The huge, and I mean HUGE news is that while William and Kate have invited all the dictators of the world to their wedding (the Crown Prince of Bahrain, King Mswati III of Swaziland, Saudi tyrants and Robert Mugabe's personal ambassador to London), they have deliberately excluded two Labour former PMs (whilst inviting former Tory PMs).
We've had a ton of excuses come out from the palace - that this isn't a state wedding (ah, so the ambassador from Mugabe is William's personal friend, is he? Shades of Edward VIII). And the whole business of "knights of the garter" (how does that apply to Guy Ritchie)?
What is clear is that the Royal Family is breaking with over a century of tradition where the head of state stays neutral, and is deliberately picking a fight with a major political party.
It changes the constitution more than any referendum to change the voting system.
Blair's exclusion is particularly interesting as the only reason we have a monarchy at the moment is because Blair used his political capital to rescue them in 1997. At the time, many of us Labourites shook our heads and wondered at him. Republicanism was riding high, the Labour party was riding high, and Blair was at his zenith. If he'd have withdrawn his support from the House of Windsor, they'd have collapsed.
Looking back, he is probably wondering why he bothered to help them.
One thing is clear - a future Labour PM will view the monarchy as a biased institution that is opposed to our party and our Labour voters i.e. our enemy. When the next royal crisis comes - and it will come - it is unlikely that the next Labour PM will do a Blair. We're more likely to do a Baldwin.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Looks like Osborne is determined to turn the UK into Ireland
In 2006, George Osborne penned a piece for the Times called Look and learn from across the Irish Sea, which he began with the memorable opening phrase,
It's still laughable, but he doesn't seem to get it, and today's budget was a continuation of his stated aim to emulate Ireland - he cut corporation tax rates just two months after he hiked VAT on consumers.
He fondly believes that cutting corporation tax stimulates the economy - but as the Irish experience shows, the only thing that stimulates an economy is consumption - preferably by the consumer or but in emergencies, consumption by the state works too. But what has he done? Taken a hammer to the consumer with his threats to people's jobs, VAT rises and petrol rises (albeit backing down by a tremendous penny on petrol), and cut consumption by the state at the same time.
Anyone who runs a business will tell you that in order to survive, you have to sell stuff - which means other people need to buy stuff from you. It's literally that simple and that difficult. If people stop buying, no amount of corporate tax cutting helps - because if you don't make the sales, you don't make the profits, and corporation tax is merely a theoretical notion.
I've never heard of a business saying they will close down if their corporation tax isn't cut by 5%, but I've heard plenty say they have to close because they can't make sales. Forget all the tortured arguments about encouraging people to start new businesses with the corporation tax cut - success in business is more about how the hell you keep a business going, how you sell stuff. Starting the business is the easy bit.
Osborne's decision to heap taxation on individuals and simultaneously lighten them on businesses, actually hurts the economy because it clobbers those who underpin any economy, anywhere - consumers.
We got a glimpse of what is going on in the latest figures released by Sainsburys. Like for like sales increased by just 1% in the 10 weeks to 19th March, down from 3.6% in the previous three months. It will just take a small further tightening of household budgets to tip them into a fall. Sainsburys (and Tescos) have blamed the VAT rise. Will the cut in corporate tax help them? It depends on whether the impact of VAT, high inflation, high fuel prices and high joblessness reduces sales by more than the 5% corporation tax has been cut by. If it does, profits after tax will be down despite the corp tax cut, and their only option is to cut expenses - jobs - which frightens the consumer even more.
Ireland has proved that if you get the the balance between households and corporations wrong, if you expect households to shoulder all the burden and corporations and shareholders none, you end up in a death spiral. Shareholders don't spend enough to keep an economy going, and that's before you factor in the fact that most shareholders are either off-shore or overseas investors anyway. Trickle down economics doesn't work. But that's what has been served up by the Tories today.
A GENERATION ago, the very idea that a British politician would go to Ireland to see how to run an economy would have been laughable.
It's still laughable, but he doesn't seem to get it, and today's budget was a continuation of his stated aim to emulate Ireland - he cut corporation tax rates just two months after he hiked VAT on consumers.
He fondly believes that cutting corporation tax stimulates the economy - but as the Irish experience shows, the only thing that stimulates an economy is consumption - preferably by the consumer or but in emergencies, consumption by the state works too. But what has he done? Taken a hammer to the consumer with his threats to people's jobs, VAT rises and petrol rises (albeit backing down by a tremendous penny on petrol), and cut consumption by the state at the same time.
