Labour must stop fighting the cuts

by Peter Watt

We need to recognise, quickly, that the Labour party is being damaged by the cuts. For the last year the conventional wisdom has been that the cuts would politically damage the Tories and Lib Dems. Massive downturns of popularity would rattle the two parties’ collective nerves. Across the country, activists would be battered by a public baying for their blood.

But it hasn’t happened.

On the contrary, the Tories preformed strongly on May 5. They won seats, with their share of the vote holding up pretty well. Of course, the Lib Dems are different, they were wounded as some of their supporters punished them for breaking pre-election promises. But the uncomfortable truth is that the Labour party is also being badly damaged by the cuts.

How so? Because the Labour party is obsessed with the cuts. It is us, not the Tories, who are being defined by them. We talk about them all the time. We protest against them, predict the horrors that will unfold as their impact is felt and condemn the government for implementing them. We are so completely stuck in the cuts’ headlights, that we are virtually paralysed. And this paralysis is damaging our prospects for the next election.

It is damaging because instinctively we quite like opposition: placards, protesting, condemning and all that. Of course we say that we hate opposition and the enforced political impotence. But in reality it‘s not true. We understand the importance of being in government and the good that we can do when we control the levers of power. But it is the politics of protest that really stirs our collective soul.

It plays to our prejudices. “Heartless Tories”, doing what we know that they like doing: cutting public services. It allows us to have a great time “organising against the cuts”. Even better that they are supported by those two-faced Lib Dems, because we can also slag them off for good measure. Condemning Tories and Lib Dems, business and pleasure. Perfect. Best of all, it confirms what we all know. That we are right, that we know best and that we can sit on the moral high ground, where we like it. How can anyone defend slashing children’s services? It’s immoral. What about cutting social security benefits? Only total scumbags would countenance that. Certainly not us. We are trying to stop all of that, and as a result we feel good about ourselves.

The problem is that in the real world people don’t think like that. We are still blamed for the economic mess. Many voters think that we overspent when we should have been saving. They know that the banking crisis was a disaster and that bankers are in it for themselves. But they also think that we were as well. Every fiddled expense confirms it. So they look at our opposition to cuts and find it slightly rum. And who can blame them? For many voters, our vociferous opposition to the cuts reinforces our perceived economic incompetence. But worse, in their eyes it also makes us look cynical, as we seem unable to take responsibility for, and deal with, the consequences of the mess that we caused. Typical politicians.

At the same time it reinforces another damaging perception, namely that we are a party that supports the workshy rather than those who strive. As families experience squeezed budgets, Labour defends benefits and non-jobs in councils.

It isn’t fair, but it is felt. And we can’t see it. We know that we are right to oppose the cuts. Because the cuts are bad, the voters are wrong. And then we try and mount an economic argument about the speed of the cuts being the issue. But we don’t seem to have noticed that no one is listening to us on the economy, because they blame us for the mess.

But it doesn’t need to be like this. We need to move on, and fast. Perceptions of the party are being formed and reinforced in people’s minds right now. Perceptions will only slowly change and it is these perceptions, rather than detailed policy, that will determine where votes are cast at the next general election. But in order to move on we need to stop fighting the cuts. We can’t actually stop them, as we don’t have the votes. And the very act of fighting them is hurting our electoral prospects. We feel better in the short term but no one else, apart from our opponents, benefits from our opposition.

Whatever we do, it shouldn’t be half-hearted. Saying that we support a few cuts here and there has not worked. So the first thing that we should do is just accept the Tory spending plans as set out in the spending review. We might not like them, but in reality we can do nothing about them. It would be bold and brave and, at a stroke, we will give ourselves permission to be heard again on the economy. Instead of deficit reduction strategy (and cuts) we can talk about our priorities for government as opposed to theirs. We can talk about innovative ways to stimulate growth and enterprise. We can talk about how we would develop modernised, leaner public services that are responsive to the needs of a changing world. In other words, we could start talking about the future rather than been held hostage by our economic past.

But firstly we need to accept that our approach to the cuts is badly hurting our chances of being re-elected. And we need to accept it pretty quickly. Or we will lose the next election.

Peter Watt is a former general secretary of the Labour party.


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81 Responses to “Labour must stop fighting the cuts”

  1. Emma Burnell says:

    Hmmm…. So, so unconvinced that the best way to get “permission to be heard” in a debate is to be the third party meekly shouting “me too”.

