The failure of New Labour is best described not in the its failure in this or that policy area, but in the fact that they have not even begun the process of pushing this country back in a progressive direction from the foul legacy left us by Thatcher. As New Labour's favourite think tank the IPPR have demonstrated (August 04) they continue to preside over that legacy's further entrenchment. On the rare occasions they do anything right or progressive they do so by stealth; when ever they do something reactionary they shout it from the roof tops.
Tony Blair
Tony Blair; what a strange , sad and disappointing case. To paraphrase John Major (who wasn't talking about Blair) everytime his name is mentioned I hear the 'flapping of white coats'. And I've got to come clean; back in 1994 I was his biggest fan. I believe I was the one and only member of the Reading Labour Party who actively campaigned for him. Curiously others remember it differently. I have been told (and have no reason to doubt the sincerity of the source) that my dear friend Martin claims to have been Blair's leadership bid south east campaign manager. To be honest I simply can't remember who Salter said he was supporting, but it certainly has the ring of truth. Once it was clear that Blair was going to win Salter would have wanted to be part of the bandwagon -though he doesn't mention it today.
Ten years ago Blair's platform for the Labour leadership was to democratise the party whilst keeping it true to its social democratic values. Instead he's done the reverse; kept his hands firmly on the levers of party power, whilst dumping any commitment to redistribute wealth and power however slightly. Thus he effectively ignores its declining membership, and pursues a body policy that can best be desribed as sub-Thatcherite nonsense.
Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown, meanwhile, is a bright man. We are supposed to believe that he was mapping out his economic strategy for years before the '97 election. Those who brief the press on his behalf let it be known that Gordon is actually a man frustrated by the Prime Minister's conservatism. But he continues to believe that raising taxes in obscure ways is better than making the case for higher rates of the only important progressive tax; income tax.
He ignores 2 of Adam Smith's principles of taxation; that taxes should be easy to collect, and understood by those expected to pay them (for example, pension dividend taxation, child tax credit, stamp duty, etc, etc) He endlessly tinkers with this or that fiscal wheeze to try and 'micro-manage' the economy. His desperate wriggling to keep the promise not to raise income tax has produced in both terms of this government two completely daft taxes;
in the '97 parliament he increased taxes on pension funds, just at the time that such funds were facing losses on the stock market. The result has been the virtual elimination of the final salary pension in the private sector;
in the '01 parliament he introduced the uncapped 1% increase in national insurance, adding further complications to the already confusing structure of income tax.
The marginal rate of tax on someone on £500,000 pa is exactly the same as it is for someone on £40,000. He continues to preside over a top rate of tax 20 pence in the pound lower than existed for the first 7 years of the Thatcher government (or 19 if you count the uncapped 1% on national insurance???). When he does do some redistribution he does it through byzantine methods like income tax credits that not even those administering them understand, causing much hardship in the process.
It is Brown, not Blair, who is the driving force behind the pointless, wasteful wheeze known as private finance initiative that will cost the taxpayer dearly in years to come.
His recent budget was more of the same, orientated around winning next year's election on a 'watch my lips; no new taxes', basis. He is at least as guilty as Blair of my central accusation; that we are still living in a society made for us by Thatcher.
Blunkett & civil liberties (and now Clark too)
And as for the domestic civil liberties agenda, post 9/11 and the recent Madrid bombings, it's difficult to know where to begin. Whilst we, in the west at any rate, actually live in an era of the lowest level of actual terrorst attacks of any time in my lifetime, the rhetorical 'war on terror' is constantly trotted out to justify repeated knibbling away at civil liberties. A saloon bar eccentric who just happenes to be the recently retired Commisioner of the Met says there are 100, 200, may be many more Islamic terrorists in the country. Ever heard the phrase think of a number and double it? Meanwhile Charles Clark, the one time Marxist, is continuing the headlong rush into a police state as the recent anti-terror bill fiasco turns Britain into a laughing stock.If there is one thing that will give us an Islamic terrorist problem in Britain it is the persecution of young Muslim men.
How can they live with themselves?
