Ed Miliband’s promise to freeze gas and electricity prices until the start of 2017 made the political weather during the 2013 party conference season. It is a policy aimed at assisting people with the cost-of-living crisis that they face, and has had the Conservatives on the back foot since it was announced. Energy prices have been rising for too long, and the energy market, with the dominant ‘big six’ companies, is not producing competitive prices for the consumer. The policy is a temporary measure to be put in place while the market is reformed. Measures include a separation into energy generation and supply sectors, and selling energy into a pool to increase competition and lower prices. The regulator, Ofgem, will be abolished.
This is a very modern policy dealing with a very modern problem. One frustrating aspect of the criticism received from the Conservatives is that Labour is seeking to take Britain back to the 1970s. This is inaccurate, and a misreading of history.
The Labour policy of the 1960s and 1970s on prices and incomes was very much a product of its time. A major concern was dealing with inflation – and that meant looking at the level of wage and price increases. The plans for a National Board of Prices and Incomes came about in the early years of Harold Wilson’s first premiership, 1964-70. But which prime minister actually wanted to establish the National Incomes Commission to look at wage claims in 1962? It was none other than a Tory, Harold Macmillan. It is correct that, due to a TUC and employer boycott, the idea was ineffective, but this illustrates that the 1960s and 1970s policies should be judged in context.
The political environment, and priorities, were very different. Take this one example, which illustrates the issues ministers of the time faced. When Roy Hattersley succeeded Shirley Williams as secretary of state for prices and consumer protection in 1976, he recorded in his memoir, Who Goes Home? Scenes from a Political Life that Sir Kenneth Clucas, KCB, the permanent secretary, was waiting for him at the door, and led him into the department personally. That first morning, Hattersley had a discussion with officials: ‘The officers who served and advised me wanted to end the butter subsidy (which helped the better-off far more than it helped the poor), repeal the legislation that enabled the government to set the minimum price of bread, and stop talking about the National Consumer Council as if it were powerful enough to act as a counterweight to the Trades Union Congress and the Confederation of British Industry.’
In contrast to the 1970s political situation, and the focus on inflation control, Ed Miliband’s 2013 policy is a particular remedy to deal with a sector-specific problem. It is a well-thought-out policy, and constructive. Military generals are often criticised for fighting the last war, not the current one. In the Tories’ case, they are seeking to fight general elections of the past that they won, forgetting that they have now failed to win a majority at a modern general election for over two decades.
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Nick Thomas-Symonds is the author of Attlee: A Life in Politics published by IB Tauris (2010). He writes the Labour history column for Progress and tweets @NThomasSymonds
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