Seumas Milne`s evaluation cannot be faulted; the
"delusional" Blairites blame Labour`s defeat on the abandonment of "aspiration
and middle England", and its "spiteful" proposal to " tax the wealth creators"
(The return of the Blairites is the last thing Labour needs,14/05/15). They
clearly expect the party to believe that people on above average incomes, from
around £30,000 to £60,000, could not bring themselves to vote Labour because,
when their incomes miraculously treble, quadruple or more in the future, they
would have to pay 5% extra tax on all the money earned over £150,000. Someone
appears to be forgetting that the average income in the UK is £25,000
approximately, and that 44% of all adults do not earn sufficiently high wages to
pay any income tax at all.
Perhaps small business owners, earning two,
three or four times the average, did not think having to pay reduced business
rates, as Miliband proposed, would benefit them sufficiently, or that Labour
going after tax avoiding companies, which undercut smaller rivals` prices,and
put many out of business, was sensible policy? There will always be those, of
course, who feel having to pay an increased minimum wage is unfair, and that
supplementing very low wages from the taxpayers is fine, but would such people
vote anything other than Tory anyway? Only if the Labour party adopted such
so-called "pro-business" policies like the Tories have done, as ignoring tax
avoidance and cutting the staff meant to prevent it, ensuring firms paying less
than the legal minimum get off with small fines, doing nothing to prevent the
exploitation of tenants by Rachman-like private landlords, and awarding
government contracts to firms best known for their inefficiency and dubious tax
policies, rather than their competence and ethics, could it attract such votes
away from the Tories.
Labour did nor haemorrhage votes to Ukip, and the
more radical SNP and Green parties, because its policies were too far to the
left, and Labour clearly needs a leadership candidate with the bottle to say
so.
Maybe I am one who fits Martin Kettle`s
description, but is my view of the Tories really "naive"? (The Tories fooled us
all. We must study how they did it,15/05/15) Tory voters may, indeed, see their
party as "competent and reliable", but didn`t their incompetent economic policy
of austerity not only delay any economic recovery by at least three years, but
also fail to meet targets they set themselves on deficit reduction, whilst
breaking electoral promises on VAT, and NHS topdown reorganisation? "Realistic"
suggests knowing what is actually possible, but pledges to take government
spending to levels last seen in the 1930s would entail returning, in effect, to
a 19th century system of laissez-faire.
"Prudent" would appear inaccurate, in view of
the £375bn created by quantitative easing and given to the banks,
whilst "generous" can only be viewed as precise when thinking of tax reductions
for the very rich. "Tolerant" is certainly true when applied to tax avoidance
and evasion, and "decent" is not the epithet that springs immediately to mind
when thinking of the "bedroom tax" and welfare cuts for the most vulnerable. As
for the Tories being "patriotic", many would consider this suitable but only as
long as it applied to England rather than the UK.
As Kettle says, none of these qualities are
"objectionable"; the trouble is they do not accurately describe the Tory party.
By all means ask "why the Tories succeeded", but answers might still go back to
the opposition`s campaign.
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