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What Ed Miliband should tell the Durham Miners’ Gala

July 14, 2012 12:54 pm

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A few Labour blogging types were discussing Ed Miliband’s decision to attend the Durham Miners’ Gala on twitter last night. I ventured the opinion that it would be the perfect opportunity to use the credit gained by speaking at the Gala to say some things that appealed to an audience beyond the Gala – and challenged, as well as cuddled, the Labour movement.

Mark asked me if I’d be willing to draft up a quick version, and being a fast typist, the following counterfactual speech resulted. Apologies for any typo’s. I had to work quick!
———————-

“Friends, It is a pleasure, and an honour to be here with you.

The Miners’ Gala was founded celebrate the achievements and mourn the losses of the brave men and women of the Coalfields.

For decades, Labour leaders were proud to stand with you in that celebration, in that remembrance.

Yet for too long the bitter dissension of defeat meant great Labour leaders, men who cared passionately for the welfare of all, felt unable to stand with you.

They stayed away because they felt they could not both be honest with you and be welcome here. They could not tell you a difficult truth. That the world was changing, and that we -all of us- had to change with it or die.

Now, a generation has passed since the bitterness of defeat soured our long alliance. Almost all the Pits have closed. Where there were hundreds of thousands of miners at the Big Meeting, now there are just hundreds. The battles that seemed so urgent are today memories.

But the animating spirit of the Gala lives on. There may be only hundreds of miners now, but there are thousands who share their values. The spirit of the Miner’s Lodge did not die when the pits closed. It lived on in our togetherness, in our celebration of community, in our belief that we should support one another through crisis. It lives on in our pride at battles fought, and in our regrets for struggles lost.

Today the Miners’ gala does not mark the achievements of a single tribe, but celebrates those who share those proud values. Here today are Miners with their children and grandchildren. Nurses and doctors, with those they care for: Teachers, with parents: Fire-fighters, charity workers and volunteers with those they serve: Union members with entrepreneurs.

And yes, all of us peacefully, happily, proudly alongside our brave police. So this is no longer a meeting of one industry, or one region. It is a celebration of a shared history, and of the potential of every one of us.

Today, as Labour leader, In honour of the past, and in commitment to our future, I am proud to renew our links. I promise you this: I will always stand with you, and I will always tell you the truth.

I stand with you because we must stop the terrible waste of this Tory government..
So many of us feel the wasted chances of this Coalition.

The waste of potential in scrapped school buildings and higher fees.
The waste of health as hospitals are in administration and waiting lists go up
The waste of talent as soldiers and police are sacked.

Last year we said the wrong Tory values would lead to the wrong Tory answers.
This year we saw the consequences.

They cut valuable services: but borrowing is up.
They pursued austerity for growth : but we are in recession still.
They said they’d create jobs : But unemployment is high and there is no work.

Worst of all, they said “we’re all in it together” : But families suffer, while Bob Diamond gets a tax cut. That is more than wasteful. It is shameful. So this Gala is the voice of communities in the face of cuts that go too far, too fast.

But if opposition in the face of cuts were the only driving force of this Gala, it would be a betrayal of the generations of miners who stood for something more than opposing cuts alone.
If our alternative was just a better deal for the public sector, no matter how worthy, it would be a sham. Our alternative must be a fairer deal for all. Public or Private. Young or Old, Working or unemployed.

Why? Because the Miners’ Gala today is for the miners and their families who spend their time volunteering, caring, and giving of themselves.

So Labour now must be for the volunteers across this country.

Why? Because the Miners’ Gala today is for nurses working longer hours, to look after sufferers from Pleural Plaques, for the community wardens who keep our communities safe.

So Labour now must be for those sacrificing on the frontline of our services and for those who need them.

Why? Because the Miners’ Gala today is for workers at Nissan who sacrificed pay in the face of crisis, so their colleagues could keep their jobs.

So Labour now must be for workers in the private sector who need skills and decent pay.

And most of all, because the Miners’ Gala today is for the millions squeezed between low wages, high unemployment, and ever rising prices – families who are tightening their belts so their children get what they need to learn and grow.

