Finding an alternative to Brownism
Fraser Nelson 2:26pm
Danny Finkelstein does me the honour of Fisking my post on Tories and spending. I’m being a little bit mischievous, he suggests, by claiming the Tories didn’t offer tax cuts in 01 and 05. And I link to media reports, he says, not original documents. This is a huge debate, as future policy is based on response to past mistakes and my “ham and eggs” analogy was used by Cameron in his leadership campaign to attack Davis’ plans for tax cuts. It comes from the theory, quite a popular (yet false) one, that electorate somehow rejected the offer of tax cuts in the last two elections. Some, like Maude, have even suggested that Thatcher never promised to cut taxes. Anyway, here is my defence in reverse chronological order..,1) Letwin most certainly did promise to outspend Labour. Exhibit A (pdf) is his calamitous “medium-term expenditure strategy” whereby he formally submitted his party’s intellectually surrender to Brown. He’d increase spending at a slower rate than Labour (which Brown mendaciously described as a spending cut).
2) And the effect of Letwin? A tax rise – or as the IFS put it “tax revenues as a share of national income would still be above their expected level for 2003–04.” Their dissection of Letwinomics is Exhibit B (pdf).
3) Portillo more generally – I am on a stickier wicket. He did not produce a Letwin/Brown style five-year-plan and did pledge to outspend in health and education. But he also spoke of tax cuts – by his own admission, “modest” ones. The type of thing Brown sprinkles on the end of his budget as a sweetener. I hardly think this counts as a defeated tax-cutting agenda.
4) And as for The Lady, I can do no better for an Exhibit C than quote from Chapter Three of her 1979 manifesto:
“We shall cut income tax at all levels to reward hard work, responsibility and success… It is especially important to cut the absurdly high marginal rates of tax both at the bottom and top of the income scale… Labour's extravagance and incompetence have once again imposed a heavy burden on ratepayers this year. But cutting income tax must take priority for the time being over abolition of the domestic rating system”
I write all this with a feeling of nostalgia – the tax cut debate was never one which tore the party in two. At Bournemouth 06, Cameron wanted to boldly defy tax-cutters – but he couldn’t find any and had to resort to attacking Simon Heffer, Janet Daley and Lord Tebbit because so few MPs were into this. It was never a Clause IV issue.
That was then. As the ruinous effects of Brown’s profligacy come into sharper focus, the days of copying him are over. I may come to regret saying this but I have faith in Osborne. I expect he will never again pledge to match a Labour economic plan. Nor should he. Five years plans are for socialists. Conservatives realise that the outlook changes, and new plans are required for new situations. And an ugly, new one is unfolding before us right now. Every US presidential candidate has a radical economic policy for dealing with precisely this problem – whether it’s $1000 tax cuts per working family (Obama) or cutting corporation tax from 35% to 25% (McCain). There is an alternative to Brownism. And I suspect that, pretty soon, the Tories will finally find one.
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David
February 5th, 2008 2:46pm Report this commentAs a point to number 4, he mentions that, but goes on to point out it was paid for buy indirect tax increases. And I'm still trying to figure out how the electorate somehow rejected Brown's spending plans while voting him into government.....
Tiberius
February 5th, 2008 3:55pm Report this commentFraser, it is not false to say the electorate rejected those tax cutting policies. Labour successfully convinced many voters that such policies meant cuts in numbers of nurses and teachers, at a time when the economic situation was benign and many people were happier to enjoy kicking the wicked Tories than to worry that their tax rates were rising sharply (many through unnoticeable stealth taxes). Of course, there is or will be a day of reckoning. It is at this point that GO can come out with radical proposals (and I'm with you in having faith in him). As I have posted before, it is a question of timing because either; a)he leaves himself open even now to Labour cries of unfunded tax cuts (£6b on IHT - remember), or b)Brown will ape the policy and try to shoot the Tory fox. Something else I've posted before is that reforming centre-right governments abroad don't have a New Labour creed to contend with, dark arts and all .
TGF UKIP
February 5th, 2008 4:12pm Report this commentNow you ain't going to like this much Fraser, but I agree with you 100% or at least until the bit in your final para about having faith in Boy George. It is a complete canard, but one vigorously peddled by the SocDem Tory Left, that the public voted against a tax cutting, tough on crime and immigration conservative agenda in 01 and 05. They didn't, they simply voted against the Tories and who Tories were portrayed as being by the Blair/Brown/Mandelson/Campbell spin and smear machine. The name (and brand,if you like) Tory was long term tainted and poisoned by the mendacity of that fearsome foursome. No matter what the policies had been in 01 or 05 the Tories could not have been elected. Now though thanks to the sleaze, lying and corruption of the Blair/Brown governments Labour has been levelled down to, and possibly beneath, the Tory Party. Thus the Tories could now, if they wanted, really argue the case for a conservative agenda. And this is why I am so anti-Cameron and his clique. They are using the policy canard as an excuse not to make the conservative case but to shift the Tory Party ever more firmly and steadily onto their own SocDem ground. That's why Ken Clarke and the other old Lefties love Dave so much.
