In the north we are known to be inclined towards the practical. If we can’t have everything we want then we have a tendency to shrug shoulders and opt for “owt is better than nowt”. So, in that good northern spirit, let me start out by saying that there is plenty of cause to be pleased that we have finally got rid of a very bad government.
However, before the celebrations get too strongly underway, a word of caution might be in order. What and who you vote out genuinely matters. So does what and who you vote in. It is only necessary to look at what has happened across the channel in France to see the scale of the risk if a centrist government wins a big majority and then fails to deliver.
The steep challenges ahead
Many of the problems the new British government will face are deep and intractable. There genuinely is a shortage of money and a very long list of very real needs. Somehow the resources have to be found for health service pay rises, more care facilities, fixing crumbling sewage pipes, sorting out a major housing crisis, investing in crumbling educational facilities and a host of other challenges.
That was never going to be easy to do. Once the Labour Party leadership committed itself to following the Conservatives’ spending limits it became almost impossible. According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies doing that means that either public services will continue to decline or tax promises have to be broken. The budget restraints for public services are going to be tougher than they were during the Cameron years of austerity politics.
The incoming government is hoping to fix that by going all out for growth. On one level this is an understandable strategy. Baking a bigger cake enables you to provide more slices. On the other hand, it is an extraordinarily difficult strategy to deliver and one that comes with its own problems.
It isn’t easy to increase the speed at which an economy grows without significant new investment. Those tough spending limits don’t just restrict public spending on providing essential services. They also mean money will be tight when it comes to the government investing in research and development or supporting businesses to acquire and utilise new technology.
What kind of growth?
Restricting access to Britain’s largest market by staying out of the EU makes the trick even harder to pull off. The new government has made firm commitments that it won’t enter the single market, so no matter how successful it is in negotiating there is going to be no fundamental improvement in the ease of trading with the continent. Clumsy and difficult trade barriers with your nearest neighbours are highly likely to restrict growth and most unlikely to turbo charge it.
Then there is the small matter of what kind of growth will be achieved. The environmental costs of the wrong kind of growth can be severe. A drive for growth at almost any cost is very different to a decision to try to move our economy away from fossilised technology by carefully targeted measures.
Early announcements of restricting investment in green technology have been coupled with a dangerous theory that growth in the private sector can be stimulated by removing pesky planning regulations. That shows worrying similarities to the Conservatives’ naïve faith that regulation-light freeports will improve the economy. In Teesside what has actually happened is a lot of public money has been wasted and massive damage has been done to the environment.
The dangers of a false economy
In practice the ability for a community to have a say about what happens to it is a very important right that is, justifiably, fiercely defended. It is far from clear that wonderful initiatives would be taking place if it wasn’t for awkward planning committees. All too often local challenges to developments serve to prevent environmentally damaging projects that bring little real benefit. Well-designed regulations actually save lives and money. Just ask the residents of Grenfell Tower who objected to lightly regulated shoddy work before the fire. Or the residents of other tower blocks who faced massive bills because building regulations were weakened.
It is entirely probable that more housing will get built if planning rules are significantly weakened. If what gets built are more large executive homes on the green belt, then it is most unlikely that anything meaningful will be achieved to help those who want to be able to afford a reasonable home. It will increase the profits of developers who are pressing for the policy, but it won’t provide any new council houses or level up declining communities.
Unless those red wall areas are significantly improved at speed their mood of resentment is likely to get worse with dangerous consequences at the next election. What is needed is a major programme of transformation for neglected communities, not more building in the suburbs. Refurbishing run-down homes and investing in lowering energy costs needs to be the priority. Creating a new town does nothing for declining old towns. Declining communities need transformational projects to improve education and government investment in new science and business parks. Seeing those developed on green fields a few miles away isn’t going to cut it.
Government by a small cabal?
Once reality starts to clash badly with theory there is a dangerous tendency for political leaders to become isolated from that reality and to surround themselves with a small cabal of core supporters who believe their own propaganda and double down on their pet theories. Large majorities mean that a prime minister doesn’t need to worry about what backbench MPs think and party conferences can be safely ignored. So can the views of dissatisfied voters.
We have already seen Keir Starmer’s central office show a clear tendency towards control freakery. Faiza Shaheen wasn’t the only candidate to find herself deselected. In my own constituency in Yorkshire the last person to stand for Parliament for Labour put five years of hard work in to build up his profile and was then told at the last minute that he was not allowed to stand because he shared some factual information about the death toll in Palestine. Twelve years ago. The Labour candidate for Clacton was reported to have been in tears after he was ordered out of the constituency for making good progress with the locals by not sticking slavishly to the party line and demonstrating a bit of independent thinking.
If that tendency towards excessive control becomes ingrained in the way Starmer works and the problems start to mount, there is a real risk of a siege mentality developing. The Labour Party could start to tear itself apart over who controls a huge majority with all the enthusiasm the Conservatives displayed. In such circumstances we would face a bleak future with challenges from the far right needing to be fought off in an atmosphere of increasing resentment and even greater disillusionment.
If anything remotely like that emerges, then we may well live to look back on the arrival of the new government and resort to another of those great Yorkshire phrases: “Be careful what you wish for.”
