Electoral Runes

When will the general election be held? There has been endless speculation about this since the general election that never was in autumn 2007. I would have bet that Labour would have made a run for it early this year, spring at the latest, as the last chance they have of rescuing anything from the wreckage which is the UK economy. The three wise heads on Newsnight – one each from the Lib Dems, Labour and the Tories, have all been saying that early this year is the time for the Labour Party to have any chance. Their estimation is, and I agree with it, that the longer the depression continues (and people are now using the D word) the worse the Labour Party’s fortunes will be. It is rather like a patient with a toothache, who can manage it for a while with painkillers, but after several months of it they will do anything to end it, including using a pair of pliers, as someone did the other day who could not find a dentist. I have seen the electorate as capable of acting similarly, in that the longer this depression lasts, the angrier they will be with those whom they believe caused it in the first place.

Who promised an end to boom and bust? Who hailed the City as the wealth creators and refused to countenance any regulation on his watch? Who allowed the bonus culture to let rip and did nothing to invest the money from the years of plenty in long term training and the sort of re-skilling which Will Hutton and others are now talking about? The answer is clear – Gordon Brown, Chancellor for most of that period, and New Labour. It is no good Labour now trying to pass the blame and claim that the recession is global. Of course it is, but why did Spain, for instance, keep its banks regulated, and thus not suffer a banking crisis – although it has other problems?

The three talking heads on Newsnight have an interesting theory. They believe that it would be best for the Labour Party to go for an election now, in that it would lose that election, but would not be massacred. But they believe that the wishes of the Prime Minister are different in that he wants to remain in office as long as possible. Thus the interests of the PM and the party diverge. The rout in 2010 will be massive. Ed Balls and other government ministers are talking about the worst recession for a century. It is clear that things are much worse than the government is letting on and the longer the election waits, the worse the situation will become. Furthermore, it is clear that tactics like the VAT cut, have failed completely , and even Sarkozy has criticised it as short sighted. There are less and less weapons in the Labour arsenal and in the interim the skies darken.

The Tories now have a 12% to 14% lead. All that they need to do is snipe from the sidelines and watch the government lead its bedraggled troops across the economic wilderness. The Tories themselves have no economic policies to speak of but it is the incumbents who will get the blame. Some talk darkly of overthrowing Brown and having a new Labour leader calling a quick election. But it is too late for that. The New Labour brand is fatally tarnished. There is a desperate need for economic policies with vision such as a Green New Deal, the building of new council housing, the creation of new and sustainable public projects providing proper jobs for the unemployed, and the ending of grossly wasteful and obscene spending projects such as Trident. Instead Labour tinkers around the edges, while its pet projects such as PFI act as a millstone around its neck, dragging it into next year and electoral destruction.

Some thoughts on the subject here http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/10/is-there-any-way-back-for-brown-or-labour/