Labour are out of ideas and almost out of time
Dear Gordon Brown,
Having been forced to live in the shadow of Tony Blair for so long, I figured that you would have lots of time to plan your time as leader of the Labour Party. Hard as it is to believe given the unbelievable scale of what has happened during your tenure, you’ve only been in charge of the party since last summer. What I find astonishing is that Blair managed to hang around for years and years by convincing us that he always had the answers, regardless of the problem. Unfortunately, you do not have his charm nor his persuasive skills so your policies are left to fend for themselves – and if the Queens Speech is anything to go by, you’re completely out of ideas after just 18 months. No doubt you are very proud of your collection of favourite buzz words (e.g. real help for real families, fairness etc). On the evidence of today’s speech, your buzz words are about all you can offer this country. That’s not to say all of your policies are a waste of time, rather that they give a good indication of the directionless government we currently have.
One of the big announcements today will be that banks are going to hit with huge fines if they do not treat their customers ‘fairly’. Although my initial reaction was that this would be abused by the government to push through interest rate changes, it turns out that you are going to concentrate on their lending practices instead. Unlike Lefties, I still understand the concept that banks provide a service – they are not a ‘right’ or a ‘privilege’. I put my money in a bank because I think I can get something in return as opposed to shoving it in a suitcase under my bed. However, if a bank decides to move the goalposts without giving me or other customers or a business sufficient notice then they have crossed the line and deserve to be punished. In light of the claims that small businesses and customers have had the terms and conditions of their loans and overdrafts changed overnight by their banks, I have no problem with you stepping in. Some banks have even demanded that homes are put up as collateral for loans or have given customers just 48 hours to sign up to new arrangements. I know that the banks are under huge pressure at the moment and the failure to restore liquidity to the financial markets is deeply worrying. However, some minimum standards of good practice need to be adhered to and this sounds like a good opportunity to make your point gently and clearly.
Unfortunately, your other measures don’t offer such potential for positive change. The plans to give 4.5 million parents the chance to work flexibly will go ahead next April as planned, even though Mandy is a bit upset about it. I support the move in principle as family life deserves to be prioritised, but I wonder whether it’s a good idea to hit an already faltering economy and vulnerable small businesses with such a burden. Giving 22 million workers the right to ask their employer for time off to train opens the same wound, as small businesses are suffering immeasurable torment at the moment and allowing their staff to bugger off on a training course at this moment in time is probably not going to please them. The rest of your measures are just smoke and mirrors. Setting up a constitution for the NHS is not going to impress anyone, especially when structural reform is so desperately needed to cut back on the waste and bureaucracy during these economic difficulties. Enshrining Labour’s target to abolish child poverty by 2020 is more huff and puff in the face of failure, as you always miss your targets and will simply resort to bolstering tax credits instead of addressing the roots causes of poverty. The Queens speech is also going to contain a Bill aimed at driving up standards in schools, although one wonders how long you expect the public to put up with your endless education initiatives that promise so much, set a few more targets but ultimately achieve nothing. Giving ‘local representatives’ more control over the police is also a nice suggestion, which is why the Conservatives have been talking about it for years. Using lie detectors on suspected benefit cheats leaves me similarly unimpressed, seeing as they’re not accurate enough to be used in a court of law and cheats will only lose four weeks of benefits in any case.
Is this it? Is this your vision, your revolution, your legacy? ‘Well we think schools should be better and we think benefits cheats should be stopped and we think we need some more child poverty targets and we think we need a better NHS’. Wow. Gripping stuff. Blair had a vision, he knew what direction he had to take his party and this country in to get elected and re-elected, he could communicate his ideas with ease. Even though we now know that a good 90% of what Blair said was either broken promises or outright lies and deceit, he still offered this country hope and purpose. On the basis of this upcoming legislation for the next Parliamentary year, the kindest way I could describe Labour right now is the ‘Do Nothing Party’.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
Witanagemot Blogs
I think we are lookinjg at a smash and grab election early next year, before the economic failure and the impossibility of raising more debt sink Labour.
The next elections choice will be between the Conservatives and the IMF.
Do you ever send any of these, LfaT?
James, sadly I don’t get round to it. I was tempted to send them to MPs and journalists if and when I write to them but I haven’t got access to their contact details.
MIAS, you may well be right. However, I suspect that all of the headlines in between now and then will be very gloomy. MFI and Woolworths were the first but will not be the last. The economic failure has already hit and Brown will kid himself that he can turn things around before 2010.
DSG is on the wobble too posting a £28m loss this year versus a £50+m profit last year. That’s Dixons, Currys and PC World. I don’t think even Theo Paphitis can save all of them!
On a more serious note, this could be the recession to finally and comprehensively kill off the high-street. Out-of-town-Superstores, like cockroaches, will survive the impending financial apocalypse whereas things we old-fashioned folk think of as ’shops’ will die a lingering death as reduced spending pushes them over the edge of viability.
At least one great thing might come out of this financial doom and gloom – the Western world might start thinking a little more sustainably and stop this ridiculous notion that economic growth can continue for eternity and we all live happily ever after. On this little finite planet of ours this is just inconceivable no matter what the economists say. The only way growth is possible at certain levels is by squeezing another country or population. Great for Flashheart in the colonial days, not so great now!
