Tag Archives: David Cameron

Article: 2022 – The Year Reality Checked In

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There will be many sage reviews of 2022. This is not one of them. You don’t need me to remind you of the tragi-comic twists and turns of Tory contortion and corruption, the end of the second Elizabethan era (and the reinvention of HMQ as someone who relentlessly smiled), the surprising mid-term performance of Biden’s Democrats, the miserable machinations of Putin and Xi, the failure to keep 1.5 alive, the unconscionable aborting of Roe v Wade, the elevation to hero status of that peerless people’s champion, Martin Lewis… All of these will be amply covered elsewhere.

Instead, allow me to make just one observation about 2022: reality checked in.

When the Queen died, my mischievous son Dan hoped Charles would opt for an interesting regnal name. Dan was rooting for him to dub himself Arthur. After all, the country needed a lift, and it’s not as if there was any national gravitas left to protect.

But it turned out 2022 was not to be a year of diving deeper down the rabbit hole of  myth. Charles chose Charles. And the time for reliance on stories about our country and ourselves – our sun-never-sets history and our world-beating future, our sceptered isle, our Albion – came to an abrupt halt. Because the most significant event in 2022’s sorry calendar was the busting, courtesy of Truss and Kwarteng, of the myth of Conservative fiscal responsibility – and with it, our collective propensity to prefer romance over evidence, a malaise which had dogged the last several years of British politics.

This reality check came, as we know, at a time of confluent economic calamity. First, the energy price hikes resulting from the Russia/Ukraine war. Second, additional inflationary pressure courtesy of Brexit and supply chain issues, home and abroad. Third, interest rate rises from a Bank of England charged with controlling inflation with the bluntest of instruments, but also seemingly intent on following the Federal Reserve’s unhelpful direction of travel. Fourth, the coming home to roost of twelve years of Tory economic choices, now unadorned and unprotected by the flamboyant prolixity of the pantomime premier, Britain (or was it Briton?) Trump. So much reality, landing with so much synchronicity, on one poor unsuspecting kingdom, and no hero to pull the sword from our troubled stone..

It matters that the seismic shift in the polls away from the Tories has coincided with these economic setbacks. Because there is a school of thought which suggests that, in times of economic woe, the Tories gain votes, because the British public believes that Tories – the natural party of business and finance – do sound economics. And if the public is persuaded that belt tightening is necessary, then the Tories are the people to make those unpopular choices for the good of the country.

But the polls suggest that this faith in innate Conservative fiscal expertise has vanished in a puff of smoke. Moreover, there is an awareness that we have already had twelve years of tightening – is there really scope for more? Would it be fair? And would it even work? Cameron and Osborne’s austerity did not deliver prosperity, or anything remotely resembling it. If substantial public support for striking workers is anything to go by, the old Tory offer of bitter medicine today, in return for promised jam tomorrow, simply isn’t washing. We want the economy to work for us, and not the other way round.

We can’t know for sure whether this loss of credibility will really result in wholesale abandonment of the Conservatives in the privacy of the ballot box, come the general election. That assay may be a good year away, and much could change in the interim. In the meantime, the only hope the Tories have is to sell the idea that Truss and Kwarteng were an uncharacteristic blip, and to return to the old line that, if times are hard, you need Tory rectitude, and not Labour profligacy, to get things back on track. This leaves Prime Minister Sunak little room for manouvre, even if he wanted it. With accusations of weakness from Starmer, he has no choice but to go for a tough approach to government spending, and to take a risky hard line on (so far) popular strikes. It doesn’t augur well for 2023.

At the same time, Labour has an opportunity, unique in recent memory, to lay to rest the myth of Tory economic capability once and for all. Before the demise of Johnson, before the catastrophe of Kwarteng and Truss, such was the collective compulsion to believe in a Britain unrestrained by reality, that there were things which simply could not be said. Truths which simply could not be uttered. That Brexit has failed is one of them. That steady immigration is a prerequisite of growth is another.

