Labour's Future

There may have been many grand predictions over the last week or so forecasting the demise of the Labour Party. The Conservative Party was already doing well before last week, but since the brilliant Local Election and London Mayoral results, it seems that we must now prepare for government with altogether more realism and purpose. It seems apt, then, to see what ideological grounds there are for the continuation of the Labour Party as a viable force in British politics.

I would argue that New Labour, as a political entity, is ideologically bankrupt. When Labour won in 1997, it had a clear mandate and yet was not remotely prepared for power. After keeping to Conservative spending plans for a while, the Chancellor went on a biblical binge of public spending. Their mantra appears to count them in as both Conservatives and Social Democrats - 'Tough on crime; tough on the causes of crime', 'economic stability and fiscal prudence'; but also - 'education, education, education' and '24 hours to save the NHS'. New Labour chose what it liked from the left and right and slung them together into a melting pot of bare-faced opportunism, commonly known as the 'Third Way', a theory also espoused in times past by Bill Clinton and Gerhard Schroeder. New Labour has had considerable difficulty marrying the market economy with its so-called 'social justice' - I consider its approach to be electorally unsustainable, and ultimately, a failure.

The reality is, New Labour despises the populism of tax cuts and is fundamentally wedded to the expansion of the public sector, come what may. It is, hence, still dedicated to providing full employment. This fundamentally Keynesian principle is incompatible with the market economy. Full employment cannot be provided by any body but the government - it cannot exist as an objective in the private sector. New Labour has created thousands of new public sector jobs, many of which, I'll wager, are completely extraneous to the needs of struggling public entities, such as the NHS.

The failure of Labour to provide sufficient improvement to the NHS should, in theory, put the nail in the coffin of increased and unchecked increases in public spending. The NHS is a bloated and financially ravenous state monolith, the third biggest employer in the world, and completely unsuited to 21st century Britain. Labour have failed to convert it into a modern health service because they have relied solely on investment to achieve this - torrents of money have been buried in a bottomless pit of bureaucracy. Management structures were not reformed in time, leading to confusion, further layers of pen-pushers and, above all, monumental WASTE.

My point is, the Conservative Party cannot allow the issue of increased public spending to become an unspoken consensus between the political parties. We have to fight for lower taxes and radical reform of public services. If we can beat Labour on this issue, there is no longer the need for it, and there is no further reason for the electorate to vote for it. Its only plan in government was to maintain 'economic stability' at all costs - the famed 'stability' that Gordon Brown still crows about to this very day, even as it is unravelling before his eyes.

I do not expect Cameron and Osborne to conform to these ideas straight away once the Conservatives are returned to power. In fact, I'm glad that they're aren't doing. Even if the public are convinced that this approach is the right one, the Labour Party may still be able to use its age-old accusations of 'cuts' to hurt the Party, and jeopardize the outcome of an election. As New Labour did in 1997, the Conservatives must not rock the electoral boat to start with. However, if the mandate is as clear as I hope it will be, we must adopt a gradually more radical economic policy if we are to banish Labour to electoral oblivion. We must provide REAL improvements. Labour have failed to do that, and will never succeed with their current policies.

Unless something truly miraculous happens in the next two years, Labour will lose power in a 2010 general election. If Brown is still PM at that stage (which I hope for our sake he is), he will be forced to go - after which, the fun will really begin. Labour, I predict, will deal very badly with opposition. It is possible that the remaining socialists in Party (many of whom hold very safe seats) will break away to form a separate Party. Those on the right and in the centre of the Labour Party may join the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and/or form a pseudo-New Labour 'social democratic' Party. The trouble is, will any new centre-left bloc realistically have a chance of regaining power if the Conservatives are successful? Unless they establish a more substantially left-wing position (trade union power, abolition of private education, nationalisation of railways, etc), I doubt it. It is also worth considering that in the First Past the Post electoral system, that if Labour does split, it offers the Conservative Party the real possibility of long-term political hegemony.

With economic consistency comes political survival. New Labour's contradictory economic approach is irreconcilable. New Labour (not, necessarily, the Labour Party) cannot survive. Conservative notions of lower taxation, public sector restraint, economic freedom, fairness and entrepreneurialism will, and must, win the day. If we can prove that these values can be the basis for a public service revolution, Labour need never return to power.