Anyone who runs a business will tell you that in order to survive, you have to sell stuff - which means other people need to buy stuff from you. It's literally that simple and that difficult. If people stop buying, no amount of corporate tax cutting helps - because if you don't make the sales, you don't make the profits, and corporation tax is merely a theoretical notion.
I've never heard of a business saying they will close down if their corporation tax isn't cut by 5%, but I've heard plenty say they have to close because they can't make sales. Forget all the tortured arguments about encouraging people to start new businesses with the corporation tax cut - success in business is more about how the hell you keep a business going, how you sell stuff. Starting the business is the easy bit.
Osborne's decision to heap taxation on individuals and simultaneously lighten them on businesses, actually hurts the economy because it clobbers those who underpin any economy, anywhere - consumers.
We got a glimpse of what is going on in the latest figures released by Sainsburys. Like for like sales increased by just 1% in the 10 weeks to 19th March, down from 3.6% in the previous three months. It will just take a small further tightening of household budgets to tip them into a fall. Sainsburys (and Tescos) have blamed the VAT rise. Will the cut in corporate tax help them? It depends on whether the impact of VAT, high inflation, high fuel prices and high joblessness reduces sales by more than the 5% corporation tax has been cut by. If it does, profits after tax will be down despite the corp tax cut, and their only option is to cut expenses - jobs - which frightens the consumer even more.
Ireland has proved that if you get the the balance between households and corporations wrong, if you expect households to shoulder all the burden and corporations and shareholders none, you end up in a death spiral. Shareholders don't spend enough to keep an economy going, and that's before you factor in the fact that most shareholders are either off-shore or overseas investors anyway. Trickle down economics doesn't work. But that's what has been served up by the Tories today.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
The public sector unions should enact a personal spending strike rather than an actual strike
Trade unions have been meeting to consider striking in response to the public-spending cuts, and the Tories have been rubbing their hands in the hopes of stirring hatred towards the unions and trying to turn public opinion against them.
I've got a better idea - instead of the unions striking, they should ask their members to go on a personal spending strike. They should honour their employment contracts, turn up for work, supply the services they are supposed to, and instead focus their efforts in an area they have absolute discretion - how to spend (or not spend) their after-tax take-home pay.
This is essentially a boycott of the economy at large - Stop eating out, stop buying anything other than essentials, save, save, save, and pay off debts (which is rational as they could lose their jobs, Gideon said so).
After all Osborne thinks spending is bad. So public sector workers should stop spending their after-tax pay. How on earth can he object to that?
A good six months of a co-ordinated boycott by all public sector workers (and anyone else who feels like joining in) should see a contraction of the economy which will precipitate a crisis and a general election by the end of the year.
If we are going to have spending cuts, lets have competitive spending cuts. Lets see who can cut their spending the most, the state or individuals, and which group has the biggest effect on the economy. Why should just one group suffer while others make hay? Things should be spread around, both prosperity and misery.
My message to the unions is to not go on strike - ask your members to be prudent and prepare for the job losses by stopping all their personal spending instead.
I've got a better idea - instead of the unions striking, they should ask their members to go on a personal spending strike. They should honour their employment contracts, turn up for work, supply the services they are supposed to, and instead focus their efforts in an area they have absolute discretion - how to spend (or not spend) their after-tax take-home pay.
This is essentially a boycott of the economy at large - Stop eating out, stop buying anything other than essentials, save, save, save, and pay off debts (which is rational as they could lose their jobs, Gideon said so).
After all Osborne thinks spending is bad. So public sector workers should stop spending their after-tax pay. How on earth can he object to that?
A good six months of a co-ordinated boycott by all public sector workers (and anyone else who feels like joining in) should see a contraction of the economy which will precipitate a crisis and a general election by the end of the year.
If we are going to have spending cuts, lets have competitive spending cuts. Lets see who can cut their spending the most, the state or individuals, and which group has the biggest effect on the economy. Why should just one group suffer while others make hay? Things should be spread around, both prosperity and misery.
My message to the unions is to not go on strike - ask your members to be prudent and prepare for the job losses by stopping all their personal spending instead.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Economy contracted in Q4 2010
The only people shocked by today's bad figures are Tories.