But there is a truth bigger even than those, and more fundamental: the Tories are, forgive my French, fucking terrible at managing the economy. On every key metric, Labour are demonstrably better. Any voice in voters’ heads suggesting that only the Tories can set the economy straight must be strangled at birth. The party of sound economics is, on all the evidence, the Labour Party.

Such has been the power of Tory myth, that this truth is rarely uttered. From ‘Labour Isn’t Working’, to Cameron and Osborne’s effective pinning of the blame for the global financial crisis onto Brown, via accusations of failing to fix the roof while the sun was shining, and Gordon selling the gold while ‘maxing out the credit cards’, the national story has been that Labour may be ‘nice’, but they can’t manage the economy, whereas the Tories may be ‘nasty’, but that’s what makes them good custodians of the public purse.

There’s a technical term for this story: bollocks. If you want evidence – and you should -take five key metrics, and weep.

ECONOMIC GROWTH

On growth, Labour do better. Austerity strangles the economy.

GOVERNMENT BORROWING

On borrowing, there is no competition. Labour held borrowing down while massively improving public services. The Tories, in contrast, have delivered extraordinary increases in borrowing, alongside devastating cuts. Truly the worst of both worlds.

UNEMPLOYMENT

How about unemployment? Remember those “Labour Isn’t Working” posters? In truth, almost every year under Labour saw below average unemployment. Most years under the Conservatives saw above average unemployment. And we know that the current recession is set to turn staff shortages into rising unemployment.

INFLATION

How about inflation? You’ll hear our Tory chancellor and Prime Minister warning that it is an evil which harms us all, as if they alone took its harm seriously (and as if they had nothing to do with steering us into the inflationay corner in which we find ourselves). But guess what? The record shows that only the Conservatives have delivered inflation over 4% — and we all know that painful recent figures will only make the comparison far, far worse.

WAGES

Wages have fallen under the Conservatives. After twelve years of Tory, pay packets are smaller than they were under Labour. No surprise that we’re seeing foodbanks running out of food, and unprecedented strikes by workers who feel abandoned and betrayed. Enough is enough of not enough.

That’s the big takeaway of 2022. The Liz and Kwasi Kwartrusstrophe blew the long-unchallenged lie that the Tories could be trusted with the economy. It was never true, but now we’re allowed to say it out loud.

Labour has the chance to rebrand, justly, as the party not just of decency and fairness, but of sound economics. It’s imperative that this vital terrain is no longer gifted to the Conservatives. The time for indulging in myths – in romantic visions of our country, made somehow strong by poetic belief in legend or empire or flag – is behind us. There is another way, based in evidence and founded on fairness, which trumps Tory entitlement to govern on every metric that matters.

Sorry, Cameron and Osborne. Sorry, Sunak and Johnson. Eventually light shines on false narratives. Eventually reality checks in on more than a decade of failure. Eventually myths get busted. Them’s the breaks.

Thanks to Mark E Thomas/99% Organisation for charts and analysis.

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Review: The Decade In Tory, by Russell Jones

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Do you have a politics junkie in your life? Then their next gift is in the bag. Russell Jones’ hugely impressive first book, The Decade In Tory is the politics junkie’s masochistic wet dream. Inspired inevitably by the mega-thread commentaries “The Week In Tory” which have shot him to deserved twitter fame, Jones brings his combination of forensic precision, clear-sighted overview, and cruel mockery to the dark decade of “Tory” beginning with the Cameron government of 2010.

Jones’ journey through the decade charts its twists and turns exactly as the reader remembers them. There is a sickening “oh my God, that’s right, they really did do that, and they really did say that” sensation of recollection, like flipping through a grotesque highlights album of the country’s downfall. Despite this familiarity, the startling claims and even more startling ‘solutions’ emanating from the dramatis personae of the decade in Tory sometimes seem so far-fetched that you want to pinch yourself, or at least check you’re not sharing in a hysterical dream. When that uncertain feeling comes over you, Jones provides ample footnotes in evidence. This stuff really is true.