Local Elections 2008

Ah, there's nothing like the smell of 44% in the morning.

Last night's BBC's coverage made for mostly excellent viewing - excluding, that is, Jeremy Vine's toe-curling and, frankly, patronising presentation of the results as they came in. Why on earth do people need to be shown the progress of the Liberal Democrats in the context of a shooting range on a Texan ranch? WHY? Where is my license fee going? It was awful.

Anyway, it rapidly became apparent that it was going to be a better night for us than many thought. Had we reached a glass ceiling? Was 40% the limit? No. The Southampton gain was, perhaps, the biggest surprise. Bury, of course, was symbolically the most important, where we gained 3 seats and finally took overall control of the council.

There are still around 50 results to come today, and, of course, the London mayoral race. The counting for that has begun this morning. I still think Boris must win to finish off a brilliant 24 hours for the Party.

ICM: Labour to lose 92 seats

ICM's figures for a general election are

Con 39
Lab 29
LD 20

I think the Lib Dems are overstated here but still, my 41/29/19.5 prediction was pretty accurate. But the extra half-point for the Lib Dems and 2% less for the Tories makes a big difference to the number of seats Labour loses. It just goes to show that we have to place nearly as much emphasis on defeating the Lib Dems as Labour.

ICM: Labour to lose 131 seats

More bad news for Gordon, as ICM will reveal in the News of the World tomorrow that the Tories are 8 points ahead in the 145 most marginal seats, 40-32%. That's a swing of 9% in marginals since the 2005 election - that's tangible progress.

From ConHome:

'Very interesting figures.

After some fun on UK Elect, I managed to calculate an outcome for a general election which would mirror these figures from ICM:

Con 41.0 (+144)
Lab 29.0 (-129)
LD 19.5 (-22)

Con Maj 66

I still think that unless things become apocalyptic, Labour are unlikely to do this badly - but in the current climate, who knows?

I wonder what ICM will come up with later on this evening....'

There is a national ICM poll due later on. I wonder if my figures will come close...

Zimbabwe Recount

Some promising news emerging from Zimbabwe this morning. It appears that Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party have lost in their bid to win recounted constituency votes in the parliamentary elections.

If so, this shows that even if there has been fiddling, it has not succeeded, and the ZEC has remained supreme. This is despite widespread violence against white farmers and opposition activists. Their tenacity must be applauded. Mugabe must be fought every inch of the way by the MDC using the democratic tools at their disposal. The fact that President Mugabe was apparently willing to strike a deal earlier on means that there is, surely, a chance that he may choose to do so again, if he feels that the game is up.

We still, however, await the results of the presidential election.

Humph

Jazz musician and I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue chairman Humphrey Lyttelton has died at the age of 86. He had a remarkable life as one of the most prominent British trad jazz musicians and a broadcaster.

He had presented ISIHAC since 1972, and had recently completed its fiftieth series. A truly irreplaceable man, he will be sorely missed by millions of British people whom he made laugh uncontrollably for so many years, myself included. His deadpan delivery and superb skill with words made him a perfect man for the role and a broadcasting icon.

26% and the economy

From CentreRight.com:

'The electorate is finally waking up to the extent of Brown's public sector binge. He assumed that the good times were going to go on forever. Even now, they still boast about low inflation, interest rates and unemployment. The fact remains that RPI inflation is running at around 4%, interest rate cuts are not being passed on (a friend of mine recently secured a variable rate of 6.7%); unemployment figures exclude thousands claiming bloated and undeserved benefits and they include many unnecessary appointments to an enormous public sector bureaucracy.

It is still unclear how severe any recession might be, but I would personally expect growth under 1% for 2008Q4 and of between 0% and -0.5% in 2009 Q1&2. House prices may fall 10-15% this year. RPI inflation may increase to 5% and beyond, leading to pressure for interest rate rises. If banks' liquidity problems are not solved soon, inflation-curbing interest rate rises could lead to severe difficulties for homeowners.

26% is such an awful poll rating for Labour, I cannot really see it going much lower. The Conservative vote, however, should gradually increase. We should set ourselves a target of not polling lower than 45% by conference season. Osborne v Darling polls must also improve. I still have my doubts about Osborne's ability to attack the government's record, whilst providing a coherent policy alternative. If things deteriorate rapidly, we must be prepared for government by the beginning of next year.'