Any politicians who says “There is no magic money tree” is treating the electorate as children and idiots. And now Rachel Reeves is acting like a latterday snake oil saleswoman.

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 3rd April 2024)

Whenever politicians say “There is no magic money tree”, they are treating the electorate as children and idiots. And all who use this pathetic, empty phrase should forfeit the right to be regarded as serious politicians because it closes down legitimate debate on their political priorities.

The politician who most famously used the phrase was Theresa May in 2017 when attacking Jeremy Corbyn. It has subsequently been used by Rishi Sunak and, most recently, by Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner. Labour is also prone to say that the Conservatives have “maxed out the government’s credit card”, an equally stupid concept. The government does not have a credit card and government finances are not the same as those of a household, itself another simplistic and wrong concept favoured by politicians. Proof of this is that there is always money to fight wars.

The household comparison dates back to Margaret Thatcher who, as far back as the 1979 general election campaign, said: “Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country”. Running a home and running the country are not the same, but what an inspired election slogan! 

There is nothing wrong with a country borrowing for investment, even at times of financial instability. What is not right is to borrow to fund tax cuts or day-to-day spending, at least in the long term. I can think of many occasions when nations, in the wake of economic turmoil, have borrowed to fund huge public investment.  One example, in the wake of the 1929 financial crash, was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ that promoted economic recovery and put Americans back to work through Federal activism. New Federal agencies controlled agricultural production, stabilised wages and prices, and created a vast public works programme for unemployed people. 

The post-war Labour government, at a time of huge debt, made massive investment in creating the NHS, expansion of state education, the building of council housing, and so on. There was a bipartisan approach, not least in housing. During the 1950s, Churchill’s Conservative government delivered new council housing at a rate not seen before or since. Investment in public housing through subsidising the cost of building new homes pays for itself over the years, with lower rents and less public subsidy to help people meet overblown rents. The economics of investment in housing is actually very simple. Investment in bricks and mortar retains value, whereas rent subsidies do not. This bipartisan approach was broken by Margaret Thatcher who began the dismantling of the social housing sector through the politically popular but economically disastrous Right to Buy programme. 

A new bipartisan consensus in favour of financial austerity has been created following the election of the Cameron government in 2010, and Labour front benchers have meekly performed lemming impersonations by following the Conservatives (and until 2015, the Lib Dems) over the austerity cliff. Historians will look back at this era with astonishment – that the major parties were so economically short-sighted and inept that the wellbeing of the nation was sacrificed in the pursuit of power.

If, as expected, Labour forms the next government, it will have voluntarily tied its own hands by adopting Conservatives financial rules. Labour supporters are not enthused by the wooden and lacklustre Sir Keir Starmer – “Sir Crasharooney Snoozefest, the Human Bollard” as Boris Johnson called him. They are destined to be as disappointed by the failure of Labour in government as they have been appalled by the Conservative’s demolition derby antics. 

Following the 2007-08 global financial crisis, the country needed investment but got austerity. When the country needed “strong and stable Leadership” as promised by Theresa May, we had a succession of circus clowns prime ministers unable and unwilling to invest in public services or to control the privatised monopolies. Successive Conservatives promised growth but had absolutely no idea how to achieve it. Now Rachel Reeves, acting like a latterday snake oil saleswoman, promises growth but rules out investment (not least in housing), promoting a valueless and fraudulent remedy that is destined to fail.

Labour will win the forthcoming general election, not because the electorate has any high hopes that “things can only get better” (to quote the 1997 Blairite strap line) but because voters are sick to the back teeth of the chaos of Conservative ‘rule’. And when Labour inevitably fails in government, it will be responsible for a massive swing to the right, by-passing a Conservative Party in mortal decline, to Reform UK and, even more worryingly, to parties on the extreme right.

Let hostilities commence in Brighton Pavilion

At long last, several months after the Green’s Siân Berry launched her energetic and high-profile campaign, the Labour campaign in Brighton Pavilion has got into gear. Tom Gray’s election campaign was formally launched on Saturday morning and the streets of some central wards were awash with door knockers who had gathered from all over the south east. The Conservative campaign with the unrelentingly optimistic Khobi Vallis in Brighton Kemptown took to Woodingdean while the sitting Labour MP, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, was off campaigning in Brighton Pavilion.

Labour campaigned strongly in the two Worthing seats and in Hastings.

In Brighton Pavilion Labour campaigners came up against two negative main issues on the doorstep. The first was Labour’s most recent U-turn on its £28 billion pledge to tackle the climate crisis. This plays right into the hands of Siân Berry, and in an ultra marginal seat like Pavilion, this will be one of several factors that could decide the outcome. 

