I never thought the first full year under a Tory government since 1996 was going to be easy. And it wasn't.
The Tories proved neoliberalism doesn't work. If you take away the life support of the state the economy does not grow - it shrinks. Some of us had predicted that. Millions are already bearing the needless wounds of our not being listened to. Millions more will do so before we get out of this mess. As people are the core of my concern this guaranteed this was a bad year. The wanton destruction of hope for millions in so many ways is testament to the bankruptcy of thirty years of economic thinking from our political mainstream, right wing dominated as it has universally been. The export of that message of despair into the EU has created a contagion of neoliberal toxicity that will wreck the lives of millions more throughout the continent.
Labour has yet to lay out a strong enough alternative - and the continuing sore of New Labour needs to be jettisoned before it can do so. I'd argue the alternative might be found in The Courageous State - but then I would.
It was a good year for the Green Party and the SNP. The former pleases me. The break up of the Union worries me as a habitual resident of East Anglia, but we now have to admit it's on the agenda. Labour, in particular, ignores it at its peril.
Unions found their voice this year and showed that they could act for their membership. Many were enocuraged by that.
Occupy took almost everyone by suprise and are changing the terns of debate. That was a highlight of the year.
The tax narrative I discuss here has remained very firmly on the political agenda, and its importance is if anything rising as the tax gap is seen to have so profoundly undermined the viability of the economies of so many EU countries now in economic turmoil. Occupy and the unions have both embraced these ideas in various ways: why the right will not do so when the message is about the rule of law and creating fair competition is hard to understand unless, of course, they're not really interested in either.
The campaign against tax havens had successes. The Isle of Man lost the last of its VAT subsidy. The Channel Islands' VAT abuse was defeated. The European Union Savings Tax Directive made progress despite the attempts of the Swiss. The UK-Swiss tax deal was shown to be just one of the many dodgy deals our own H M Revenue & Customs have done - a fact now widely known about.
The green movement had a bad year - if reversals of government policy and failure to tackle climate change were the indicators used. Caroline Lucas showed a different politics is possible. I hope the burden is one she can sustain.
But the real story of 2011 can be summarised in three ways. Unemployment rose, sharply. Real wages fell, sharply. Banks and bankers prospered at public expense. That's all we need to know to make it clear that there remains much to do and that 2011 took us nowhere near the right direction is solving the issues we face.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
It seems like one complication to the domestic economic story is (unsurprisingly) Europe. Even if the public might normally be swayed on the issue of keynesian economics in a domestic context, the government has wielded Greece like a cudgel. Labour hasn’t made very successful inroads on the effects of austerity in Ireland and other eurozone countries, and even if the arguments were balanced the public may instinctively feel that consolidating public finances is the ‘safe’ option with the euro seemingly in permanent peril of collapse.
This is not just a bias in favour of austerity, though I think the case of austerity is far easier to make via slogans and talking points, than the rather more complex and difficult realities of macroeconomic logic. It’s also just a bias in favour of the status quo. Much as Labour benefitted to some extent– as I’m sure it did– from ‘better the devil you know’ during the 2010 election, the public prefers the current course, which hasn’t yet crashed the ship, to switching to an entirely new one.
IT’s not an easy case to make right now. The resolution of the European crisis will clear up the political message a great deal. That said, Labour still needs to be bold in its economic claims and statements. If Balls feels vindicated now, he might have also felt rewarded had the public firmly believed he’d been proven right by the Autumn statement. As it is, they think Labour dithers around the margins.
The Tories proved neoliberalism doesn’t work. If you take away the life support of the state the economy does not grow — it shrinks.
There appear to be some Tories who believe this: how else could one interpret the culture Secretary refusing to entertain the idea of an Austerity Olympics?
(Unless you’re deeply cynical and think that politics is now just about bread and circuses, as it was in the days of Caligula and Nero)
Happy New Year,
James
To contribute towards change in 2012 the PSG resolves to:-
Isle of Man – Continue publicising the City’s malignant influence over the island’s government in a masonic/medieval labyrinth of tax dodging intrigue founded deep in the world of privilege and politics courtesy of a secretive (and largely unregulated) financial services industry.
Guernsey – To help explode the PR inspired myth that this is a “nice-but-rather-backward” little island when in fact it hosts a tax dodging industry every bit as sophisticated and devious as those found on Jersey and the Isle of Man. This veneer of innocent stupidity disguises a major contributor to the 99 to 1 ratio.
The Crown Dependencies provide the City with tax dodging services to benefit a few at the expense of the vast majority. Make 2012 the year to exposes the political influence which sustains and protects this network of iniquity.
I think that your success in pushing for the removal of Hartnett should not go unmentioned. It will be difficult for his successor to carry on ‘business as usual’ with Margaret Hodge on the case… albeit unlikely to be a perfect solution.
A major problem is that in politics throughout Europe and the USA is that there is no alternative to this painful and needless austerity. In the UK in particular it’s all about managerialism and consensus. With the occupy movement and public sector strikes the left has began to find it’s voice again. But until the left can gain a major voice in politics we are stuck with these ridiculous economic policies.
Tories do not support neoliberalism.
By definition, if you support neoliberalism you are not a Tory.
It may be a convenient shorthand to describe anyone who opposes the Labour Party as a Tory but that just ain’t so.
John77 – regret to say this is one of those dreary “It all depends what you mean by” discussions, buttressed by a circular argument. For you a Tory is – by definition – someone who doesn’t support neo-liberalism; ergo, a Tory cannot be a neo-liberal. Well, sorry, to use the phrase advanced about President Bush senior’s tax increases “if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck – it’s a duck”. In the same way, of the modern Conservative Party “If it behaves like a neo-ilberal, talks like a neo-liberla and acts like a neo-liberal – it’s a neo-liberal”. They do, and are.
Old world “One Nation” Tories, of course, were not like that – Edward Heath, Sir Ian Gilmour and Francis Pym being prime examples – but you may have noticed that the “Wets”, as Thatcher called them, were hung out to dry by her, since when the old Tory Party, which acted with considerable and genuine noblesse oblige and real social conscience (Neville Chamberlain actively promoted social housing in Birmingham and beyond, for example, where his fine record on such matters has been for ever overshadowed by the Munich disaster) has been inflitrated by doctrinaire Orange-book Liberals – 19th century Manchester Liberals – of the sort that caused Jo Chamberlain to leave the 19th century Liberal Party and join the Tories.
Those Tories, however – Butler, Macleod, Geoffry Rippon, Sir Edward Boyle, and of course Macmillan – are now virtually non-existent in the modern Tory Party. Labour took action against its Militant infiltrators; alas, in the case of the Tories, the infiltrators captured the castle, and, in good Orwellian style, proceeded to burn all the old archives, and re-write the history of the Tory Party, most of whose pre-1979 grandees would hardly recognise the modern Nasty Party, which is, I repeat, a neo-liberal Party, which has turned the market into a deity that must be obeyed and appeased, but never opposed.
Very well said
I well remember meeting quite a number of the ‘wets’ in what was then the shadow cabinet when I was a student and candidly liked many of them. They were honourable, thoughtful people.
But that’s a memory now in the modern Tory party and I entirely agree with your analysis