Tory strategy and policy is “anything goes” – Labour must overcome with a new economic narrative

The Labour movement column

By Anthony Painter / @anthonypainter

A pattern is emerging in the Conservatives’ election strategy. The assumption is that they need to simply guide the ship in order to win the election. So that’s what they are doing. Don’t get pinned down, jump on any populist bandwagon going, present aspirations as policies but make sure that you are all things to all people at all times.

Take crime. On Monday the BBC’s Mark Easton tore apart the use of statistics on violent crime by Conservative Central Office. Why is this important? Well, David Cameron’s entire case that Britain is a “broken society” rests on the notion that violent crime is increasing.

The only problem is, it isn’t. The only comparable measure of violent crime between now and a decade ago is the British Crime Survey. As Easton states:

“The story is of falling and then stable violence for over a decade.”

So David Cameron’s entire argument collapses around him. No matter: it chimes with the media narrative. The number of people worried about anti-social behaviour has fallen to 15% – the lowest on record. But being honest on crime and anti-social behaviour doesn’t fit this “anything goes” Tory strategy.

So Andy Coulson overrides Shadow Cabinet members much to their consternation and announces that prison ships – slammed for being totally unfit for purpose – would be re-commissioned by a Conservative government.

But it’s an election campaign: all’s fair in love and war, right? Well, no: these habits developed in opposition have a chance of carrying over into office.

At the end of the day, though, criminal justice policy has a chance to be considered in more depth before any legislative moves. But the economy is a very different matter indeed. Should the Conservatives win, they will take over the handling of a supersonic jet, mid-air – with immediate effect on the economy. Unfortunately, the Shadow Chancellor has exactly the same habit of announcing aspirations or ideas or heavily caveated proposals as if they were firm policies.

In this vein, he was able to breeze into a Today programme radio car on Friday describing his proposals for financial and banking reform as “Obama style”. On even a cursory glance, it is easy to see that his proposals are so conditioned on international agreement that little is likely to happen.

On Monday, Osborne painted a picture of a British economy soaring on the back of a huge resurgence of business investment and export led growth. He even adopted a mocking tone to challenge those who saw China as an economic threat. Far from it, Osborne said: it was an opportunity. They may be growing their economy at a furious rate, but surely this was a market, not a competitor for an economy such as ours?

All this sounded great. So where was the plan? Well, we’re going to “cut red tape”.

That’s it? If that’s all it’s going to take, sign me up. But it won’t, of course. It’s just the latest example of big Tory talk and little by way of planning. They might get lucky – and this goes for their crazily risky plan for slashing public spending too. But luck is all it would be, and the British people deserve better than that.

What about the flagship married couples’ allowance? What flicker there is that it might be an actual policy has been comprehensively torn apart by Labour’s HM Treasury team: it would cost £800million and benefit just 6% of married couples and 2% of all families.

Well, it’s not all bad news for the Tories. It does mean that David Cameron gets to look good – and that is ultimately what this is about: it’s about getting elected; not about governing well and wisely.

But that’s Labour’s problem. It can tear apart policy after policy, argument after argument, and expose every vagueness of commitment – but that won’t be the point in this election.

This election – more than any other since 1992 – will come down to the electorate’s assessment of economic competence.

So it is worth looking at where things stand:

The Conservatives have a 17% lead on who is best to manage the economy going forward. 43% believe the Prime Minister’s decisions made the recession better, while 50% believe they made it worse (only 3% thought no difference which demonstrates an interesting polarisation.) 12% thought economic recovery would make them more likely to vote Labour over 10% who said it would make them less likely.

The reality is, though, this is just the baseline. None of it is set in stone. Labour’s poll rating has been creeping up since the Summer – though it seems to have stalled at around the time of the Pre-Budget Report – and that has a relationship with the slow return of economic optimism. In terms of the impact of economic recovery – assuming it continues – on support for Labour, it is impossible to make an accurate prediction.

What can be said is that this is a new context and while the Government may not receive thanks for getting Britain out of recession, it does sharpen focus on the debate about who has the best policies to protect and strengthen the recovery.

While Labour’s baseline is low, this discussion is absolutely an opportunity. Strangely, the Budget that many see as a political hot potato becomes an opportunity in the context of recovery and a recession that has felled fewer businesses, resulted in fewer home repossessions, and has not resulted in the level of unemployment forecast a year or so go – 450,000 fewer.

Economic pain is absolutely real nonetheless, and make no mistake, this is absolutely not a moment for triumphalism. However, the discussion may now become more about the future than the here or now and that is Labour’s political economic challenge – to win the argument about further reinforcing the recovery and building a resilient economy for the future.

The election won’t be about the economy solely – the Tories’ tax plans, benefiting the wealthy over the majority will also get a wringing.

However, the difference with the economy is that it is an argument that Labour cannot afford to lose: lose this debate and it loses the election. Win it and political possibilities emerge.