Labour will need time to undo Tories’ mess
RON Osmond (“Winning party has a lot of work to do,” Mailbox, February) tells us that the winning party “has a lot to do”.
Indeed. Let us hope it is not the party that has actually left the winner of the upcoming election with so much to do.
Because if it is, then we can be fairly sure that at the next election, around 2029, the winner will be left with even more to do, and the country will be in an even greater mess than that described now by Mr Osmond.
There should be no question who should be installed as the next government.
The financial mess that the country finds itself in now is entirely of the Tories’ making.
The financial crash was a natural consequence of Thatcher’s deregulation of the markets in the 1980s; the Tory austerity of Cameron and Osborne led to a shrinking economy where the growth could not keep pace with state spending; the Tory response to Covid was a plethora of incompetence; and the main reason why we are in this mess is down to Brexit – another disaster the Tories should 100 per cent own.
The latter is very much downplayed by Mr Osmond, who incongruously sets Brexit alongside “wokeism” as a potential election issue.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (itself a government body) has estimated that the effect of Brexit will be twice that of Covid.
And this is going to increase exponentially as Britain falls further behind its European competitors.
Poland, Hungary and Romania, former economic backwaters, will overtake the UK in the wealth league over the next 30 years. Let that sink in.
Labour won’t commit to taking us back into the European Union. It should.
Rejoining would resolve many of the problems highlighted by Mr Ormond, including lack of investment and lack of growth.
Without these the cost of living crisis will get worse as our goods become more expensive, our labour shortages greater, our bill for the state (education, health and housing) more expensive and
with this our taxes will rise. This is a disincentive to work and the country will become increasingly debt-ridden. We are really stuffed.
Labour won’t commit though to rejoining. There are still too many people clinging to the absurd notion of sovereignty.
The last 14 years of our nationally sovereign government is the best argument for pooling and transferring political power centrally to Europe where practical, communal and consensual politics are the norm.
Before the 2016 referendum there was abundant research showing that the areas that ended up voting most strongly for sovereignty would be worst hit by Brexit.
This is now reality, and is being reflected in polling in places like the Red Wall.
And it has happened in our newly sovereign nation.
No, sovereignty is what you get when you are a bird of the air or a beast of the field. You go where you want, you have a fairly rubbish standard of living and then someone eats you. Everyone has to serve someone and Brexiters are the only people who don’t believe that happens to them.
I agree with Mr Osmond in his assessment that more long-term thinking is required in certain areas. To deliver the housing that is needed would require cross party agreement to, say, a 20-year plan that completely bypasses local politicians and changes the relationship between landowners and developers.
In health we require a re-definition of health needs. This should be cross-party and long-term.
Without this, the needs drive the supply and costs go up and up.
In education, we need in particular to decide whether we are funding university students or not.
These are all long-term and require cross-party agreement.
The fact there is still a question over who should now be in charge of the country is down to a rabid right-wing press out to demonise Labour.
Labour are the party that have delivered for the country in the postwar period – the NHS, our wealth (peoples’ houses would be worth a lot less had Labour not nationalised development rights), economic growth and performance, rights for workers, regional devolution and enhanced democracy. Even our only World Cup.
The stuff that Mr Osmond worries about will not be delivered by a short-termist, self-centred Tory Party.
Labour is going to be hamstrung in its first term by the mess it finds.
The country should have patience and back it over the next four or five terms.
Dr Andrew Golland, Leicester