    And for an article so hung up on prejudices, Peter should take the beam from his own eye when regarding the Party membership, before criticising our mote.

  2. AD says:

    This is absolute and total nonsense.

  3. leftie says:

    literally every day labour uncut has another blog on what we’re doing wrong

    which is well and good, but does anyone have any idea what we should be doing instead?

  4. Rob Marchant says:

    @AD: absolute and total nonsense, except that the last two parties to win power in 1997 and 2010 did precisely that.

    And we will, mark my words, end up doing it anyway sooner or later.

    Yes, apart from that, absolute and total nonsense.

  5. David Harney says:

    Mr Watt. Our party was founded out of the very injustice & social oppression we see today. These are hard times it is true, however this government merely compounds the situation with savage & destructive policies that are right now crippling mainstream people. The Labour Party stands for these people, & must continue to do so. This has to be prioritized. If we dont, then we turn our backs on our core vote. We do not protest because we enjoy it or get a buzz from it. We protest & stand by the ordinary men & women of this country, because it is neccesary & right to do so! How can the Labour Party possibly accept the unacceptable? The Party does have its faults, of course it does, but it main quality is its principles, & we should never loose sight of that fact.

  6. Peter Watt says:

    David, I agree with you when you say ‘Our party was founded out of the very injustice & social oppression we see today.’ It is why I joined as well. But, putting aside that we would have had to undertake very similiar cuts, we really cant stop them happening. What we can and should do is start praparing for what we will do if we win the next election (when the cuts will have happened)when we can again start tackling the injustice and social oppression.

  7. WHS says:

    As a Tory I think this is a fair appraisal of the Labour Party’s cynical and puerile opposition to sound financial policy, and as such the piece stands absolutely no chance of being listened to within the Labour Party.

  8. Anon E Mouse says:

    David Harney – Then you should be shamefaced for what Labour has become.

    As a minimum wage worker in receipt of no benefits I lost money thanks to the 10p fiasco.

    Labour are a complete farce at present and burying your head in the sand will not help.

    Peter Watt was treated appallingly by the party and at least he is being realistic. Labour needs to rid itself of the control freaks and move on.

    Oh and ditch the useless Ed Miliband….

  9. WHS says:

    @ David Harney. I’ll engage with this 30s cloth cap mawkishness. Britain today bears little relation to that of the Great Depression.

    One of the reasons Labour got a landslide in 1945 was because being unemployed in the 30s meant the world of “The Road to Wigan Pier”: people living 8 to a room in frowsty slums, squeezed dry by Rachmanite landlords and struggling to feed themselves. Talk of solidarity and fighting injustice and social oppression meant something.

    These experiences are a million miles removed from those of the unemployed in Britain today. That is why there will be no great Miliband sweeping of the land in 2015. “The squeezed middle” do not have the empathy or sympathy with the less well-off because in no way do they view the “plight” of the less well-off as injustice or social oppression.

  10. I was interested in the line “innovative ways to stimulate growth and enterprise.”

    Normally I would associate Labour with the exact opposite. What did you have in mind ? A return to picking winners & losers from the 70’s ? The white heat of technology ? The green revolution ( always a disastrous misunderstanding – as if we can’t manufacture other things why does anyone think we’d have a competitive advantage in windmills ? ).

    But for what its worth I think your analysis of Labour’s problems is spot on – the good news is they won’t listen to you.

  11. Jon C says:

    Here we go again – the Blairite rump of the Labour Party (see Labour-Uncut passim) tells the rest of us that we need to be more right-wing and more Tory. And, as per usual, it’s never about what is right, what we believe in, what we should stand for etc – it’s all about political posturing.

  12. oldpolitics says:

    The most reassuring part of this article is the word “former”.

  13. Andy K says:

    Nice Article, don’t agree we should forget the cuts and just accept them as you are saying very strongly. However I do think it’s time to move on from the cuts, accept them somewhat but get on with the job of standing the gov’t to account as we did on the Forests and will do on the NHS and Police cuts (plus many more) … we need to get on with the job at hand of being the opposition and not just become a party relying on swing votes … we need to grow once again in the minds of the electorate as we did before ’97 and become a party of the people … we are no longer seen as this and until we are seen as this we won’t get elected – simple

  14. Ayub Khan says:

    Have to agree with Peter. The key point he makes is that this is an opportunity to put a stake in the ground so that we are clear on our position, can then develop policy which provides a clear alternative. Its a question that is asked every day, what would you do?. If we are unable to provide a clear answer we are never going to be taken seriously again. By all means lets oppose some cuts but at the same time we need to be providing a very clear and credible alternative. If we want social and economic justice we should be responsible in opposition setting out a clear vision. In the end, why would people vote for us if we do not have a clear vision for the country backed up by a clear plan?

