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We need to make the next election about policy, not leadership

September 20, 2012 10:51 am

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Paul Richards

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As Labour enters the slipway to the 2012 conference, it should be setting out its programme for government, because a 15 point lead in the opinion polls makes such a prospect a serious possibility. The irony is such a lead in the opinion polls is a total disaster for any serious debate about policy. What a 15 point lead does is dull the senses, and anesthetise the party to any sense of urgency. It creates the illusion that all Labour needs to do is keep its head down and wait. Even serious-minded shadow cabinet ministers are reluctant to announce new policies which may court unpopularity.

The role of the policy review has become to avoid policy. Why set out plans for reform of the NHS, schools, welfare system or police when you’re 15 points ahead of the Coalition? This is the politics of the madhouse. Two decades ago Neil Kinnock enjoyed such leads, but never won an election. ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ is a great slogan for a coffee mug, but it is no strategy for a party seeking office.

So Labour needs to craft its policy platform, fit for the age of austerity. When the Tories come for Labour, with their devious stratagems and multi-million pound ad campaigns, Labour needs a redoubt of policy responses. Tim Montgomerie in the Times this week made it clear that the Tories will attack Ed Miliband directly, just as they did with Kinnock. They will seek to turn the election into a question of leadership: our guy versus their guy. They’ve read the same polls we have, that show our leader lagging behind our party. Labour’s reaction must not accept the terms of that debate. The people around Kinnock sought to address the leadership question by remoulding the persona of the leader. They shoved him into double-breasted suits and regimental ties, and put words into his mouth that sounded inauthentic and synthetic. Today, we must not fall into the same trap.

Instead, we make the election about policy. We will inherit an NHS without primary care trusts, hundreds of academies and free schools, Universal Credit, and elected police chiefs (albeit ones few have heard of, and most haven’t voted for). The sense at the moment is that Labour’s policy is to press the re-wind button on all of this reform, and recreate the socialist utopia that existed in April 2010. It won’t do. The public don’t care about how NHS services are commissioned; they care about the service they receive. Parents aren’t bothered about local education authorities; they care about discipline, standards and exam results. No-one gave a hoot for police authorities. They were abolished without a murmour of dissent, because most people didn’t even know they existed. People care about the safety of their streets and the effectiveness of the police.

Labour’s job is to meet these rising public demands and expectations from public services with a programme of reform which leads to better outcomes. What matters is what works: to improve exam results, bring down coronary and cancer deaths, to cut road accidents, to speed up sentencing or whatever. We will inherit no shortage of public policy challenges. The trick is to reform services within straightened budgets. Like Labour in 1997 which stuck to Ken Clarke’s spending plans for three years, Ed Balls must demand improvement and reform from departments within spending limits set by George Osborne.

The evidence strongly points to a public resistant to traditional ‘tax and spend.’ The magisterial British Social Attitudes Survey shows that only three in ten want more spending on welfare benefits, over half believe benefits should be cut to make people ‘stand on their own two feet’, and over half want a significant cut in immigration. Only 37 per cent want income redistribution. In a recession, people circle the wagons around themselves and their families. They become less altruistic and generous with their taxes. They feel more threatened by change. They become more susceptible to the Tories’ narrative about the welfare state and Labour’s desire to waste your money. This anxiety and angst is what the Tories want to tap into. Their argument will rest on the ‘risk’ of a Labour government, versus the need for the ministers to ‘finish the job they’ve started.’

In 1992, Labour’s slogan was ‘time for a change’. But if enough people believe the ‘change’ would lead to something worse, they’ll stick with what they’ve got, no matter how unpalatable.

http://www.facebook.com/jim.crowder2 Jim Crowder

Sorry, I thought this was Labour List, not Conservative Home. Most of what you listed is Tory policy. Value for money, improved public services and all. The rest is trying to follow public opinion.

As I have often posted, the Labour Party needs to decide what it stands for. I have not seen this anywhere. I know that many posters will disagree with me, but there is a need to be a little more “corporate” with mission statements and so on. These need to set the measurable standards by which policies can be assessed. It is important to be able to challenge policies by asking “How does this meet these stated aims?” This has been lacking in the past.

So; what does Labour stand for? Not what we stand against, or a set of intangible politico waffle. Is it purely to be in power to stop the Tories? Or is there a higher aim?
- http://twitter.com/itsdavegreen David Green
  
  ”
  Most of what you listed is Tory policy. Value for money, improved public services and all”.
  I had no idea that, as a Labour Party member, I was supposed to be against improved public services and value for money. But thanks for setting us all right on that one.
- http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
  
  Value for money, improved public services are Labour aims!
  - AnotherOldBoy
    
    No – Labour aims are maintaining public sector jobs and pay. These are dressed up as improving public services. As for value for money, the last Labour government just threw money at the NHS without getting any noticable productivity gains.
Hugh

“The role of the policy review has become to avoid policy. Why set out
plans for reform of the NHS, schools, welfare system or police when
you’re 15 points ahead of the Coalition?”

Exactly. Moreover it was misconceived from the start: a review of that sort should be about the detail of policy to address aims defined at the outset. Then it doesn’t matter so much if it drags on until the manifesto needs writing. To insist on a policy review before even defining the direction of travel is ludicrous; that’s meant to come with the leader. What on earth were people meant to be voting for in the leadership election otherwise?

The fact that two years in people still don’t have a confident answer to whether Ed and his party is old Labour, New Labour, Blue Labour or whatever else tells you that the answer, when it eventually comes, won’t matter. There can be no conviction behind it.
- Brumanuensis
  
  Given the narrowness of Ed’s victory, it would have been impossible for him to have immediately try and impose his ‘vision’ upon the Party. The review was a necessary mechanism to accommodate dissent. Besides, why unnecessarily restrict yourself before overhauling policy?
  - Hugh
    
    It strikes me as remarkable that you can elect a leader without a vision in the first place.
    - Brumanuensis
      
      Well he does have a vision, he just wasn’t confident enough to impose it. If he’d won more convincingly, he’d probably have done so.
      - Hugh
        
        Excellent news. What is it?
      - http://twitter.com/waterwards dave stone
        
        Think of it as an updated version of Blair’s ‘stakeholder’ economy: an economy, to use Blair’s description, “run for the many, not the few… “
      - http://twitter.com/waterwards dave stone
        
        Think of it as an updated version of Blair’s ‘stakeholder’ economy: an economy, to use Blair’s description, “run for the many, not the few… “
      - Hugh
        
        So what really marks Ed out is that he’s got the same vision as Blair?
        
        Say he was so crass and insensitive as to impose it, what would it look like?
      - Brumanuensis
        
        Broadly, it’s based on three pillars:
        
        -A more critical attitude towards markets than New Labour, not so much on the basis of a political-economy critique like his Marxist father, but more on cultural grounds, borrowing from the work of Michael Sandel among others.
        
        -A focus on moving away from transfer-effected redistribution, towards wage-effected redistribution, including a greater interest in industrial democracy and supply-side mechanisms to hold down costs, rather than accommodating them through the social security system (e.g. targeting electricity tariffs rather than increasing the winter fuel allowance).
        
        -An emphasis on ‘deserts’ as the most important feature of social justice, emphasising the primacy of ‘fairness’ as a virtue in social organisation and economic outcomes. This has partly supplanted the traditional ‘Old’ Labour focus on equality, although it has not replaced it.
      - Hugh
        
        So the first thing he was a bit nervous of imposing after banking crisis was “a more critical attitude towards markets”?
        
        “Wage effected redistribution”, meanwhile, sound an awful lot like predistribution; I remember hearing that fairly recently. I can’t quite recall it back in 2010 when Ed was elected with this vision. I’m also, again, I’m afraid, struggling to understand his nervousness about coming forward with his ideas for putting this in place. He certainly does seem a nervous kitten.
        
        I’m with him on deserts though. (Mine’s the crème brûlée.) We need people in politics who are brave enough to come out in support of fairness, yet aren’t so bullish as to impose that on the rest of the Labour party.
        
        Clearly I’m wrong; Ed’s just brimming with ideas about how he wants to transform the country.
      - Brumanuensis
        
        All of the themes – particularly the first – appeared in one form or another in his first conference speech in 2010. Predistribution first began to take shape in the 2011 conference address.
        
        Incidentally, you wanted to know what his vision was. Now you’re complaining he’s not strong enough to impose it, which is an arguable point, but not what you initially asked. It’s ‘desserts’ by the way.
      - Hugh
        
        No, I think you mistake my point: I’m not complaining he’s not strong enough in enforcing it; I’m mocking the farcical argument that he’s not imposing it because he doesn’t have a strong enough mandate.
        
