Taking responsibility for the downturn – and not repeating the Tories’ mistakes

By Grace Fletcher-Hackwood

At the weekend I attended Manchester Labour Women’s Forum, which I’ve blogged about in more detail over at LabourWomen. At the event, Hazel Blears reiterated comments she’d made elsewhere about the Prime Minister’s decision not to ‘apologise’ for being unable to prevent the economic crisis:

“You can’t win as a politician,” she said. “If you say you are sorry somehow you are responsible for every single thing. If you don’t say you are sorry you are arrogant and out of touch. You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” (I’ve copied this form of words from Press Gazette, but she said the same thing on Saturday.)

Now, let’s be clear. In the Prime Minister’s interview published today in the Guardian, he did not apologise for the recession, and nor should he have done. Gordon Brown can’t apologise for causing the collapse of the global banking system, because that would make him a liar. He didn’t cause it, and nobody believes he did. I’m also fairly sure that nobody believed the Tory leader’s ‘apology’ for ‘not having criticised the government quite enough’.

What the Prime Minister has said is that he ‘takes full reponsibility for his actions’ – specifically, for the system of regulation he created in 1997. Never mind that before then there was almost no regulation – it’s become clear that the system Brown put in place wasn’t enough to keep up with global financial flows, and he’s admitted he could have done more, so fair enough.

What worries me is whether Hazel was right, and whether the Tories and the media will twist this into a claim that the Prime Minister is responsible for the recession. What I hope is that voters will look at everything he said, not just the bit that gets made into a headline, because he is beginning to paint a picture of what the post-recession world will look like. He has said that the G20 summit in April will set ground rules on the structure and limits of executive pay; he has spoken of an end to offshore tax havens; he has said the public wants to move away from an economy based on risk. He has said “Laissez-faire has had its day.”

And hasn’t it, just. Think back to the last recession and how the Tories handled it. Unemployment at 50% in parts of the country, youth unemployment at 75% – and how did they deal with it? They wrote people off, out of the labour market and onto Incapacity Benefit; some of these people are only now being helped back into work by Labour.

Contrast that with the real help the government is providing now for those affected by the recession. 220000 people a month are coming off benefits and going into work or training. As of next month, anyone who has been unemployed for six months or more will be entitled to extra support, which may include an employer recruitment subsidy. Business Link is providing employers with advice on the alternatives to redundancy, and the Jobcentre Plus can work with employers to advise workers on their benefit entitlements and help them look for jobs even before they are made redundant. The government has provided a one-stop-shop for British workers to find out about their rights and the help they are entitled to at its all-inclusive website, Directgov: and in my area, Manchester’s Labour City Council is helping out by sending Real Help Now information out with their newsletters to every household across the city.

The truth is, while laissez-faire characterised the Tories’ response to their recession in the early 90s, ‘responsibility’ will characterise Labour’s handling of this one. If ‘taking full responsibility’ for the economic crisis means providing Real Help Now to those affected by it, then that is what the Prime Minister is doing, and I’m sure I’m not the only one to be glad of it.