What next for the Tories after the cuts agenda?

by Dan McCurry

You can tell what the Tory focus groups are saying by watching the way the Tories behave. Right now, they are trying to close down the perception that the government has no ideas or purpose, other than the cuts. They know they have no agenda, once the cuts agenda is done.

This explains the flurry of rather pointless ideas announced in the last few weeks. Each one of them is half-baked and each one is accompanied with same the line, “Labour did nothing about this in 13 years”.

An example is Theresa May’s call for a consultation of stop and search, arguing that the policy tends to target young black males. This was widely reported and became a talking point on the media, even though it was completely shallow. This is not serious policy, just a suggestion that people have a chat about something. Yet every Tory politician took to the air to attack Labour for doing nothing for 13 years.

On health they talk of a £200 deposit for foreigners entering the country. Again, MPs took to the airwaves to claim that Labour did nothing for 13 years of government.  There has been little response from Labour to this proposal, but Andy Burnham tells me that he can’t respond as he still doesn’t know the details. He doesn’t object to stopping abuse, but he does object to the idea that Labour had done nothing about the issue previously.

On prisons they seem to think they can ship convicts off to St Helena to serve their ten year sentence, then bring them back for the last six months to serve their sentence close to their family. Presumably convicts can send CDs home so that their children can grow up hearing daddies’ voice, then after several years of absence the children can get to know daddy on 6 prison visits. If they hadn’t cancelled Labour’s prison building program, then the whole sentence could have been served within travel distance of the family. Yet they say, “Labour did nothing in 13 years”.

The Tories don’t fear being called “nasty”, they fear being called “pointless”. Once the cuts agenda is finished, what is the point of them?

As usual, rather than addressing the problem, they address the presentation. They believe that if they can repeat often enough that Labour didn’t do this or that, they hope that people will perceive that the Conservatives are busy bees, while Labour are a waste of time, even though the opposite is true.

Which brings me to a prominent fault of Mr Miliband. He doesn’t like to celebrate the achievements of Labour’s 13 years of glory. As if the recent past is an embarrassment, or as if he’s too insecure to picture himself alongside giants such as Tony Blair or Gordon Brown, he doesn’t want to acknowledge the legacy, even though that’s what the Tories are most frightened of. They are desperate to avoid being compared to Labour’s glorious recent past.

Judging by their actions, I’d say that the Tories’ main purpose is to attack Labour. They are in government, we are in opposition, but they attack us more, than we do them. This is the other weakness of Miliband’s leadership. He only comes alive on Wednesday lunchtimes.

The problem for us is that the Labour party previously argued that the cuts agenda shouldn’t exist at this point in time, and we are now being forced to acknowledge that it does exist whether we like it or not. We had a faulty strategy. We fired a single barrel shotgun at a dual target issue.

That is, we offered a Keynesian response to the economy, which included putting off the cuts till later. This gave the impressions that we didn’t want to confront them at all. Now we’re soon to be beyond the cuts and we look as if we don’t respect them. People fear we’ll reverse them.

Ed Miliband must use his own personality to communicate the message, but if it was me, I would appreciate the fact that the government have done the unpleasant job of making the difficult decisions on the cuts, as it means we don’t have to concern ourselves with that. This is not telling the public what they don’t already know. Nor is it admitting a weakness. We would have done the cuts, but it’s not what we were put on this planet to do. The Tories, on the other hand, have enjoyed it.

I’d say that the cuts agenda ends when the decisions on what to cut have been finished. So the implementation may continue, but the difficult political decisions are done.  At that point, the Tories will have to tell us what is the reason is for their existence, and I don’t think they know how to answer that question.  In fact, I was quite surprised that George Osborne recently extended the cuts agenda, by creating a reason to make more cuts.

That was unexpected. Very unexpected. Forgive me for my suspicious mind, but is it possible that the Tories don’t want the cuts agenda to end, for fear of not knowing what to do after?

