Labour's New Vision
Monday 29 June 2009 at 10:13 We are about to see the re-launch of the Government’s policy platform, an event originally intended when Brown came to power as his ‘vision’ but pushed aside by the credit crisis. It is now made necessary by the indisputable fact of an election within the next year.
What is interesting is that Brown’s position is now so weak that he had to have the general outline of the platform pre-announced by Lord Mandelson, an unelected but powerful ‘Deputy Prime Minister’ in all but name, in order to build some momentum.
Building Britain’s Future
Later today, the Prime Minister launches the main policy document. It has the typical New Labour-ish title, Building Britain’s Future. It is believed that the main theme will be the promotion of increased consumer choice in public services.
This, for those with long memories, reminds one of John Major’s consumer-directed response to an economic crisis in an earlier era. John Major lost his election, amidst a climate of ‘sleaze’.
Mandelson is also suggesting (a position fully shared with the Prime Minister) that the Government intends no compromise on its New Labour message. There will be no serious concessions to the Left of the Party just for the sake of Party unity.
This rings true. Labour solidarity after the disastrous June elections has now kicked in. Any bloodletting will come only after an election. Brown has everything to win and nothing to lose personally in sticking to the original narrative of the 1990s.
In his warm-up act, Mandelson put forward a programme that is still not entirely credible to the analytical community. Mandelson is claiming that, despite the massive borrowing required by the credit crisis, New Labour will spend more and undertake better reforms than the Tory Party
His authority, which he has earned rightfully despite significant party unpopularity and occasional errors of judgement, is being used to direct Government communications at the wider population (where he is better liked). The pointy-heads are less important when votes are being courted.
That this PR drive is also intended to consolidate the party’s wobbling traditional support is indicated by Mandelson’s one concession to Left critics - he says that the privatisation of Royal Mail might not take place before the Party Conference because of lack of space in the legislative timetable.
Coming Clean on Spending?
The bet for New Labour is on observable recovery by the Spring of 2010 but there is still widespread concern that New Labour is failing to ‘come clean’ on the scale and direction of future spending cuts.
This suspicion grew with the news that the Chancellor decided to abandon plans for the comprehensive spending review. This should have been held this year but it is apparently being deferred until after the General Election. The decision seemed to have been confirmed today by Mandelson.
The Government is engaged in a massive political punt on the economy. What the Government (through Mandelson) is claiming is that the ‘worst is behind us’. A return to growth before the election will, he claims, allow Government to maintain spending and investment.
This is a very big ‘trust us’ from the Government that failed to predict the original crisis and when the general trend from responsible analysts is to see global growth as slow and vulnerable - and Britain’s fiscal situation to be on a knife-edge.
It is now difficult to convey the general mood of the country during what amounts to a phony war between its people and its government. The expectation of most thinking people is of the chickens eventually coming home to roost on public spending and industrial restructuring.
To make things worse, news is now feeding back from overseas that the country has become a laughing stock over the political expenses stories, It is not so much the fact of corruption (lots of places are corrupt) as the petty and pervasive nature of the corruption, what with duck houses, moats and all.
A more serious effect is that, under New Labour's progressivism, the UK has been wandering around the tax havens and emerging countries of the world moralizing on fraud and corruption. Now it has been shown to have feet of clay.
It scarcely assists the UK’s moral standing in relation to its ‘enemies’ – whether Russia, Iran or Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. As we write, FCO officials are said to be (according to the FT) deleting those parts of speeches that call for higher standards of governance lest they cause mirth.
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