But Jones doesn’t get lost in, or distracted by the detail. He moves with ease between macro lens and panorama, between the granular and the lofty, and sees the overall trends for what they are. His distaste for the Tories is writ large, but don’t be fooled; there is real political writing here too – thoughtful, informed assessment sits underneath the venom. That’s why his punches hit home, both in his online commentaries and in this substantial book. Jones knows his oats.

For all his smarts, Jones is also rude. “You may have never kissed a Tory, but you’ve still probably spent most of your life being fucked by them.” Of Grant Shapps, he writes, “he had more identities than Jason Bourne, somebody else who people would travel half way around the world to punch.” Jacob Rees-Mogg is described as the result of a Dalek having hate-sex with a pendulum. You get the gist. Some may see this as puerile, but the utter contempt in which he holds the protagonists – or is that antagonists? – in his story entirely justifies, and even demands this level of vituperation. There is plenty of dispassionate political commentary out there, which too often describes hateful political ideas and deeds without taking the logical next step of attributing hatefulness to the characters involved. No such pussy-footing around here. Jones is merciless. Progressives tend to pull punches with the occasional damning quip, while the hard boys of Brexit and beyond use language with blunt effectiveness. For those of us who see the world as Jones sees it, a new critical vocabulary is needed, and if the character assassinations here feel a little uncomfortable, that only serves to underline the point. A new school of informed, forthright opprobrium is growing among the stars of progressive twitter, and Jones’ voice shines among the very brightest.

This book will comfort you. It will confirm for you that the grim decade in Tory was as you remember it; you haven’t gone mad, even if the Tories have. It will sadden you, too, for exactly the same reason. The UK really has plummeted from premier league to non-league in just a few seasons, and at great human cost. (As a barometer of this decline, Jones repeatedly cites the year-on-year increase in the number of Britons reliant upon foodbanks. Each citation is more sickening to read than the last, and the cumulative effect is nothing short of enraging.) And this book will entertain you. There is a bleak comedy to this ‘inventory of idiocy’ as Jones calls it, and you can’t help but laugh as he celebrates it.

The Decade In Tory is a bravura performance. Substantial, meticulous, incredible, depressing, hilarious, rude – and essential reading.

 

The Decade In Tory by Russell Jones is published by Unbound on 27 October, 2022.
Russell Jones on Twitter: @RussInCheshire

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Cameron’s Conference Speech: One Nation Misdirection

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My reaction to Cameron’s speech to the Conservative Party Conference, 2015, for Independent Voices.

Independent Voices

In case the link expires, text below.

David Cameron, in his first conference as leader of a majority Tory government, just gave a speech which could have been delivered by Tony Blair.

He launched “an all-out assault on poverty”. He bemoaned the impossibility of “true opportunity” without meaningful equality. He berated our woeful record on social mobility. The incapacity of our justice system to rehabilitate. And of course the inability of a whole generation to get on the property ladder.

The BBC’s Political Editor, Laura Kuenssberg, took to the airwaves excitedly to report that Cameron had driven the Tory tanks right across Labour’s lawn.

Twitter went all a-giddy with #HeirToBlair hashtags and reminders that Cameron’s exit song, Don’t Stop Thinking About The Future, was Clinton’s in ’92.

But there is no chance of Cameron delivering on his rhetoric. The imminent removal of tax credits (not remotely compensated for by a ‘living wage’ down the line) is an assault not on poverty, but on the working poor.

Judging from her chilling, old-school speech to Conference yesterday, Theresa May’s new Immigration Bill will not be a pretty sight. The chances of Blairite centrism there, if you’ll forgive the paraphrasing, are “at best, close to zero”.

