Beware the Left
Tony Blair is right to advise us to beware an unrealistic Corbyn manifesto at the next election.
But this begs the question: “Why did so many top economists support Labour recently?” They saw that Leave’s victory was pyrrhic in the austerity atmosphere of Conservatism. People were promised that things would be better from Day 1, but the government wants to reserve spare cash for hard Brexit troubleshooting.
This is too reactive a plan. SMES (small and medium businesses) need to produce a plan with major government help so they can get the technological and scientific knowledge and skills they need to get up to speed with competitors in other countries and get into exports. There have to be major training programmes to give us work skills we are losing as immigration falls.
As business supply lines from Europe collapse we need an industrial strategy to create local supply lines. Brexit can be a huge opportunity for the UK to grow our way out of debt if we retool, have an investment bank and a strategic plan for infrastructure development.
An unrealistic, hard Brexit with an insipid industrial strategy risks a massive permanent increase of our national debt by 2050. Tony Blair is right to want Brexit reversed at this time, precisely because like a Corbyn manifesto it may spiral us into Greek levels of debt. But he is wrong to think that a Neoliberal government can take us through it effectively. If the Tories take a radical rethink, they might yet win moderate Labour voters to consider the unthinkable – voting Tory.
ANDREW VASS Corbiehill Place, Edinburgh When Tony Blair speaks of the catastrophic effect on the UK of a populist right-wing controlled Brexit followed by a populist, unreconstructed left-wing government led by Jeremy Corbyn, he raises the prospect of very real dangers. Our standard of living, public services, savings and affluence could well be decimated in those circumstances.
Those of us who can remember the begging bowl proffered by the UK to the International Monetary Fund to bail us out of the then-government’s gross overspending and incompetence will wince at the prospect. More than 40 years later the very same scenario becomes more and more likely. Let this comedy of errors please come to an end.
You do not need to like Tony Blair to know that he is speaking plain common sense.
ALEXANDER MCKAY New Cut Rigg, Edinburgh