        You haven’t needed a mandate to impose a “more critical approach to the markets” or “fairness” in the last couple of years – they’re entirely uncontroversial. What you need to impose them is some ideas that take them beyond being platitudes.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Well he accepts the need to reform the market and the state. Devolving power to communities and people, instead of using the statist model of redistribution change things in the market so that the taxpayer does not foot in the bill like on energy or train fares for young people. He basically wants to build a new economic model and a better role for government in times were there is little money to spend. That is it, really.
      - John_Dore
        
        That has to be the worst post on LL this year.
http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh

The Tories won’t win the next election but we would be failures if we failed to win a majority. I hope Ed Balls uses conference to set out more plans for growth and to be more audacious, whilst at the same time planning out tough fiscal plans. Also, the issue of welfare reform is something that can be easily addressed – we need to guarantee jobs, free childcare and decent housing and come up with the fully costed policies to do it. If we start annoucing policies, and building on the abstract ideas fleshed out by Ed Miliband, we’d be more credible. Come on Labour, let’s have some more policies.
- Hugh
  
  ”the issue of welfare reform is something that can be easily addressed –
  we need to guarantee jobs, free childcare and decent housing and come up
  with the fully costed policies to do”
  
  Oh, yes, quite simple really.
- Hugh
  
  ”the issue of welfare reform is something that can be easily addressed –
  we need to guarantee jobs, free childcare and decent housing and come up
  with the fully costed policies to do”
  
  Oh, yes, quite simple really.
  - trotters1957
    
    It was simple enough when Labour and Conservatives did it between 1945 -1979.
  - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
    
    Yes it is. Have a Jobs Gurantee whereby all unemployed people will be guaranteed a job within a year of them being unemployed, which would pay the living wage, which could be funded by a tax levied at 50% on banker’s bonuses and if they refuse then they will lose thier benefits. Introduce a Land Value Tax, and use it to abolish council tax and build 500,000 new homes. Introduce free universal childcare funded by scrapping pension tax relief. So there is no reason why the leadership cannot announce some fully costed policies in Conference.
    - Rob Downes
      
      All unemployed people? Last I heard, Labour were thinking about all unempl0yed people between 18 and 24, which accounts for around 0.45M people. Thats supposed to cost around £600M and relies on the private sector playing along too.
      
      In total there are just over 2.5M unemployed people, with more than 2M 25 or over. They will probably need higher wages (families to support, mortgages to pay etc). Assuming the wages are the same, and there are no economies of scale (which there probably wont be, especially if these are private sector jobs) the overall cost will be above £3bn.
      
      Optimistically, the bankers tax might bring in £2bn: more likely somewhere between £1-2bn. So a fully costed policy but sadly too expensive: a £1bn shortfall is pretty big.
      
      Also, I don’t think much of a Labour supporter who favours cutting all of someones benefits: one reason we support the Welfare State is that it keeps food on the tables of unemployed households. Feeding children matters too, regardless of their parents situation and actions.
    - Hugh
      
      Latest figures put long term unemployment (one year or more) at 904,000. The living wage is what, about £14k – more in London.
      
      So that’s 14k x 904k = £12.7 bn minimum to give all those people a job at the living wage.
      
      When the bankers bonus was first introduced it netted £3.5 bn gross (2.3bn net, according to the government).
      
      Furthermore,
      if you introduce a bank bonus tax as a permanent feature, doesn’t it
      strike you that the banks are likely to cut bonuses and increase
      salaries? Even if they behave like lemmings surely you’re already about £10
      bn short.
      
      Local authorities in England, meanwhile collected £22.1 billion in council taxes by
      the end of March 2012.
      
      500,000 houses will cost, what, £50 billion?
      
      So there you’re talking about abolishing council tax but replacing it with a tax that collects more than twice as much – during a period where developers don’t seem to reckon it’s worth building anyway.
      
      You’re right on free universal childcare, though. If you remove pensions tax relief – even at the basic rate – then you can pay for it. However, you will then be taxing the same income twice and discouraging retirement saving which the last government and this government are have been putting a lot effort into encouraging.
      - Redshift1
        
        Hang on, this isn’t costed correctly. A substantial portion of that would be reduced by not having to pay JSA and because you would get increased tax receipts.
        
        Again, whilst I’m not saying the above proposal is the way forward, I think everyone being so quick to criticise this is going dangerously into the territory of saying we can’t do much to create jobs.
      - Hugh
        
        You’re right. JSA is £60 a week; 47.95 if under 25 isn’t it. So for 904,000 workers we can probably take off £2.5 billion. The tax take for 900k £14k workers is about £1 billion. So you’re right, we’re probably only £6 or £7 billion short – assuming the banks inexplicably decide to just cough up.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        But it is not a guarantee which is straight off, but one where if you cannot find one by yourself, then they will get a job paid (preferably at the living wage) within a year. It is normally 20% of the unemployed who cannot find work of their own backs. It costs £1bn to £2bn to fund which can be easily funded through a bonus tax.
      - Hugh
        
        I’m going to have to repeat my request that you refer me to your sums or research that show it costs £1 to £2 billion. There are 904,000 people who have been unemployed for more than a year. There’s no evidence whatsoever that this number is going to shrink by 80 per cent. In fact it’s wholly unrealistic
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        The IPPR have shown that it would cost between £1-2bn on the minimum wage. What I have said is that those who are unemployed, about 80% find a job within a year on their own back. All that is being proposed is that within a year they would get a job and if they refuse then they will lose their benefits funded by the bonus tax. Perfectly doable, we were sort of doing it in government and has happened in the Scandinavian countries where it is popular and welfare is tougher but also a lot fairer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kagx8LyIneE
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Hugh, the devil is in the detail. I said within a year. If you have a Jobs Guarantee from the start it would be incredibly expensive, this just costs about £2bn, which is what the bonus tax is expected to raise. The last time it was expected to raise £1bn, but it raised £3.5bn. It is fully costed.
        Land Value Tax is a tax with popular support right across the political spectrum, from John McDonnell on the hard-left, to Andy Burnham on the centre-left, to Nick Boles on the centre-right to the IEA on the hard-right. It has been shown that a Land Value Tax would raise enough to scrap council tax and cut stamp duty. In the 2008/9, I believe stamp duty raised about £3bn that revenue has increased. Also, you realise that there is council tax benefit which costs £5bn a year. With no council tax, there would be no council tax benefit. You can use the money which could scrap stamp duty to contribute to building a half a million new homes and also the funding from the abolition of council tax benefit, due to the scrapping of council tax. You’ve got your figures wrong, because you only need £6bn to build 100,000 new homes, I am saying build 100,000 every year. You forget that housebuilding is the way that America and Britain got itselves out of the Great Depression. Also, it would create up to 750,000 for every 100,000 homes built and every £1 you spend on housebuilding, you get 1.4% return in the economy. So it is costed, it can be done, it is not that hard, we just need Ed Balls to make it absolutely 100% fiscally neutral (which I believe it is) and then bring it to the people.
      - Hugh
        
        So within a year you are looking to fund how many of those 904,000 jobs? When one bears in mind you’re going to be paying them a living wage, rather than the minimum, I should imagine many would hold out.
        
        Since this is fully costed and pretty simple, could you not just share your sums with us? Could you also explain how you’re going to stop banks reducing the tax take from the bankers bonus?
        
        I’m glad to hear it only costs £60k to build a house. Again, I’d be grateful for your source, and whether that includes the land value. It seems a tad unlikely. Otherwise frankly I’d do it myself.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        First point. It would cost £2bn for a Jobs Guarantee. Repeating the bonus tax can cover that. Also, the fact that JSA would be time-limited would save more money. People don’t wait for the state to find them a job, if they can find one they would take it. Now, you’re argument regarding the bonus tax is the same one that was used regarding the bonus tax when it was first introduced. It was predicted to raise £1bn. It brought in £3.5bn.
        You do need £6bn to build 100,000 homes. If you do that throughout the Parliament, you would be building £500,000 new homes. It creates 750,000 new private sector jobs in the construction industry per 100,000 new homes. You do the maths. Plus, we spend about £0.5bn on welfare for every 100,000 out of work. Again, you do the maths. Think of the money that will pour into the Exchequer. http://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/Balls-calls-for-6bn-to-be-spent-building-100-000-homes
        Now stamp duty is used for something else. That is fine but a Land Value Tax can pay to get rid of council tax and stamp duty. Stamp duty raised £3bn in the last year of the last Parliament, that figure has increased. That amount is raised with the LVT and also the loss of council tax benefit which would be just enough to build all those homes. In actual fact I think there could be an underspend.
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        Renie, it is not “the maths”, it is “the arithmetic”. One is about four simple operands, the other is about the variable relationships between numbers, shapes, vectors, time, dimensions, theses and proof.
      - rekrab
        
        Ah, snatch the pebble from my hand.A revolving economy can never equate so long as there is pay restraint, we don’t need complete government hand outs just good solid pay.
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        Presumably, that was in reply to someone else? Otherwise we will have to turn to Aristotelian logic, syllogism, squares of opposition, “deductions in the moods” and other things I only barely remember. Brumanuensis is your man for logical thought.
      - rekrab
        
        Funny old world when language is designed to be complex? or is it an excuse to keep the lower end very low.
        Yeah! maybe some day! we’ll have a drink or two, of course you’ll have to pay as your salary exceeds mine but I’ll throw the entertainment in with the boys and their new lament for Afghan, the youngest pipe major (British Army) was Donald MaClean seaforth highlanders, 1936, he was 26, it’s a record well over due to be beaten.(Funny thing is my uncle severed as a POW! with Donald)
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Okay sir!
      - Hugh
        
        “First point. It would cost £2bn for a Jobs Guarantee”
        
        Your first point, isn’t a point; it’s an assertion that you have yet to provide any evidence for at all, let alone prove.
        
