Labour's golden policy key? Build, build and build more
We've seen intellectual Ed. But if Miliband wants to win in 2015, he needs one idea that has our inner optimist jumping for joy
'Building is not just good policy, but the best symbol for optimism.'
The general election is two years and a few days away. By then
the political landscape may feel like another country. However well
Labour does in Thursday's elections,
mid-term results in mainly Tory shires tell us relatively little. One
thing is certain: 2015 will be the greatest clash between optimism and
pessimism in living memory. Labour needs to persuade the country that
politics can and will change lives, hopes and national fate. Despite
their own disruptive radicalism, the Tories will claim to be the
steady-as-you-go option: change is danger.
This week's YouGov poll for the Resolution Foundation showed the current mood finely balanced. By a majority of over 7:1 voters will make financial prudence and deficit reduction top priority. But the same numbers say they only trust a party that prioritises growth. When offered both options, going for growth (hope) comes out 11% higher than cutting the deficit (fear). YouGov's Peter Kellner adds this useful observation: "Politicians looking for a lead from the public will look in vain." Good to hear a pollster remind them to lead.
These are odd times: many in both main parties seem despondent, finding good reasons why they can't, won't and don't deserve to win in 2015. Scratchy with irritable dissatisfactions, both sides fear the anti-politics sentiment out there. Labour sees fatalism as the enemy – a nihilism that says politics changes nothing. The Tories fear the Ukip dustbin of discontent, hoovering up migration, Europe, HS2, gay marriage and wind turbines, while promising outrageous tax cuts. While the Lib Dems hope only to survive, both Labour and Tories approach the ballot box gingerly this week in something of a confidence wobble. Come 2015 someone has to win, so who's in the worst state?
With right and left upper-cuts from Tony Blair and Len McCluskey, the two Eds may feel a dizzy loss of bearings. They are bombarded from within and without for failing to produce a red-box-ready complete economic policy. They would be crazy to do so, as some Tories concede privately while publicly goading them into the folly of tax and spend commitments now for faraway 2015.
But a financial lacuna can leave Labour floundering, as Ed Miliband did on the World at One on Monday. Asked where he would get £12bn to cut VAT for a year, his answer was growth – which it might indeed produce, though hardly enough to send £12bn flowing into the Treasury in a year. But the b-word – borrowing – is forbidden until the whole manifesto is set out. This was a brutal reminder of the relentless roasting Labour faces in struggling to win trust for economic competence. George Osborne does well with his mantra mocking Keynesianism: "They would borrow less by borrowing more!"
By 2015 with growth at some 2%, the Tory message of fear will be: "Don't let Labour wreck it again." In June, Osborne's comprehensive spending review is designed to force Labour into premature budget promises. Watch the explosion of bogus indignation when Labour refuses that elephant trap. Besides, taking over in May 2015 means inheriting a budget already set, allowing only minor adjustments until the following April. Labour does need some totemic cuts: Miliband didn't altogether rule out a wise one – winter fuel payments for better-off pensioners. But even that honest and widely supported cut would be stormy. So can a message of hope and optimism overcome all that? Labour has plenty to worry about.
Until they peer into the Tory tent, where things look worse. For the win they crave, Tories need to be 10% ahead on the day: just to stay in the coalition they loathe they need to do far better. But living standards will fall below 2008 levels, with wages depressed, prices high and unemployment much worse than when David Cameron took over . And the national debt is ballooning on his watch.
Dicing with death, Philip Hammond may get his way, cutting health and education to fund defence – not popular. The NHS could be a rumbling ferment of bad news. Universal credit will be in deep trouble. Benefit cuts will bring tales of real suffering from the disabled, with evictions due to housing benefit "reform" causing higher costs. This week the Economist calls Duncan Smith's skiver figures "raw sewage" and describes his calculations – that 1 million could work but don't; 8,000 have been pushed into work by the benefit cap; and 878,000 have dropped off benefits for fear of health checks – as "extreme sleight of hand". You can't lie to all the people all the time.
And never underestimate Cameron and Osborne's ideological temptation to do the wrong thing, or propensity to blunder. In this living standards election most people's answer to Reagan's famous question – "Are you better off than four years ago?" – will still be no. Why? Because restored growth will be more unfairly shared than for decades.
Labour has published six bills it would pass now, a reminder that it has more policies than it gets credit for: a real jobs guarantee for the unemployed, 50p top tax, a mansion tax, 10p tax rate, controlling fuel and rail costs, long tenancies, rooting out rogue landlords, an industrial bank. The intellectual underpinning has been laid on wages and wealth distribution.
