Our politics is hidebound, but it’s still down to us to work it to our ends.
And we’re off!
Both the Tories and Labour have presented manifestos that explicitly rely upon “growth”. Both claim they need not resort to further tax rises, mindful that we in the UK already carry the highest tax burden for more than half a century.
For the Tories, that’s an insane gambit
If the Tories could have promoted any growth over the last 14 years, they already would have. It’s eluded them. Why?
Their problem is that they have insisted on a certain ideological commitment that must, inevitably, diminish the economy. There was a time when many of them frankly conceded that it would shrink the economy, but assured us that it would be but a blip, just an initial reaction that we’d soon get past, and then would the wonder of turbo charged growth be ours! However, the sunlit uplands have not materialised, and so the Tories are compelled to whinge their platitudes regarding plague and war, which, of course, must have impacted, but their impact can be accounted for in modelling, to reveal the underlying trends.
The underlying trends are dire, exacerbated by the Tories throwing ever more billions at our problems (even as they’re siphoning off further billions to friends and donors whilst they still can) to put off the day when the electorate accepts they were conned.
For most of the population, that day was more than a year ago. The will to revisit leaving the EU has polled pretty consistently at about 60% for two years (at about 80% for under 24 year olds).
So, the Tories relying upon growth is not only insane, it’s contemptuous insanity. They really do believe that we will swallow this self-evident nonsense. Or, possibly, they simply don’t have any alternative, but expect us to fail to notice that they have no alternative.
Is Labour as bad?
With Labour it’s a little different in that their new broom must be expected to try new approaches. Labour is also ideologically bound, but not as firmly, and it doesn’t carry the responsibility for getting us into this mess. It’s not their hill, most of the party has no interest in dying on it. Labour has some flexibility.
However, their manifesto still puts forward a reliance upon “growth” whilst maintaining the commitment to the Tory-boy neo-fascist ideological suicide pill that is Brexit.
Brexit is estimated to have cost the UK exchequer 40 billion a year. These parties are relying on “growth” to make our economy generate what we need for a functioning NHS etc, but we’d need a shed load of their magic growth *just to get back to where we were eight years ago*.
Labour would modify the relationship with the EU. That is welcome. But it’s welcome in the way that a nice cool drink is welcome in the desert: if you want to survive the desert, you need an oasis well, not a can of Tango.
So despair, or get to work?
But we are where we are, with who we’ve got, in this archaic first past the post system.
Therefore:
Step one: get the Tories out.
Step two: once Labour is in government, kick some sense into them.
The work continues…
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