        “People don’t wait for the state to find them a job, if they can find one they would take it”
        
        And at the moment 904,000 people haven’t been able to find one for more than a year. Why, exactly, is that number likely to drop by 80% in a recession?
        
        “Now, you’re argument regarding the bonus tax is the same one that was used regarding the bonus tax when it was first introduced”
        
        Yes, and if I recall one of the replies was that since it was a one-off tax teh banks would not alter their entire payment structures to avoid it. If you fundamentally alter the tax system to hit them with £3.5 billion a year, the idea they won’t take steps to minimize that is farcical.
        
        “You do need £6bn to build 100,000 homes.”
        
        Again you seem to have trouble distinguishing between facts and assertions.
        
        “That is fine but a Land Value Tax can pay to get rid of council tax and
        stamp duty. Stamp duty raised £3bn in the last year of the last
        Parliament, that figure has increased”
        
        Stamp duty, last time I checked, was not a drain on the exchequer, but income. Getting rid of it does not increase tax revenue.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        On your first point regarding the Jobs Guarantee. The IPPR have calculated that that is the cost, £1-2bn and a living wage would not cost too much more, so it would be round about £2bn. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kagx8LyIneE
        Now the bonus tax could be temporary but it should be removed until the public finances are sorted out, even though we may gain less in revenue. There is alternatively, funds from the Work Programme which could be used.
        On housing, if you want to take it up with the Construction Index and Ed Balls that is fine by me but party policy even says something quite similar. It costs £6bn for 100,000 homes – these could be social homes remember.
        On the third point, I have not said that we should get rid of stamp duty. All I have said is that a Land Value Tax could scrap stamp duty and council tax together, which would also make council tax benefit irrelevant. I am arguing that we use the money that we could spend to get rid of stamp duty to fund the building of new homes and the money that would be used for council tax benefit too.
      - robertcp
        
        Renie/Hugh, guaranteeing a job at the minimum wage is probably more realistic.
      - Hugh
        
        It doesn’t strike me as much more realistic if you are still trying to fund it entirely from a bankers bonus tax.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        The funding from the Work Programme could be a fall back option but I think the bonus tax being reintroduced temporarily until public finances are stable is the best option.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        For a year or two it could be funded by one.
      - Hugh
        
        Just not this year; or last. Or any year in fact where long term unemployment is in fact a significant problem.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        It is cheaper but the living wage is doable. I do think the minimum wage is too low at the moment and a living wage would be a great incentive for people to actually stay in work.
      - robertcp
        
        Renie/Hugh, I think it is good that we are discussing whether desirable policies are realistic. I suspect that what Paul Richards wants is downright undesirable.
        
        A few more thoughts. The guaranteed job could come in at 18 months or two years. A Labour government could have a policy of gradually increasing the minimum wage to a living wage, especially in London and the south east.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        I disagree on retirement saving. Scrapping the higher-rate pension tax relief is quite enough, we don’t need to increase taxes unnecessarily. There are other ways of promoting retirement saving, such as the ideas floated by The Telegraph by cutting tax on savings for basic-rate taxpayers which costs less than £1bn or increasing ISA. That might be funded by taxing pensioner benefits for those not on Pension Credit.
    - aracataca
      
      Hang on a second. Unemployment is officially at around 2.4 million.In order to guarantee all these people a job at £300 per week for a year would cost £37,440,000,000 -all through a 50% tax on bankers bonuses.This would suggest the annual bonus bill of investment bankers is £74,880,000,000 which obviously it isn’t. This from a fiscal disciplinarian. It’s Noddy in Toyland stuff.
      - aracataca
        
        The living wage? Sorry add tons more on to the calculation above.
      - Redshift1
        
        I rarely jump to Renie’s defence, but to be fair what was said was ‘within a year’.
        
        We don’t have 2.4 million people who’ve been out of work for over a year.
        
        Now, I’m not saying the solution is necessarily the one above, but we do need a bold jobs programme to get people back into work and back being productive. The Future Jobs Fund was great but didn’t go far enough.
      - Hugh
        
        No, we have 904,000, which means the policy would still cost about four times more (and probably a lot more than that) than you could possibly hope to raise from a bankers bonus tax.
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        Is this the same bankers’ bonus tax that gets spent on every new policy announcement? I think it nominally ran out quite a while ago unless there is the embarrassment for Labour of cancelling earlier promises to spend it on other things.
        
        It will also be very interesting to see how “bankers’ bonuses” are defined. Does an IT support worker in a “back office” of one of the banks who gets a bonus of £3,000 have to pay 50%, as well as the London trader who gets a bonus of £3,000,000? And in this same mixture, what about the senior civil servant who receives a bonus of £100,000, but is not a banker? What about doctors who receive no bonuses under that name, but who get paid tens of thousands of pounds extra for writing short reports or participating in trials – really very little work at all for those who participate (many do not), and the money deliberately paid at vastly inflated hourly rates to act as a kind of bonus?
        
        There is room for some detailed work, and more progressive rates I think. I also once read of some schemes invented by the clever London accountants so that some people had their bonuses paid in expensive wine and paid only the standard rate of VAT, or also in ancient gold coins, which attract no tax at all. All apparently legal, and still are.
        
        This will have to be some monster law with lots of loopholes closed. It may take a couple of years to get onto the law books.
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        Is this the same bankers’ bonus tax that gets spent on every new policy announcement? I think it nominally ran out quite a while ago unless there is the embarrassment for Labour of cancelling earlier promises to spend it on other things.
        
        It will also be very interesting to see how “bankers’ bonuses” are defined. Does an IT support worker in a “back office” of one of the banks who gets a bonus of £3,000 have to pay 50%, as well as the London trader who gets a bonus of £3,000,000? And in this same mixture, what about the senior civil servant who receives a bonus of £100,000, but is not a banker? What about doctors who receive no bonuses under that name, but who get paid tens of thousands of pounds extra for writing short reports or participating in trials – really very little work at all for those who participate (many do not), and the money deliberately paid at vastly inflated hourly rates to act as a kind of bonus?
        
        There is room for some detailed work, and more progressive rates I think. I also once read of some schemes invented by the clever London accountants so that some people had their bonuses paid in expensive wine and paid only the standard rate of VAT, or also in ancient gold coins, which attract no tax at all. All apparently legal, and still are.
        
        This will have to be some monster law with lots of loopholes closed. It may take a couple of years to get onto the law books.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Jaime, the bonus tax raised £3.5bn and has not been used every new policy announcement. There has been two uses of the bonus tax which is to spend it on building new homes, which could create jobs to guarantee people a job. I am arguing for the party, now that the economic situation has got worse, to instead propose a Land Value Tax, a new tax that the IEA support, to build half a million new homes and then use the bonus tax to fund a Jobs Gurantee which would guarantee the unemployed a job within one year. That is fully costed and would create more in revenue. If we build 500,000 new homes think about the jobs it would create in the private sector, the boost to the economy and also there is a 1.4% return on every pound you spend on housebuilding.
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        Renie, from where do you get your £13 billion of bonuses “so far” (your other reply to Hugh)? Everyone else looks at a figure of between £1.5-2.5 billion, over a year.
        I sort of support the “angle” you take, but then you leave me unable to do so by – forgive me, it appears this way to me – pulling wildly doubtful figures out of the thin air. Even at the height of the post second world war council housing boom, Britain only built about 300,000 council homes in a year, and for quite a few years below that figure.
        
        As for your 1.4% return, that will be too small to attract investors (and I do not know from where that figure comes).
        
        And the Land Value Tax that you propose to replace Council Tax and to build these houses. From where is the money coming to replace the council tax that councils spend on lots of other things such as education and road repairs and libraries and services for the elderly and… (lots of things that councils do)? Are these services to stop?
        
        Look at it another way. How many people are going to vote for a party that says “we will replace your £1250 council tax with a new Land Value Tax to build council houses, and then we will either give you no council services at all, or you can pay another £1250 for your bins to be emptied”. Not many.
        
