First of all, I have never claimed that the party preamble is a “book of truth” or that it isn’t open to interpretation; indeed by pointing out that it was the result of a merger between a liberal and social democrat party was that we shouldn’t look at it uncritically. I’ve merely pointed out what it says; something which appears to enrage you. It is you who goes around labelling people you disagree with with epithets like “socialist”.

The fact that you now state, unequivocally, that you support the idea of equality as opposed to merely meritocracy, means that you have ceded a lot of ground, further reinforced by your moderation of tone.

You cannot however argue that open to interpretation can mean wildly going off topic. “The widest possible distribution of wealth” means precisely that; a party with that in its core beliefs cannot be content with individuals accumulating wealth, and thus power, over other individuals. Ultimately, that isn’t an argument about equality at all, but liberty.

Your claim that you can talk about equal votes as being all about opportunity is fanciful; either we believe in votes being equal or we don’t. Nor are we unconcerned about turnout (what the hell does “equal turnout” mean anyway?).

You can hardly complain about me accusing you of being disinterested in outcomes when every time anyone mentions them you start blathering on about the Soviet Union being an equal society (which it manifestly was not in any case). If you don’t wish to be accused of that then engage with the argument rather than throwing mud.

On Nick Clegg’s academy idea, I don’t doubt that he believes it will work - I believe it could work as well (although it has to be paid for somehow) - but to claim that he is only interested in “considering” positive discrimination if that fails is to ignore his previous sentence: “I believe this is our last chance to do it the purely liberal way, without any positive discrimination written into the rules.”

Ultimately, the area we will have to agree to disagree on is the emphasis we put on diversity or universality. I don’t dispute the fact that people are diverse or that genius is a rare quality, just that neither of those facts should be used to justify inequality ex post facto. We should be constantly asking ourselves if inequality is a result of unavoidable facts of life or unfairness. Concepts like “meritocracy” - rule by the worthy - hardly invite us to look at this deeply.

You criticise over-emphasis of the role of nature as opposed to nurture. But I don’t think this does quite what you intend for two reasons:

1. The impact of nature doesn’t have to be large, any impact greater than zero will lead to unequal outcomes from equal opportunities. And why would it matter which is larger?

2. Most of the nurture that we experience comes from the family, the same place as the genes. (And this is a good thing.) So this would suggest that the effects of nature and family-nurture are largely indistinguishable. And so it is no good basing an argument on whether one is larger than the other.

Of course talent doesn’t equal merit which doesn’t equal “what one deserves”. But although not equal, these things are related. That they are unequal justifies some redistribution, and redistribution which promotes opportunities generally will have more leverage and be better value than many other kinds of redistribution.

But equally it doesn’t justify concluding from unequal outcomes that there is a problem that the state ought to try to solve - it should not attack family nurture. Yes, Brack gives us a lot of stats correlating lower inequality with other better outcomes, without asking about the direction, if any, of causation.

My real problem with Brack is not the argument for more redistribution, which might be justified, but his setting up a standard by which more redistribution will never be enough.

I agree.

You then argue the Church of Leftology article is some form of reductionism on this. In one sense that’s correct, it’s was an argument against deliberately confusing social liberalism with socialism. Specifically it concerned the assault on meritocracy in the Huhne leadership manifesto and using equality of outcome as a target for solving social problems rather than removing barriers to opportunity.

That confusion is fairly evident in the article when you start talking about whether it’s possible to sign up to the Liberal Democrat preamble if you’re a liberal rather than some fuzzy mix of liberal and social democrat.

Evidently you can, it depends how you interpret what “balancing”, “equality” and “widest possible” mean.

It is particularly incorrect for you then to suggest the second line means an “unequivocal” support for redistribution for the sake of redistribution.

It can equally mean support for strong competition policies, taxing monopoly ownership and enabling micro-saving (as some examples).

The strength of your conviction that you have the one true interpretation of the party’s ‘book of truth’ in your grasp does I hope enlighten you as to why I referred to Leftology as a Church.

But then you go further in your reductionist argument and attempt to suggest that the original critique is reductionist to areas where there is no debate either between us or within the party. Specifically matters like human rights, voting and equal treatment by the law. This is dishonest of you.

