Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to Labour conference has raised the stakes for the Tories ahead of their gathering in Birmingham. Corbyn is mastering the art of making very radical things sound reasonable. Listening to him talking about ‘Inclusive Ownership Funds’ which ‘will mean workers share more fairly in the rewards of successful businesses’ you would have no idea that what this really means is the government confiscating 1pc of a companies’ equity every year without compensation; an idea that is bound to scare off business investment.
Labour want to present their agenda as a response to the 2008 crash. Jeremy Corbyn’s distance from New Labour means that the Tory arguments about how Labour policies made the crash worse, just bounce off him. If the Tories want to defeat the Corbyn agenda at the next election, they will have to massively step up their efforts to show that popular capitalism can deliver for the many. They need to both reform and reinvigorate capitalism. They also must help more people get capital – and that means building a lot more new homes. After all, you can’t expect those without capital to be capitalists.
The Tories also need to get much better at defending their own record. Why, for instance, isn’t the Education Secretary all over the media attacking Labour for undermining academies and free schools, which have done so much to drive up academic standards.
At the last election, the Tories underestimated Corbyn and ended up losing their majority. If they do the same again, they won’t be in power at all.
Comments