I'm sure they will rush out to blame the weather - but even if you strip out cold-weather effects, growth would have been non-existent. This is very serious because the contraction happened in Q4, which is the most important trading period of the year. If we can't grow in Q4, when can we grow?
Ed Balls and others pointed out that if you attack the economy while it is still fragile, you are attacking the private sector, which leads to a drop in growth. Especially as most of the "cuts" the government made so far were cuts to contracts held by the private sector.
It was all compounded by Osborne holding his emergency budget in October, just before the important Christmas trading period, when most businesses make most of their profits. He gleefully frightened voters, telling them that he was going to axe public sector jobs - but didn't say which jobs, so that all 5 million public sector voters shut their wallets tight and stopped spending. Which again impacted the private sector.
Osborne can't seem to grasp that economies run on confidence. People don't spend unless they feel confident about their jobs. It's fear that holds economies back, not fiscal policy. And if you frighten the economy into contracting, you end up with a bigger deficit as tax receipts shrivel - ask Ireland, who were running a budget surplus in 2007 and might have ridden out the financial crisis if they hadn't decided to take an axe to their economy at the same time.
What's just happened is a vote of no confidence in Osborne by consumers.
I'm sure they will rush out to blame the weather - but even if you strip out cold-weather effects, growth would have been non-existent. This is very serious because the contraction happened in Q4, which is the most important trading period of the year. If we can't grow in Q4, when can we grow?
Ed Balls and others pointed out that if you attack the economy while it is still fragile, you are attacking the private sector, which leads to a drop in growth. Especially as most of the "cuts" the government made so far were cuts to contracts held by the private sector.
It was all compounded by Osborne holding his emergency budget in October, just before the important Christmas trading period, when most businesses make most of their profits. He gleefully frightened voters, telling them that he was going to axe public sector jobs - but didn't say which jobs, so that all 5 million public sector voters shut their wallets tight and stopped spending. Which again impacted the private sector.
Osborne can't seem to grasp that economies run on confidence. People don't spend unless they feel confident about their jobs. It's fear that holds economies back, not fiscal policy. And if you frighten the economy into contracting, you end up with a bigger deficit as tax receipts shrivel - ask Ireland, who were running a budget surplus in 2007 and might have ridden out the financial crisis if they hadn't decided to take an axe to their economy at the same time.
What's just happened is a vote of no confidence in Osborne by consumers.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election
So it turned out to be a comfortable victory for Labour, with a majority greater than Phil Woolas got in 1997 at the height of Labour's New Dawn.
The significance of this election was that it was the first since the early 1980's where Labour faced tactical voting against us, and we were nervous, as not only had the LibDems got within 103 votes of us at the 2010 general election but the combined LibDem and Tory vote in that election was enough to overwhelm us.
As it happened, enough LibDem and Tory voters switched to us, and enough Tories stayed Tory, to prevent tactical voting for the LibDems from delivering a win. The Tory candidate looked sad standing on the podium, he had been sacrificed at the Coalition altar, and I felt a bit sorry for him.
If Tories and LibDems are asking "why wasn't tactical voting enough to win this seat", the answer is "because you fielded two candidates", which enabled those genuinely Tory to vote Tory. If they want to crush that kind of thing out they need a a proper "coupon" election of the sort they had in 1918, where no Liberal stood against a Tory and no Tory stood against a Liberal. That requires both parties to merge, which might be too much for Tories to stomach, while at the same time being the end of the LibDems.
As long as the Tories and LibDems field two candidates, the vote should split between them allowing Labour to win, especially if some of their voters switch directly to us because of dissatisfaction with the government.
The significance of this election was that it was the first since the early 1980's where Labour faced tactical voting against us, and we were nervous, as not only had the LibDems got within 103 votes of us at the 2010 general election but the combined LibDem and Tory vote in that election was enough to overwhelm us.
As it happened, enough LibDem and Tory voters switched to us, and enough Tories stayed Tory, to prevent tactical voting for the LibDems from delivering a win. The Tory candidate looked sad standing on the podium, he had been sacrificed at the Coalition altar, and I felt a bit sorry for him.
If Tories and LibDems are asking "why wasn't tactical voting enough to win this seat", the answer is "because you fielded two candidates", which enabled those genuinely Tory to vote Tory. If they want to crush that kind of thing out they need a a proper "coupon" election of the sort they had in 1918, where no Liberal stood against a Tory and no Tory stood against a Liberal. That requires both parties to merge, which might be too much for Tories to stomach, while at the same time being the end of the LibDems.
