Wednesday, 5 June 2024

The Leader's debate

In my opinion, the leader's 'debate' on ITV last night showed Sunak at his worst. He's incapable of listening and simply tries to batter his opponent, and he's dishonest. You can see why the nation is in such a mess. The whole thing was badly organised and the host Julie Etchingham lost control, allowing Sunak to constantly speak over Starmer. The £2000 tax bombshell charge is going to blow up in Tory faces. The figure does come from 'independent' Treasury civil servants but is based on assumptions about Labour's policies provided by Tory political advisers that are either deliberately exaggerated or flat wrong.  Garbage in, garbage out as we used to say.

The Treasury wrote to Labour two days ago to say the figures “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service.”:
According to a YouGov poll immediately afterward, Sunak edged it by 51-49% and Starmer was indeed slow and couldn't push back against Sunak's verbal assaults.  I just don't believe he is that kind of person, which is not to say he's soft but rather that he probably doesn't think yelling at people is fruitful. 

He is the archetypal civil servant always keen to treat others with respect and it showed.

The independent IFS says neither leader is being honest and given the state of the public finances either taxes will have to rise or spending will have to be reduced. The Tories are already said to be planning another £19 billion of cuts, according to the OBR:

These cuts will come in unprotected departments like Justice and Home Affairs. This is the standard reaction by Conservatives to any projected gap between income and expenditure. Cut anything and everything except where it matters most to the voters.

Labour, on the other hand, are always more sympathetic to the need for better public services and are far more inclined to raise taxes.  I used to think in the past they often went too far, but after 14 years of cuts, the NHS and social care on their knees, the police stretched to breaking point, local authorities going bankrupt left, right and centre and the entire British army now able to fit inside Wembley Stadium with 20,000 spare seats, I wonder where the cuts are going to fall next?  

Perhaps we should start thinking we do need to pay a bit more tax.  What's the point of having savings in the bank if you can't see a doctor for love or money?

In 1979, under Jim Callaghan, the nation seemed broken beyond repair. Mrs Thatcher came in and she did change things, giving the country a new sense of purpose that led to 18 years of opposition for Labour. Now I think the most significant changes she made were mistakes. Selling council houses has created many sink estates owned by hundreds if not thousands of absentee landlords who don't carry out repairs.

Some places just look desperate and utterly hopeless.

The energy, water, and transport companies are largely foreign-owned, sometimes by foreign government entities like EDF. Some have invested heavily and need to repay these costs but many are venture capitalists who are simply milking us dry and repatriating the profits. Privatisation just looks like a huge mistake now.

All of which has created a sense of despair not unlike 1979. If Starmer can make some big decisions early on and capitalise on them, he could be PM until 2040.  Just a bit of quiet competence would make a change.

Farage

Farage's decision to stand in Clacton is a calculated move. If he can get elected - and there's a good chance he will - a position in parliament will allow him to do what he has always wanted, become leader of the Conservative party, or whatever is left of it after 5 July.

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