Sweet Nothings

Eight months, ladies & gentlemen. Eight months until we decide who governs us next; will anyone form a majority? Will there be another coalition? Who would form such a government? From my analysis below, it hopefully won't be the Labour party. Their conference finished yesterday, ours starts on Sunday (can't remember when the Lib Dems have theirs. Oh well). Here's what Ed said (or didn't say) this year and what he's also promising you all come May 2015.

He seems to have caught Michael Foot syndrome rather badly. The main theme was his big tax on housing. The "mansion tax" he wants is clearly not just aimed at those lucky enough to have a £2 million (and upwards) valuation on their house in the capital. No, it's going to be rolled out piecemeal in the provinces to the extent that, if the rumours are true, houses valued at roughly £500K in the north will be hit as well. He's also looking to France to base his socialist utopia; let us not forget that the flight of the rich in France was due to taxation increases; this could send our own moneyed classes running for the airports. So that's a kick to aspiration isn't it; don't live in a house in London and don't earn enough to be able to afford a £500K house north of Gloucester. Build high-rises wherever possible and value them accordingly. Brilliant. 

He wants this tax to fund the NHS. Not a bad idea, really, it could always do with the extra...Wait! Wait a moment! No it doesn't need any extra money than has already been ring-fenced. Why has the debt gone up? Well aside from the state pension bill growing again, NHS spending has been going up in real terms for four years. Yes the Chancellor hasn't quite got that bit of the public debt down, but that shows the effort being made to keep the NHS public. Quite where the money is going is a matter for the CCG's and Trust managers, but we won't go there. What, therefore, will the extra £2.5 bn raised by the new tax, cover? Sadly it was just part of a long diatribe of sop, delivered to the apparatchiks in the hope that a sound-bite or two might make the evening headlines. I suppose some did, when the journos woke up and remembered where they were. 

Ed likes meeting people, so we hear. Whether or not they like meeting him is for another time, but bear with me. The people he meets seem to be in favour of a hike in the minimum wage to £8 an hour. That's fine, but it won't help people like me much, who are already on an inflated hourly rate. I am insulted by the idea that my time will be worth less than a shelf-stacker or cleaner. If it sounds snobby I don't care, I am a skilled worker and will not be priced out of the market on some socialist whim. Of course it's state intervention by the back door, because Balls will have a real job on his hands explaining to companies why it's in their interest to lose profits in order to help their workers. It'll only push prices up further in any case over time and won't encourage much aspiration either. Some businesses may just decide they won't invest as much in Britain in future if it's too expensive in terms of human resources. Thankfully it's nowhere near as bad as the Greens' proposal of £10 an hour. 

Then we come to the matter of devolution and here there was absolute silence from him. In his lengthy monologue, Ed completely failed to mention how England would fare in the new constitutional arrangements being drawn up by William Hague. Whether he doesn't like any non-Marxist history or believes history only truly began in May 1945 on the day when Attlee kissed hands is anybody's guess. The idea that he could just ignore how English people don't like being pushed around by anybody and then completely ignored when it comes to their governance is beyond me. There is always a backlash and he ignores the semi-nationalist sentiment running through England at the moment at his peril. He and his ilk may be contemptuously dismissive, safe in their metropolitan ivory towers; but the memory of 1381 is long embedded in our muscles, the faintest hum of memory lingers from events in the 17th century. He'd better watch it. 

That is, of course, what he remembered to say. He forgot to talk about deficit and immigration, two vital components if he is to win over the electorate. He mentioned tax loopholes, but not much beyond current Treasury policy. He is still committed to energy price freezes (see my post A Man of the People) among other disastrous policies. Over the course of 80 minutes what the British public were given was a series of what looked like unworkable or unwieldy policies all linked by the word "together". I cannot identify at all with Ed Miliband in the same way I cannot entirely identify with the Prime Minister. Cameron gives voice to what I largely hold to be true despite his privileged background, but Miliband baffles me entirely. Millionaire son of a Marxist just does not equate in my head, largely because he also believes what he says. 

I gave thought earlier to adapting a quote from House of Cards, in which Francis Urquhart described Henry Collingridge's morality. I believe I now have the words for Miliband, for this speech was nothing more than backstreet Marxist bookshop hypocritical cant; picked up in Angel, or Islington, or some other such god-awful place.