So Labour must be for all those who feel let down, squeezed and put upon.

It is for all of them that we gather today. It is for all of them that I lead this party and I seek to govern our nation.

I do this in honour of our past. The Miners’ Gala takes its moral force not from self-interest, or sectional advantage, or from proud banners, but from shared sacrifice.

The miners inspired the Labour movement because they showed the power of putting the common interest before self interest. It was willingness to sacrifice the quiet present for a better tomorrow that sustained them through arduous and dark days, that won great victories.

Today the consequences of self-interest seem to leave our country in a sea of troubles. Debt. Division. Unemployment. Greed.

So let’s be honest and straightforward about what we face.
We know times are tough, that money is short.
Things wouldn’t be easy whoever was in power.

The alternative I offer does not hide from these challenges. It does not shirk the difficulties that lie ahead.

There are great challenges ahead. We need to create millions of jobs.
We need to transform our nation’s skills and education. We need the infrastructure, housing and green energy that will meet the demands of a changing world.

All of that will cost money. Money we have all too little of.

On top of that, when we get into government there will still be a deficit, still be unemployment, still be waste, and inefficiency, and human tragedy.

So this is the hard but vital task:

How can we do all that we must to renew our nation when families are already making sacrifices to make ends meet?

How can we do all that we must to renew our compassion when public servants must accept a pay freeze so their service survives?

Hw can we do all we must for those who need succour, when those so many of us feel put upon and squeezed?

Well, for a start, we’d ask the very wealthiest to contribute a share of their bonuses to lift the burden on the many. We’d clamp down on tax avoiders. We’d ask those who have most to give a little more.

But friends – that will not be nearly enough for what we need to do.

We need businesses to prosper, exports to flourish, to build more houses.

We need new rail networks, more housing and a greener economy.

We need the promise of new technologies and the power of research.

We need to put investment, education and invention at the heart of economic policy, because without those we cannot prosper.

We need all this because the secret of economic success is not short term wealth, but long term growth. So to succeed we need our children to be well educated, our workforce to be highly skilled, our families and communities to be strong and safe.

So I will stand with you, but I won’t lie to you.

The only answer comes if all of us put the opportunities of the next generation before our own short term interests.

That is why those who shout the decayed rhetoric of division and bitterness and easy opposition do not speak for me: they cannot create a sustainable future for all, just defend the immediate interest of some.

We know where that leads. To fleets of Taxis scuttling round our streets, handing out redundancies. To chaos, to retreat and to the worst betrayal of all: triumphant Tory governments.

The changes we need to make for the long term means short term sacrifice. So I can’t offer pay rises, or thousands of extra staff, or extra spending in every public service.
I’d love to tell you we can painlessly tax our way out of this, but it isn’t true.

The hard truth is we can put taxes on the wealthy and privileged up, but if we want to build trainlines, and green energy networks, and housing, if we want to give our young people skills, and help them start businesses, if we want to help struggling families get by, we will have to hold down spending too.

I refuse to pretend there is an easy path out of the economic crisis.
I can’t offer you a bribe. I won’t insult you by telling you a fairy story.

Instead I come here to offer a common cause: One rooted in what our movement has always stood for. Shared sacrifices for national renewal. And I swear to you this, with Labour the burdens will be shared fairly. With Labour, the benefits will go to the many, not the few.

So let our message be heard. Tory Austerity is not working. It is hurting families, Slowing growth, causing unemployment Harming charities, services and communities.

But there is another way. Support growth to get the deficit down.
Help families who are making big sacrifices by asking for just a little from those who can give the most. Restrain spending when growth returns, and use the proceeds of growth to pay down debt, invest for the future, not simply spend for the moment, no matter how tempting.

We should do all this, not for ourselves, but because our first duty is to help the next generation fulfil their potential– even if this means a shared sacrifice today. Take this alternative, and we can meet our national challenges. Grow our economy, Reduce our deficit and build a stronger, fairer country.

But more than that, we will truly honour the sacrifices of all those miners who came to Durham in common cause to secure a better future for all.