Ian Duncan Smith “welcomes” food banks, which is just as well because his government has presided over a dramatic rise in their use. Nothing Blairite there, either. And as for the heartlessness of Atos and incapacity benefit, it would have been funny if it hadn’t so often been tragic. Atos staff had to be equipped with panic buttons, so dreadful was their work. Is the new Atos, American outfit Maximus, suddenly going to go all cuddly under a Tory majority government? Don’t hold your breath.

And the idea that this administration, with its out-of-the-ark ideas like Right To Buy 2.0, will succeed where every recent government has failed, and actually make headway on housebuilding, is, frankly, laughable.

No. These are politicians who may talk centre, or even centre-left, but who deliver right, or even far-right.

So what’s going on? When Cameron talks his One Nation talk, is he deluding himself, or is he dissembling?

His delivery is such that the former explanation is credible. To hear him is to believe him. He seems really to think he’s a One Nation “modern” Tory. The guy who, for example, pushed through gay marriage. It is tempting to think of Cameron as a decent chap struggling to wrangle – and front – an unruly and hard-hearted right. Heroically dragging them into the centre for their own and our country’s good. One Twitter commentator felt that Cameron’s speech was as much a sell to his own right wing as it was to centrist voters. On this reading, Cameron is not so much lying about moving his party into the “common” ground, as hoping.

Could be. But step away from the charming, plausible delivery – mute the speech and just think about the big picture, just see the man talking – and the well-meaning interpretation seems the less likely of the two.

Cameron is a smart man, a First-in-PPE man. He is a consummate politician. And just because his government no longer enjoys the fig-leaf of the LibDems, it doesn’t mean that he and Osborne have not learnt the political lessons forced on them by coalition.

What they did in the last Parliament was genius. Squeezing the pips out of the working poor? Confuse debate with a promise to raise the tax threshold to £10k “benefiting everyone” (but not, in fact, the poorest 10%). Whacking up tuition fees? Confuse debate with an improved deal for the very poorest students. In this Parliament, it continues. Hammering the tax credits of the working poor? Confuse debate with a living wage which in no way plugs the gap.

In this sense, the One Nation rhetoric serves a purpose once achieved by sops (apparent or real) to the Tories’ coalition partners. It diverts attention away from harsh truths. It dilutes headlines and ruins sound-bites. It drowns regressive policy in progressive noise. It is a magician’s hand, waving here, waving here – so that we don’t look there.

It doesn’t just impair clear-sightedness about the actual policies. The Blairite rhetoric hurts Labour by pushing it further to the left as it seeks to differentiate itself. We know that it has been a favourite ploy of Cameron and Osborne for a while now to try and force Labour to choose between endorsing Conservative policy, and opposing it and shifting further and further left; the Tories win in either event. (The recent failure of Labour under Harriet Harman to oppose welfare reforms being a classic example.) These modern Tories are nothing if not master tacticians.

Better still, the rhetoric of compassion gives the Tory heartland something to feel good about. If their fiscal and social instincts are hard-nosed, they are nevertheless people who want to feel their underlying motivations are just. Their medicine may be bitter, but it is because (sometimes at least) they genuinely think that a smaller state, and the individualism that goes alongside it, will produce a happier, wealthier society. A Prime Minister who can help them to feel good about their faith, who can help them to rebrand mean-spiritedness as greater-good generosity… that’s a Prime Minister who deserves a two-minute standing ovation.

As the curtain closes on #CPC15, delegates can go home safe in the knowledge that the policies which their leader’s rhetoric entails are never going to transpire. There is nothing but steel in the men and women standing behind Cameron. There will be no woolly-minded Blairism from May or Duncan Smith or Gove or Nicky Morgan – and certainly not from Osborne.

The true legislative agenda – and the in-government track record – is protected behind smoke and mirrors. Labour is pushed into a corner. And Conference’s conscience is absolved by the soft, centrist, hug-a-gay-British-muslim words of their front man.

The Prime Minister would have us believe the future is a great British take-off. Others may fear his rhetorical stroll in the centre ground is nothing but One Nation Misdirection.

Either way, the party faithful will sleep well in their beds tonight.