The second issue was Gaza, a concern I heard dismissed by a Londoner out on behalf of Tom Gray. She said that it is just a few middle class people who are concerned about this. Hmmm?  Loyalty to Labour’s spineless leader, Sir Keir Starmer, is one thing. Total denial is another. Labour is already taking private polling on this issue, such is the concern by national campaign managers that Starmer’s unconditional backing of Israel will harm the election campaign.

What I thought was most unfortunate in Tom Gray’s ‘Sorry I missed you’ leaflet was this statement: “We have a Green MP, but it hasn’t stopped Rishi Sunak digging oil wells or sewage pouring into our sea. Only a Labour government can do that.”  Yes, there is a solitary Green MP . But there are over 200 Labour MPs and that hasn’t stopped “Rishi Sunak digging oil wells or sewage pouring into our sea.” It could be said that Labour is over 200 times more culpable than Caroline Lucas for this failure. 

Feargal Sharkey with Green Party Peer, Baroness Jenny Jones of Moulsecoomb

Such campaigning rhetoric, Tom, does not cast you in a good light. I am not sure that Feargal Sharkey, who helped launch your campaign on Saturday, would endorse such an anti-Green sentiment as he is prepared to work across the political divide on clean water issues, including with the Green Party.  I imagine that particular line was fed to you by some faceless regional communication officer. My advice to you, Tom, is aim high in your campaign and don’t become the puppet of Labour’s regional office.  Nonsense such as blaming Caroline Lucas for single-handedly failing to stop the Conservatives from polluting the environment simply makes your campaign look stupid.

Will a Labour government stop the water companies polluting our sea and rivers? I hope, if elected, that it will. But if there is any cost to the Exchequer, Chancellor Rachel Reeves might have something else to say about this.

Update 12/02/2024 11.08am: Siân Berry held a rally at the weekend as well as door knocking as part of her campaign. She said at the rally: ““The people of Brighton Pavilion deserve a strong voice in Parliament, unafraid and unwhipped. If I’m elected to continue in Caroline Lucas’ footsteps I will be fearless in advocating for the things that matter to people”.

Note 13/02/2024 8.35am: The original version of this post had a scurrilous reference to Helena Dollimore, Labour’s candidate in Hastings and Rye. This has now been moved to a post of its own.

 

 

Sir Crasharooney Snoozefest Starmer defied expectations with a competent, engaging and inspiring speech. But Labour’s home ownership obsession disappoints

Over the last couple of years I have been critical of Sir Keir Starmer, not just for the absence of policy and his ultra-caution, but because of his lack of personality. I’ve said he is boring.  In fact, I have gone further.  In April I wrote that “Starmer is probably the most boring and uninspiring politician of my lifetime”.  I continued: “He teaches those parts of boredom that other politicians do not reach.”

This was too much for a mutual friend, Andrew Wealls (a former Conservative councillor in Hove) who reprimanded me: “Keir has been a close friend of mine for around 40 years. I’m fairly confident you’ve never met him, otherwise you wouldn’t repeat so frequently such disparaging remarks about him. As you know Keir and I differ politically, so feel free to criticise his politics! But repeatedly calling him boring doesn’t elevate the debate.”

Andrew was right.  I haven’t ever met Sir Keir Starmer, so I don’t know what he is like in private. However, as a commentator who is non-aligned (although left of centre) I just say how I find him. Others I speak to are less generous than me, even though they are Labour Party members and want him to be the next prime minister. 

I did laugh when Boris Johnson described Starmer as “old Sir Crasharooney Snoozefest, the human bollard.” It was actually very funny.

But today I wish to recant.  Having heard his speech at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, I have to say it was one of the most competent, engaging and inspiring speeches from a Labour Leader for quite some while, and perfect in the run-up to a general election.

He will have enthused his troops and will send them on their way with renewed vigour and enthusiasm. There certainly wasn’t any evidence of the old Crasharooney Snoozefest.

If this was the first major test in the long election campaign, Sir Keir passed with flying colours.

There remain a number of questions over his policies, not least the welcome commitment to build 300,000 homes per year.  1.5 million homes in the first term of a Labour government would be great. But they need to be the right sort of homes.  This is where I will take the advice of Andrew Wealls to criticise policies because Labour is priding itself on becoming the party of home ownership.  A commitment to home ownership is the recycling of failed Conservative policies.  At least Angela Rayner said that Labour will give local authorities and housing associations “stability for the long-term, so they have the confidence and security to invest in affordable, social and council housing stock.”