Related posts:

  1. Durham Miners’ Gala: Liveblog
  2. Did you dig deep for the miners? If so read on…
  3. Chilean Miners: A tribute, and a reminder
  • Keith Newman

    I take it you didn’t enquire  if any of the drivel you have written above needed to be factual?

    • Hopi Sen

      nice to meet you too. Which bit of the drivel lacks veracity? Otis that you just disagree?

  • Brumanuensis

    “You couldn’t have it if you DID want it,” the Queen said. “The rule is, jame tomorrow and jam yesterday – but never jam today”.
    “It MUST come sometimes to ‘jam to-day’,” Alice objected.”No, it can’t,” said the Queen. “It’s jam every OTHER day: to-day isn’t any OTHER day, you know.”

    • Brumanuensis

      Though that said, I agreed with a lot of it.

  • Brumanuensis

    Is there a phrase more guaranteed to shrivel the soul than “A few Labour blogging types were discussing Ed Miliband’s decision to attend the Durham Miners’ Gala on twitter last night”?

    • Hopi Sen

      I dunno.. Maybe ” a few people decided to make snarky comments on a blog post about a fictional speech that resulted from a few Labour blogging types discussing the Durham miners’ gala? That sounds pretty soul shrivelling too!

      I jest though. Yes, I’m a political obsessive. Compared to the electorate so is everyone who visits this website, let alone comments on the posts, or writes for it.

      • Brumanuensis

        Perhaps. It’s amazing what a large volume of purple prose will do for my snarkiness.

        • Hopi Sen

          That is fair enough!

  • therealguyfaux

    Sure, let’s go back to digging up a lot more coal and putting the miners back to work, and let’s use the coal for– What?  Can it be used to fuel power plants without some people getting all bent out of shape about carbon emissions?  Say, I’ve got it– we sell it to nations whose carbon credits allow them to use coal!  After all, they’re foreigners; do we really care if they’re fouling their own nest? Someone tell me how commemorating the struggles of the workers in what was then and is today a buggy-whip industry can have anything more than historical interest.  What does it tell us in terms of what we will need to do in the 21st C.?  One could make the inconvenient point that the coal industry fueled the Industrial Revolution and put the Luddites out of work; shall we commemorate the Luddites for their devotion to the cause of the workers, a cause which would have strangled the coal industry, and any miners’ union to have emerged therefrom, in their cribs? King Coal will never return unless there is a laxity in environmental standards– talk about having to make sacrifices!

    • Hopi Sen

      I agree, and must have drafted poorly I Ieave you with the impression I believe the mining industry will be back in any significant degree

      • therealguyfaux

        My point was that it actually COULD be done, but at a cost too dear for most people, and hence a non-starter.  Thus, Ed Miliband addressing the crowd there can inspire all to a good cry in their beer about days gone by, but it is just an emotional outlet, similar in its way to how American Southerners circa 1900 viewed the Confederacy, an idea whose time had long since passed, and which, if attempted again, would have been even less successful.  I did not for a moment think you were advocating a return to the days of the mines; rather, I was saying that, for all the emotion that the issue raises, the brute fact is that, were the mines re-opened, so would a Pandora’s box be as well, and this needs to be said lest we get too overwrought with nostalgia.  And the question of how to deal with modernisation of technology, and considerations far beyond the interests of a relative few, are what face us ahead in 2012 as in the 60′s thru 80′s; decisions need to be taken, and they can only be done on the basis of what we know now or can reasonably foresee.  That’s what was done then.  Sad that so many people were displaced, but what in heaven’s name else could have been done?

    • Trudge74

      Carbon capture?

  • DaveCitizen

    Hopi, you have missed a crucial ingredient if you want this new relationship to last:- a coherent explanation as to how we re-balance society so it incentivises the many rather than a rich few.

    To do this he’s going to have to grasp the nettle of reversing extreme wealth inequalities and we can’t grow our way out of that. It will mean taxing land and property out of the hands of a small group who have a strangle hold on labour and asset costs through rental streams. Building a competitive economy that produces real wealth rather than just rent & profit streams to capital means hitting extreme inequality hard. 

