstaffe, former chair of the public sector union UNISON. The question put to the two panellists was a relevant one: in the light of the recent ‘occupy’ movement, the student protests on 9 November and the planned trade union strikes at the end of the month, is there a possibility of a 1970’s-style ‘Autumn of Discontent?’

Lambert, a former Editor of the Financial Times and one-time head of the Confederation of British Industry, dismissed the possibility of a series of union-led strikes. But Benn was quick to warn him of the strength and depth of public anger. The two seemed united on the idea that if there is to be an autumn of discontent, it could be led by the so-called ‘occupy’ protesters – a “Winter of Discount Tents”, as Bickerstaffe observed.

The conversation soon moved onto broader questions about Britain’s economic future and what the role of the state should be in the economy which emerges from the current crisis. Lambert was keen to envisage a role for the state in the future. The last system, he argued, had seen the financial markets “screwing up”; it would be up to students like those at Warwick to sort the “catastrophe” of the 2007 market crash and to prevent future market failures like climate change. This, he said, would involve a strong and active government in a system led by the markets. Benn, on the other hand, advocated a planned economy. He argued forcefully that the British economy has long been too dependent on finance, and that we must return to manufacturing industries in order to build a more stable system.

When asked what advice Benn would give to Warwick students for the future, he replied: “You must always fight for what you believe,” he explained. “At first they’ll think you’re mad, and then they’ll think you’re angry, but sooner or later they might just start listening to you.”