But if Miliband needs a golden policy key, housebuilding looks set to be it. Build a million homes to cut housing benefit waste, employ hundreds of thousands, create apprenticeships, breathe life into the real economy, stop house price bubbles, replace those right-to-buy social homes. Building is not just good policy, but the best symbol for optimism. Bookies don't like to lose: a Labour majority is their strong favourite, so Labour should cheer up.
VIKAS KUMAR GUPTA
PGDM 2ND SEM
This week's YouGov poll for the Resolution Foundation showed the current mood finely balanced. By a majority of over 7:1 voters will make financial prudence and deficit reduction top priority. But the same numbers say they only trust a party that prioritises growth. When offered both options, going for growth (hope) comes out 11% higher than cutting the deficit (fear). YouGov's Peter Kellner adds this useful observation: "Politicians looking for a lead from the public will look in vain." Good to hear a pollster remind them to lead.
These are odd times: many in both main parties seem despondent, finding good reasons why they can't, won't and don't deserve to win in 2015. Scratchy with irritable dissatisfactions, both sides fear the anti-politics sentiment out there. Labour sees fatalism as the enemy – a nihilism that says politics changes nothing. The Tories fear the Ukip dustbin of discontent, hoovering up migration, Europe, HS2, gay marriage and wind turbines, while promising outrageous tax cuts. While the Lib Dems hope only to survive, both Labour and Tories approach the ballot box gingerly this week in something of a confidence wobble. Come 2015 someone has to win, so who's in the worst state?
With right and left upper-cuts from Tony Blair and Len McCluskey, the two Eds may feel a dizzy loss of bearings. They are bombarded from within and without for failing to produce a red-box-ready complete economic policy. They would be crazy to do so, as some Tories concede privately while publicly goading them into the folly of tax and spend commitments now for faraway 2015.
But a financial lacuna can leave Labour floundering, as Ed Miliband did on the World at One on Monday. Asked where he would get £12bn to cut VAT for a year, his answer was growth – which it might indeed produce, though hardly enough to send £12bn flowing into the Treasury in a year. But the b-word – borrowing – is forbidden until the whole manifesto is set out. This was a brutal reminder of the relentless roasting Labour faces in struggling to win trust for economic competence. George Osborne does well with his mantra mocking Keynesianism: "They would borrow less by borrowing more!"
By 2015 with growth at some 2%, the Tory message of fear will be: "Don't let Labour wreck it again." In June, Osborne's comprehensive spending review is designed to force Labour into premature budget promises. Watch the explosion of bogus indignation when Labour refuses that elephant trap. Besides, taking over in May 2015 means inheriting a budget already set, allowing only minor adjustments until the following April. Labour does need some totemic cuts: Miliband didn't altogether rule out a wise one – winter fuel payments for better-off pensioners. But even that honest and widely supported cut would be stormy. So can a message of hope and optimism overcome all that? Labour has plenty to worry about.
Until they peer into the Tory tent, where things look worse. For the win they crave, Tories need to be 10% ahead on the day: just to stay in the coalition they loathe they need to do far better. But living standards will fall below 2008 levels, with wages depressed, prices high and unemployment much worse than when David Cameron took over . And the national debt is ballooning on his watch.
Dicing with death, Philip Hammond may get his way, cutting health and education to fund defence – not popular. The NHS could be a rumbling ferment of bad news. Universal credit will be in deep trouble. Benefit cuts will bring tales of real suffering from the disabled, with evictions due to housing benefit "reform" causing higher costs. This week the Economist calls Duncan Smith's skiver figures "raw sewage" and describes his calculations – that 1 million could work but don't; 8,000 have been pushed into work by the benefit cap; and 878,000 have dropped off benefits for fear of health checks – as "extreme sleight of hand". You can't lie to all the people all the time.
And never underestimate Cameron and Osborne's ideological temptation to do the wrong thing, or propensity to blunder. In this living standards election most people's answer to Reagan's famous question – "Are you better off than four years ago?" – will still be no. Why? Because restored growth will be more unfairly shared than for decades.
Labour has published six bills it would pass now, a reminder that it has more policies than it gets credit for: a real jobs guarantee for the unemployed, 50p top tax, a mansion tax, 10p tax rate, controlling fuel and rail costs, long tenancies, rooting out rogue landlords, an industrial bank. The intellectual underpinning has been laid on wages and wealth distribution.
But if Miliband needs a golden policy key, housebuilding looks set to be it. Build a million homes to cut housing benefit waste, employ hundreds of thousands, create apprenticeships, breathe life into the real economy, stop house price bubbles, replace those right-to-buy social homes. Building is not just good policy, but the best symbol for optimism. Bookies don't like to lose: a Labour majority is their strong favourite, so Labour should cheer up.
VIKAS KUMAR GUPTA
PGDM 2ND SEM
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