  15. James Harmston says:

    It is instructional to read the dismissive comments above.

    I would not vote Labour in a million years, but I hope for the sake of democracy in this country that people would start to listen to analysis like this and take heed, because otherwise you will not see power for a generation.

    The idea that the modern Labour party is there to fight social oppression is laughable, by the way. Find another tack.

  16. Robert Eve says:

    Please Labour – just carry on as you are.

    How can you expect people to forget that the economic mess is all your fault after only 12 months?

  17. Hampshire voter says:

    Peter’s article is quite valid. It is pointless for Labour to preach just to the converted. Shouting down every cut made by the Coalition might make you feel better but, outside Westminster, the non-tribal voters want to know what Labour would/will do. I have two teenage children who are now voters. My daughter voted for the first time at the General Election and my son voted for the first time in May. Both hold Labour firmly to blame for the current situation – especially when it comes to their prospects for going to University. Don’t get them on the subject of benefits and the workshy! If Labour wants to be in Government again you’ve got to convince voters like them because they are the electoral future.

  18. Matt London says:

    “literally every day labour uncut has another blog on what we’re doing wrong

    which is well and good, but does anyone have any idea what we should be doing instead?”

    Well, from a not-very-sympathetic viewpoint, that is the/your problem. Labour doesn’t have a credible alternative to what the coalition is doing and outside the thinning ranks of the party’s membership more and more people accept that.

    People are sensible enough to know that “cuts” – however unpleasant – are going to be necessary and have to be lived with, and the issue is not “no cuts” but where and how.

    Address the issues facing the nation from a realistic position, offer realistic, believable alternatives and Labour might have a chance of winning the arguments.

  19. Jamie Potter says:

    Do you actually know what these cuts mean to people? Do you actually know what the Coalition policies mean for people who are out of work, looking for jobs that don’t exist, finishing university and going straight to the dole office, having their benefits cuts, being made to undertake humiliating and oppressive tests to check whether your terminal illness makes you fit to work (yes, it does), to lose your job in the latest round of ‘reforms’ etc. etc. etc.

    Or are you more bothered about your party’s electoral prospects? Power, at all costs!

  20. David Price says:

    Peter – you are so, so right.

    We all understand that Brown’s overspending was part of the crash, as were the bankers. We all know instances of government/local government waste (not hard to miss). We all know we’re going to have to tighten our belt for a few years. We the public have figured all that our for ourselves…

    Many also know Labour were going to cut hard too – despite Gordon Brown’s silence on the subject, Alastair Darling said it would be nearly as much as the Tories…

    So – Labour needs to define itself around something else other than the cuts; in a sense they’re still fighting the pre-election battle. Labour needs to present an alternative, fairer way of life leading to a better world for all. It’s very, very difficult thing to do, and requires a lot of careful thinking. I fear Mili E isn’t capable of this, but that his brother was – and is. This, I suspect is what we’ll hear when Ed gets the boot and David makes his play for the leadership in a few years time.

  21. Rufus Mildmay says:

    Not enough is made of the fact that the cuts don’t need to be made. Cancelling Trident would more than provide the money which it is deemed to be necessary to cut, and more. If that’s unpalatable or deemed to be a ‘vote loser’, then pursuing the extension of taxation to those UK taxpayers who hide untaxed money behind a number of transparent fictions, especially money held overseas or under partner’s names. There are so many ways to raise money without touching the ordinary taxpayer, which might even be popular, if the party only had the courage to pursue them.

  22. paul barker says:

    An intelligent article but what about The Unions ? Unless Mr Watt has some other source of funding in mind he must convince The Union leaderships too. Good luck with that, so far the plan seems to be for “co-ordinated strikes”, that should drive away a few more floating voters.

    I still think Mr Watt is in the wrong Party.

  23. Gordo says:

    Peter is rapidly becoming a voice of sanity unlike the pack of Labour MPs shouting about cuts who, like rabid dogs, have lost sight of why they are even barking.

