If the Conservatives win the next election, as many pundits are predicting, the reason won't be because the nation has become wildly enthusiastic for the policies of David Cameron. It will be due to a massive "stay at home" by staunch Labour voters. They won't be staying at home due to the failure of Socialist policies. They will be staying at home because of the failure of Tory policies, badly implimented by Gordon Brown. Many people on the left criticised Tony Blair, calling him "Tory B.Liar" I always thought that this was wide of the mark. Blair was a Social Democrat who hijacked the Labour movement.
I formed the opinion that Brown was a Tory from day 1 of the Blair regime. For a Labour chancellor, with the biggest ever majority to announce that he'd follow the Tory spending plans for the next 3 years, gave the game away. It meant that either :-
a) He agreed with Ken Clark and is a Tory
or
b) He was clueless and so couldn't come up with anything better
or
c) both of the above
As chancellor he forced a massive privatisation on the citizens of London with tube PPP. Ken Livingstone, someone who is quite clearly not a Tory, fought this tooth and nail.
As to how he behaved as Prime Minister. His first major Tax reform was to abolish the 10p Tax band. This had a terrible effect on the finances of some Great Britains most vulnerable people. Gordon Brown is a workaholic. If he was a Socialist, his first question would be "What effect will any tax changes have on the most vulnerable people in Society". If he'd asked this question and he'd not been a Tory he'd have dropped the cut.
What about his other measures? A Socialist would have nationalised the banks without compensation to Shareholders when they failed and structured them to make a future privatisation impossible. When the railway companies failed, they would have been kicked into touch and British Rail reconstituted. A real Socialist would have used Sir Fred Goodwins greed as a perfect excuse to introduce swinging taxes on abuse of the pension and bonus system. However you look at it, the Brownite response to any crisis is a Tory response.
Would a real Socialist dream of trying to force through Post Office Privatisation. I can't think of a single progressive policy associated with Gordon Brown. Tory readers will doubtless claim I am talking rubbish. Of course they will, because Brown's brand of Conservatism is not exactly an advert for good Government. If Cameron gets in, all we'll get is more of the same. All we can realisically hope for is a bit better execution of policies. To those who say Labour policies have failed, I say "No they haven't because they haven't been tried"
2 comments:
To be fair to stay at home Labour voters I think it is less that Gordon Brown is a 'Tory'. I think that foremost in their minds is that he is sh*t at running the Country.
When Tony Blair won the election in 1997, it wasn’t because people thought that Labour had the best policies. It was because they were sick to death of the Conservatives who had been in power for a very long time and were seen as arrogant and aloof.
History is merely repeating itself. Gordon Broon could promise to abolish income tax and provide free hookers on the NHS. He still won’t win. The public have simply had enough.
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