Fraser Nelson
February 5th, 2008 4:29pm Report this commentDavid, I'm not saying Brown's plans were rejected. Im just saying there has not been a discernable alternative on tax since GE92.
TGF UKIP
February 5th, 2008 4:43pm Report this commentBTW, for the delight and delectation of Coffee Housers over at order-order.com, Guido has a brilliant post on Gorbals Mick's Speaker's Panel to investigate MP's expenses as well as a magnificent video of The Trial of Wendy Alexander.
Trumpeter Lanfried
February 5th, 2008 4:47pm Report this commentThis is a very interesting analysis, but any appeal to the electorate must be dead simple; a soundbite, repeated time and time again until the message goes home. Labour's soundbite is 'Tory cuts'. Medacious, but memorable. The Tories' soundbite must be 'No more tax' and they must mean what they say. It must be an article of faith, an absolute imperative. Only then will the electorate respond.
Tiberius
February 5th, 2008 5:26pm Report this commentYou never disappoint, TGF! I can accept that the public did not vote for the extent of Brown's tax rises, and could accept your whole analysis if stealth taxes had been the only device used by Brown. But council tax rises were a grim reality from the early times of New Labour, as they reduced revenues given to local authorities, and Brown positively boasted of his NIC increase to fund the NHS out of general taxation. No, the electorate did more than just throw the baby out with the bathwater when they enjoyed kicking the Tories. They did buy into tax rises to improve health and education, and those who have not already done so will come to see that without reform the money is being wasted.
TGF UKIP
February 5th, 2008 7:00pm Report this commentTiberius, in 2001 the electorate were simply not ready to vote Labour out but were inclined to give them their chance to continue to implement their tax and spend agenda particularly on education and health. They were certainly not ready to vote Tory though, for the reasons I outlined above. By 2005, though, the stealth tax message had got home and the public were fed up with ever rising taxes and even more fed up with ever rising immigration and were far less disposed to vote Labour as demonstrated by Labour' 36% share of the vote and the overall 59% turnout. Unfortunately, they were still not disposed to vote Conservative partly because the damage done to the very name Tory was still extant, particularly with the continually smeared Michael Howard as Leader, and partly because the Tory campaign was undermined from within by the Tory's own SocDem left wing. That, however, Tiberius was then and now is now, when poll after poll shows an overwhelming number of voters believe their taxes to have been wasted and believe they are taxed too much. They are also even more pissed off over immigration and crime than they were in 2005. So Tiberius, the plates have shifted which brings us to the question of why your boy declines not only to get stuck into Gordon and Labour but to make a conservative case. I submit that's because he ain't a conservative but another SocDem and your problem is that you can't provide any substantive evidence to the contrary. You can vote Tory SocDem in 09/10 if you want, I won't.
Austin Barry
February 5th, 2008 10:04pm Report this commentDave won't get stuck into Gordon because of a belief in a chimera i.e. the liberal, nice chap/chapess who would love to vote Tory but do not want to appear other than, well, nice to their dinner party friends. Here's the news - these people are disappearing faster than Peter Hain's career. We are all angry, seething, resentful and disffected. Get really nasty Dave and you may be surprised at the surge in the polls.
TGF UKIP
February 5th, 2008 10:33pm Report this commentAustin Barry, you are dead right. For one thing Dave consistently polls as a less strong leader than Gordon and for another, as I persistently point out, Blair's week in week out duffing up of poor old John Major pre '97 didn't exactly do him any harm on polling day. No, I'm afraid prissy, PC, no "Punch and Judy" Dave had his image constructed for him by Creepy Hilton and he's sticking to it. Quite apart from which this lame, limp- wristed Opposition just doesn't have the bottle and hunger for power that Blair & Co had in the nineties.
Tiberius
February 5th, 2008 11:15pm Report this commentTGF: I think we're saying the same thing about the 2001 election. The electorate did indeed give their mandate for further tax and spend. In 2005, what you say over stealth tax is partly true, that the fantasy world promised by Blair was losing its shine, but the Iraq war was the biggest factor on the shift away from Labour. As for Cameron, mate, we'll have to continue to agree to differ on how radical he will ultimately be.
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