  24. “But, putting aside that we would have had to undertake very similiar cuts, we really cant stop them happening”

    That’s a myopic and self-serving perspective, which eschews responsibility for the choices that Labour has to make. Labour isn’t compelled to operate within the terrain of Thatcherism – maintaining a strong financial sector, a deregulated labour market, low taxes on profits and higher incomes, etc. New Labour chose to operate within this terrain, so that paying for public services and poverty-reduction programmes was rendered dependent on keeping the City and the CBI happy and booming. At this point, when global recession with bare precedent has demolished the intellectual and ideological bases of that growth model, the Labour Party has choices. It can develop alternatives, based on public investment and job creation, in order to sustain the tax revenues necessary to pay off debts and maintain the welfare state. Or it can cleave to exactly the same model as the Tories, and therefore share in the blame for the social misery that is generated as a result. This latter will be all the more damaging to Labour, since the Tories don’t rely on working class votes and Labour does – as your leader has acknowledged. These cuts will destroy the Labour Party’s social base, at the core of which is public sector and unionised workers. People will be left asking, what is the point of the Labour Party if you refuse to define an alternative political-economic scenario, based on a growth model capable of supporting social democracy? Why go to the bother of existing if your ideological thematics are going to be, broadly, those of Thatcherism?

    And let’s look again at the election results. The Tory vote held up. Of course it did. It stayed at around 35%, which is about the proportion of the population that supports Tory policies. They were never going to punish the government for doing what they want. The medium-range effects of these policies will further fragment and contract the Tory base – it’s been undergoing a secular decline for decades. But not in the short term. The Liberals lost massively, chiefly in core working class areas that Labour had lost during its incumbency, largely due to pursuing the kind of austere orthodoxy defended by Peter Watts. They were obviously punished for their complicity in the cuts. Labour benefited from opposition to the cuts; it wasn’t harmed. Labour lost in Scotland, chiefly because the SNP ran rings around a bland Labour campaign, and has a record of delivering some policies that are widely popular. Labour was out-flanked to the left in Scotland, losing the support of its core base. The lesson of the last decade is that you cannot take the working classes for granted – again, as Ed Miliband has acknowledged. They both can and will find alternatives; or stay at home.

    Lastly, Watts says that people blame Labour for the crisis, believing that the government caused it through overspending. This would be 1979 all over again, with a decrepit social democracy blamed for British decline, and the people placing their trust in market discipline and public order to restore the nation’s vitality. In fact, matters are much more complicated. The majority of people blame the financial institutions first for the crisis, and to the extent that they blame Labour it is in part because Labour was in office when the crisis unfolded, and pursued the policies of deregulation that allowed the banks to run riot. There’s no getting away from that. People are right to hold Labour partly responsible. The question is whether Labour will continue to embrace those destructive policies, or whether they will define a political alternative – because this is the moment at which the contours of the next generation will be defined. But more to the point, if people are misinformed about the extent of government spending over the last decade, despite New Labour’s mania for fiscal stability, and despite the fact that spending before the recession never exceeded (and was frequently less than) that of the Major administration, then the obvious answer is to counter the myths. The idea that you determine a political strategy based on what some selectively read transitory polling evidence suggests about the public mood at a particular moment is disingenuous. No party, no government, ever behaves in that way. Politics is about shaping and forming majorities, in favour of one agenda or another, not passively reflecting whatever the polls are claimed to say about the public mood. To claim otherwise is simply, again, to abnegate responsibility.

  25. SG says:

    @leftie,

    “literally every day labour uncut has another blog on what we’re doing wrong … but does anyone have any idea what we should be doing instead”

    Did you even read this article? It says exactly what Labour should be doing instead!

  26. SG says:

    “Our party was founded out of the very injustice & social oppression we see today.”

    What? The Labour Party was founded to protest against the changes made to correct the catastrophic errors of the previous Labour government?

    There is no injustice in balancing the books. The cuts will take us back to a level of spending seen about five or six years ago – under Blair and Brown. And if you think the Conservatives are socially oppressive then you need to get some perspective. It was Brown who demolished social mobility.

  27. Steve Rudd says:

    Mr Watt.

    You say:

    <>

    Perhaps your energies, and those of the Labour Party, would be better spent counteracting this misapprehension, then.

    You say:

    <>

    You are an arrogant sod. Who are YOU to say that people on Benefits are workshy? Who are YOU to decide what is a non-job.