Interestingly, Labour are now having to switch to more Conservative style measures, simply because they are cheaper. If Labour and Conservatives start fighting for the same ground then the elections will merely be a popularity contest. Maybe we should bring in Brucey and prime time BBC!
Shaun, very hard to disagree with you the way things are right now. In the banking sector we have seen a lot of small lenders gobbled up by the big players, who stand a much better chance of withstanding the battering.
Then again, would out-of-town stores fare better than the high street as people lose their jobs and start trying to cut costs e.g. selling their cars / cutting back on petrol?
Candid, valid point. (about the economy, not Brucey – the last thing we need is more Brucey in this time of misery and despair)
I have a great idea -(slightly off topic….sorry…just felt I should share this wisdom) Mr. Cameron should star in an episode of Eastenders – a terrible show but for some reason a large majority of the public enjoy watching it. Then our beloved leader might look a little more like a realistic representative for the greater populace, especially if there is a sad storyline!
“Then our beloved leader might look a little more like a realistic representative for the greater populace, especially if there is a sad storyline!”
Candid
Hah well if CallMeDave can seem as realistic as that risible caricature of the East End then we’ll all be in trouble!
Great Post.
me bean really has offered nothing.
very new plan and great idea turns out to be some half baked scheme cooked up in the cab on the way to announce it.
loft insulation..Vat cut of 2.5% an extra £10 for pensioners..building two new aircraft carriers without planes to land or take off from them {now even that project is on hold}
3,000,000 new homes without a clue how to deliver them.
You are right on the Brown period. Blair at least looked like he had vision.
Hahah yeah, spot-on, Bill.
I got, get this, a £10 bonus from the DWP as a recipient of Disability Living Allowance (Moblility Component – Higher Rate). Happy Christmas! WTF? I mean, what is that about? Just got a serious-looking letter through the post and it’s like ‘MR STALIN WISHES YOU A £10 HAPPY CHRISTMAS’.
Why is the mobility cripple department giving out Christmas gifts? Eh? I know I’m a bit f*cked but seriously, I’m not confused!
Candid, you appear to be a Malthusian. This is an approach which was discredited ages ago.
If economic growth were a matter of tractor production, or iron girders, your fears might have some basis.
Have you not noticed that the world’s most successful companies (such as Microsoft) make vast profits from selling products that have no physical footprint at all?
Of course this is an extreme example, but it gives the lie to your zero-sum theories. Growth has changed and will continue to change; it is driven by ideas and processes, not physical goods, and there is no reason why this cannot continue.
I agree with you, Andrew. Ideas, knowledge and cultural exchange is wonderful and of course very valuable in monetary terms but all of the ways we communicate, travel and any other method of ideas exchange across and within countries has an ecological footprint related to the supply chain – and therefore I do not agree that Microsoft do anything that has no visible footprint!
I suggested that the idea of growth is nonsensical and pointless for it is well documented that increased wealth in Western countries in recent years – bar the current trend – has done little for economic equity. The poor are no better off, ignoring Gordon’s fudged statistics, then they were when the economy was lower. So whilst economic growth appears great it is not equally good for everyone. Anyone left behind is faced with no wage increase but huge increase in living costs.
I think the economy will still continue to grow but there might be a time when the currency of trade is not just money but carbon or access to natural capital. And these more sustainable fields could be the way to solve not only economic equity across countries but also to slow down or stop the current ecological crunch. Obviously, it is vastly more complicated than this but there is no much time left before we will be forced to consider new ways and approaches of supporting our opulent lifestyles (opulent when compared to subsistence farmers).
So it a way it is slightly Malthusian but in those days change happened slowly and technology easily caught up but today the change is more rapid and the warning signs from previous decades have been largely ignored by very short sighted government. MPs simply look and plan for the next election so long term planning really doesn’t form part of their plans – hence the very late uptake of climate change and environmental policy
I do think technology will play a key role and I saw plans for a solar powered boat with funnels which vaporise the water beneath them and create clouds – all this to try and mitigate the effects of climate change! So there are slightly off beat but inventive plans out there – all that is needed is greater investment. Instead of pandering to the big dirt industries and the nuclear monstrosities which lose millions of pounds.
This all depends on whether wealth is a zero-sum game or not. What we consider ‘wealth’ may simply be the modern froth on top of Olde Worlde treasures – land, slaves, materials and sometimes some skilled people.
Microsoft most certainly does produce something but mostly it falls into the tech category that helps *organise* things. Its not a production line that churns out goods (Xbox aside) – its a provider of tools to help people organise their churning out of goods. It has leveraged its highly skilled workforce to jimmy some cash out of pretty much everyone else.
So the question is has wealth been created or merely subdivided and redistributed according to new criteria? Is there *actually* more wealth today in real terms than in the 1400s or has the concentrated landed & noble wealth of that time merely been subdivided and parcelled out not according to who can raise the biggest army but to who can be canniest as a continuation of the shift in wealth and power associated with the creation and rise of the Middle Class?