        As well as human nature resisting paying double for something that we usually pay once, this is basic arithmetic (not maths as you assert – the two topics are not the same, and by your age you should have been taught that).
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Interesting comment. £13bn were raised in bonuses, but it would only be the really big bonuses that would be taxed. http://economia.icaew.com/News/September2012/Finance-sector-receives-13bn-bonus
        Councils would be able to raise money by instead create new and fairer forms of taxation and also they could keep more money from income tax, locally. But obviously, a Land Value Tax would have to make up for the amount that councils lose through the council tax bill. I think you misunderstood my point there, but I am sorry I was not clear enough.
        http://www.moneyweek.com/personal-finance/tax/the-land-value-tax-54816
      - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZPXYLRVP4XOIGGDJWAL6HUO7U4 David
        
        What do you propose is lost at the national level when some of the income tax revenue previously received by the exchequer is redirected to council level?
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Well there would be very little difference in reality seen as under what I am proposing there would be no council tax.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Bonuses are at £13bn so far. There are 2.4million who should find work in within a year of them being unemployed. Please do the maths, I am glad that there is common ground between Reshift1 and myself on this issue.
      - Hugh
        
        I’ve done the maths below. You seem to be about £6 billion short.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        You have done your maths wrong because the devil is in the detail.
      - Hugh
        
        Then share it with us.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Within a year not straight off. Remember, most unemployed people find jobs anyway, the people that you are actually affecting is about 20% of people who have been unemployed.
      - Hugh
        
        You seem to be struggling with this concept: 904,000 have not found a job within a year, and that number is not shrinking at the moment.
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        Taking the figures above:
        
        904,000 long term unemployed given jobs on £300 a week would cost £14.1 billion a year.
        
        You say above that of the £13 billion payable in bonuses, only the really big bonuses would be taxed at 50%, but do not put a number to that. So I will. Say £4 billion at 50%, that nets you £2 billion in the bankers’ bonus tax, plus probably another £3 billion in standard income taxes on bonuses for those less well-”bonused”. Total £5 billion.
        
        Where is the other £9 billion coming from?
        
        (And that is without any clever little accounting tricks that would undoubtedly minimise the effect of the bankers’ bonus tax, such as deferring the bonus until 3 or 5 years, so no tax is payable in the year in which the bonus is nominally earned)
        
        In reality, I suspect that your ideas make sense only when in complete isolation from the real world. Have you ever heard of Newton’s Third Law, or if I may be so foolish as to introduce clever lawyers and clever accountants to react appropriately to socialist legislation.
        
        And have you also not thought that it is fundamentally illiberal to tax people according to their profession, and not according to their income? You are a greengrocer, you pay tax at 10%. You are a teacher, at 20%. A taxi driver, at 30%… It is completely mad as a concept.
      - PeterBarnard
        
        Renie,
        
        Labour’s temporary bank payroll tax (= “bonus tax”) collected £3.5 bn in 2010-11, and that’s it : not “£13 bn so far”).
        
        Table C.3 (Budget 2011) and Table D.3 (Budget 2012) refer.
        
        The bank levy, introduced by the Coalition, is forecast to collect £1.8 bn (2011-12), rising to £2.8 bn (2016-17) : £15 bn in total over the six fiscal years.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        I never said £13bn so far. The bank levy is a little bit too low and the Government scrapped the bonus tax.
      - AlanGiles
        
        “I never said £13bn so far.”
        
        Actually you did:
        
        ”
        “Renie Anjeh Collapse
        Bonuses are at £13bn so far.”.
        
        Then, earlier in response to Jaime:
        
        ”
        “Renie Anjeh Collapse
        Interesting comment. £13bn were raised in bonuses”
        
        You do nothing to give credibility to yourself by denying you have said things when it is on record tht you did.
        
        This is not, by any means, the first time you have done this. Is, it?
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Five o’clock in the morning and you still attacking me when I have repeatedly told you to refrain from replying to my comments.
        I was referring to the £13bn from all bonuses in the financial sector, Peter Bernard though I meant that money was raised from the bonus tax whereby I said I did not say £13bn, in reference to the bonus tax. Perhaps you should actually read comments instead of being guided by your bitterness and get some sleep. If you continue to annoy me like this I will contact the Editor.
      - AlanGiles
        
        ” If you continue to annoy me like this”
        
        Anybody is entitled to point out inconsistencies or errors. Are you saying now that you want censorship??. You don’t seem to mind calling other posters “financially illiterate” for example. So we have to take whatever you dole out to us, and just let you get away with it.
        
        Re: 5 a.m I told you the other day I suffer from insomnia. Do keep up.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        You said you would not reply to my comments and you have refused to. You have not pointed out any errors you have spoted rudeness. Leave me alone Alan, and annoy someone else or get some sleep.
      - AlanGiles
        
        I pointed out 2 quotes where you had said what you later claimed not to have said.
      - PeterBarnard
        
        My misunderstanding perhaps, Renie.
        
        The bank levy estimates that I gave are supplied by the Office for Budget Responsibility and I certainly don’t see myself as being in a position to say that they are “a little bit too low.”
      - Hugh
        
        No, we have 904,000, which means the policy would still cost about four times more (and probably a lot more than that) than you could possibly hope to raise from a bankers bonus tax.
      - aracataca
        
        We do indeed Redshift.It’s called changing the structures of post industrial capitalism. This will of course take decades but we could begin with an end to outsourcing public services such as Olympic security to G4S, a meaningful tax on those earning over £150,000 per year to finance a jobs programme, a break up of the biggest banks, tax breaks to mutualised financial services such as The Nationwide, 5 year sentences and confiscation of assets for wilful and organised tax avoidance, a mansion tax for properties worth £2million+, the refusal to renew rail franchises, a major focus on re/upskilling our workforce, and repeal of the Health and Social Care Act. That would be a start.
      - Redshift1
        
        Good. I agree.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Interesting enough there is a lot of that that I agree with.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        You are wrong. I said within a year. If you did it straight off as soon as possible then of course it would be dramatically expensive. Also, take in account that normally it is only 20% of those unemployed who cannot find work. So instead of your misguided calculations, the cost is about £1 to 2bn.
      - aracataca
        
        OK Renie but we need to be specific about how much our growth policy will cost in the initial stages otherwise we will be undone If you mean 904,000 we need to say that and we need to be explicit about tax rises for the wealthy. By the way the size of the deficit will not affect the rate at which we can borrow. If you take say Sweden which has much higher levels of public spending the rate at which they can borrow money through bond issues is no higher than us. This applies to any non-eurozone country. We will of course have to borrow tons of money in this way in 2015 if we are serious about getting growth back in the economy. Of course if this bunch carry on as they are- (tens of billions of pounds worth of cuts when we have minus 0.7% annual GDP ) then we could well be Japanised by 2015 in which case we can forget about any decent levels of growth for about 15 -20 years.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        I know that but the deficit still needs to be tackled soon regardless of how much we need to borrow. That is why we need to invest in growth now so that we can cut spending when the economy is healthier.
        But do you admit your calculations of a Jobs Guarantee was stark raving mad?
      - aracataca
        
        No because you said:
        ‘Have a Jobs Gurantee whereby all unemployed people will be guaranteed a job within a year of them being unemployed, which would pay the living wage, which could be funded by a tax levied at 50% on banker’s bonuses’
        
        This is not doable and we have to be honest about that.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        It is doable, as I said it only costs £2bn. Now again, you do accept that you got your maths wrong? It was outlandishly wrong. I am all for debate but there has got to be honesty and that comment was far from it.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        I said ‘within a year’.
    - Quiet_Sceptic
      
      Scrap pension tax relief completely?
      
      So despite a collapse in pension scheme membership and pension saving in recent years, you’d act to further dissuade people from making provision for their retirement? Free childcare today at the cost of pensioner poverty in the future.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Not scrap pension tax relief completely, come on now. Scrapping higher-rate pension tax relief would cost £7.7billion and accounts for two thirds of the pension tax relief budget. That money could be spent on free universal childcare. Politics is the language of priorities and I think Labour’s priorities should be struggling families rather than the pockets of rich pensioners, dare I say it.
    - Quiet_Sceptic
      
      Scrap pension tax relief completely?
      