    After working continuously from 1976 to 2010, and paying a shedload of tax, last year I fell seriousl ill and am now in a wheelchair. The company I worked for for twenty one years are trying to make me redundant and I am on benefits at the moment. How DARE you call me workshy? I’ve known more days with two half past fives in them than you have, I bet.

    Instead of colluding with the Tories and the Mini-Tories in their revenge rape slash and burn of the British economy, the Labour party should be TEARING into them over and over again, make THEM bleed twice for every one thing they cut. That would get me voting for your party again, not some kind of feeble fellow-travelling. General Strike. Now.

  28. Steve Rudd says:

    My previous post is made completely unintelligible by the fact that the HTML chose to delete the quotations from the original which I placed in angle brackets. These were

    {{The problem is that in the real world people don’t think like that. We are still blamed for the economic mess. Many voters think that we overspent when we should have been saving. They know that the banking crisis was a disaster and that bankers are in it for themselves. But they also think that we were as well. Every fiddled expense confirms it.}}

    and

    {{At the same time it reinforces another damaging perception, namely that we are a party that supports the workshy rather than those who strive. As families experience squeezed budgets, Labour defends benefits and non-jobs in councils.}}

    And on the subject of “non-jobs” if a diversity co-ordinator’s work indirectly prevents a race riot, is that a non-job? Idiot.

  29. Mike says:

    If you care for your labour party, you should open your eyes and see that this article is bang on the nose. You cannot afford to over-indulge your socialist egos if you want a hope in hell of having any electoral credibility come the next election. Money does not grow on trees – didn’t your parents teach you that when you were young. If not, I’m not surprised you’re a spendaholic socialist. If you want power back, you’ll need to tell your cartoon-faced leader to take a running jump. He has no credibility, no ability, and is clearly on the ropes (just see his pathetic over-reaction to common sense vis a vis the Clarke fiasco). Blair made you look fit for government. He didn’t do that by being cosy with the unions, and he didn’t do it by getting his knickers in a twist about all sorts of silly socialist nonsense. I’d listen to the sensible people in your party, like the author of this article, if I were you, otherwise we tories will wipe the floor with you at the next election – that’s a promise!

  30. Matt says:

    leftie wrote:
    “literally every day labour uncut has another blog on what we’re doing wrong. which is well and good, but does anyone have any idea what we should be doing instead”

    How about admitting that you too would have cut, and then actually emphasising your message about the cuts being ‘too far too fast’, which the author rightly notes is being drowned out. I realise this is a job for Labour MPs, but activists don’t help much by shouting ‘No ifs, no buts’ at each and every proposal.

    That’s why I am inclined to agree with the author’s suggestion that you enjoy yourselves far more in opposition.

  31. mark polden says:

    Well for a start, Labour should actually say sorry for their previous tenancy’s profligacy with taxpayers money then suggest that they would have had to cut themselves anyway.

    After all that come up with a real plan to keep labour supporters jobs whilst cutting hig paid management (tory) jobs and cut waste

  32. Jim says:

    “Our party was founded out of the very injustice & social oppression we see today”

    I’ll give it to the Tories, they really are efficient at their evil machinations. After all they have contrived to create injustice and social oppression in just one year from taking office, and all the while increasing public expenditure (Total Government Expenditure in 2009/10 was £670bn, in 2010/11 it was £697bn, a 4% increase). Its even projected to go up again in 2011/12 to £710bn.

    These cuts are awfully expensive!!!

  33. iain ker says:

    “We understand the importance of being in government and the good that we can do when we control the levers of power.”

    You’re being ironic, surely.

    ‘Our party was founded out of the very injustice & social oppression we see today.’

    Rather lost your way, I feel.

    I do remember one vain blowhard standing up at the last TUCLabour conference and saying, ‘We joined the Labour Party to save the world’.

    My, how deluded and my how we laughed.

    Fine words, butter no parsnips.

    You all joined the TUCLabour to bash the rich and feather your own nest, stop pretending otherwise.