Dan McCurry is a Labour activist who blogs here


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24 Responses to “What next for the Tories after the cuts agenda?”

  1. Nick says:

    On health they talk of a £200 deposit for foreigners entering the country.
    ==============

    So the Tories want to charge foriegners 200.

    Labour want to charge them nothing.

    Meanwhile, UK nationals get charged 2,066 quid a year, on average.

    Quite racist.

  2. Nick says:

    On not having a clue.

    The state pensions debts have risen to over 6,500 bn pounds.

    Give us a clue how you are going to pay that?

    Taxes, 600 bn. Spending 722 bn.

  3. McCurry says:

    @ Nick, Are you seriously saying that people with incurable diseases should be able to pay £200 and enter the country to access ongoing healthcare? Cos that’s Tory policy.

  4. swatantra says:

    Lot of soundbytes coming out before the Election. On feelgood policies but pretty irrelevant. eg Gove’s Free School Meals ie most of those from deprived backgrounds get free school meals anyway; and bashing teenage mums, a very very tiny propotion that get themselves into trouble, which no Govt can ever stop; such is the nature of wayward youth. But theye won’t tackle the big ones like tax dodging b******ds and Bankers. And capping top pay and bonuses. Enough to make anyone join the SWP.

  5. McCurry says:

    In fact, I’ve just noticed that each of Ed Miliband’s public appearances, that I know of, were not reported on the national media. Cameron used to get reported every day even though he had nothing to say.
    We do get an unfair deal.

  6. Danny says:

    “Labour’s 13 years of glory”

    “Labour’s glorious recent past.”

    What planet do you actually inhabit? Now I am not one of these people who rubbish Tony Blair’s premiership, and the brief Gordon Brown stint, and intrinsically awful. A lot of good was done. Northern Ireland, SureStarts (I can vouch first-hand was a fantastic asset these things are), school-building to name but three.

    However, on the balance of things, and this is from a lifelong Labour supporter, 13 years of Labour government caused more bad than good for the majority. I live on a council estate among some of my rather affluent city’s poorest. How do you think their lives changed in 13 years of Labour? Not a lot. The same percentage of residents are still on benefits, the estate is still strewn with litter and animal faeces and the opportunities for their children to escape the cycle is as non-existent today as it was in 1997. The comfortable became well-off, the well-off became rich and the rich became filthy rich. And the leading lights of New Labour were “entirely comfortable with that”. The poor stayed poor. The workers of Britain remained hampered by some of the most stringent regulations and lowest rights in Europe. Social mobility did not improve and the wealth gap grew in a manner that some Tories from the Thatcher era would baulk at. Nothing was done to reverse the disastrous policies of privatisation (I’m sat here looking out of my window at a drain that is now on its 5th consecutive day of leaking with a water bill that is now half my council tax bill, oh it works so well) and in fact, Labour extended the policy with their disgracefully inept PFI program.

    Even some of the positives I mentioned are now unravelling. SureStarts are now closed, largely because of the Tory’s austerity drive but in part because of Labour’s reckless spending. The precarious peace in Northern Ireland is starting to unravel.

    The reason Ed Miliband is not celebrating 13 glorious years of Labour is twofold.

    1) There was no 13 glorious years of Labour.

    2) He would be greeted by hysterical laughter by all corners of the electorate; Labour voters, Tories, the media, everyone.

    And I’ve barely even touched on the management of the economy and the illegal war, two things the electorate hold Labour entirely culpable for.

    Championing the previous 13 years of Labour government would be political suicide.

  7. McCurry says:

    @Danny
    You are so right. The Tories are putting Labour to shame. We never did anything for the NHS, transport, tolerance. The Tories are the ones with a purpose, while we just coasted.

  8. Danny says:

    You know, when you have to start putting words in peoples mouths, it is a sure fire sign that you’re struggling in a debate.

    At no point did I hint, suggest or imply that this current, abhorrent government are putting Labour to shame. It is a despicable premiership whose policies are based on the interests of a minute, wealthy section of society and whose greatest achievement is giving less of a shit about the most impoverished members of our country than New Labour (and that takes some doing).

