May hits back at Archbishop’s criticism
Conservatives need an entirely new language to sell capitalism to the aspirational classes of 2018
THERESA MAY has delivered a riposte to the Archbishop of Canterbury after he criticised the Government’s record in tackling poverty.
The Prime Minister said working hard was “the best route out of poverty”, rather than state interventions.
Yesterday, Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, used his speech to the party conference in Liverpool to praise the Archbishop and his recent report, which, he said, “rightly argued: ‘economic justice needs to be hard-wired into the way the economy works’.”
The Most Rev Justin Welby has adopted an increasingly strident tone in recent weeks, most notably with an outspoken attack on zero-hours contracts at the TUC’S annual conference.
He also criticised the lack of opportunity for young people and said the wealthy should pay more tax, saying: “We cannot continue with an economy that works so badly for so many.”
But, on a visit to New York for a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, Mrs May said that “on occasions we will have differences of opin- ion on various things”, adding that she too wanted “a country that works for everyone”.
Mrs May said: “The employment figures we see are very important because work is the best route out of poverty. Having systems to encourage people to work, ensuring those jobs are created, is important.”
Asked if she felt hurt by the criticism of her Government’s policies, she said: “We will sometimes disagree on things – just as I will disagree with other
JEREMY CORBYN has come under attack from one of Britain’s most senior Jewish leaders for complaining about Labour’s “tough” summer instead of apologising for the hurt caused by antisemitism in the party.
After months of headlines about anti-semitism, the Labour leader accused the media of spreading “lies and half-truths”.
He blamed the “row” over anti-semitism, rather than the actions of Labour supporters, for causing “immense hurt and anxiety in the Jewish community and great dismay in the Labour Party”.
Yesterday, it emerged that an activist who said it was valid to question whether or not the Holocaust happened had been attending the Labour conference after being given a pass, despite a denial from Mr Corbyn’s office.
The Labour leader’s speech in Liverpool had been seen as the perfect opportunity for him to apologise to the Jewish community for the comments and attitudes of some Labour supporters and his failure to stamp it out, but once again he did not do so.
Jewish leaders responded by saying Mr Corbyn would make no progress on the issue until he offered “a heartfelt apology” to Jews and to victims of terrorists with whom he had shown “solidarity”. Mr Corbyn also fudged his response to calls for a second EU referendum, saying he wanted a general election if the Conservatives failed to secure a deal, otherwise “all options are on the table”.
He did not make any explicit reference to a second referendum, a people’s vote or the possibility of offering a vote to remain in the EU, all of which have been backed by Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary.
After a conference which has been overshadowed by Labour’s failure to tackle anti-semitism, Mr Corbyn said: “Conference, this summer was tough…
“The row over anti-semitism has caused immense hurt and anxiety in the Jewish community and great dismay in the Labour Party. But I hope we can work together to draw a line under it.”
Marie van der Zyl, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said: “Jeremy Corbyn’s words mean nothing until Labour takes the necessary steps to deal with anti-semitism in its ranks. Words have long ceased to be enough.” She said Mr Corbyn must “kick out” anti-semites in his party, discipline those who deny anti-semitism is a problem and offer an apology to British Jews. Appearing to blame the media for Labour’s problems with antisemitism, Mr Corbyn praised journalists in Turkey and Myanmar, but said: “Here, a free press has far too often meant the freedom to spread lies and half-truths and to smear the powerless, not take on the powerful.”
Meanwhile, The Daily Telegraph has learnt that Miko Peled, who caused outrage at last year’s Labour conference by saying people should be free to ask: “Holocaust: yes or no?” has been attending this year’s event.
On Tuesday Mr Corbyn’s office said that Mr Peled, an Israeli-american who was pictured with Mr Corbyn outside the venue, had not been given a conference pass to the venue.
Yesterday, a spokesman for Mr Corbyn said: “[Miko Peled] appears to have registered under his other name. As soon as we became aware, his pass was immediately revoked.”
Mr Corbyn said in his speech that it was “inconceivable” that the UK should leave the EU without a deal, as “that would be a national disaster”. He said Labour would “press for a general election” if Parliament refused to back a deal brokered by Mrs May, and “failing that, all options are on the table”.
He said Labour would back a Brexit deal brokered by the Conservatives only if it kept Britain in a customs union with the EU and met other tests already set out by Labour.
A promise to create 400,000 jobs by investing in green energy was dismissed as “recycling” by critics because Gordon Brown made an almost identical promise as prime minister in 2009. And a promise to extend free childcare to all children aged two to four for 30 hours a week contained no detail about how Labour would fund it. The words debt, deficit and borrowing did not appear in his speech at all.
Brandon Lewis, the Conservative Party chairman, said: “Jeremy Corbyn has shown at every turn he is unfit to
‘The row over antisemitism has caused immense hurt… I hope we can work together to draw a line under it’
govern. All he offers are failed ideas that didn’t work in the past and would leave working families paying the price with higher taxes, more debt and more waste – just like last time.
“He confirmed Labour are opening the door to re-running the referendum, which would take us all back to square one.”
♦ Laura Smith, a Labour MP, was given a standing ovation by a front bench ally of Mr Corbyn after she called for a general strike. She urged workers to “topple” the Government in comments that prompted Richard Burgon, the shadow justice secretary, to rise and applaud. He subsequently appeared to claim no one had given her a standing ovation, despite footage showing the opposite, adding that a general strike was “not Labour Party policy”.