      So despite a collapse in pension scheme membership and pension saving in recent years, you’d act to further dissuade people from making provision for their retirement? Free childcare today at the cost of pensioner poverty in the future.
- Serbitar
  
  If Labour had seven loaves and fishes doubtless all would be well…
aracataca

What a terrible piece.
First, it would be utter madness to set out detailed policy now. The election is too far away and we would just set ourselves up for a completely unnecessary and potentially corrosive onslaught by the Tory Press over a long period of time. We also don’t know exactly how bad things are going to be in 2015.
Second the piece contains all kinds of unsusbstantiated generalisations and neo-liberal prejudices. What evidence is there that people don’t embrace change, higher taxes and more spending during times of recession? Have you never heard of Roosevelt, the New Deal, (both started in 1933 the worse year for global economic growth in the last 100 years) John Maynard Keynes or the 27 years of unprecedented and uninterrupted growth between 1947 and 1973 started at a time of rationing and at a time when this country had a drastic shortage of the most basic necessities for life, including food.
Third, a whole range of cliches and references to the 1990s are made.The situation has changed. My own sense is that there is far less tolerance of tax exiles making a fortune in the UK and paying no tax on it. There is also far less tolerance around the kind of neo-liberal dogma that abounded in the 1990s and ultimately led to the investment banking led crash of 2007/8. Hitherto, I thought that the only people who haven’t realised that things have changed were banks, hedge funds and Tory MPs, I hadn’t realised that the failure to recognise this change had spread into our party.
Fourth, I have no sense that people would be outraged if the top rate of tax were put back again to 50% and while I am not arguing for a return to a marginal rate of tax at 98% I do think that the wealthy in this country could pay more in tax. When asked why we can’t raise tax the response of the neo-liberal right is typically to simply say ‘we can’t’. It isn’t 1992 Mr Richards, it isn’t even 1997, it’s 2012 and unless we do something to restore growth- and that means spending and initially borrowing and taxing more- we face the Japanisation of our economy and this will lead to 2 decades of zero growth and a general misery unseen since the 1930s.
- AlanGiles
  
  Strangely, Bill, I agree with both you and Paul Richards. he is right in that there must be at least the ghost of policy ideas – what on earth are they going to fill the upcoming conference with?, but I agree with you they have to be the right policies, not reheated New Labour, or slightly-lighter-blue-than-the-Tories, which will fail to impress floating voters.
  
  However, I would sooner they be honest and announce the most right-wing policies ever – policies that make Tony Blair look like Tony Benn, than say nothing at all. To a lot of people that looks either like lack of belief, or opportunism, or just that they are frightend of upsetting the Daily Mail. At least if they gave some idea of direction, we could either embrace it or reject it.
  
  I am sorry PR and Rob marchant – or one or two LL posters still seem to think it is 1996, because, 16 years on everything has changed.
  - aracataca
    
    As usual every remark you make is personalised. It’s not about personalities it’s about policies and it’s about winning. EM needs to indicate a direction of travel before announcing detailed policies. IMHO the election itself needs to be fought on a short list of deliverable promises and this list must include the repeal of the Health and Social Care Act and the restoration of the 50p tax rate for those earning £150,000 or more. We will also have to address IDS’s proposed reforms but we are not able to say much yet as we don’t know exactly what he is going to do. At present it looks like these proposals could be the poll tax Mark 2 and once again this would change the parameters of the debate. In terms of his speech I would like him to say something generic about the outsourcing of Public Services and outlining a general critique of the excesses of modern capitalism.
    
    Talk policies and tactics Alan that really would make a nice change
    - AlanGiles
      
      I was under the impression I was speaking of policies and tactics, and, as gently as possible, I was pointing out that it is the LACK of policy that I find the most concerning thing – as I said what exactly is the 2012 Conference for? – just to say “we are against Coalition policies”. Well, that is hardly likely to galvanize the floating voter. I was, in effect, Bill agreeing with you in some respects, though I have to say for once I think Richards is right as well, which in itself is a red letter day.
      
      My point about even adopting right wing policies was genuine. If the party wishes to continue along it’s now well-worn path and perhaps even go further to the right, in the hope it will win them votes – fair enough. But we all need to know where we stand. I would much rather something was sorted out quickly, rather than 2/3 years down the road – just imagine if Crudas reports in March 2015, there will then be a matter of weeks to cobble together the manifesto. Ruinous.
      
      I try to be as honest as possible: I am getting on now, so what governments do or don’t do is unlikely to impact on me personally, but I do care about younger people and more vulnerable people. When I see the could’nt care less attitude, the Marie Antionette school of thought, the careerist who doesn’t even understand the word principle, and will support whatever looks like progressing their career type of character the modern Labour party is now so busy trying to cultivate, I feel more and more remote from the party I have loved for over 50 years. It really is like a marriage on the rocks – perhaps the party and me are now so sick of each other, what they do is almost a matter of indifference. But Labour owes it to it’s old supporters, and the new light blues, to make it clear what they believe in and then it is for the individual to accept or reject it.
      
      As it is Conference 2012 looks like a pretty pointless affair. This “wait and see” cautious approach merely makes it look as if the party is too tired and scared to advance their vision, or even that they really don’t know what to do. Politics shouldn’t be like an Agatha Christie novel, where we all have to wait till the last chapter to find out what the answer was to an obscure problem.
      - aracataca
        
        Been looking at your posts for a long time and can’t remember any policy suggestions that you have made. Might not agree with Renie much of the time but he does stick his head over the parapet and offer some views on policy. Regrettably you don’t which makes any meaningful or worthwhile exchange of views difficult.
      - AlanGiles
        
        Well, that tells me Bill!. I think I have made a few suggestions over time – that Labour should renounce Freud, certainly while the dire economic situation we are in remains, and that we should stop punishing people for being disabled or ill, full stop and without reservation. Reintroduce EMA to encourage people to stay in education, especially as they will now be ofrced so to do till they are 18. We should withdraw from Afghanistan, we should re-establish the National Enterprise Board, to provide support for British industry. We should commit to building more council housing – but of course, nobody can give a figure, because as those of us who live in the real world as opposed to theorising from the classroom know, you cannot just “guarantee” housing and jobs when you have no idea what the books will look like in 2015. Promise less, hopefully deliver more and the public will appreciate the honesty.
        
        I don’t think you should promise more than you can deliver, but – surely these are ideas.
        
        Whether you agree with them or not isn’t the point – these are suggestions I have made which you seem not have noticed, because, frankly, Bill, you just seem to like to find something to complain about in my posts.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        LOL.
    - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
      
      I think we can wholly agree on the last line.
    - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
      
      I think we can wholly agree on the last line.
- http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
  
  I think you are missing the point. Obviously we cannot unveil an entire manifesto now but we need some big policies now to get things going. People do not trust Ed Miliband and see him as a Prime Minister, partly because they do not know what he would do if he was in No 10? Therefore, at the moment they would stick with the PM they have. We have had ‘semi-policies’ like on growth and jobs, the NHS, some cuts, some welfare reforms, partly education and the few odd hints of policy ideas endorsed by shadow cabinet ministers but we have to start going on the all offensive bomboarding people with key big policies which we can afford.
  No one denies that we need growth and jobs immediately but that is a short term thing. The recession we need a stimulus is because of the recession but in the long-term, as policy has always been, we need to cut the deficit. Therefore, spending large amounts of money indefinitely is not an option and we have to accept we would make cuts. Now, tax evaision and tax avoidance are bad things but they will not solve all the problem of the deficit. We could have a new land tax to invest in housing and build new homes, bringing forward infrastructure projects which we announced, dealing with airport capacity, rail investment, new roads and motorways, new bridges, capital investment in school buildings and of course housing development but these are things that will provide a return to the economy. But we cannot pledge to make big spending promises which would be unaffordable, which is why switch spending and predistribution are both very crucial.
  - aracataca
    
    ‘No one denies that we need growth and jobs immediately but that is a short term thing’.
    No it’s long term actually and rather difficult to do in a collapsed global economic environment.
    
    ‘we need to cut the deficit’
    
    2 points.
    1 The deficit has grown this year largely as a consequence of Osborne’s cuts.
    2 Dick Cheney, hardly known for his left wing radicalism, said(2002): ‘Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.’
    The point of the current programme of cuts is to reduce living standards and thus reduce labour costs so that western businesses can compete more effectively with emerging economies like China and Brazil and of course make larger profits. Predistribution is an important idea because it seeks to circumvent this scenario by increasing the country’s skill base and thus raising incomes.
    
    In the face of impending Japanisation ’we need to cut the deficit’ is an increasingly hollow and irrelevant mantra.
    - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
      
      I am absolutely astounded by your comment on several levels.
      Firstly, on jobs and growth the point I am making is that a stimulus, for eg. cutting VAT which is absolutely necessary, is a short-term thing not long-term. One of the reasons we need a stimulus is also because the markets want to see growth and everyone accepts that you cannot get your deficits down without growth, which is where the Tories have got it so badly wrong.
      Your second point, the deficit has grown largely as a consequence of Osborne’s cuts. Yes, you are right but that is because Osborne has taken too much money out of the economy when the economy weak during a short period of time. That does not mean that cutting the deficit means no spending cuts.
      Your third point, regarding Dick Cheney. Only a fool would listen to what he really has to say anyway. The idea that the deficit does not matter is absolutely ridiculous. Everyone is agreed we need to get it under control which would mean a mix of cuts and tax rises but it cannot be excessive otherwise it would get worse. You cannot have it both ways.
      Now on predistribution, that is also about realising we are in a fiscally constrained environment and that is why it is important to reform the state and the market.
      - aracataca
        
        Everyone is agreed we need to get it (the deficit) under control. What all 65 million Britons? Not Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman or Robert Skidelsky or David Harvey.
        
