On Fidel

Fidel Castro seems to have been a very old man for a very long time. I am sorry, due to my age, to have missed the early days: the heroism, the black and white television interviews with the guerilla fighter in the Sierra Maestra, the magnificant entrance into Havana on 1st January 1959, that famous victory speech during which a white dove landed on his shoulder seeming to signal that a new saviour was at hand. Back then the beard was full and black, there was a grizzly radicalism, sweeping changes were at hand. This was a world in which revolutions happened, in which anything seemed possible given the will to force the pace.

And now? Fidel is dying in a world more constrained. Capitalism reigns triumphant, international communism a thing of the past: even where (excepting Cuba and one or two other places) Communist parties still rule, they do so as the masters of capitalist economies. Marxism of the orthodox kind is intellectually discredited, no longer providing as it once seemed to a persuasive route map showing how to get from A to B, from capitalism to socialism.

When I first visited Cuba in 1996 I went expecting to find one of two things - that it would either be a socialist paradise that could be unequivocally supported by all good lefties or that it would be ghastly grey communist dictatorship that had to be condemned. Of course it was neither of these things - life and politics are rarely so straight forward.

There are truly appalling things about Cuba's system. I remember the students I used to teach were amazed that I was allowed to get books out of the university library without submitting them to the 'philosophy' lecturers whose job was to decide whether or not they were fit for consumption (Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed raised eye brows when it was spotted in my bedroom). I remember the same students telling me how at the end of the year there would be a mass student union meeting at which people would condemn their colleagues (and even their friends) for expressing counter-revolutionary sentiments. Those deemed guilty would have a black mark by their name which would matter when it came to the allocation of work at the end of their university careers.

On the other hand there are the revolution's incredible achievements. The health service is the envy not just of other developing countries but wealthy nations too - free to all and with an extensive system of primary care. I benefited myself when at one point I had lost so much weight (the food - in most large institutions - is terrible) that I got infected kidneys. Cubans are some of the most educated people in the world - zero illiteracy, universities, schools and colleges free to all. A genuinely egalitarian social structure (being eroded it has to be said by tourism and the dollar economy), no real unemployment, none of the teeming squalor of the slums of Sau Paulo, Caracas or Santiago de Chile. There are beggars of course, as there are everywhere - I concluded during my time there that socialism (in the Marxist Leninist sense) would not eliminate alcoholism, family break down and old men sitting on park benches drinking themselves into oblivion. They will forever be with us.

And Fidel was always there in the background - I remember sometimes walking through the streets late at night and all the television channels would be broadcasting one of his marathon two to three hour speeches. His passionate (and surprisingly high pitched) tones would ricochet around the streets wherever you went.

What the Cuban revolution taught me was the real possibility of radical social change if the will is there to make it happen. Illiteracy gone in a generation, real grinding poverty of the kind that plagues the lives of so much of humanity eliminated in a poor Caribbean country. Take religion - here was a once Catholic country that in the space of four decades had forgotten the meaning of Christmas. I'm not arguing for state imposed atheism - but it just shows that politics can make a hell of a difference.

Of course the collapse of the Berlin wall had a dramatic effect - Cubans used to always refer to 'antes' - a time in the mid 1970s when the streets were apparently paved with Russian gold - or at least when you could eat well on very little money. The opening to tourism and the dollar was necessary - but it brought back inequalities, crime and prostitution.

I remember in my first week innocently taking a shine to some girls who seemed to have taken a shine to me before being warned by students that they were 'jinateras' (people who would hang around with you in the hope you'd buy them a drink or even eventually get them a passport out of the country). I spent a year never knowing whether girls were really interested in me for my youthful good looks or for my imagined wealth - which at the age of 18 in a country half populated by beautiful women can be intensely frustrating.

With all of the caveats and qualifications I have always respected Fidel and supported the Cuban revolution, but of course want to see a democratic opening - a glastnost without a brutal perestroika. Fidel's death could at some point in the 1990s have triggered a crisis - but I think with a stronger economy and with the support of most of Latin America's left wing governments, things will be a lot smoother. We can now realistically hope that a reforming Communist leadership can safeguard the revolution's progressive achievements, while democratising the political system and defending the island from the gangster capitalists of Miami.

Despite his faults and the complexity of his legacy, I confess I will be sad when the old man passes - authoritarian, ego-centric and flawed - but at the same time principled and visionary. La historia lo absolvera.

The lie of the land

So, how do things look this morning, surveying the new political map of Britain?

First, the winners and the losers. The Tories are unquestionably the winners in England: 800 extra Tory councillors (wouldn't like to bump into that crowd on a dark night), the dominant party of English local government for the first time since the early 1980s, seats gained from Labour in Wales. So Cameron will be satisfied - this is progress.