Ihave some bad news for you, my dear readers. Corbynomics is actually popular – shockingly so to those of us who haven’t drunk the Kool-aid. It’s not that the electorate has suddenly caught Marxism: the vast majority of voters still support a mixed economy, want to earn and own more, and distrust Jeremy Corbyn himself.
Yet many of his policies resonate, appealing even to some Tory voters and across acquisitive Middle England. Populism is often Left-wing and always popular. Some of this support is frothy: a proper campaign by a proper Tory party would change minds by marshalling fresh arguments that voters actually relate to.
But Matthew Goodwin, a brilliant young Brexit Britain expert at the University of Kent, has collated all of the recent psephological evidence, and it is disastrous for supporters of free markets such as myself. Take Labour’s idiotic proposal to confiscate 10 per cent of the equity of all but the smallest firms, transferring the shares into a staff fund that would pay up to £500 in dividends to each worker and the remainder to the state.
No fewer than 54 per cent believe it to be a good idea, against just 29 per cent who don’t – and among Tories, it’s 39 per cent for and 27 per cent against. Of course, nobody has campaigned against this idea, or explained why it would lead to job losses, lower wages, reduced investment and huge cuts to pension pots. But for now it’s highly popular, as is Corbyn’s proposal to tax second homes more, a move which will do nothing to make property affordable for the young.
There is also public support for compelling firms to include workers on their boards, even though such policies never work. As to nationalisation, most back the idea that Royal Mail, the water and energy firms, the railways and even buses should be run by the public sector, despite the state’s abject record of failure when it was directly in charge.
Polls and focus groups also show strong support for “capping” the pay of high-earners – yes, in many cases imposing actual quantitative limits – as well as a general belief that capitalism is selfish while socialism isn’t, that the poor get poorer and the rich get richer in a market economy, and many other Corbynite nostrums. The Left is at odds with the public in some areas, including immigration; but the Right has a problem on economics.
None of this is especially new: five years ago, I wrote in despair at the fact that a plurality of the public thought that the state should have the power to control private rents; it was a crushing 74 to 18 per cent for energy prices. Remarkably, 35 per cent even liked the idea of the state setting supermarket prices for food and groceries, a crazed Venezuela-style policy which would cause total economic collapse. Yet the Tories never argued properly against any of this, failed to propose alternative market-based mechanisms to reduce prices for consumers, and instead decided to embrace many of these views themselves.
Fast-forward to today and, partly as a result, support for higher taxes to spend more on health, education and benefits is now at its highest level since 2002, with 60 per cent backing; only 33 per cent want to retain current levels of tax and spend, and a mere 18 per cent want to reduce tax and spending in those areas, according to the National Centre for Social Research’s annual poll. The pendulum tends to swing back every decade or so: the difference this time is that taxes are already at or near a post-war high.
The fightback against Corbynomics will require intelligence, principles, determination and stamina. As a starting point, the Tories must discover a new language.
Sadly, the public doesn’t respond to notions such as “competition is good”. It is associated with losing, stress, zero-sum games and a fight for resources. Instead, the Tories should talk about “power” and “control”, and personalise the idea of the nationalised monopolies Corbyn is advocating.
He and his apparatchiks will control our lives, they should explain. It will be like rubbish collection and parking tickets: an expensive, useless racket. We will no longer be able to ditch a nasty energy company for a cheaper, better one. We would be “held captive”. Incompetent bureaucrats will lord it over us. Prices will go up as a new corporatist elite will line its pockets. Free, specialist and grammar schools will be destroyed, forcing children into establishments they didn’t choose. Parents, children and consumers will be “trapped”.
A Tory party worth its salt would also talk endlessly about how Labour’s tax hikes would impoverish ordinary people. Homeowners would be forced FOLLOW Allister Heath on Twitter @Allisterheath; READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion to sell up by any move to a wealth tax, or at the very least remortgage their homes to stay in them. It would be the middle-class equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction.
Renationalising so much of industry would add billions to expenditure and force cuts elsewhere. Conservatives should present attractive alternatives: a five-year plan to make hosepipe bans a thing of the past, with pipelines from Scotland and desalination plants in the South; the end of unnecessary rules in energy and childcare to cut prices; and the break-up of BT Openreach to bolster broadband. Then they should focus on the prospect of a general strike, as demanded by one Labour MP this week: vote Corbyn and get chaos.
But most important of all, the Tories should appeal to the public’s consumerist, pro-private-property beliefs. They need to make a genuine breakthrough on housing, and find a way to release far more land to flood the market with homes. Retail offer should be fought with retail offer.
One option would be to freeze petrol tax and council tax and announce an across-the-board cut in income tax, all policies that Labour won’t match. If they want to stick with balancing the budget, the Tories should propose a one-off bonus of £100 per person if the public finances reach surplus.
There is much else that they should do, including doubling down on Brexit, launching a real war on crime and creating an immigration system which can finally gain widespread acceptance. But unless they devise a new way to campaign for free markets that appeals to the aspirational classes in 2018, it will be just a question of time before Corbyn or one of his comrades makes it to 10 Downing Street, and then all bets are off.