        Of course, we need to get the deficit under control but that can only be achieved through growth – ideally 3% growth per annum- see J M Keynes for guidance on this. Until we actually achieve that level of growth there should be no concerted attempt to bring down the deficit- as any attempt to do so won’t work.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        I’m afraid you are wrong. Stiglitz, Krugman, Skidelsky and Harvey are in favour of deficit reduction but they do not want it to be too fast are too far. 65 million Britons do want the deficit be under control.
      - aracataca
        
        Not true I am afraid especially in respect of David Harvey. The fact is if we continue cutting in the current situation we could find ourselves in a deflationary spiral (See Japan 1991-present) then we will have to spend trillions and trillions just to try and get out of that spiral. In the case of Japan the only reason they avoided a rerun of 1932 was because of a credit led boom in the rest of the world and the fact that a lot of Japanese government bonds were bought by Japanese savers. (In fact Japan is now the most indebted country in the world) Step forward all those who would buy government bonds from a government led by Call Me Dave and Boy George in the circumstances of a deflationary spiral.
        
        Thought so.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        I agree with you on Japan but that does not mean that we should not cut the deficit. The example of Japan was do not cut the deficit unwisely and a quick pace and stifle growth. We have got to stimulate growth and bring the jobs in, then start cutting spending, but it has to be fiscally neutral.
      - aracataca
        
        No Renie. Not until we have growth of 2-3% then we can maybe start to cut the deficit very slowly.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        You are proposing a reckless gamble. We should stick to our pledge to halve the deficit within a Parliament.
      - aracataca
        
        Renie Have you seen King’s remarks this morning about the deficit? IMHO they make for interesting reading.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Mervyn King said it would be acceptable for the Govt to miss its debt target. We have a commitment to halve the deficit and we will stick to it.
      - Alexwilliamz
        
        But Renie the deficit in itself is not something anyone has been particularly worried about for around 80 years, the last time it made itself a priority was hmmm in the 30s when similar obsessions and policies seemed to have had a similar effect. It took the stimulus of a world war to sort that one out.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Are you ignoring the deficit? Do you propose we do nothing about it.
      - Alexwilliamz
        
        No I am merely saying that the sudden panic about deficit in a large economy like ours is more to do with political emphasis rather than an out economic imperative. We have had big deficits, especially in proportion to our GDP in the past. Also a brief study of history will demonstrate that we are tragically repeating the policies of the 30s where the focus remained on fiscal control over directly trying to build confidence through a genuine direct stimulus programme.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        It is a matter of economic imperative otherwise you will get more debt. We pay our deficits with debt, and debt will hit the poorest hardest – that is just a fact because their incomes. Fact is we do not live in the past, we live in the present and the deficit is a challenge that we need to sort out. A short-term stimulus is needed but that actually in many ways strengthens the case for deficit reduction rather than diminishes it.
      - Alexwilliamz
        
        Yep you get more debt, getting more debt is in itself not a problem, it is how many businesses expand or get through some transitional periods, the problem is if the debt grows to a size that cannot be sustained, we are still (contrary to what Osbourne might say) some where from that point, at least by historical standards. This does not mean any increases should be done flippantly, but I’d rather see our focus on genuine restructuring and rebalancing of our economy, even if that costs in the short term and will inevitably mean we have to pay a bit more back in the longer term. I think by your final paragraph you are beginning to understand what I am advocating. There is also no reason why any debt burden need hit the poorest hardest, indeed the only way to cut the deficit would be in cutting spending in areas which will directly hurt the poorest. For example (simplistically and politically unlikely) we could revert to income tax rates of the sixties. At the end of the day we as a nation have to accept the fact that we need to pay for the costs of supporting the country as it is. Those who earn good money need to recognise that this partly due to the social structure the exists including things like welfare and free health care. If they want to duck out of paying for these things perhaps they should be invited to duck out of feeding from the trough too.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        No offence but thank God you are not Shadow Chancellor.
        You have just admitted that you are proposing more debt. That cannot happen, we need less debt and a deficit under control. If you put up debt not only do you damage growth but you also hurt the poorest because they are the ones reliant on public services and their taxes as a proportion of their income is greater than that of a rich person. If you want to revert to tax rates in the 1960s, then you are proposing economic stupidity. Rebalancing our economy is important but so is cutting the deficit. I cannot believe that you want Labour to fall to lose any hope of gaining any economic credibility, that it has fought so hard to try and regain.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        No offence but thank God you are not Shadow Chancellor.
        You have just admitted that you are proposing more debt. That cannot happen, we need less debt and a deficit under control. If you put up debt not only do you damage growth but you also hurt the poorest because they are the ones reliant on public services and their taxes as a proportion of their income is greater than that of a rich person. If you want to revert to tax rates in the 1960s, then you are proposing economic stupidity. Rebalancing our economy is important but so is cutting the deficit. I cannot believe that you want Labour to fall to lose any hope of gaining any economic credibility, that it has fought so hard to try and regain.
      - Alexwilliamz
        
        If I followed your method of debate, not respond to questions, an extrapolate widely from what someone is saying then I could say that you are wrong because slashing spending during a time of recession will lead to a downward spiral and an even bigger deficit. Just because someone disagree with you does not mean they hold the polar opposite position to your own. Still I am not young enough to know everything so will defer to your ability to see into the future, and knowledge of how the economy works with such absolute certainty. good luck.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        No offence but thank God you are not Shadow Chancellor.
        You have just admitted that you are proposing more debt. That cannot happen, we need less debt and a deficit under control. If you put up debt not only do you damage growth but you also hurt the poorest because they are the ones reliant on public services and their taxes as a proportion of their income is greater than that of a rich person. If you want to revert to tax rates in the 1960s, then you are proposing economic stupidity. Rebalancing our economy is important but so is cutting the deficit. I cannot believe that you want Labour to fall to lose any hope of gaining any economic credibility, that it has fought so hard to try and regain.
    - Brumanuensis
      
      Cheney, funnily enough, was following on from that guru of right-wing economists Arthur Laffer – who famous didn’t invent the Laffer Curve, he merely illustrated it – who argued something quite similar, I recall.
      
      Of course, unless you’re a believer in Chartalism, deficits do matter, which is why I think Renie is slightly closer to the mark here than you, but nonetheless the risk of a default or of the markets losing confidence in the UK is so vanishingly small that it can be discounted.
    - Brumanuensis
      
      Cheney, funnily enough, was following on from that guru of right-wing economists Arthur Laffer – who famous didn’t invent the Laffer Curve, he merely illustrated it – who argued something quite similar, I recall.
      
      Of course, unless you’re a believer in Chartalism, deficits do matter, which is why I think Renie is slightly closer to the mark here than you, but nonetheless the risk of a default or of the markets losing confidence in the UK is so vanishingly small that it can be discounted.
http://twitter.com/waterwards dave stone

“Ed Balls must demand improvement and reform from departments within spending limits set by George Osborne.”

Just as Brown mimicked Ken Clarke, so should Balls mimic Osborne… What is it with the Labour Party – once we were infiltrated by a Trotskyist 1917 re-enactment society, now we’re afflicted with an equally backward-looking 1997 Re-enactment Society.

Why, oh why, can’t these people just stick to building small scale replicas of cathedrals out of matchsticks?
- http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
  
  Not true. We are committed to halving the deficit within a period of four years, therefore extra public spending is off the table. We can temporarily have a stimulus to get growth in the first year of entering office but we would be making cuts. That is party policy and the reality of fiscal discipline.
  - http://twitter.com/waterwards dave stone
    
    “We can temporarily have a stimulus to get growth in the first year of entering office ”
    
    Did you get that from Osborne?
  - http://twitter.com/waterwards dave stone
    
    “We can temporarily have a stimulus to get growth in the first year of entering office ”
    
    Did you get that from Osborne?
  - http://twitter.com/waterwards dave stone
    
    “We can temporarily have a stimulus to get growth in the first year of entering office ”
    
    Did you get that from Osborne?
    - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
      
      That is party policy, Dave. I thought you supported the Eds.
      - http://twitter.com/waterwards dave stone
        
        Oh I do mate, with heart and soul.
        