    • Hopi Sen

      I’m open to Increased tax on wealth- indeed I memtioned the need for it, but I think it’s vanishingly unlikely such an approach can deliver all the alterations we seek.

      First because a tax on held assets does have consequences- lower asset prices etc, second because not utterly mobile punitave rates will have an impact on mobile assets.

      Remember asset taxation has been proposed for a century or so – there are reasons it’s been often put off

      • John Dore

        A very pragmatic view Hopi

      • DaveCitizen

        “Remember asset taxation has been proposed for a century or so – there are reasons it’s been often put off ” Of course there are reasons Hopi – try those relating to vested interests (try Mancur Olson on ‘Social Rigidities’ or Adam Smith himself on the ‘Discouragement of Agriculture’.  

        And remember, Britain is not the only place having a go at this ‘run a society’ lark. We have an abundance of examples on our door step that operate much more egalitarian, but still economically successful societies. I expect there are reasons why they didn’t put off tackling extreme wealth inequalities when we did. We really can’t keep finding excuses to maintain such obscene inequalities of opportunity and associated wealth.   

    • John Dore

      Dave,

      I am not rich however I think you’re concentrating on the wrong thing. What we need is growth and jobs, this is not reversing wealth inequality but getting the population to think differently. Taking all the money off the rich does not deliver anything but revenue for the government to spend. Moreover it deters the wealth creators from wanting to be in the UK / people of the UK wanting to create wealth.

      What we need is a culture shift, with labour creating the responsible capitalism we need.

      • Keith Newman

        In other words, you need Tony Blair back!

        • http://twitter.com/mistyblulabour dave stone

          Did Tony Blair create responsible capitialism? Let us know if you find the evidence.

          • John Dore

            Quite.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray

            No, we don’t need anyone ‘back’, because we can’t look to the past in the hope that the solutions of those times will somehow be right for today

      • Losange

        “Taking all the money off the rich does not deliver anything but revenue for the government to spend.”

        And that’s a bad thing when you’re trying to tackle debt and deficit?

        • Boney63

          But Taking all the money of the POOR is ok then !!!!
          Take it from the ones who have it not the ones who don’t is that not  common sense…

      • DaveCitizen

         Hi John,

        I think you and I may well broadly agree on the kind of outcomes we’d like – a healthy economy delivering good quality job opportunities to people who are willing to gain skills and work hard. It sounds to me like we simply disagree on a realistic means for getting to that end.

        I do not believe we can move to a mass high skilled economy, with rising real living standards for most ‘ordinary’ workers, unless the country shifts to low asset costs to balance out the relatively high labour costs that go with living in a socially responsible European country. That means cutting back rent streams and releasing land and property to new entrepreneurs at low cost. All this means taking on powerful existing interests who wish to use such assets to maintain personal wealth streams and the status quo.

        The growth and jobs you’ll get if you continue propping up established interests will not be good for mass living standards and extreme inequality will continue to scar millions of lives.   

        • John Dore

          Dave I agree on your first paragraph. When compared to the
          rest of the world our property prices are not the biggest issue.

           

          I disagree with you on property, we cant make the transition
          you want due to vested interests. The best example I have is myself. I took on
          a mortgage of over 4 times my income 15 years ago. Destroying the value of my
          house is not going to make me happy or my lender happy.

           

          Destroying the value of property has an adverse affect on
          pension funds, companies that own property and millions of house holders. The
          mere suggestion of this would ensure electoral loss. What would  be a great policy is government intervention
          to provide new entrepreneurs premises at low cost. That would be a real
          vote winner, a Labour policy to be proud of.

  • Daniel Speight

    What Ed Miliband should tell the Durham Miners’ Gala if he were Hopi Sen impersonating George Osborne.

    • Hopi Sen

      Well, not George Osborne, but I would like to convince some other Tory voters that Labour has answers to their doubts about us, yes.