    And Transport? The improvements in safety are to be commended, but that’s about it. The size of trains did not rise with the number of passengers through 1997-2010, but the ticket prices surely did.

    I could go on, but I fear I may stand accused at praising the current incumbents of 10 Downing Street. I had failed to realise that criticising the disgraceful missed opportunity that was Labour governance between 1997-2010 was tantamount to pouring superlatives on David Cameron, Nick Clegg and their in-the-pockets-of-millionaires ministers.

    Honestly Mr McCurry, with your hand on your heart, if Ed Miliband was to publically about the “Glory Years” of Labour and herald 13 wonderful years under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, how do you think the public would react?

  9. Danny says:

    You know, when you have to start putting words in peoples mouths, it is a sure fire sign that you’re struggling in a debate.

    At no point did I hint, suggest or imply that this current, abhorrent government are putting Labour to shame. It is a despicable premiership whose policies are based on the interests of a minute, wealthy section of society and whose greatest achievement is giving less of a shit about the most impoverished members of our country than New Labour (and that takes some doing).

    And Transport? The improvements in safety are to be commended, but that’s about it. The size of trains did not rise with the number of passengers through 1997-2010, but the ticket prices surely did.

    I could go on, but I fear I may stand accused at praising the current incumbents of 10 Downing Street. I had failed to realise that criticising the disgraceful missed opportunity that was Labour governance between 1997-2010 was tantamount to pouring superlatives on David Cameron, Nick Clegg and their in-the-pockets-of-millionaires ministers.

    Honestly Mr McCurry, with your hand on your heart, if Ed Miliband was to publically go on about the “Glory Years” of Labour and herald 13 wonderful years under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, how do you think the public would react?

  10. McCurry says:

    There as tons of transport improvements in London. We got loads of new buses, a new tube line, the DLR train, and the Crossrail project was started.

    I’m not sure if everywhere else did so well.
    Oh, we also had the high speed rail link to the channel tunnel.

  11. McCurry says:

    Update: The Tories have announced a new education policy for 11 year olds. Rather than having 6 levels of award for SATs, they have made it 10 levels of award. Wow! These guys are radical.

  12. Fred says:

    Danny,

    Why bother, McBlinkered cant see the wood for the trees.

  13. franwhi says:

    Up here in Scotland Labour did indeed coast and took votes for granted. Again the ssme story of so many missed opportunities. In big cities like Glasgow which has been Labour led for ever child poverty hardly budged over all the years of UK Labour govt and now of course thingx have only got worse. People on this blog deride the SNP but if you were a left leaning democrat in Scotland then who else would you vote for ? Certainly not the hegemonic Scottish Labour Party who are the least democratic and transparent political party in Scotland as the Falkirk debacle has shown.

  14. McCurry says:

    @Franwhi, I can’t say I know much about Scotland, but we have no shortage of Scottish representation in senior Labour circles. It strikes me the SNP are proud of being Scottish but offer relatively little more than that.
    This referendum is taking a huge amount of resources. I’m not sure it’s achieving very much.

  15. solarman says:

    Whilst Ed Milliband has to respond to the short term cut and thrust of the political scene I would hope that he can also start to articulate a clearer message of where Labour would take the country. I would like him to spell out to the general public his guiding principles. At the moment he has failed, for whatever reasons, to get through to people. Hence his poor personal showing in polls despite a healthy lead for the Labour party in general.

    The new Labour legacy of building new schools and hospitals to replace the run down shoddy old buildings is one to be proud of (amongst a lot of mistakes).

  16. anon says:

    The author of this article fails to realise that the cuts are not going to end and will be even deeper after 2015 regardless of which party the prime minister is from.

  17. Ex-Labour says:

    Another pointless blog that anyone could refudiate but life is too short. Why dont you join like-minded thinkers like Sunny Hundal and go the whole way and say Tories are “evil” ? Like most Leftards the self-righteous indignation at anyone who who doesn’t share their views is unbelievable.