But that's all it is. Any opposition worth its salt should be getting more than 40% of the votes in the mid term of a third term period of government. Of course if replicated on a general election day it would be enough to carry Cameron into Downing Street with a small majority. But as any sixth form politics student could tell you (and contrary to Martin Kettle's tiresome anti-Brown doom mongering in The Guardian - why do these Blairites hate the man so much and so personally?) these results will not be replicated in a general election.

The Tories have retaken the south - no longer hemmed into the home counties, taking less affluent aspirational suburban areas from Labour and the Lib Dems. But they remain marginal in Scotland and still lack a Northern urban presence.

And what of the Lib Dems? They should be (and are) disappointed. They lost seats to the Tories in the South (part of Cameron's touchy feely strategy), fell back in Scotland and failed to make further inroads into Labour's urban strongholds. This is not just about Ming Campbell. They are being squeezed by a resurgent Tory party, once again after a decade in the mad house becoming the quintessential party of the English middle class, but also losing ground on the left as Iraq fades as a significant factor in British elections, something from which they have massively benefited from 2003 onwards.

Of course under the PR systems for the devolved legislatures (and who knows even under the traditional first past the post system for Westminster next time), the Lib Dems are the king makers of British politics. Ultimately under PR the Lib Dems will decide who runs the country, they will get ministerial cars and the chance to implement some of their policies.

But is this really the height of their aspirations? What happened to 'breaking the mould' of British politics? Of course it is true that we have left behind for good the days of simple dyarchy in which the Tories and Labour between them would get over 90% of the vote in a general election. But do the Lib Dems want to become a kind of British version of the German FDP? A smaller third party in the centre ground permanently in office without power?

'Breaking the mould' meant more than this - it meant standing the chance of being an equal player with the others, even at its most hubristic having the chance to govern with a majority at Westminster. The Lib Dems face a difficult few years ahead in which they will have to spell out much more clearly than in the past who they are and what they are for - rather than relying on the vague appeal of being the 'nice guys' of politics, the receptacles for disillusion with the two larger parties, who never have to take any of the difficult decisions.

The nationalists are clearly the victors in Scotland - the narrowness of their victory over Labour in an election that was closer than many expected should not disguise the enormity of their advance in historical terms. From a party of the eccentric fringe they have been propelled (probably as a minority administration or in coalition with - who? - yes you've got it, the Lib Dems) into government.

The new institutional architecture of devolved Britain has created separate political logics, working their way through in the different nations of the UK. The SNP benefited from the collapse of the Greens and the two far left parties (Labour only lost 4 seats overall) as Scottish politics became a polarised duopoly, a grand battle between nationalism and Labour, pushing the rest to the sidelines. The SNP pipped a be-draggled but surprisngly resilient Scottish Labour party to the post. But that in itself is very big news.

And what about Labour? No meltdown, down to a resilient core of around 27% of the English electorate, essentially our working class base in the towns, cities and council estates. The loyal of the loyal - 'always, dear', 'I've never been anything else', 'my father would turn in his grave if I didn't'. They are our people, the reason we do this. But (again contrary to the increasingly hysterical Martin Kettle) this is not 1983 and Brown no Michael Foot. This was a mid term local election after ten years in power. What do you expect? Garlands on the doorsteps? Ejaculations of enthusiam spluttering through Middle England? Of course not - disappointment, disaffection, boredom and unease. But unlike the Tories of the late 1990s I detect no real hatred of Labour, no sense that this country is being ruled by an alien force from Mars that needs to be overthrown with urgency.

People have lost elections on less, of course. But, as Blair said yesterday, this provides a spring board. We are still in the game and there is everything to play for. We weren't annihilated in Scotland, we are still the dominant political force in Wales, we contained our losses in England.

So where now? The prospectus is very simple - it's all up to Gordon. We need a belter of a first 100 days, new policies, a convincing political narrative about why this country needs another ten years of social democracy. Is Scotland the nightmare everyone fears? Devolution has worked so far by backroom deals among Labour politicians - this is no longer an option. The monthly meetings at no10 with the First Minister (I never even knew they happened) will now be a regular focus of confrontation - Salmond, the great showman, will use them to take on London. He will pick endless fights - Trident (I agree with him on that incidentally), nuclear power, oil, corporation tax (he wants to control it so he can cut it). Politics just got interesting - but Gordon will just have to live with it, bar a pre-emptory Labour initiated referendum on independence to take the wind from the SNP's sails, but that's a risky distraction. We need to focus on other things - essentially taking on the Tories with passion, verve and popular policies they will find it difficult to support. We need to pick new dividing lines where most of the people will be on our side. These results give us the opportunity to do it. Over to you, Mr Brown.