As long as the Tories and LibDems field two candidates, the vote should split between them allowing Labour to win, especially if some of their voters switch directly to us because of dissatisfaction with the government.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Tory Vat Bombshell gets dropped on Jan 4th
It's hard to avoid news of the Tory Vat Bombshell getting dropped on January 4th. Everytime you turn on the TV, there is a retailer spending hard cash on prime time television adverts warning the public that the Conservatives are going to hammer them with a VAT rise even though the economy is still in a fragile state.
We should also note that during the election campaign, George Osborne specifically promised he wouldn't raise VAT.
Here's what he said
The plans we set out involved around 80 per cent of the work coming from spending restraint and about 20 per cent from tax increases . . . The tax increases are already in place; the plans do not include an increase in VAT.
And here's what Cameron told Jeremy Paxman in an interview on April 23rd:
We have absolutely no plans to raise VAT. Our first budget is all about recognising we need to get spending under control rather than putting up tax.
This is clearly a Government Of All The Liars.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Why have the Con-Dems lost control of the street?
The 13 Labour years look remarkably peaceful as well as prosperous now, don't they? How have the Tories lost control so quickly?
Some part of the responsibility must be down to Boris Johnson, who seems to spend more time guzzling and having affairs, than running the capital. It's a massive contrast to the way Ken Livingstone ran things. Trafalgar Square was a mess in 1999, but he cleaned it up and reclaimed it for ordinary Londoners pretty quickly. The Met was given more funds and hired more police, and managed to handle really large demonstrations like the one million Iraq war marchers and the Countryside marchers, without problem. Nobody dared to go awol under Ken's watch, because he had a grip on what was going on at the Met and in his capital.
So what has changed?
When the first student protest got violent, the feeling was that the Met had been caught off guard - they simply didn't have enough police on hand to deal with it. But now it's the fourth protest, and they still haven't got a grip. Have they cut their budget so much they can't afford the overtime for extra officers? Are the police deliberately holding back in order to make a protest of their own? Who thought it was a great idea to drive Charles and Camilla through the middle of the riot? And with the light on in the car, so the students protesting about unaffordable fees could get a really good look at all the diamonds and emeralds Camilla was wearing, Marie-Antoinette style. Given that the instinct of the ordinary Brit is to steer out of troubled areas, only someone in the police feeling malicious would have decided to drive the royals right into the riot.
And what about this juxtaposition: on the 7th December, Ken Clarke announces that short-term prison doesn't work, but three days later Cameron declares that the "full force of the law" is to be applied to the rioters! Is this another U-turn for him on his law and order policy, or is he just venting for the cameras? And there's also the juxtaposition of Cameron being a violent member of the Bullingdon club in his student days, criticising other violent students. You really couldn't make this up.
P.S. For those interested in the protests against Topshop and others for tax avoidance, please visit the following blog by someone called George, called Boycott Big Business, which gives a detailed look at why these companies are being targetted.
I'd like to point out that the Inland revenue benefits from these protests. It works like this: Say you have £20 to spend on a top, and decide to boycott TopShop and spend your money at John Lewis instead. Because the £20 gets spent regardless, the effect on the economy is neutral. However, because John lewis pays all it's taxes, the Treasury experiences an increase in tax revenue. Employment at TopShop may go down, but employment at john lewis should go up, so the effect on employment is neutral too. And best of all, other retailers may hastily decide to get their affairs in order so that they are not targeted, which also leads to an increase in tax revenue. It's win-win-win, as we then don't haemorrhage tax money to the less scupulous parasite states.
Some part of the responsibility must be down to Boris Johnson, who seems to spend more time guzzling and having affairs, than running the capital. It's a massive contrast to the way Ken Livingstone ran things. Trafalgar Square was a mess in 1999, but he cleaned it up and reclaimed it for ordinary Londoners pretty quickly. The Met was given more funds and hired more police, and managed to handle really large demonstrations like the one million Iraq war marchers and the Countryside marchers, without problem. Nobody dared to go awol under Ken's watch, because he had a grip on what was going on at the Met and in his capital.
So what has changed?