      • http://twitter.com/mistyblulabour dave stone

        “I would like to convince some other Tory voters that Labour has answers”

        In my local boozer which, it must be admitted, is in one of the safest Conservative constituencies in the country, I sometimes find myself in conversation with three Conservative councillors. We agree on a number of important concerns: Tony Blair betrayed the armed services and (in our opinion) is a war criminal. The Iraq war was a disaster. And Labour was negligent in allowing the bankers too much free reign.

        If Ed were to put clear water between this toxic legacy and the current Labour project then I’d say we would have gone a good way towards convincing some Tory voters that Labour has answers.

        • treborc

           I suspect he will once he asks Blair if it’s OK.

  • 1earthmother2

    Very likeable speech if a tad too long.I must admit not to be reaching for the tissues or standing as part of the ovation.
    One criticism is it implies though a sort of resignation,rather than inspiration:it produces apathy rather than empathy.The Labour message has to be one of hope not there is nothing we can do so we might as well all go home and commit suicide.,
    The importance of The Miners Gala for the Labour leader is not so much what he says is the fact that he is there at all because it means an awful lot.Firstly that Ed Miliband keeps his promise to attend-”He says what he means and he means what he said” to quote Tony Benn.More importantly I think it marks an ending of the Labour party acceptance of what has come to be termed the neo-liberal consensus of the Thatcher/Blair/Cameron axis.

    Apart from that slight criticism the speech was very enjoyable but it is more important that Ed is there than what he says.

    I’m sure the hoped for 100,000 people will give Ed a very warm welcome.

    • Hopi Sen

      You’re right – it is too long. Especially since Ed was scheduled to speak in the
      open, after 90 mins of other speakers on a wet and cold day. Knowing
      that, I’d probably cut the speech in half- keeping most of the first and last few paras though

      • Boney63

        if you were there it was not wet and it was not that cold i felt about 5 drops of rain and that was it ….

        • Hopi Sen

          It was a predicted to be a wet and cold day though, and after ppl have been standing there for ages, and you’re one of the last speakers, brevity is welcome!

  • aracataca

    Isn’t this piece a bit silly and shouldn’t we focus on what EM actually said?

    • Hamish Dewar

      Let’s hope it was better than this empty rhetoric.

      • treborc

         That’s the problem is  it not, Miliband said a lot , but actually said every little.

        It’s a pity really but nothing that Miliband says or does is not written or put in place by others, perhaps Hope can perhaps write some stuff for Miliband, then he will ask Tony if it’s OK and then we will see.

    • Hopi Sen

      ed basically said : community is great, tradition is great, you are great, the govt is bad, if I’m elected I’ll do good stuff. I summarise, but that was the thrust. Entirely reasonable and good stuff, designed to commit the minimum possible amount of news, I would guess.

  • Brumanuensis

    On a less sarcastic note.

    Could you explain why, in your writings on ITBL, you condemn universal child benefit as wasteful, but simultaneously advocate universal free childcare?
    On an unrelated note, if we wanted to raise seed capital for a national investment bank, couldn’t we just flog off the remainder of the BoE’s gold reserves? A back of the envelope calculation based on approximate current prices in Sterling suggests that would raise about 9.83 billion. And considering the gold is just sitting there at present and isn’t being used to back up our currency…

    • Losange

      Gold and Trident are status symbols. We can’t do without those.

    • Hopi Sen

      I have friends who hate gold bugs who advocate exactly that- however I suspect it’s the sort of thing best done in govt, not proclaimed in opposition.

  • Amber Star

     If it’s honesty Ed’s going for then in my imagination he’d say:

     ”I’m a London politician with only a second-hand idea of what you & your families are going through. I admire your stoicism; I admire your historic struggles as I admire the courage shown by previous generations of my own family. Previous generations changed the world. I’d like to do the same but sadly, I’ll probably only get to tinker with it a bit. Nevertheless, I’ll try with all my mite (it’ll sound like might when he says it) to tinker in a way that favours you rather than the uber-wealthy.

     ”Uber, as you probably know, is a German word. And if one more person rams down my throat what a huge success the German economic miracle has been, I will stop wanting to punch him in the face & actually do it! Because the success of the German economy was founded on the deaths of people in my tribe; like the British economy was built on the sweat, pain & death of you & yours.