It’s also incoherent. If you apply a test of removing barriers to opportunity to votes (for example); then you end up with what we have which is equal access as the basis of a fair election. There are debates within that as to what specific support different groups need to enable that access, it is not a prescription for equal treatment, but the aim is to give everyone a decent chance to vote as the basis of a fair election. Not to force them to vote to ensure equal turnout.

You are also being dishonest when you claim I refuse “point blank” to look at outcomes. Inequality of outcome can be a warning sign that something is wrong. What I reject is the notion that it definitively means something is wrong or unfair and thus we must strive for equal outcomes. I see it as a signal not a target.

I don’t for example see it as automatically unfair that some people live longer than others. The problem is at the end where people are dying too young. The target is to do something about that. In the process we might all live longer (from a pro-fitness campaign for example) and make no difference at all to the life-gap, yet we would all be better off. What’s the problem with that?

You are also I feel incorrect when you makes claims like “Ideally, equality of opportunity ought to produce equality of outcome”.

This would only be true if we were all the same and our interactions produced equal outcomes. That is not my idea of an ideal world, more a prescription for clone-man Britain. Our differences and the unpredictable anarchy of reality produce many social problems, but they also create the stuff of life that makes it worth living. The “creative tension” you mention. It does not concern me as unfair that Mozart’s genius is something I do not have, I just enjoy the music.

On diversity I’m glad we are both supportive of the academy idea. I think that stands a very good chance of encouraging diverse talent.

Nick’s comment though I read differently to you. I think he sincerely believes the Academy will work. If it doesn’t after 6-8 years the party will “consider positive discrimination”. Consider and do are very different matters, especially in politics.

On Brack’s argument I stand by the criticism. It still reads to me as picking the wrong target. Rather like arguing that warmer countries have better weather and happier citizens, therefore let’s encourage global warming.

In respect of inequality of opportunity in the public policy sector, you’re right, but what’s the prescription from that? State intervention to ban interns? Quotas? Encouraging organisations to pay interns properly? Setting up trusts to support interns? My instincts are for the last two not first. Is that a difference between us?

On nature vs. nuture, I reject the silly remark about writing people off, but agree with you that school education alone is not a magic bullet for an equal society. Nuture is also unequal , but that was the point. There are inequalities that can be addressed like good schooling and those that provide some challenge and probably cannot. Good parenting, mind-expanding holidays, and having nice friends are some examples of nuture-inequalities that it is extremely difficult if not counter-productive for the state to try and address.

I am at least glad we have a having a frank exchange of views about the values of the party even it’s not been a major part of the Leadership campaign.

Best,

Andy

The rationale being that people have no control over who their parents are or where they’re born, so it redistributes wealth without the unintended consequences you get from incentivising or disincenvitising certain behaviours. (I do however still agree with the idea of Pigovian taxes to correct externalities by means of incentives.)

I don’t have a problem with people accumulating wealth during their lifetime, although I would certainly support a land value tax and other taxes to prevent the accumulation of unearned wealth. Also inheritance is a sticky topic in this context!

But you’re right, it would be equally daft to ignore outcomes altogether when designing a fair society. For a start, there are some pretty obvious injustices - the way that women and ethnic minorities are under-represented in Parliament or on the boards of FTSE 100 companies, for example.

As a rule though I tend to believe that providing equality of opportunity is the best way to influence outcomes. I think that intervening directly in outcomes should be a tool of last resort - because to do so blunts incentives and as such limits people from reaching their full potential… not to mention enslaving people by conformity!

The biggest problem we have in British politics is that no party has attempted more than a nod at solving the biggest problem facing equality of opportunity in this country. You mentioned it yourself - wealth distribution.

Socioeconomic status at birth is still by far the biggest predictor of outcomes in education, in employment, and in politics. And from a point of view of providing equality of any kind, it simply stinks.

The economist Tim Harford suggests in his book The Undercover Economist suggests a way that you could acheive radical wealth redistribution without affecting incentives - just give everyone a lump sum at birth to compensate for the opportunities (or lack of) that you expect them to have.

That’s the sort of radical policy shift I would like us to be looking at.