  34. David Harney says:

    Mr Watt. Thank you for your reply.
    Of course, I accept that any political party is rendered impotent without power. Therefore it is the priority of all political parties to achieve that goal. We are all aware of lies that are often told in order to do so. Your concerns, well meaning though they are, are however, an over reaction. Almost a knee jerk reaction to General Election defeat last year. Today saw a YouGov poll giving Labour a 6 point lead. 42% to the Cons36%. This is a marked rise in national popularity of some 14 points since the devistating defeat just 12 months ago. While membership of our Party has increased many fold. This is quite remarkable when we compare polls taken 12 months after the Tory collapse of 1997. Mr Watt, the cuts that Labour would have had to make may have been of a similar gravity, however, & crucially, those cuts would have been targeted in a much fairer, compassionate manner! With the socially disadvantaged better protected, & those in need cared for etc etc. What we are seeing with this government is indescriminent pillage. We can not as a Party accept or condone this form of `wicked` politics. It would be a grave mistake for our Party to be seen to accept this! It would not gain votes, but loose the very people we rely upon & who trust us to be their voice. It is not a case of whether we can stop the cuts happening, it is a matter of highlighting the injustice of a government that has openly chosen to hit the poorest the hardest. Which is both cruel, & wrong. It is not beyond the Labour Party to oppose, & strive for fairness, AND form policy`s that we can implement once power is regained. In my opinion, just one ingredient is required to return a Labour government at the next general election, & that is trust. Mutual trust. We must trust the electorate, & we must convince the electorate that they can trust us. We can not achieve this by being seen to be soft on Cameron & his government. If we did, his government would be guaranteed a landslide. We must hold firm, & be seen to be united. We must speak up for the very people we were formed to serve. Labour need to stop beating itself up & looking to itself for the answers to questions that dont require answering. Lets not forgett, between 1997 & 2007, the country enjoyed a strong & stable economy. We invested heavily in NHS, Education, Employment opportunities, Social Care – the list is goes on. But we did NOT mis-manage the economy that resulted in this situation. We were guilty of trusting the banks, & that is the huge lesson that we need to learn from. It is also the message we need to hammer home to the people, in order to counter the Tory lies that the global economic disaster was somehow a product of a Labour government. Thank you for your reply comrade.

  35. doreen ogden says:

    Cobblers !

  36. Stephen Smith says:

    I don’t know where to start with this nonsense – accept a package of Chicago-school cuts driven by naked ideology and an overt attack on the very fabric of the enabling state?

    Nothing about asking questions on the fundamental irreconcilable lie at the heart of modern capitalism – that pursuing greed benefits everyone.

    If Ed Milliband and our party’s leadership would start to talk about dealing with systemic economic inequality, then it would re-energise our organisation.

    At a stroke we’d be able to conenct this with arguments about social justice and a cohesive society.

    All I can do is quote Malcolm X: “If we don’t stand for something, we will fall for anything.”

  37. Henrik says:

    @David Harney: “…It is also the message we need to hammer home to the people, in order to counter the Tory lies that the global economic disaster was somehow a product of a Labour government. Thank you for your reply comrade.”

    Hammer home to the people, eh? The global economic disaster was somehow a product of a Labour government? ‘Nuff said, that damn electorate doesn’t deserve our wisdom, how dare they blame us for a wrecked economy through 13 years of tax-and-spend, it’s NOT FAIR and they’re all BAD and WICKED and EVIL.

    Now dry your eyes, Princess, open a big tin of man up and go and find a story which will make people want to vote for you.

  38. MC says:

    True, the global economic disaster wasn’t a product of a Labour government, but the 3 trillion pound deficit of the UK economy certainly was. Quite how anyone can stand up and say that they didn’t mismanage the economy, when the evidence of bigger & bigger spending compared to taxation revenues, particularly since the middle of last decade, and INCREASING even after the global crash, is there for all to see, beggars belief. You must think that the electorate are stupid – oh, wait…

  39. AndyN says:

    Peter. you have exactly nailed Labour’s public perception – unfortunately, I don’t think anyone in the party is listening to you.

    Look at David Harney’s comment above; a near-hysterical over-reaction of the type that utterly turns off the general public. (Or “ordinary men & women” as he describes us.)

    (“Injustice and oppression..savage & destructive policies….crippling mainstream people…(!)”)

    Portraying Britain, just a year after Labour left office, as degenerating into some ghastly hybrid of Somalia, Bahrain and Iran – particularly when for most people nothing much has changed – just makes you look stupid.

  40. Stuart says:

    Tosh from beginning to end. Peoples lives and jobs are at stake here not an abstract argument. It is quite that Mr Watt inhabits a planet in a solar system orbiting the real world.

