The Vision Thing

 

Our Labour Government was elected precisely four months ago today.  We might now be expecting  the joy at the dawn of the sunlit uplands to be fading slightly.  Sadly, this vision never actually took off.   The government seems to have been  on the “back foot” from the start. 

This is partly due to inexperience (government is probably more difficult than we spectators, even those who’ve occupied the Opposition Front Bench, think it is), and partly due to inept perception management (which now seems to be called “comms.”) 

Why on earth announce the potentially controversial decision to drop the pensioners’ winter fuel allowance at the start, rather than wait to pack it into the budget? Why not have the sense to recognise that free specs, suites and tickets to posh concerts  would give the hostile press an opportunity to tar them with the same brush as the Tories? Why wait a whole four months to produce a Budget, thus  allowing speculation in the media that every economic evil under the sun might be in it?

There has been no honeymoon, the Tories , “refreshed” by new leadership, are once again neck and neck in the polls, and there is a very real policy that Labour is doomed to be a one term government.

However, this miserable start is perhaps what was to be expected. 

Although our twisted electoral system has given them a  massive Commons majority, the electorate did not vote for Labour.  (Nor, for that matter, did we vote for the Liberal Democrats)  We voted against that Tories.

 Only 33.7% of the votes went to Labour, and when we recognise that the turnout was only 60% ,then only a mere 20%,or one in five of those entitled to vote, give their (grudging?) support to Labour.

The government was not elected  on a wave of popular enthusiasm.  Given the hostile press, prepared to pick holes in anything, however minor, the government does or proposes, it is not surprising that our politics is dominated by small-minded carping criticism.

Glad confident morning never dawned.

Here is an alternative, counter-factual, scenario.

 Suppose Sir Keir Starmer had said on July 5^th, something on the lines of:

 

“  Thank you for giving us a massive Commons majority.

But we recognise that Labour alone  does not really have the support of the majority of you - far from it.

Nevertheless, we recognise  that there is a desperate need for transformational policies to raise our quality of life in Britain to the level of that enjoyed in similar advanced developed countries.

This recognition is shared with the 12.2%  who voted for the Liberal Democrats, and the 6.7% who voted Green.

Together we have 52% of the vote: a rare majority for the transformational policies we need, though we may have marginally different policies on what they are

So, although  with our massive parliamentary majority we do not need to, we invite the Liberal and Greens (and the nationalists if they are interested) to join us in a loose coalition.

The Liberals , with their priorities of liberty and the rule of law, could  take over the Home Office and Justice ministry (and as an extra, Sir Ed Davey could be in charge of a newly created Ministry for Care).  The Greens could be in charge of the Environment and Energy.  The Nationalists could have positions in the Scottish and Welsh Offices.

 In a loose coalition the strict rules of collective responsibility will be relaxed.  These other parties  will not be required to give verbal support to every proposal of the government. Rather than oppose combatively, they will be free to offer, politely, alternative proposals, which we should be happy to consider. We will try to come to agreed positions, but with  our Commons majority other parties will be  no position to bring down the government.

These proposals are on offer. How about it?

 With the backing of the majority of those who voted we can with confidence implement the visionary policies needed to create the modern, innovative, caring, fair and responsible society which our people deserve.”

Fantasy, of course, but it needn’t be.

The Budget

 

Well, thank goodness that’s over.

 In the unlikely event of my ever having dictatorial powers I would take the highly illiberal step of banning media outlets  bearing the title of “News” (that is, NEW events that have actually happened) from filling their pages, airwaves or whatever with what might happen rather that what actually has happened.

Yet for the past three months – three months - we have been bombarded with speculation about what might be in the budget (a very overblown event in the UK’s political calendar, anyway,) every possibility put forward as a probability,   and endless discussion of the likely consequences.

Well, now we know.  There will be 48 hours or so of biased and  opinionated pronouncements on who will gain a few coppers and who will pay a  few bob more, and then we shall all forget about it. 

How many of us remember the details of the last Tory, Jeremy Hunt, budget? (The Liz Truss one is an exception to prove the rule!)

 In a previous post (see1st October) I reported my response to a Labour Party questionnaire as to what would  be my top priorities.  They were (and still are)

1.Remove the two child limit on Universal Credit

2. Amply fund Local Government

3. Set up a commission to devise a fairer taxation system, shifting the emphasis from “goods” to “bads.”

Well, 1 and 3 don’t get a mention, nor is there anything else remotely fundamental and long term. 

Essentially all we have are some modest tweaks on existing taxes and spending, overall moving in the right direction -the Tax Take  increased but still only around the OECD average, and more spending on such as the NHS, our crumbling schools and defence. 

But not enough, and not much else.

 Here are some “off the cuff” comments on some of the details.