When the first student protest got violent, the feeling was that the Met had been caught off guard - they simply didn't have enough police on hand to deal with it. But now it's the fourth protest, and they still haven't got a grip. Have they cut their budget so much they can't afford the overtime for extra officers? Are the police deliberately holding back in order to make a protest of their own? Who thought it was a great idea to drive Charles and Camilla through the middle of the riot? And with the light on in the car, so the students protesting about unaffordable fees could get a really good look at all the diamonds and emeralds Camilla was wearing, Marie-Antoinette style. Given that the instinct of the ordinary Brit is to steer out of troubled areas, only someone in the police feeling malicious would have decided to drive the royals right into the riot.
And what about this juxtaposition: on the 7th December, Ken Clarke announces that short-term prison doesn't work, but three days later Cameron declares that the "full force of the law" is to be applied to the rioters! Is this another U-turn for him on his law and order policy, or is he just venting for the cameras? And there's also the juxtaposition of Cameron being a violent member of the Bullingdon club in his student days, criticising other violent students. You really couldn't make this up.
P.S. For those interested in the protests against Topshop and others for tax avoidance, please visit the following blog by someone called George, called Boycott Big Business, which gives a detailed look at why these companies are being targetted.
I'd like to point out that the Inland revenue benefits from these protests. It works like this: Say you have £20 to spend on a top, and decide to boycott TopShop and spend your money at John Lewis instead. Because the £20 gets spent regardless, the effect on the economy is neutral. However, because John lewis pays all it's taxes, the Treasury experiences an increase in tax revenue. Employment at TopShop may go down, but employment at john lewis should go up, so the effect on employment is neutral too. And best of all, other retailers may hastily decide to get their affairs in order so that they are not targeted, which also leads to an increase in tax revenue. It's win-win-win, as we then don't haemorrhage tax money to the less scupulous parasite states.
Monday, November 29, 2010
House prices slump for the fifth month running
Today Hometrack reported that house prices slumped for the fifth month running, and the BoE reported that mortgage approvals fell for the sixth month in a row. Why is this important? Because house prices impinge directly on middle Britain.
I've written before that I believe that slumping house prices were responsible for the thumping defeat that the Tories got in 1997. Though the economy was growing in the run up to the '97 election, house prices remained below their 1989 levels, and middle Britain was thoroughly fed-up as a result.
Labour was very conscious of why they were elected, which was why the first action of the Labour government was to make the BoE independent, at a stroke restoring confidence to the housing market.
When the credit crunch happened in 2008, Labour did everything they could to prevent forced selling - you got help with your mortgage after 13 weeks unemployment instead of 39 weeks previously, schemes were put in place to help people who were struggling, the government made it clear they would do everything and anything to keep the economy going.
And it worked. In May 2009, house prices began rising gently again - not much, but they weren't falling. A flat market meant no-one lost money. Once house prices had been rising for about six months, Labour began to rise again in the polls - indeed they rose enough to deny the Conservatives a majority at the general election.
However, all our good work has been undone by the Tories. They have been frightening the voters on a weekly basis since the end of June. They not only don't appear to realise that confidence is vital to the economy, but George Osborne couldn't resist gloating about all the jobs he was going to axe. I guess having power over so many people went to his head and he couldn't resist savouring it in public.
People who are frightened about their job prospects don't buy houses. They don't budge and the housing activity shrivels, leaving the few forced sellers to set the price - downwards.
There are 14.5 million home owners just in England. This is a massive interest group. It dwarfs public sector workers (8 million) or the 3 million people on disability benefit.
The disabled tend not to vote (from my contact with them, they struggle so much with pain and distress, they don't pay attention to anything outside their personal lives). A lot of public sector people voted LibDem in the 2010 election (they didn't want to vote Labour because Labour were the boss). They may switch to Labour in the next election.
The key to Labour winning the next election is to get the home owners back. According to this BBC graphic Labour won 41% of homeowners with mortgages in 1997, and 39% of home owners with mortgages in 2005. In 2010 we got 29% of home owners with mortgages. That was where we lost it - those home owners took for granted that the house price recovery and economic recovery were set in stone (confidence about the economy was high in May 2010), and felt they could switch without hurting themselves.
It will start dawning on them that a Tory government means a prolonged house price slump - again. At that point I expect we shall see people switching from Tory to Labour (up until now the rise in polls for Labour has been down only to LibDems switching to Labour).
I've written before that I believe that slumping house prices were responsible for the thumping defeat that the Tories got in 1997. Though the economy was growing in the run up to the '97 election, house prices remained below their 1989 levels, and middle Britain was thoroughly fed-up as a result.
