Labour’s new squeeze, by Judy Hirst

2 Oct 09

You’ll miss us when we’re gone. That, in essence, was the message delivered by Gordon Brown in his tub-thumping speech to the Labour Party conference. And it packed an emotional punch.

Having finally and painfully learned to love Lord Mandelson, the delegates were more than ready to swoon when the PM promised them that it’s not all over, yet.

A litany of New Labour achievements and Conservative failures brought the conference defiantly to its feet. But what of the country at large?

With Labour trailing third in some polls – and the Sun, within hours of Brown’s speech, switching sides to the Tories – the party has an electoral Himalaya to climb.

Government advisers are clearly pinning their hopes on wooing the swing voters  who have been so crucial to New Labour’s electoral success: now rebranded as the ‘squeezed middle classes’.

So, tough love measures for teenage mums and ‘chaotic’ families; (some) free personal care for elderly people; cuts in cancer diagnostic times; and constitutional reforms.

These and other manifesto pledges are designed to win back the affections of Middle England’s ‘mainstream majority’.
The speech also struck a populist note, with its call for markets with morals and curbs on bankers’ bonuses.

Along with an expansion of free childcare, and further education and training, these measures are meant to put clear blue water between decent, interventionist Labour and ‘no heart’, laissez-faire Conservatism.

For public servants, the rhetoric might be more convincing if this wasn’t an age of unprecedented spending austerity. In a passing nod to Prudence, the chancellor and PM announced plans for a new Fiscal Responsibility Act. But few take seriously this attempt to enshrine in law a version of the long-abandoned golden rule.

Nor are the plans to pay for elderly care very persuasive, when a large chunk of funding is to come from councils that are already resorting to low-budget, two-tier services (see Tighten your belts).

Read the small print and it’s clear that most of the PM’s promises would be paid for by reductions elsewhere – not least, in public sector pay settlements.

But then, the speech never was going to make total sense. In politics, as in matters of the heart, the best tactic is to slug it out with rival suitors – and promise your beloved the earth. Or as Brown, aka Goethe, puts it, dream big dreams.

Did you enjoy this article?

AddToAny

Top