    Who does this gormless cretin think will actually vote Labour at the next election if this strategy was followed. Mind you I shouldn’t be surprised. When he came to my CLP as General Secretary he assured us that the Party was on a sound financial setting. The next month the loans scandal broke. Idiot.

  41. Jim Pickard says:

    Unless I read it too fast, your piece seems to suggest that the cuts have already happened: that is clearly not the case. Most of cuts will occur in phases over the coming few years.

    Jim Pickard

  42. james says:

    Peter, you say “we would have had to undertake very similiar cuts”. This is a pretty pessimistic answer – Labour’s deficit reduction strategy was growth-oriented.

    What we have now is stagnation, a halt to recovery with business and consumer confidence knocked by the scale and speed of the Tory-Liberal plan, and the refusal to be flexible in response to events (like, no growth, high unemployment, etc).

    So, the argument you make has three assumptions:

    1) that a state can reduce a budget deficit through spending reduction alone

    2) that the Tory-Liberal plan to balance the books by 2015 will be working before the end of this parliament

    3) that the coalition will then be able to shower tax cuts, thus boosting the purchasing power of voters who matter to their chances of re-election

    What’s wrong with these assumptions is

    1) the economy is flatlining with six months of standstill, private investment isn’t picking up enough to cover the cut in public investment – and this is partly because we have a significant service sector dependent on consumer spending (which is reduced by spending cuts and tax rises).

    2) the Office for Budget Responsibility is revising growth downwards, not upwards. Borrowing forecasts are being revised upwards, not downwards. Net lending by banks isn’t increasing, despite of Project Merlin.

    3) the coalition are already finding it hard to reconcile the damage that austerity policies are doing to their deficit reduction plan – both in terms of its progress and public support.

    I have not seen evidence that “too far, too fast” is rejected by most voters – polling suggests this is quite widely accepted as a view on the cuts. If we were to suddenly change our argument, this would confirm the worst suspicions of those who blame Labour for the recession and the deficit.

    Even a Tory like David Davis can see the logic of public investment in job creation, putting the unemployed to work on infrastructure projects that will boost the private sector…. (http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/05/david-davis-an-unlikely-keynesian/)

  43. Alun says:

    It might be expected that a former General Secretary of the Party might have had more than a cursory glance at the local election results, but it seems not. Labour actually made a lot of progress against the Tories in parts of the country, including in areas full of marginal constituencies (notably Yorkshire, Lancashire and the Midlands), it’s just that the Tories made significant gains against their own coalition partners in places where Labour is not exactly electorally relevant, something that made the overall scoreboard look more promising to them than the electoral reality.

    Incidentally, if there’s one thing that Labour can learn from the fiasco north of the border, it is that it is very important to provide the electorate with an alternative. Scottish Labour did not do this, even going so far as to endorse certain SNP policies that it had previously (and quite rightly) opposed. Quite a contrast with Wales, where Labour put forward distinctive policies…

  44. Scotty says:

    The labour party will never change.
    It will always defend the public sector and throw money at it, as it, and its associated trade unions are the nursery ground for labour MP’s and is a funding source – Labour tax people, pay those taxes to the public sector whose employee then pay some back to the trade unions in fees and the trade unions then pay some to the labour party to support them.
    So we, the private sector hard working tax payers, are in fact supporting the labour party even though we would never wish to do so directly.
    The labour party would not be viable from private sector donors alone,as business see the left for what it is, leeches of our hard earned money.

  45. UKIP Voter says:

    @David Harney: “…It is also the message we need to hammer home to the people, in order to counter the Tory lies that the global economic disaster was somehow a product of a Labour government. Thank you for your reply comrade.”

    An eminent economist from a well-known left-leaning think tank last year, in a BBC radio interview, said that the national debt [then] amounted to £18,000 per head of population, only £200 of which was due to the deregulated actions of the banks. Now, who was it that deregulated the banks and put a toothless paper tiger in place to oversee the non-existent regulation? Oh, yes – the same competent colossus who sold our gold for a song, dispensed with the “golden share” on privatised strategic utilities and mortgaged us up to the hilt whilst pumping money into public services to do little more than cover the cost of the extra bureaucracy put in place to make sure they were all chasing the right targets.

    Socialists – very good at wasting other people’s money. Until they run out of it.