Freezing of the income tax thresholds until 2028: bad, punishes the low paid and befits the already well-off most.

Capital Gains Tax increases: good, but still not up to the rates for earned income.

Inheritance tax threshold: should be replaced with a tax on recipients.

Evasion of IHT by buying farmland: reduced but should be made impossible.

Employers’ NI contributions  increased by 1.2 %ge points: bad, this is a tax on employment, which is a “good.”

Fuel duty freeze and 5p cut retained: bad. Labour cowardice, especially when compared with the increase on the bus-fare cap from £2 to £3 - ie 50%!

Canned beer taxes up, draught beer down: good, helps the hospitality industry.

HS2 funded to Euston.  Really, I think we should stop digging in this hole. Would it make a picturesque canal?

Minimum wage up: good.

Pensions up 4.1%: good. It’s alleged to be tax free, but it isn’t. Those of us with additional pensions get them taxed more.

Carers’ allowances up: good, but not by enough.

£500m more for affordable housing: good, but peanuts for what is required.

Keir Starmer promised change, and we are getting it via a minor change of course. 

What Britain needs is something transformational, and it is not in this Budget.

Murderous Nations

 

Today, 24^th October, is United Nations Day, on which we commemorate the establishment of the UN and the  “Civilised” world’s  second attempt to create a rules-based World Order, in October 1945.

Here are some extracts from an article published in the Guardian earlier this week by Ahmed Najar, a London-based Palestinian playwright whose family are trapped in Gaza.

“My parents, my sister and her family . . .  haven‘t left their house in days, except for a few desperate, terrifying attempts to find water. [One]time. . .they waited in line for more than  eight agonising hours, but the water ran out before they reached the front.”

”They are living in hell.  The bombardments are relentless, the explosions shaking the ground. On Thursday, Israeli strikes killed 28 people, including children, at a school in Jabalia.”

“. . . I watched an interview last week with Gabor Mate, a Jewish trauma expert and holocaust survivor. . . He spoke about how, when the rest of the world turns a blind eye to cruelty, it only gets worse . . . . [W]hat more does the west need to witness before it stops arming Israel?”

“How can the world stand by and watch as Palestinians are slaughtered, burned alive, starved, bombed?  What has happened to our sense of justice, of decency, of basic human compassion?”

“What does that say about us, about our world and about the future of our children?  If we can’t stop this, if we can’t demand justice and an end to this suffering, then we have failed – not just Palestinians, but all humanity.”

That’s just one war. 

The war in Ukraine grinds on. Here from yesterday’s Guardian are some extracts from an account from the Russian perspective.

“ . . . [N]ear the front line . . . two Russian soldiers recounted how they had fled their position  n eastern Ukraine after they were ordered to advance at night through minefields, a move they called a ‘suicide mission’. ‘Three groups already went ahead and  they aren’t responding. And we are the fourth. This mission was a one-way ticket.  We laid down our weapons and retreated.’”

“Russian soldiers have likened [the nature of Moscow’s warfare] to being thrown into a meat grinder.”

“Western analysts say Russian casualties in the war so far tally up to 115 000 killed and 500 000 wounded.”

“Statistics show that  most of those who are fighting and dying are either volunteers from impoverished Russian regions or former convicts, rather than mobilised soldiers. . .”

“The wives of those who die receive significant compensation, while their children are granted free university education. As a result, the families believe that the government is looking after their interests. . . . Across the country schools, parks and  public buildings have been marked with thousands of memorial plaques in what is framed as the ultimate sacrifice for the homeland.”

 Effectively a country sending its own citizens to be murdered and then declaring them heroes: a concept we thought we'd recognised as "that old lie" by 1918

 To these we can add Lebanon; and Sudan, Libya, Ethiopia and others of which we now hear little or nothing.

Seventy years after the dawn of new hopes we have tragically failed.  As I quoted on this day last year, we need statesmen or women of the same calibre of Mandela, gifted with magnanimity and the power to forgive.  None have yet emerged in the UK, there’s a real risk of the opposite in the US, and no signs in the rest of Europe, China, Asia or anywhere else.

Never before has the world been so comfortably able to share and enjoy the fruits of affluence.

Surely we are not hard-wired to be stupid.

A complete change in the tone of national international political debate is needed.  Instead the formerly "great powers" bleat from the sidelines.

We minions mouth  “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”

We also need to vote for it.

 

What are we still good at makiing (and doing)?

In my boyhood the UK helped to win the War using British made Lee Enfield rifles, British built Centurion tanks, British Spitfires and Hurricane fighters and Wellington bombers, and Clyde or Belfast-built warships. 