     ”But I digress; that’s the past, we’re expected to get over it & look forward; & we are where we are. So, if you’ll throw your support behind Labour, I’ll do all that I can to deserve that support. I’ll try not to let you down.

     ”For the rest of today, I’m going to forget politics, try to forgive the bad things which have passed whilst celebrating the successes &, most of all, just enjoy being here with you. I hope you feel the same.”

     Of course Ed can’t possibly say any of that & it’s only in my fevered imagination that he might want to - but there’s no point writing an alternative speech that’s more politically correct & naff than the actual speech, is there? Yes, I’m looking at you, Hopi. :-)

  • Andwhynot

    Close but lacks the radical statements that are needed. Treat public and private sectors alike – link pay. Restore ALL NHS cuts. Nationalise failing areas in private sector – rail, energy and water to start. Link all bank lending and savings to BoE interest rate. Progressive tax system with 90% on earnings above £5m. Terminate Trident.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray

       Yes, this sounds a bit more like it.

  • http://twitter.com/charlesbarry Charles Barry

    Interesting stuff Hopi. I have to admit I was surprised at the speech Ed gave. Not because it was bad, it wasn’t – it was well delivered and received warmly. Not that it was (as you might put it) insufficiently ‘challenging’ for the audience – it wasn’t but I don’t think it would have helped anyone to have gone down that road.

    The reason I was surprised was how ‘light’ the speech was. Yes it was uplifting, yes it was vaguely inspirational, but the thing is this was the headline speech and I think people were expecting something a little bigger. Maybe that was just me because the whole ‘leader comes back’ thing had been hyped a little too much. Maybe Ed just thinned the speech because the timings had over-run and people were getting tired out. I dunno. I just felt while it was a good speech I’d heard it all before.

    Although I admit my mood had soured because a bunch of SWPies rocked up near the front of the stage and started shouting and waving a banner which read something like “Tories AND Labour all are the same, still playing the banker’s game”.

  • Politique

    Well done to Ed Miliband and thank you

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray

    This reads like the ConDem policies with a few pseudo-Labour platitudes.

    Worthless and wrong.

  • http://twitter.com/WeTheCommunists We The Communists

    After 23 years, a Labour leader has attended the Durham Miner’s Gala. One small step towards the right direction.  Meanwhile, listen to what Baroness Warsi has to say about the visit: “…to cosy up to his (Miliband’s) militant, left-wing union paymasters.”

    A word to Baroness Warsi- it is better to cosy up with ordinary workers – than not to declare directorship and shareholding in private companies.  It is much much better than being investigated by parliament watchdog over reports of accommodation allowance abuse….

    That said, let us not forget what are Ed’s view on workers and his attitude towards their strikes for existence. Let us also not forget the not-so-old New Labour’s past –> http://wp.me/p1FXBz-4R

    • john p Reid

      I’m not sure if we are communists and thornalope and crude parodies like, Millie tent, Dave Smart or Laurie penny.

      Let’s get this straight, From 1989 when Kinnock dumped Unilateralsim The closed shop renationalisation, the Closed shop,not backing the temporary measures anti terrorism, and increased labiiurs vote from 8.3million to 11.3million he was adviesd not to attend as the nions and hte mienrs were still remembered for causing the union movement to go from being something that the public backed to the public losing sympathy for them, and of course this eads tohow laobur get back the 5 million voters they’ve lost in the last 13 years, they do what it took to get 5. million more votes rom 1983 to 1997 ,they appeal to the middle ground

  • Alan Giles

    One thing Ed needs to explain is this:

    Having said recently that New Labour was dead, how does that square with welcoming back Tony Blair to advise him?.

  • https://mikestallard.virtualgallery.com/ Mike Stallard

    “If our alternative was just a better deal for the public sector, no matter how worthy, it would be a sham. Our alternative must be a fairer deal for all.  Public or Private. Young or Old, Working or unemployed.”

    Yup, that is what will win Labour the next election all right.

    And bankrupt our little divided country too.

