The Conservatives must get a grip
At this stage, the abject, almost baffling incompetence of a self-absorbed Labour Party is the primary factor keeping the Conservatives so politically competitive. England is, at least for now, a two-party state, which means that so long as Labour remains divided, culturally woke and unable to explain coherently how it would make people better off, many voters will grudgingly cling to the Tories for fear of the alternative.
This lingering status quo gives the Government an entirely false sense of success, encouraging it to double down on what it thinks is a brilliant political strategy, all the while pursuing failed policies that will gradually alienate chunks of its coalition. The time will come when that coalition falls apart, and it will take No10 by surprise because by the standards of its neo-Blairite playbook, the Government believes it is doing rather well.
But one only has to look out of the window to see the reality: there are queues at petrol stations caused by a HGV driver shortage exacerbated by DVLA staff sitting at home while applications for new licences piled up. The Government has been outmaneuvered by its opponents, and now forced to sign off 5,000 temporary work visas. It doesn’t have a strategy to deal with the current chaos, nor is it aware of how angry many people are becoming. Meanwhile, gas and other energy prices are shooting up and are likely to go on rising into winter, when we need energy the most.
Forecasts for this newspaper suggest that the planned 12 per cent rise in the energy price cap next month for 15 million standard variable tariff customers, plus a likely further increase of at least 14 per cent next April after record gas prices, will probably cost the average household around £315 a year, or 2.5 per cent off its disposable income. The poorest stand to lose around 16 per cent, which is a human disaster.
Inflation, the Bank of England warns, could top 4 per cent, council tax is set to rise, and, to rub salt into the wound, the Treasury’s response to incomes that are falling in real terms has been to launch a series of tax raids, not least the 1.25 per cent rise in National Insurance on employees and employers (the latter set to be paid by reduced pay rises), a huge increase in corporation tax (which will cut returns on investment and depress the economy overall) and vast dollops of fiscal drag via the tried-and-tested means of freezing tax bands. In London, the new ULEZ congestion fee is about to hit, and over the next few years millions of consumers will be “nudged”, or compelled, into paying a lot more for greener cars or heating systems.
People do not vote for parties that make them poorer. The looming slump in real wages will damage the case for capitalism, entirely unfairly as everything that is going wrong is directly caused by misplaced government intervention or the state failing to live up to its basic duties.
How would most readers rate the bureaucracy they are so generously financing: GPs, schools or the DVLA? The state is failing across the board, and the Government’s solution is to offer it more money, as if appeasing an insatiable Aztec god. Reform seems to have become a taboo. Most voters readily wish to “save the planet”, but they don’t want to do so in a way that hammers their wallet or destroys their quality of life.
Today, Labour is a mess, but the combination of a decline in living standards plus the Tories’ endorsement of tax and spend, appears to legitimise a social democratic agenda that Labour might someday be in a position to sell more effectively. When that moment comes, the Conservative Party will have nothing to distinguish itself from the Opposition but a record of failure, and the memory of what increasingly looks set to be a winter of discontent. The Government needs to change course before it is too late.
The state is failing across the board, and the Government’s solution is to offer it more money