        It’s just that from your response I’d assumed, as advised by Richards, you’d want to keep within whatever limits Osborne chooses to set – so thought you’d want to run it past Osborne for approval first.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Very funny. If you want to have unlimited spending when we are supposed to get the deficit down, then maybe you should not be in a party of government.
      - Alexwilliamz
        
        Renie you are falling into tory logic here. Opposition to out and out deficit cutting = unlimited spending. Instead perhaps we might want some more insightful analysis and calculations to see the answer to questions such as what level of deficit can we actually afford. Or do we run a deficit as a means of generating more production. Often the type of spending that is causing the deficit is more important than the deficit itself. For example increasing the deficit because of paying additional unemployment benefits is not a particularly good thing. The deficit increasing as a consequence of spending elsewhere on infrastructure may not be a bad thing.
      - Alexwilliamz
        
        Also forgot to mention that word inflation?
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        I am sorry but I think you are falling into economic illiteracy. We need to cut the deficit. It is not Tory to say it. Everyone, apart from some on the hard left, accepts it. You cut your deficits with growth amongst other things. However, what you are saying is let us run up deficits indefinately, perhaps spending more and more. Though you might have good intentions, you will increase debt substantially and the people who actually get hit with the burden of debt is the poorest. There is nothing progressive about running up large deficits.
      - Alexwilliamz
        
        No Renie, please patronise me. Let’s just check your economic ‘literacy’ firstly can you tell me how many years out of the last 100 the government has not run a deficit? Why only now when we are in a real slump is deficit reduction cited as the only game in town. Surely common sense dictates that trig to cut a deficit during a time of economic weakness is incredibly difficult and as we are finding potentially damaging and self defeating.
        
        Secondly can you tell me where I have said we should be spending more and more. What I hav
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Please patronise you? You are attacking the idea of deficit reduction which is economically illiterate. Everyone agrees, even young people (so don’t be so patronising) that the deficit needs to be brought down. The Tories have failed on deficit reduction, with their speedy austerity but to ignore cutting the deficit is disastrous. You are proposing that we boost the deficit, which leads to inevitably more debt, and yes the poorest will always pay the most as a proportion of their income through tax. Labour pledged to halve the deficit over a period of four years, we should stick to that. We can delay a CSR when we enter power for a year, spend that year investing in growth but in spending constraints, and then start making the cuts that we need. But a debt-fuelled, unrealistic approach which ignores the deficit is absolute folly and economically nonsentical, almost as equally economically nonsentical as the Government’s plan.
      - Alexwilliamz
        
        Renie can you actually read why I have written and not what you think I have said. Thanks for replying.
        Your argument does remain littered with hyperbole and rhetoric which hardly brings out a reasoned debate. My position is simply that trying to cut a deficit during a time of economic weakness and recession is damaging. I am not making a case for an ever increasing deficit but making the point that worrying about the deficit is missing the real point. The real economic issue is two fold for any left leaning person one how do we improve general prosperity and two how do we ensure this is fairly distributed. If we saw a growth in gdp and employment then much of your concerns about the deficit would solve themselves, as this would see in increase in both revenue and a cutting of costs.
        The focus on the deficit is very much a result of the conservative election campaign, why the deficit, why not the balance of payments, or some other economic measure?
        We have had similar levels of deficit (in fact worse) in the past and this has not been an issue of prime importance.
        As to ignoring history, feel free to do so, I presume you would also abandon all empirical science? The bottom line is we will not be able to halve the deficit if we got re-elected because the present government have made such a mess out of it the deficit is higher than when we left office and the economy is in a weaker position.
        
        To clarify I am absolutely committed to the reduction of the deficit in the longer term. However the way to do this is by making our society more equitable so that there will be less costs on the state, this is what I think Ed M means by predistribution. I do not understand how recognising that the deficit might have to get bigger during a time of continued economic depression is so disastrous not sure why you think cutting irrespective of other considerations is a ‘fact’. Not cutting the deficit should the situation improve would be the problem as this would leave us in a weak position should a similar disaster occur. I think this is probably Keynsian economics, but as you say I am economically illiterate and make no claims to being an expert like yourself.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Boosting debt as you proposed earlier is not Keynesian. You accept we still need to reduce the deficit.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Boosting debt as you proposed earlier is not Keynesian. You accept we still need to reduce the deficit.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Boosting debt as you proposed earlier is not Keynesian. You accept we still need to reduce the deficit.
      - Alexwilliamz
        
        You seemto want to get the lastword in. You are at itagain’boosting debt’ as ifI have advocated debt as a good thing. AllI have said isitcannever be the onlyconsiderationand this wholepanicabout the deficitisthe productof the toories,its the economy not the deficit. yep they are linked but taking thisas a singleissue misses the wider picture.and I’mnot sure what isunkeynsianabout gvts borrowing to sustain demand during a recession.
Brumanuensis

For an article about the importance of policy, there’s remarkably little policy in it.
http://twitter.com/TomMillerUK Tom Miller

Below usual standard, this.

“The public don’t care about how NHS services are commissioned; they care about the service they receive.”

I suppose they also don’t care about Foundation Hospitals then Paul? If you pick an argument, wonk, or non-wonk, you should have the intellectual guts to stick to it.

Second thing.

Do you really think an NHS without primary care trusts will produce the decent outcomes you rightly speak of so highly?

If services decline with this, why make a shiboleth of not wanting to return to the previous model? What if ‘what works’ is also what we used to do, or the thing that is more traditionally ‘left wing’?

There are two things about pragmatism that don’t get picked up. Firstly, all pragmatism has goals. It is not an abstract concept bereft of all orientation.

Secondly, you can’t say ‘I’m agnostic about this’, before getting all fundamentalist when someone suggest an idea you don’t like the sound of.

Anyway, let the debate begin.
- http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
  
  Foundation hospitals? The country did not reject a Labour government because of ‘foundation hospitals’. There is nothing wrong with a model of healthcare which is based on the principles of the Co-operative movement.
  Andy Burnham has said that we would not reverse all the decisions of commissioning but we would get rid of the Health and Social Care Act because of what it would do the NHS, as a service and how it would be provided.
  People are pragmatic because at the end of the day, what is best is what works.
  - Brumanuensis
    
    ‘People are pragmatic because at the end of the day, what is best is what works’.
    
    I’d be careful about saying that in relation to Foundation Hospitals. Research – which I have quoted here before – on them shows that the improvements ascribed to their status pre-dated the changeover, i.e. whilst they were still NHS Trusts. And in practice, the actual application of co-operative principles to Foundation Trusts is fairly limited.
    
    The whole point about the HSCA’s commissioning decisions is that they are almost boundlessly illogical and contribute to a major increase in bureaucracy. Reversing is a sensible pragmatic measure, not a radical one.
    - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
      
      Well I agree with you in part on the last point but the key reason the Act needs to be removed is because it will damage the service people get.
      They are co-ops in fact they have the Rochdale Principles written in their constitution as well as their mutual structure. Anyway, we should stop attacking our own reforms. The WHO ranked the NHS the best healthcare system in the world and that was undoubtedly because of our reforms and our investment. What is best is what works.
      - Brumanuensis
        
        Well yes, their constitutions may say lots of things, but the Soviet Constitution of 1936 provided for freedom of religion and universal direct suffrage. In practice, the application has been limited by other considerations – including the limited nature of the Foundation Trust franchises.
        
        Can you show that the WHO’s verdict was due to the changes implemented? I’m not saying it’s not, but all of them?
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        Well that is a false comparison in all honesty, comparing the Soviet Union to foundation hospitals seems rather fanciful to say the least. They were founded on a mutual structure with Rochdale Principles written into their fabric.
        The WHO has ranked the NHS the best healthcare system in the world. Obviously, the reforms and investment bore an impact.
      - Brumanuensis
        
        Renie, it was an analogy. I wasn’t suggesting that Gosplan and foundation trusts were part and parcel of the same ideological process.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        The central point is, is that foundation hospitals have got mutual structures and are run on the basis of the Rochdale Principles. We should go even further and make foundation trusts more community based with even more people power by allowing all patients to be part of their local foundation trust even perhaps extending it to primary care.
        The fact is that the reforms and investment New Labour put into the NHS worked as all the evidence shows now that the NHS has been ranked the best healthcare system in the world. We as Labour supporters should praise that not question it or thrash it.
- Brumanuensis
  
  Exactly Tom. The point about pragmatism is well-made. People are pragmatic about means, not ends, and even then pragmatism is a device to use when your initial plan doesn’t win approval. It’s completely foolish to begin with a pragmatic approach. Go for broke and then if you can’t win on your own terms, start to bargain. That way, you’re more likely than not to get most of what you wanted in the first place.
Redshift1

There is a very good New Statesman piece here by the folk at the IPPR -
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2012/09/after-austerity-what-happens-next

Good follow up piece by the TUC’s Duncan Weldon too
http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2012/09/pearce-kellys-after-austerity/
- http://twitter.com/waterwards dave stone
  
  Lots of interesting stuff in those refs – thanks. “Shared growth” could well become a key concept for Labour.
Hugh

Was there free childcare over that period? And has nothing changed since the 70s?

