Labour’s message on the economy

I’m a Labour supporter.  But Labour’s message on the economy is unclear.

Ed Balls is today saying he’s written to his would-be cabinet colleagues to warn them that their departments will face cuts every year until Labour fulfils its promise to eliminate the deficit.

And yet, since the Autumn Statement, Ed has been denouncing the Tory spending plans as unworkable, dishonest and ‘colossal’.  A return to the 1930s.  A country you wouldn’t want to live in.

In short, Labour wants to appear as determined as the Tories to eliminate deficit, whilst branding Tory cuts as ‘extreme’.

This is not an illogical position.  With growth (and more tax receipts) the deficit can be reduced with less harsh cuts.  Securing growth is, and always has been, the issue.

I prefer centre-left thinking on this, because the Tories are dogmatic in their focus on the supply side, and the supply side can push us out of recession the same way pushing a dog through a cat-flap by its tail works: not at all.  We need pounds-in-pockets demand in our economy before any right-minded investor will invest, and supply-side efficiencies cut demand rather than stimulating it.

But that is too complex to explain.  So meanwhile the broad messaging needs to be clearer.  At the moment it comes across as, “We are as brutal as them on the deficit – but they are wild-eyed extremists.”

That’s as clear as mud.  In a game where clarity is all.

Immigration: Your Country Needs You

Someone has to fight the fight on immigration.

And that someone is you.

We live in dark times. In a period of economic contraction – and with a government which stirs up social and economic fear so that it can present itself as the solution, and which sets one group against another, dividing so that it can merrily get on with ruling – we are all prone to scapegoating.

We are better than that. But the media is torrential. Politicians aren’t daring to make the arguments on immigration. Instead they are at pains constantly to acknowledge and dignify ‘legitimate concerns’.

It’s bollocks, and decent-minded people know it. But they don’t say it. And we are in danger of allowing a consensus to form around prejudice, fear and hatred.

If our politicians can’t or won’t, it behoves those of us who know better to stand up and argue back. That’s why I’m doing it. I make no apology. If you agree with me, please support me. (And frankly, if you don’t, please unfollow me.)

tony-benn“Every generation must fight the same battles again and again. There’s no final victory and there’s no final defeat”

– Tony Benn

Immigration Facts #6

Immigration has no significant impact on wages.  It causes some increases and some decreases, but in either direction, the effects are small.

An increase in the number of migrants corresponding to 1% of the UK-born working-age population results in an increase in average wages of 0.1 to 0.3%.

However, there are some losers: each 1% increase in the share of migrants in the UK-born working age population leads to a 0.6% decline in the wages of the 5% lowest paid workers (whilst also leading to an increase in the wages of higher paid workers.)

This subset of losers (the 5% lowest paid) tend themselves to be migrants already working in the UK.

Source: Migration Observatory, Oxford

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