Labour can’t win by proving it’s neoliberal

Posted on September 23 2013

As the Guardian says this morning:

Ed Miliband's project, and Labour's election hopes, depend on the economic vision that Ed Balls sets out in his speech

And so far the big trailed promise is that it will ask the Office for Budget Responsibility to audit all its tax and spending commitments before the next election.

The trouble is there are some real problems with that.

First, the OBR has no authority to do this.

Second, there appear to be no plans of substance: it's not the tax and spending plans that matter so much as the industrial policy at this point in time.

Third, what is the point of asking a body dedicated to the mantra of neoliberal logic to approve Labour's plan unless that plan is to provide more of what the Coalition has offered, which is, in itself an effective forfeit of the economic debate?

As Neal Lawson has said in the Guardian this morning:

Labour's one-nation mantra can't disguise a clapped-out party

As he concludes:

So Labour in Brighton will be going through the motions. It will showcase the madness of doing the same thing while expecting a different outcome. The tragedy is we need a radical party — that can set limits to the free market and democratise the state; that knows sustainability and equality must go hand in hand; that has answers to the anxiety and insecurity of modern life; and that prefigures the good society by trusting in people, empowering them and practising an everyday politics of love and compassion. The tragedy is not just that so much more is needed, but that so much more is possible.

Neal is right. We need so, so much more. I am sure it is possible. And yet we haven't got near it as yet.

And in the meantime ordinary people suffer, day in and day out.

And that's what really angers me. There is work to be done. Jobs need to be created. Poverty needs to be lifted. Taxes need to be paid. Wealth needs to be redistributed. Homes must be built. Energy needs to be saved. Public services need delivery. Honest business needs a level playing field on which to compete. Peace needs to be made. Hope has to be delivered. And that's not what's being promised in Britain right now.

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11 Responses

  1. Andrew Dickie says:
    September 23 2013 at 8:55 am

    Neil certainly is onto something, as are you, Richard, and it’s the difference between winning power and winning elections.

    Labour looks like it might “win” the next Election (though they were saying the same of the SPD, and talking down Merkel – until she romped home, nearly winning an outright majority in a fully PR voting system! Not that I think Cameron can take any comfort from Merkel’s victory – she’s FAR more in tune with the German electorate than Cameron is with the UK electorate)

    But as to winning power – Labour can only do that by openly confronting the neo-liberal hegemony, which has wrought SO much harm around the world, and doing this AHEAD of the General Election, and winning it on that basis, so winning a mandate to dismantle that corrupt incubus that is battening on the life-force of our whole society.

    George Bush Snr famously called Reaganomics “voodoo economics” (at least he did in the Primaries! Not thereafter). We now have “vampire and zombie economics”. That is what Labour MUST confront.

  2. Richard says:
    September 23 2013 at 9:22 am

    Without vision the people perish. This country is perishing.

  3. Ian says:
    September 23 2013 at 9:39 am

    From my local BBC news site. Weston General Hospital has been running at a loss for several years and there is a bidding process to run and manage it. It can be merged with or taken over by another trust, or outsourced to a private company. Two board members who will help decide who runs it, have also worked as consultants for companies bidding to run it.
    John Underwood, who runs a PR company, has worked previously as a consultant for Serco and Kathy Headdon is a consultant for Capita Symonds.
    Jeremy Hunt says as they declared their interest, there was “total transparency”. A Protect our NHS group is objecting. But not Labour. By 2015 all NHS trusts must become foundation trusts and ‘able to function independently’. Even if Labour get elected, they would be faced by un-doing the re-organisation. Do they even want to? It would be nice to know.

  4. Simon says:
    September 23 2013 at 9:53 am

    I’m afraid labour has som lost the plot that they are leaking votes to UKIP, not because UKIP is of any use but because the frustration and let-down has nowhere else to go. I will be writing to my MP again to ask why there is no abstention vote on the ballot paper that could make voting a positive thing for those of us who have no-one to vote for.

  5. John McGann says:
    September 23 2013 at 11:21 am

    I received this a few weeks ago as a witty email.

    “The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled,
    public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled,
    and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome will become bankrupt.
    People must again learn to work instead of living on public assistance.”
     
    – Cicero , 55 BC

    Very straightforward. Not the One Nation claptrap of what new improved Labour with added honesty will do for your wash. I bloody despair when I watch them repeating their claptrap. Not one of our illustrious politicians of any party will state how they intend to tax the corporations etc. As for letting Mr Balls near the cash till,unbelievable! He was in place when Mr Brown sold my country’s gold for a few pennies. If Labour win the next election it will be by default.