So how would you provide guaranteed full employment, free childcare and the require housing today? If it’s simple enough, it shouldn’t take much to explain.
- http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
  
  Okay I’ll try and do it step by step, if that helps:- On housing, use £6bn in one year to create 100,000 jobs and continue that year on year across the Parliament. That could be funded by a Land Value Tax and we would end up with 500,000 new homes, up to 3.75 million jobs in the construction industry and a return to economy of £8.4bn.
  - On jobs, repeat the banker’s bonus tax again and use the money to guarantee everyone who has been out of work for a year a job paid preferably at the Living Wage, which people would be required to take up or facing losing their benefits. Perhaps if the banks start avoiding the tax by moving to salaries, use the funding from the existing Work Programme instead. You only need about £2bn to be on the safe side.
  - On childcare, scrap higher-rate pension tax relief to fund high-quality childcare for all pre-school children which is free and parents can turn to when needed, starting with a Teach Early Years First scheme and the guarantee of fifteen hours of free nursery care to all 2 years olds.
  - On childcare again, tax child benefit payments for higher-rate taxpayers instead of abolishing it, and use the £1.5bn raised to reverse cuts to SureStart and early years services.
  - On education, use the existing money set aside for the Pupil Premium to reintroduce EMA, cut class sizes and expand free instrumental music lessons for students. Instead of going ahead with the EBacc, introduce an Education Credit, introduce the ModBacc in all schools and expand co-operative trust schools and academies but create Local School Commissioners elected by teachers and parents to oversee standards as well as accountability.
  - On health, repeal the Health and Social Care Act and introduce democratisation into new commissioning bodies of whatever guise they make take by breaking up these National Commissioning Boards and instead making them local or regional. Strengthening the role of pharmacists is primary care, bring in foundation trusts in primacy care too, stop the overusing of hospital beds when not needed, no A&E closures.
  
  Just a few ideas with no extra spending involved which should be in the party’s manifesto on key issues like housing, welfare, childcare, health and education.
Hugh

Was there free childcare over that period? And has nothing changed since the 70s?

So how would you provide guaranteed full employment, free childcare and the require housing today? If it’s simple enough, it shouldn’t take much to explain.
http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh

What are you on about? We improved the NHS and we should have value for money.
http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh

Well hang on. The policy that the party has put so far is a good first step but is basically bringing back the Future Jobs Fund. Your characterisation is wrong. Firstly, yes there are 2.5m unemployed but they would be guaranteed a job in within a year if they cannot find one of their own back. It is only around 20% who fail to do that. The cost is not £3bn but actually within the region of £1bn to £2bn, seen as it is a living wage I propose then it would be about £2bn. Therefore it is fully costed. The bonus tax when repeated actually brought in about £3.5bn even though it was predicted to bring in around £1bn.
Now please do cut the melodramatic emotional thing because it does not do anyone any favours, it just Americanises the debate. The Welfare State was about protecting people from the Five Giant Evils, idleness being one of them, as I mentioned in my piece for Lib Con. I do not think any parent who is unemployed would refuse a job paid at the living wage, they’d jump at the chance. All you are doing with JSA is timelimiting to a year which saves money and gets people in work but boosts incentives to work.
- robertcp
  
  I agree with the ideas of a guaranteed job after a year of unemployment and free childcare if they are affordable.
  - Hugh
    
    Me too. I’m also in favour of peace on earth and goodwill towards all men.
    - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
      
      Only that free childcare and a Jobs Guarantee is very possible to do whereas peace on earth and goodwill towards all men is hard work to achieve.
      - Hugh
        
        Unfortunately you’ve entirely failed to illustrate how.
      - Hugh
        
        Unfortunately you’ve entirely failed to illustrate how.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        I have not at all. You have failed to actually understand what I am saying, Hugh.
    - robertcp
      
      Of course, Paul Richards is probably not in favour of peace on earth (Iraq etc).
- Hugh
  
  2.5 million unemployed; 904,000 unemployed for more than a year. That’s not 20 per cent. Simply repeating that it is fully costed doesn’t make it so.
  - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
    
    But is is. You are simply not listening to what I am saying. 80% of those currently unemployed tend to find work within a year. We are really concentrating on that 20% who cannot find a work under their own back. It is not straight off and all at once, it is gradual so it is within a year of you losing your job. That makes it an awful lot cheaper. And you can pay for it by repeating the banker’s bonus tax which is expected to raise £2bn which is the cost of such Guarantee. Very simple and fully costed.
    - Hugh
      
      “80% of those currently unemployed tend to find work within a year.”
      
      You seem to be deliberately obtuse. If we travel back a year ago, the number of “those currently unemployed” was 2.49 million (Sep 11). One year later (today) 904,000 of those are still unemployed. Clearly 80 per cent have not found work within a year.
      
      So, regardless of how you phase it in, if this had been in place by the start of September last year, the government would now be paying for 904,000 people’s wages. That, quite plainly, costs more than £1-2 billion.
    - Hugh
      
      “80% of those currently unemployed tend to find work within a year.”
      
      You seem to be deliberately obtuse. If we travel back a year ago, the number of “those currently unemployed” was 2.49 million (Sep 11). One year later (today) 904,000 of those are still unemployed. Clearly 80 per cent have not found work within a year.
      
      So, regardless of how you phase it in, if this had been in place by the start of September last year, the government would now be paying for 904,000 people’s wages. That, quite plainly, costs more than £1-2 billion.
    - Hugh
      
      “80% of those currently unemployed tend to find work within a year.”
      
      You seem to be deliberately obtuse. If we travel back a year ago, the number of “those currently unemployed” was 2.49 million (Sep 11). One year later (today) 904,000 of those are still unemployed. Clearly 80 per cent have not found work within a year.
      
      So, regardless of how you phase it in, if this had been in place by the start of September last year, the government would now be paying for 904,000 people’s wages. That, quite plainly, costs more than £1-2 billion.
      - http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh
        
        The fact you are being plain rude shows you have failed to win the argument.
        Most people who are unemployed do tend to find a job, part-time or not within a year, around 80%. Look at the figures, that is normally what happens.
        It would cost around £2bn. I repeat watch the sources, I have shown you rather than being rather arrogant as well as understanding what I am saying.
Brumanuensis

Baumol’s cost disease.
Daniel Speight

So Labour needs to craft its policy platform, fit for the age of austerity.

Of course I could be wrong, but I do have a sneaky feeling that for Paul this means policies similar to the present coalition, hence his fear of ‘change’.

Myself, I would like to hear some radical policies coming out of the party. How about no renewal of any railway concessions as they come due with plans to mutualize these services.
http://www.facebook.com/jim.crowder2 Jim Crowder

I wasn’t suggesting that we should be against VfM and stuff like that; more that it is Tory policy and has been attacked for ignoring the “needs of the employees and patients”. I believe this is simply because we are full of awareness about what the Labour Party is against (Tories mainly) and are not sure what we stand for. It’s always couched in terms of what we don’t want. Even Blair used that approach. What do we want?
PeterBarnard

There’s a lot of Conservative rhetoric and dog-whistling (eg … reform … age of austerity … tax and spend …) in this article, Mr Richards, but not much in way of solid or positive proposals. In fact, your musings are much better suited for this Sunday’s Telegraph, than they are for a website “for Labour-minded people.”

I’ll just comment that Mr Osborne is proposing (Budget 2012) a real-terms reduction of 7.2% in Departmental current expenditure for 2015-16 and 2016-17. Add in a feasible population growth of 1.2%, and that’s a per capita reduction of 8.4%.

Is that what you are saying we should accept? If so, pray tell us what “reforms” should Labour propose in its Manifesto 2015 so that this reduction is accommodated, while keeping the output and quality of the public services to at least the same level?
AlanGiles

You obviously haven’t seen many then. At least Brumanuensis doesn’t accuse other posters of drug-taking, drunkeness, or even more serious criminal activity, nor does he litter his posts with a coarse word for excrement.
Brumanuensis

So how’s sacking those four employees getting on John? Still not figured out how employment law works?
Brumanuensis

So how’s sacking those four employees getting on John? Still not figured out how employment law works?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray

Two decades ago Neil Kinnock was also manically introducing policy statements with regularity – and little good did they do us.

First, governments lose elections, oppositions do not win them.

That being said, by 2015 we will need a set of workable and reasonable policies. These need to have some coherent values and themes, and it is that which Cruddas has been brought in to work up. This is necessary simply because the Blairite themes, with their assumption of large scale growth paid for by setting the City free and blethering on about ‘aspiration’ sound utterly hollow, and for the majority, hardly feasible. Its more a case of keeping heads above water, not aspiring to quick riches.

The very last thing we need is another round of ‘reforms’. Many of the changes should never have happened in the first place and are suited to the Coalition, but not any party worthy of the name Labour.

However, if we take the theme of this article seriously, then it is obvious that the electorate will support the Tories again and the Government will be returned. If that is seriously what most want, then it is not our job to say ‘ok, we will give it to you instead’

Rather honest opposition that the dishonour of applying Tory policies in government.

Thankfully, I think this sort of view has become a marginalised irrelevance, and has no place in today’s Labour party.
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