Reading The Independent at my desk yesterday all was going well, I’m still on a high from Sunday’s 5-2 thrashing of Spurs and two pages of coverage on the Leveson Inquiry is always enjoyable. I happily flick to page 6 where I see Labour is up two to 40 per cent, a three-point lead over the Tories in the latest ComRes/Independent poll. Not enough, but any poll increase must be welcomed.
The poll then goes on to say 60 per cent of people want the chancellor to tax the rich more to help lift those on the lowest incomes out of tax. Fair enough, Ed’s ‘squeezed middle’ argument – I’m happy with that. But, swiftly, I’m brought down a peg. Fifty-nine per cent to 31 per cent of people believe the chancellor should use any spare money to bring down the deficit rather than cut taxes.
It’s with this I again realise the deficit argument appears lost forever. When you imagine what the poll would look like if the question was: should the chancellor spend any spare money on investment or services? The resultant answer would be a lot worse.
Surely with the economy flatlining after government cuts to investment, cuts to support for people getting work and increased taxes, the argument about the need to spend what money we can on getting growth back into the economy should have been won? Surely with the government cutting, then finding the amount of money it needs to borrow goes up it is obvious the cuts are hurting but not working? Surely with Greece cutting and cutting and the problem nowhere near being solved people can see slash and burn doesn’t work? It appears not.
Economically Labour left power under a cloud, the economy was growing but public perception doesn’t support us. I’ve long believed that Labour will never win that argument; people’s minds are made up.
But how does Labour win the debate that money needs to be spent; as set out in the five-point plan, with a one year national insurance tax break, a cut in VAT across the board and down to five per cent for home improvements and more? How does Labour win the debate that the deficit needs to be repaid but that there is another way?
My fear is that Labour can never win that argument, but especially not until we can break down the argument into a much simpler rhetoric. Cameron has convinced everyone that running government is no different to running a household, ‘you must live within your means etc’ – people can relate to that and agree. They feel smarter than the government – ‘well if I understand that why doesn’t the government? I know more than the government and so does this guy – he makes sense.’
Labour needs that simple message, one people agree with because it’s so obvious from their life and a message where people feel smarter than the government and follow Ed because he ‘gets it.’
Answers on a postcard to the two Eds to help them crack this difficult nut.
put Gordon Brown on television and he will tell you.
I think progressive governments can use Cameron’s metaphor about the family budget by talking about the difference between good debt and bad debt. Good debt is debt spent to create future wealth; bad debt is money that is spent without benefit to the future growth or improvement.
Working families know what the difference is between credit card debt on short term wants, as opposed to long term debt, such as a mortgage, which creates longer term wealth.
Use Cameron’s metaphor.
just NOT the one about the ‘mortgage’ which got us into this mess in the first place !
just NOT the one about the ‘mortgage’ which got us into this mess in the first place !
Short of serious “Public Education” on the often counter-intuitive aspects of economics and finance, what’s to do? Excuse what might be economically/financially illiterate , but are we failing to make some very simple points?
1/ The Tories and Lib-Dems agreed with Labour’s spending plans BEFORE THE CREDIT CRUNCH HIT. If Labour’s spending plans had been irresponsible, surely they would have not done that?
2/ The Credit Crunch was caused by the very “Free-Market” ideas worshipped by the Tories (and Orange Book Lib-Dems?)
3/ OK, so New Labour fell for that poison……but the situation would have been worse if the Tories had had their way. There would have been even less regulation/”red-tape” if they had had their way. Before the election, Osborne criticised Labour and pointed him to a supposedly better alternative – IRELAND. Gee-whiz, Gideon, great example!
4/ The deficit was caused by reduced income, not irresponsibly increased spending.
5/ The Tories opposed much of what Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling did to keep the effects of the ‘Crunch to a minimum. We now have the weird position where a majority (I suspect) of people have seen through the shyster-promises of “Free-Market” policies, but we have a Government devoted to them.
6/ The Lib-Dems attacked Tory spending plans very strongly before the election. They said it would be dangerous to cut too much, too fast. They then fell for Cameron’s promise of a fair run for the Electoral Reform Referendum.. He unleashed his attack dogs to destroy that, but the Lib-Dems are now trapped. They have no political choice but to defend policies they warned us about. To admit they were right before the election would destroy their credibility completely.
Do these points hold up? If so, why are we not pushing them?
Bob Vant
The deficit was caused by the crash. The crash was not caused by the deficit. There was no problem with Government borrowing before the crash. The Tories are using the deficit to justify cutting the State, which is what they wanted to do all along but knew they wouldn’t get elected if they said so. So, the crash has given them the political cover they wanted.
Simple? Unfortunately, we let the Tories set the narrative for 6 months while we were busy choosing a leader and, once set myths are hard to destroy.
The argument is economic, the tories made it financial, people simply do not understand the difference, and Labour ducked the argument to pick a leader plus Liam Byrnes note, didn’t help.The austerity has produced greater borrowing yet the cuts have not even started. So by reducing benefits they win. I still suspect that they will start cutting corp taxes and taxes for next election, which was the point of austerity in the first place to cut welfare and enable the free market.