Labour was very conscious of why they were elected, which was why the first action of the Labour government was to make the BoE independent, at a stroke restoring confidence to the housing market.
When the credit crunch happened in 2008, Labour did everything they could to prevent forced selling - you got help with your mortgage after 13 weeks unemployment instead of 39 weeks previously, schemes were put in place to help people who were struggling, the government made it clear they would do everything and anything to keep the economy going.
And it worked. In May 2009, house prices began rising gently again - not much, but they weren't falling. A flat market meant no-one lost money. Once house prices had been rising for about six months, Labour began to rise again in the polls - indeed they rose enough to deny the Conservatives a majority at the general election.
However, all our good work has been undone by the Tories. They have been frightening the voters on a weekly basis since the end of June. They not only don't appear to realise that confidence is vital to the economy, but George Osborne couldn't resist gloating about all the jobs he was going to axe. I guess having power over so many people went to his head and he couldn't resist savouring it in public.
People who are frightened about their job prospects don't buy houses. They don't budge and the housing activity shrivels, leaving the few forced sellers to set the price - downwards.
There are 14.5 million home owners just in England. This is a massive interest group. It dwarfs public sector workers (8 million) or the 3 million people on disability benefit.
The disabled tend not to vote (from my contact with them, they struggle so much with pain and distress, they don't pay attention to anything outside their personal lives). A lot of public sector people voted LibDem in the 2010 election (they didn't want to vote Labour because Labour were the boss). They may switch to Labour in the next election.
The key to Labour winning the next election is to get the home owners back. According to this BBC graphic Labour won 41% of homeowners with mortgages in 1997, and 39% of home owners with mortgages in 2005. In 2010 we got 29% of home owners with mortgages. That was where we lost it - those home owners took for granted that the house price recovery and economic recovery were set in stone (confidence about the economy was high in May 2010), and felt they could switch without hurting themselves.
It will start dawning on them that a Tory government means a prolonged house price slump - again. At that point I expect we shall see people switching from Tory to Labour (up until now the rise in polls for Labour has been down only to LibDems switching to Labour).
Thursday, October 21, 2010
CSR Verdict
The most stunning thing that came out of the CSR for me was this: The ConDems are planning to increase the International Development budget by 37%. A 37% increase on what Labour spent (even in boom years). 37%!
And they are cutting the welfare budget by £18bn, and aiming the distress squarely on the most vulnerable such as the disabled.
They are taking mobility money away from people who can't walk and p***ing it away overseas? Really?
If Gordon Brown felt we couldn't afford an extra 37% for international development because it would come at the expense of our own vulnerable, then we really couldn't afford it.
Perhaps call-me-Dave wants to ensure that nascent superpowers such as India can afford aircraft for their aircraft carriers? What other explanation is there?
And they are cutting the welfare budget by £18bn, and aiming the distress squarely on the most vulnerable such as the disabled.
They are taking mobility money away from people who can't walk and p***ing it away overseas? Really?
If Gordon Brown felt we couldn't afford an extra 37% for international development because it would come at the expense of our own vulnerable, then we really couldn't afford it.
Perhaps call-me-Dave wants to ensure that nascent superpowers such as India can afford aircraft for their aircraft carriers? What other explanation is there?
Saturday, October 16, 2010
How much do election pledges matter?
There've been a gazillion U-turns by both the Conservatives and LibDems since they entered government, but none so massive than the LibDem pledge to abolish tuition fees, only to double them as soon as they got into power.
The response from the LibDems like Cable is to bleat that they "didn't expect to be in government" when they made the pledges - in other words, they felt they could safely trick voters with any number of unrealistic policies in order to get elected. Not only that, they seem to feel that the voters they tricked will nod sagely and decide that it was OK that the LibDems were pledging all sorts just to get elected, as long as they didn't expect to be in power! And that their pledges to their coalition partners are more important than pledges to the voters!
How much do broken pledges matter? Quite a bit, I think. One example is David Cameron's pledge to hold a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, and the subsequent U-turn in late 2009. The Conservative lead started to plummet as some of their voters simply abstained in disgust. They had been 20 points ahead in mid 2009, but when the general election results came in, they failed to win a majority.