    • Daniel Speight

      And bankrupt our little divided country too.

      You may be a little late to give these fake warnings to scare us Mike. In case you hadn’t noticed the banks have already bankrupted us. All we can do now is try and repair the damage done by neo-liberal economics.

      • https://mikestallard.virtualgallery.com/ Mike Stallard

        No, the bankers are only part of the problem.
        This is actually quite an important point.
        To get elected, all governments, whatever colour their rosettes, have to promise money and goodies as hand outs. Otherwise they do not get elected. This is as true in Germany as it is in America as it is in Greece.
        And it is true here.
        As far as I can remember, Gordon Brown never borrowed over a trillion pounds.
        There are no cut backs overall. Just a bit of redistribution which of course, hurts.
        George Osborne has actually increased his spending.
        I got the facts, I must admit, from John Redwood’s blog which, I realise, is anathema here.

        What we need, actually, is a government, of whatever colour, which will start paying back our debt and stop promising what it cannot afford.

        • PeterBarnard

          Mike S,

          If you believe John Redwood’s facts on public expenditure, well, I’ve got a tower in Blackpool to sell you.

          HM Treasury has just released the public expenditure data* for 2011/12 and, in real terms**, Total Managed Expenditure has fallen from £705.6 bn (2009/10) to £694.9 bn (2011/12).

          Not including public sector debt interest (which is a transfer payment from one individual to another, not an expenditure of government), public expenditure on services in real terms has fallen from £673 bn (2009/10) to £647 bn (2011/12) : down 4%.

          * Public Expenditure Statistical Analysis 2012
          ** 2011/12 price levels

          • jaime taurosangastre candelas

            It would be very useful if governments of whatever colour were banned from spending more than they raise in revenue, on pain of personal criminal penalties involving significant periods of imprisonment for Chancellors, Prime Ministers and senior civil servants who manage the money on a day to day basis.

            But that is strong medicine.

            So let politicians put forward fully costed proposals for their policies, and see if they have the cojones to propose gross expansions of the welfare state, or to ignore nonsenses such as £20,000 in housing benefit, while trying to avoid the unpopularity of tax rises to pay for their electoral bribes.

            All governments have done for most of the years is to put spending on the national credit card, and then pay back only the minimum per month. Enough, and clear them all out.

          • PeterBarnard

            That’s nonsense, Jaime, especially “national credit card.” That’s more than nonsense – it’s total bo**ocks.

            Government borrowing enabled (i) the expansion of our installed electricity generating capacity from 16GW in 1951 to 66GW in 1971 ; (ii) the construction of 1,500 miles of motorway between 1959 and 1979 ; (iii) the construction of millions of houses for people to live in ; (iv) the expansion of our hospitals for healthcare and schools for the education of children ;(v) and lots more.

            Borrowing for consumption is untenable in the long term ; borrowing for fixed capital formation is sensible if the economic return exceeds the cost of borrowing.

          • https://mikestallard.virtualgallery.com/ Mike Stallard

            There are all sorts of questions here.
            First of all look at this sum:
            £1,000,000,000,000. At 1.00% apr, just subtract a couple of noughts. You could do a lot with that.
            And how do we propose to raise the interest? It must be through the banks, as the Spanish and Greeks and Italians and Irish are discovering. People put their money into the banks and that is where the money comes from to pay for the bonds which pay the bills of the Unionised government workers.
            I will, for the sake of argument, even allow that the current government is cutting back slightly more than the Labour planners would.
            But it does not look good.

            Secondly, nobody has addressed my other point yet: in order to get elected, all parties, whatever their rosettes’ colours, have to promise goodies. And they are. Even when they are broke. How do we deal with that one?

            Third, none of the politicians Labour, Conservative, LibDem seems to have run any kind of business. So what do they know? (Space for long list of Vince Cable, erm……..)

          • jaime taurosangastre candelas

            Peter, as always, you produce some specific figures, but also as always, you prefer that the specific figures you produce focus attention onto some little tiny detail, and not to the big picture.  It is a very clever use of statistics.  It obfuscates, it draws people onto a battleground of your choosing, it closes down the wider debate.