    Fortunately there are left wing bloggers that are sensible and believe this “nasty” and “evil” stuff is just stupid and wrong headed. Is it wrong to ask people to contribute to society, to take personal responsibility or to accept there are no free rides anymore ? Thats not nasty or evil, in fact the Labour household I grew up in would applaud such objectives. This shows just how much Labour has lost its way.

    With the Tories on level par with Labour now, Milibands ratings still not making any move and public support for financial reform growing (even amongst Labour voters) this blog smacks of desperation.

  18. McCurry says:

    I have to say, I do agree with Solarman.
    @Anon You might might be right, the way its going.

  19. Compost says:

    Not quite sure how Ed can “attack” the Tories, himself and Balls have pretty much said that they’ll do exactly the same thing. It’d be like attacking the bloke in the mirror.

    As for transport improvements in London; great. Now for the other 50 million in the country? It’s a damning statement of Labours obsession with London and not the heartlands.

    As for this statement: “We would have done the cuts, but it’s not what we were put on this planet to do. The Tories, on the other hand, have enjoyed it.”. Seriously, this is just poor. What were we put on this planet to do? Represent the poor. How did that work out? Well, in 13 years, the poor stayed where they are and if they attempted to move upwards, then we introduced University fees to extract money from them for daring to have a go, and we had no mandate to do it in fact we gave reassurances that we’d never introduce fees, twice!. For the record, I’m South Yorkshire born and bred and was in the generation before New-Labour and got free Uni (and a grant too) to get my Engineering degree.

    We would never cut back then, but someone has to pay somewhere, sometime. To claim a moral high ground for passing the bill onto the next generation is entirely low, and morally corrupt. To say the Tories have enjoyed it, you might be right. But, thats neither her nor there, they are the Government and are doing EXACTLY what Labour would do. If you’ve lost your job, I’m not sure you will be worried about the colour of the accountants tie.

    Labour need a purpose, and it’s not to out-Tory the Tories, it’s to represent the poor and needy. Labour, under the leadership of a multi-millionaire passed through family inheritance knows just as little of life on tough, broke council estates as Duncan-Smith. Maybe that’s why both of those millionaires have similar policies when it comes to the poor and where cuts should be made, and maybe that’s why the reason we were put on this planet was NOT to have people such as Ed Miliband as our leader. Just a thought.

    Can we have our Labour back soon, please?

  20. Tafia says:

    I put a tenner on the Tories to win the next General Election with a working majority down the bookies this morning. A safe bet I think.

    Labour has totally lost the plot. It seriously thinks it has a right to expect working people to vote for it.

    no it hasn’t. They are not going to vote for you unless you start guarenteeing what you wil do and by when and that that is what the people want.

    So to help you I will tell you one of the biggest things the people want. A massive council house building programme – not two words – ‘massive’ and ‘house’. Not flats, houses 0 square things with gardens. Not just for families, for everything from young single people to pensioner couples and everything in between. Hundreds of thousands, in the lifetime of the next Parliament. Not plans or ambitions – actual bricks and mortar.

    If you can’t do that then you are not going to win the next election. Not even come close.

  21. Landless Peasant says:

    The Tories are pointlessly nasty. Get rid of the scum, and I don’t mean replace them with ‘Blue Labour’ !

  22. John Reid says:

    Landless peasant, well what do you mean replace em with

    Ex-labour , I arree with what a lot you’ve said in the past, but the comment here, the Tories don’t mind being called nasty, they don’t like being called pointless, was spot on

  23. Ex-labour says:

    @john Reid

    John, if the Tories are pointless what are Miliband and Labour. No real policies, beholden to the unions, weak leadership, a party of protest….need I go on ?

  24. southern voter says:

    Labour in government increased taxes on modest incomes.
    Ordinary hard working people saw their taxes go up to pay for
    Gordon Brown’s ego with the economy.

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