The Tories are the only ones fighting a class war

By Toby Flux / @LabourMatters

I’ve read with disappointment the growing criticism of what some call the ‘class war strategy‘. Not because a strategy based on class war isn’t bound to fail, but because so many seem to have willingly fallen for the media construct that it’s Labour which is fighting a class war at all.

It was of course a gift to the Tory leader writers who pretend to be journalists that Gordon declared that Cameron’s Inheritance Tax policy seemed to have “been dreamed up on the playing fields of Eton”. Deflecting attention from the real class warriors while portraying Labour as a party of narrow interests was the aim and, judging by recent comments from some in the party, it’s unnerving a few people.

Ed Balls has described the notion that Labour is fighting a class war as “nonsense” but doesn’t miss the opportunity to repeat the real message – that Tory tax plans are the embodiment of class war.

He’s right to do so. How else could one explain Cameron’s plan to change the Married Couple Allowance, which would give the highest earners 13 times as much as people on lower incomes; abolishing the 50p income tax rate, which would give all the benefit to the highest earning 1% of the population; reversing fairer Pension Relief Rules, where all the benefit is to the 1.5% top pension savers; or their Inheritance Tax Giveaway, which only favours the 2% wealthiest estates?

Yet instead of understanding that these class-based policies are Cameron’s Achilles heel, many who should know better seem content to berate Labour for daring to highlight that the Tories want to govern for the few at the cost of the many.

Boxing Day campaigning for the continuation of the Hunting Ban gave opponents more ammunition, but the papers can attack us on this issue all they like. It’s not only the right policy, but an overwhelmingly popular one too.

How disappointing, then, to read some on the left claim that it plays into the hands of the Tories. Labour shouldn’t be distracted they claim; people don’t care about the hunting ban, instead it’s jobs and prosperity Labour should be focusing on.

They’re right that the economy should and will be our priority, but wrong to suggest that using the huntsman’s Boxing Day to remind the three-quarters who back the ban that hunting remains the priority for the other quarter including Cameron’s Conservative Party. In doing so, Labour managed to turn a traditionally non-news day into a day which put politics front and centre. How far would we have got with attempts to raise awareness of any other policy on Boxing Day? Nowhere, that’s how far!

It’s important that the frontbench repeat that Labour’s not fighting a class war at every opportunity, but it’s equally important that the rest of us don’t fall into the trap of attacking the leadership for pointing out who the real class warriors are. Next time you’re tempted to pen an attack on class war, aim your guns at the enemy: there’s no shortage of ammunition, after all.