How can any Labour party member look at themselves in the mirror when their government locks up people without trial? Already the response to Madrid has been to ratchet up the 'war on terror'; like the conspicuously unsuccessful 'war on drugs' This banal mantra would appear to be Blair's only response.It is immensely depressing to watch the spectacle of junior home office minister Caroline Flint, a former friend and colleague, spout such risible bollocks as the new proposals (Aug 04) to further curtail the right to protest. Yes, some animal rights campaigners are dangerous nutters; but we should use the existing criminal law to deal with them, not further restrict the right to peacefully assemble. And at the moment this is just a proposal. In other ways the law is already being used in new and dangerous ways. To take a current parochial example the use of ASBO's in way they were never intended. Read, especially, the 8th para of this article, where a senior policeman is quoted. What he is really saying is the criminal law really is just too difficult for him to bother with, especially now he can go to a judge, and with only civil law proof have an elderly couple thrown out of their private property. This is the beginning of guilt by association of the kind practised by the zionists. And if any proof were needed of the value of judicial safeguards, the case against the elederly couple mentioned in the link above has collapsed in the face of having to prove the case beyond all reasonable doubt.
Whatever happened to ’tough’ on the causes of problems, not just the symptoms? Causes which might include;
A global trade system that provides over a billion people with less than a $1/day, and undreamt of wealth for the few; a gap between rich and poor that is getting larger.
At least 10,000 civilian casualties in the Iraq war of 2003, with estimates rising to 100,000;
Lack of progress towards self-determination for the Palestinians;
US policies in Latin America, especially its 40 year war in
Colombia;
US acquiescence in the Indonesian genocide in East Timor that killed 250,000 (1 in 3 of the civilian population)
One really does have to ask the question, was David Blunkett the most reactionary Home Secretary since Sidmouth set the troops on the poor at Peterloo?, and will Clarke continue his work all be it with a slightly more sophisticated veneer.
This is not good enough. There is no point in a Labour government that simply fulfills the historic Tory role of managing the country and agreeing with the foreign policy of the USA.
And behind the scenes who lets this happen? The rank and file of the Labour party, led collectively by the witless Parliamentary Labour Party. Has there ever been a body of 400 supposedly radical members of parliament so utterly ineffectual? Any Labour activist with more than 10 years membership, and almost by definition this includes all Labour MP's, must at sometime not so very long ago have activley advocated a body of policy and principles irreconcilable with those now pursued by the current government.
After the tragedy of the '92 election Labour had a choice, stay true the founding principles of the party and make common cause with the LD's -whose manifesto of the time was very similar, or move in to the gap in the market for a 'sensible' right of centre party left by the Tories as they went through a period of collective madness over Europe. Under Tony Blair they chose the latter.
Anyone with a long standing membership of the Labour party has to ask themselves how they square then with now. Did you really join the Labour party to to support a government that meekly followed George Bush into Iraq? Did you really join the Labour party to bequeath the up coming generation of students a life time of debt? Did you really join the Labour party to pursue a civil liberties agenda to the right of the Tories?
Those who have made a career of Labour activism should look through their notes of the speeches they made and the articles they wrote from that period and ask themselves if they can recognise what they said then with what they do now. (If you want an amusing juxtapostion of what they said then against what they say now of some of the Government's leading players get yourself a copy of the late John Golding's book 'Hammer of the Left'). Simply accepting the inequalities of the Thatcher society is betrayal of what the Labour party is supposed to stand for. The longer this acceptance of the present levels of division of wealth continues the more it is accepted as an act of holy writ. To put it simply any government worth supporting should, over time, make this country more like France, Germany, Spain and the European mainstream, and less like the USA. Blair & Co are doing the reverse.
Some argue that after the tragedy of the '92 defeat the great British public demonstrated they were not prepared to support a party with a progressive agenda, however slight. This, of course, is to forget that in that election a substantial majority voted for parties that did call for a decisive break with the post '79 period. But to those who argue that under these circumstances New Labour is the best we can aspire to I pose this question. In what sense is the totality of what the Blair government actually does in office to the left of what a hypothetical government run by Kenneth Clarke would do? I can think of very few policies where Blair is identifiably to the left of Clarke. I can think of several where Clarke is more progressive than Blair. For example;
The UK would not be mired in the Iraq fiasco;
university students would not be facing top up fees;
and Britain would probably have joined the Euro by now.