But Sir Keir said today that the party would “bulldoze through” a planning system that was “an obstacle to the aspirations of millions, now and in the future, who deserve the security of home ownership”, and Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “It is now beyond doubt: it is Labour that is the party of homeownership.”

What we really need is more of the Angela Raynor approach, with 300,000 council houses each year.  That is the real need.  Without that we will not begin to address the housing affordability crisis.  Home ownership won’t do that.  We also need the investment in council housing. Without it, Labour’s housing ambitions are bound to fail and that will fail the country.

How many more U-turns can we expect from Sir Keir Starmer?

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 26th July 2023)

Labour’s failure to win the Uxbridge by-election has been blamed on ULEZ – the Ultra Low Emission Zone, a charge based on vehicles and emissions designed to reduce pollution. Now Sir Keir Starmer is backtracking on his commitment to this environment-friendly policy. U-turns by Starmer are nothing new since he became Labour leader.

Sir Keir Starmer (right) and Sir Tony Blair

When standing for the leadership, Starmer made a range of commitments.  All wannabe Shadow Ministers fell over themselves to endorse this new dawn for Labour. It wasn’t the policies that had cost Labour the 2019 election, they said, it was the former leader, Jeremy Corbyn. 

In the leadership election he called Corby his “friend” and would continue his friend’s work. He has now blocked Corbyn from standing for Labour at the next election because of his stance on anti-semitism within the party, something that apparently did not bother Starmer when he was in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet and was hoping to become a Cabinet member under Corbyn.

Top of Starmer’s list of commitments, the first nine words of his leadership pledges, were: “Increase income tax for the top 5% of earners.”  That commitment has gone and Starmer is now committed to lowering taxation.

He promised to nationalise (or, in his words, to bring into “common ownership”) rail, mail, energy and water.  With the timing of a genius, just when such a policy would be almost universally popular, he jettisoned the plan to bring into public ownership the big six energy companies.

In the leadership election, he pledged to end the private sector’s involvement in the NHS. He specifically said he would “end outsourcing”.  A year ago he said that a Labour government would  “likely have to continue with” some private provision in health services. 

Having said in his leadership campaign that he would “work shoulder to shoulder” with trade unions, he has sacked his shadow rail minister, Sam Terry for publicly supporting striking rail workers.

Sir Keir’s commitment to abolish university tuition fees (a central plank of Corbyn’s platform, one on which Starmer was elected to parliament in 2019, and one that he repeated when standing to succeed his friend), has also gone.  He now says that a Labour government will look at lowering graduate monthly repayments, that the party is “likely to move on from (the abolition of tuition fees) commitment.”

Last week we had the latest U-turn: the dropping of the commitment to abolish the Conservative’s cap on Child Benefit to be payable for just two children.  This policy was described as ‘vile’ and ‘pernicious’ by countless front benchers. Starmer previously described the cap as ‘inhuman’. According to the Guardian, one Labour frontbencher said that even if the policy was popular with focus groups, it was “toxic, morally wrong and doesn’t work”.

Patrick Maguire, the Red Box Editor at The Times who is usually well-informed on these matters, reported that not one member of the Shadows Cabinet spoke out against Starmer’s latest U-turn at a recent meeting where it was discussed.  Pat McFadden, Lisa Nandy and Jonathan Ashworth (the same Ashworth who last month described the cap as ‘heinous’) are reported as having spoken in support of Starmer’s change of heart at last week’s Shadow Cabinet meeting.

Part of Labour’s problem is the increasingly authoritarian, tough-guy imagine being cultivated by Starmer.  He tolerates no dissent.  He sees himself as a modern-day Tony Blair. Even though, like Blair, he has a Conservative Party in total shambles, Sir Keir has neither the personality nor the personal popularity to be a new Blair. (For the record I didn’t like Blair but can acknowledge his abilities and popularity prior to Iraq).

Starmer and Rachel Reeves repeat the mantra that they will not make any commitments that can’t be paid for.  It’s hardly the stuff to inspire.  In defending Starmer’s U-turn, Lucy Powell said on ITV News: “There just, frankly, is no money left (sic).”  

But Jonathan Portes, professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London, said this claim is “laughable”. “This is an absurd way of talking about policymaking. Talking about there being no money left is the economics of the kindergarten.”

Portes said: “The idea we do not have money to spend around £1bn to help hundreds of thousands of kids living in deprivation … is ridiculous and no serious economist would support that, regardless of ideology.”

There is money. There is always money to fight wars. Labour is just prioritising lower taxes for the very rich over Child Benefit for the very poor.