            We are spending too much,  we have been doing so for a couple of generations, and worse it appears that some do not wish to face this fact, instead clutching at Keynes straws.

            I notice that you very carefully do not try to dispute the substance of what I say earlier, instead relying on the conjurer trick of declaiming against something that sounds good to a warmed up Labour audience, and rely on your previous support to gain acceptance.  But it is true, it is not “bo**ocks”.  Our Government has been deficit spending since 2001, and before 1997 for dozens more years.

        • Daniel Speight

          Mike it can’t be denied that what we are going through now relates directly to the financial meltdown of 2008. Yes, sure we know that the political class made it possible by under-regulating the sector, but please don’t try to deny the culpability of the banks and bankers.

          Balanced budgets and deficit spending become a smokescreen for banking apologists to hide behind.

  • http://www.barder.com/ephems/ Brian Barder

    A very plausible first draft — especially all those verbless sentences (like this one), and each sentence having a paragraph to itself. 

    But where are the recognisably Labour, specific, radical, positive proposals, apart from the promise to increase taxation on the very rich?  We’re in a crisis with lack of aggregate demand at its centre, and increasing taxes on the rich (or anyone else) won’t help to stimulate or revive demand unless the proceeds of the increased taxes are channelled as directly as possible into the pockets of those with the highest propensity to spend it (the poorest), and not pumped into the reserves of the banks as the coalition constantly and futilely does, time after time.  Simon Jenkins suggested a special government grant of £1,000 to every UK citizen in the land.  It sounds mad but actually it’s exactly right.  Ed Miliband is too cautious to risk proposing anything as simple and effective as that, but at least he could make a (temporary but reasonably long-lasting) halving — or even suspension — of VAT the centrepiece of Labour policy and hammer home the contrast of that with the economically illiterate blunders of the coalition, whose remedies fo0r deflation are uniformly deflationary.   Unemployment and housing benefit could be doubled.  A Labour government should be hugely increasing capital infrastructure spending.  All this would add temporarily to the borrowing requirement, but (a) so does the coalition’s mad deflationary cuts fetish, and (b) unlike the cuts, it would give a very quick stimulatory jolt to the economy, revive spending in the high street, encourage a recovery in business confidence and thus  a willingness by business to hire labour (itself further stimulating demand) and to resume investment, which would require more private sector borrowing and might even prompt some of the banks to start lending some of the heap of dosh they’ve been given by the taxpayers for productive investment, all in a new virtuous circle.  Couldn’t Ed have spelled all this out in language that everyone can understand, without sounding patronising, but transmitting some enthusiasm for how different and how much better things could and should be?  It’s all fully consistent with what Ed Balls has been saying, but it needs to be made radical, different, simple, and exciting, and to come from the mouth of the leader.

    Of course it would give fresh heart to Labour and to the country if the speech could also include promises to:   abolish Trident (a criminal waste of money that achieves nothing) and to withdraw all our forces from Afghanistan (where their presence is part of the problem, not its solution) within six months of a Labour government taking office, and not to entangle Britain in any more fruitless foreign wars except when appropriate under UN auspices for peacekeeping, not warmaking, and systematically to restore nationalised, cooperative and municipal banks and genuine building societies in competition with the privately owned banks, and end the use of UK dependent territories as tax havens, and adopt a positive, generous and internationalist attitude to the EU and the Eurozone, and offer Scotland full internal self-government within the UK as part of a meticulously planned constitutional move over the next two decades to a full federation of the UK’s four nations — to include eventually a parliament and government for England and a small federal “states house” to replace the House of Lords, and to restore all public sector schools to the control of local education authorities, and to remove tax-free charitable status from all “public schools” (i.e. private schools) except those which adopt practical programmes to share their facilities, including teaching resources, with nearby state schools, and to phase out tuition fees, and to commit a Labour government to the restoration of civil rights principles to our criminal and anti-terrorist laws and to defend and strengthen the Human Rights Act and the Freedom of Information Act ….   Well, that might do for starters, although it leaves a lot out.  (Dream on!)

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