Desperation sets in

The Labour party is seriously worried. How else to explain Dennis MacShane's article in the Telegraph today calling for lower taxes and a smaller state.

A government should be no different. Labour should not be frightened of being a party that leaves more money in the pockets of hard-working individuals, starting with those at the lower end of the income scale. A Labour government that got serious about weaning its bureaucracy and clients off dependency on the citizen's money would find itself popular again.

This is about as convincing as a turkey suddenly declaring that it was in favour of Christmas all along and could someone pass the cranberry jelly. 

Comments

[Brian Micklethwait]

I've always thought Labour should do this. Why do tax cuts have to be aimed only at the well-off or the middling-off. Tax cuts with an anti-toff feel to them are perfectly imaginable, and would, as McShane says, fit very well with a getting-people-off-welfare agenda that would address the central problem of the Welfare State, which is the fact that it is a swamp rather than a trampoline.

The problem is that most Labourites, and in particular the current Prime Minister, just don't think like this, and it is indeed probably too late for Labour to start pretending otherwise. But under Blair, striking out in this direction would have been entirely consistent with the Blair worldview (which was: socialist ends, but let's use whatever means will get it done), and might now be regarded as a great Labour missed opportunity.

Except that your average Labourite is wedded to state centralism as an end in itself, and could not stomach it.

Anyway it's all academic, for now. Maybe in ten years time, and after (another) severe electoral kicking (to add to what they suffered in the eighties), Labour might be ready to think like this.