Breaking pledges in government is even worse. Labour was very, very careful to stick to it's manifestos - the Labour government even delayed the passage of the tuition fees bill, so that fees were in the 2005 manifesto and voters could vote against if they didn't like it (and Labour had a mandate for them when they got elected). I recall only one pledge broken in 13 years of government and that was the pledge not to raise income tax - higher rate tax was raised to 50% with effect from April 2010, a month before the general election. And the only reason that took place before the election was because it was impractical to hold the general election on 2nd April and then the council elections in May. So one broken promise right at the end of 13 years in government.
What hurt John Major's government so badly was making a great fuss of how Labour would raise taxes (the so-called "tax bombshell") and accusing Labour of wanting to pull out of the ERM and then breaking both pledges just six months after the election, leaving voters feeling like they'd been tricked.
Major and the Tories also thought that as the broken promises happened right at the start of that parliament, the electorate would forgive them five years on when the came to vote in the next election. You hear a lot of LibDems and Tories saying something similar now. "The next election is not till 2015".
But not only did voters not forgive Major, the longer they were denied a say, the more furious they got. What had been shock in 1992 and 1993 had hardened into implacable fury by 1997, and when they finally got to vote the electorate blasted the Tories into their worst defeat since 1832. John Major would have been better off holding the election in late 1993/early 1994 before momentum against him had started to build.
LibDems and Tories dismissing voters annoyance by saying "people will have calmed down by 2015" are making the same mistake Major did.
General elections are great safety valves. Let voters have their say early and you take a minor hit. But if you blatantly fib to get elected, and then dismiss voters concerns with a patronising "they'll get over it", anger just builds and builds and builds. The longer people have to wait to have their say, the bigger the blow-out. Luckily for Labour the coalition are too stupid to grasp this. Incidentally, this is why fixed parliaments are a bad idea, and fixing the length of parliaments for five years is even worse. We should retain the right to have elections at any point (in practice this means four year terms and the ability to consult the voter in unusual circumstances).
The response from the LibDems like Cable is to bleat that they "didn't expect to be in government" when they made the pledges - in other words, they felt they could safely trick voters with any number of unrealistic policies in order to get elected. Not only that, they seem to feel that the voters they tricked will nod sagely and decide that it was OK that the LibDems were pledging all sorts just to get elected, as long as they didn't expect to be in power! And that their pledges to their coalition partners are more important than pledges to the voters!
How much do broken pledges matter? Quite a bit, I think. One example is David Cameron's pledge to hold a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, and the subsequent U-turn in late 2009. The Conservative lead started to plummet as some of their voters simply abstained in disgust. They had been 20 points ahead in mid 2009, but when the general election results came in, they failed to win a majority.
Breaking pledges in government is even worse. Labour was very, very careful to stick to it's manifestos - the Labour government even delayed the passage of the tuition fees bill, so that fees were in the 2005 manifesto and voters could vote against if they didn't like it (and Labour had a mandate for them when they got elected). I recall only one pledge broken in 13 years of government and that was the pledge not to raise income tax - higher rate tax was raised to 50% with effect from April 2010, a month before the general election. And the only reason that took place before the election was because it was impractical to hold the general election on 2nd April and then the council elections in May. So one broken promise right at the end of 13 years in government.
What hurt John Major's government so badly was making a great fuss of how Labour would raise taxes (the so-called "tax bombshell") and accusing Labour of wanting to pull out of the ERM and then breaking both pledges just six months after the election, leaving voters feeling like they'd been tricked.
Major and the Tories also thought that as the broken promises happened right at the start of that parliament, the electorate would forgive them five years on when the came to vote in the next election. You hear a lot of LibDems and Tories saying something similar now. "The next election is not till 2015".
But not only did voters not forgive Major, the longer they were denied a say, the more furious they got. What had been shock in 1992 and 1993 had hardened into implacable fury by 1997, and when they finally got to vote the electorate blasted the Tories into their worst defeat since 1832. John Major would have been better off holding the election in late 1993/early 1994 before momentum against him had started to build.
LibDems and Tories dismissing voters annoyance by saying "people will have calmed down by 2015" are making the same mistake Major did.
General elections are great safety valves. Let voters have their say early and you take a minor hit. But if you blatantly fib to get elected, and then dismiss voters concerns with a patronising "they'll get over it", anger just builds and builds and builds. The longer people have to wait to have their say, the bigger the blow-out. Luckily for Labour the coalition are too stupid to grasp this. Incidentally, this is why fixed parliaments are a bad idea, and fixing the length of parliaments for five years is even worse. We should retain the right to have elections at any point (in practice this means four year terms and the ability to consult the voter in unusual circumstances).
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