  46. Andy says:

    A great article which hits the nail bang on the head. The majority of responses however indicate that the left wing are just not ready or able to assume the responsibility of government. The old adage holds true that eventually socialists run out of other peoples money to the detriment of all, especially those on the margins of society. If the labour party/movement is unable to understand this and react or change accordingly then they are doomed and deserve to be so.

  47. Dr Pangloss says:

    At last! Somebody gets it!

    I have a couple of points to add, which are these. The Labour Party’s assumption (particularly its leaders since the late John Smith) that what is good for the Labour Party is also good for the country has not been borne out by events. Whether this is arrogance, stupidity, or laziness, is often hard to tell, but protesting against the measures needed to remedy Brown’s financial incompetence merely reminds the electorate why we are in this mess.

    If that were not enough, one needs only to look at the poor Irish to discover what happens to a country where the markets won’t lend to the government because they don’t think they have the political will and arithmetical acumen to tackle the problem. It’s no use Milliband and Balls claiming that it couldn’t happen to us: probably not, but would the Labour Party be prepared to risk, say, a 15% pay cut for nurses as happened in Ireland by not confronting the problems created by their own structural deficit?

    Would Labour cuts be as David Harney, for example says: “have been targeted in a much fairer, compassionate manner” at the likes of ‘Nurse’ Pilgrim and her ilk?

    I doubt it and so does the electorate. In other words, unless the Labour Party can align its policies with the national interest it will be an irrelevance

  48. Douglas says:

    So it continues. Labour thinks the public perception problem is bad because Labour used to defend people on benefits.

    Well, as a disabled person who needs an O2 tank (which prevents me from working, as it is a workplace hazard) and morphine and relies on benefits (which I paid into for years before becoming ill) it disgusts me that you even think people like me should not be defended. What is so wrong with defending the sick/disabled, the unemployed?

    Violence against disabled people has risen since the Coalition made people like me public enemy number one. Look at the article in Sunday’s Observer. Disabled people are facing harassment, violence and strangers calling us “scroungers”. I’d love to go back to work but my health now prevents it. I expect the Tories to see people like me as scum but not Labour (although the way you treated us while in power, in order to look “tough” for the tabloids is a disgrace as well.)

    Now Mr. Watt thinks people like me should not be defended by Labour because the public might not like it. Well, Mr. Watt, if you think defending the disabled should be dropped all so you can get a few more votes, then I really will never have a place in the Labour party.

    Labour used to be the champion of people like myself and Steve Rudd who posted above. From the way you are talking, it sounds like you’d rather we receive no state support and be left to die so that you can have your precious power again. We have one Tory party in the country and that is more than enough.

    And we sit here calling the Tories heartless (they are) while thinking of how to make ourselves more “blue”. If I wasn’t already sick, this would push me over the edge.

  49. Mark Hearne says:

    I live on one of the poorest estates in the UK and I am convinced that the houses and flats should be handed over to the tenants immediatly. The local council takes 5 million pounds a year in rent off this estate. The money is spent on high wages and pensions for people who do nothing.
    We would be better off with no local council spraying defoliants all over in the name of maintenance. The only maintenance here is of do nothing council jobs.
    We have deteriorating housing stock, no biennial plants, loads of crappy CCTV, a local police force that is more dangerous to our children then than any local criminal element, and our remaining green areas are under threat from our local councilers who want to make more car parking space.
    There is only Labour representation here.
    None of the people employed in this enterprise live on this estate.
    None of them would be missed. Also I had a new baby when surestart arrived in a new building on the estate. My baby got a burst MacDonalds plastic ball from them in the nine years that he has lived here.
    Bring on the cuts and fuck these people off and let us keep the rent money and council tax to spend on stolen goods and drugs.

  50. Douglas says:

    “As families experience squeezed budgets, Labour defends benefits and non-jobs in councils.”

    I’m posting again, sorry, but this really makes me angry and upset. What this says to me is that I am not a person Labour feels it is worth their time to defend. The insinuation is that Labour spent too much time defending the vulnerable when, like Tories, they should be attacking them and smearing cancer patients, disabled children and injured servicemen.

    I suggest that anyone, ANYONE who thinks defending the weakest in society is not a vote winner than he does not belong in this party and has no sense of moral or community duty. Or maybe it’s the other way round. Maybe, because I am a vulnerable person I no longer belong with Labour.

    The only political party now who stands up for the weakest in society is the Greens (and possibly the SNP). I am literally disgusted.

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