At the end of Greg Dyke’s programme on Nye Bevan, Michael Heseltine says Bevan is “irrelevant today.” I can only hope that remark was made some time ago, because from where I’m sat, it’s gibber. Bevan is a highly relevant figure.

I mean this in three senses.

1. Bevan was, of course, firmly opposed to the “anarchy of laisser-faire society.” “The amoral climate of the business world exposes the psyche of the individual to unreasoning compulsions” he wrote in In Place of Fear. Everyone who’s calling for tougher regulations of banks, to rein in their swings in mood from greed to panic is, in this sense, a little bit Bevanite.

2. Bevan wanted greater nationalization:

It is a requisite of social stability that one type of property ownership should dominate. In the society of the future it should be public property.

Few will go quite that far. But Henry Paulson has taken big steps in Bevan’s direction, by nationalizing Fannie and Freddie and AIG on punitive terms. Indeed, there’s bipartisan sympathy for Bevanism. Paul Krugman writes:

If the government is going to provide capital to financial firms, it should get what people who provide capital are entitled to — a share in ownership.

Bevan would surely approve.

3. Throughout his life, Bevan thought that public spending was necessary to ensure full employment. Neither he nor his contemporaries thought monetary policy was much of a stabilizing device; under the 1945-51 Government, Bank Rate did not change at all (pdf).

Recent conditions have made this view more plausible. The three cuts in Bank Rate we’ve had in the last 12 months have not led to any change in three month Libor, which is still 6 per cent – which suggests monetary policy has been pushing on a piece of string. Meanwhile, low gilt yields mean that higher government borrowing is feasible. If you think macroeconomic stabilization policy is desireable, perhaps there’s something to be said for the “old Labour” use of fiscal rather than monetary policy.

So, in at least three respects – scepticism about competitive markets, support for public ownership, and a preference for fiscal policy over monetary policy – Bevan is, rightly or wrongly, relevant today.

Maybe it is instead Thatcher who’s irrelevant.

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