After the War we resumed producing Leyland buses and famous motor cars: Rileys, MGs and Austin Healeys; Rolls Royces, Lagondas  and Bentleys; Rovers Jaguars, and  Jowets (in Bradford), to name but some.  By contrsast the German Volkswagen company was limited to producing Austin Sevens on licence.  The Duke of Edinburgh pointed out that the British had invented Television and the Jet Engine.  What wasn’t to like?

Today the situation is different.  Our buses are all imported (and railway carriages and engines as well, I suspect), the only surviving British-owned car manufacturer is Morgan (I think), the world famous Sheffield steel industry no longer exists and  even the windmills that generate the clean electricity of which the government is so proud are made abroad.

So what, if anything, are we still good at?

Helpfully, earlier in the week (15th October)the Guardian’s Business Editor, Nils Pratley, provided a list.

The top eight areas, in no order apart from the first two are:

1.    Financial Services;

2.    Professional Services

3.    Technology;

4.    Creative industries;

5.    Advanced manufacturing;

6.    Defence;

7.    Life sciences;

8.    Clean energy.

These are the eight “growth driving sectors” in what might be called Labour’s “Industrial Strategy.”

As Pratley points out, it may seem odd to head an Industrial strategy list with services, but times have changed even if the nomenclature hasn’t.  We were taught to be very proud that Britain had been “the Workshop of the World,” that “Made in Britain” was a universally recognised mark of quality, and that “Sheffield Steel” really had been “The best in the World and the envy of the World.” 

With the wisdom of hindsight we can see that in the second half of the 20^th century we placed too much emphasis on things the World used to want and propping up the industries that provided them, and not enough on discerning the what the World’s wants would be  in the future, and  developing the skills  necessary to satisfy them.

In other worlds, to move from manufacturing things to supplying services.

That it didn’t matter whether we earned our living by supplying goods or supplying services was about the only issue on which I agreed with Margaret Thatcher.  Now I admit that both of us went too far.  There is an argument that an economy  needs a manufacturing base on which to support  service industries.  Both Germany and France have managed  to achieve a better balance.

With this in mind, the Government’s policy needs to be to enable the above eight sectors (plus two more I shall mention later) but to avoid nursing then. We are  already almost a quarter of the way though the “new” century, and the leading sectors of the last may not be the areas which the World wants or which we are good at providing in the future.

To take each of the above in turn:

1.     Financial Services. Our economy has lived on the back of these for years, but we may have lost our edge.  Joining the Euro would have helped maintain London’s pre-eminence.  Brexit was and is even more damaging.  However, I suspect most of the earnings of the City are achieved thought sophisticated gambling, along with tax havens and money laundering, all of which are morally dubious, so perhaps we shall be happy to move out.

2.    Professional Services. These include Insurance and Legal services.  For the latter, Sir Keir Starmer’s commitment to the Rule of Law, including International law, should strengthen our position.

3.    Technology.  In this sector   our major strength in design needs to be supported by an increase in the provision and prestige of technical education.  We need skilled artisans as well as gifted designers.

4.    Creative Industries. It has become the fashion to mock qualifications in “performing arts” as somehow substandard and frivolous. Yet this is an area where we are and remain respected members of the top  World Leagues. The reduction in funding of the BBC, a major sponsor of the arts, is nothing short of criminal and should be reversed, along with support for the BBC’s  news and communication services.

5.    Advance manufacturing.  I’d be interested to know of what.

6.    Defence.  This is a heavily subsidised area.  Maybe it is in all countries, but I doubt that British defence industries would flourish  without heavy government assistance.  Procurement by the services is hugely wasteful.

7.    Life sciences.  The universities play an important part in this and should be treated far more generously.  The current fashion of precarious short-term contracts for lecturers and researchers is inappropriate.  The pharmaceutical industry tends to exploit the NHS.  There is a strong case for at least one nationalised firm dedicated to supplying the NHS with drugs at cost.

8.    Clean energy.  Given that we are surrounded by oceans in which the tides come in and out twice a day (and four times in the Solent) without fail, we should become World Leaders in wave and tidal power.

I’m surprised that Higher Education is not included in the list.  There is a huge demand from international students to study for first and  higher degrees, and do post-doctoral research, in our universities. The previous government’s obsession with keeping them out beggars belief.  Let’s hope this policy is soon reversed, and not just to subsidise domestic students.

The Tourist Industry is also a major area for earnings.  We have a history and culture which interests people from many parts of the world as well as our own residents. We need to preserve the physical manifestations of it.    Among other “relics” our cathedrals and historic  churches should be maintained from the public purse, not be forced to pester their declining  congregations and exploit their visitors.  We need a smoothly operating transport network and hospitality facilities to enable visitors and natives to explore our country without trauma.

 A tall order?  Yes. A ten year pogramme, at the very least.