Constructivism
So, anybody want to play Fix The Labour Party? What should they do to avoid a thrashing at the general election? I’ll start with:
- Temporarily reinstate the 10p tax rate next week. Fix the problem long term by looking again at personal allowances for the low waged.
- Reverse the post office closures
- A scheme up and running in the next twelve weeks where people earning under a given threshold can claim a substantial refund on last quarter’s fuel bill.
- A windfall tax on energy company profits
- Implement a proportional representation voting system in time for the general election.
- Either commit troops to defending Basra or bring them home. Time to poo or get off the pot.
Rubbish or what? Any more?
Posted on May 2nd, 2008 at 12:12 pm
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Announce that in the light of fuel price rises and climate change you no longer support a third runway at Heathrow but instead intend to press ahead with mainline electrification and a new line to the Midlands and North.
Tom’s latest blog post… Who The Hell Do I Vote For Now?
Scrap ID cards, 42 weeks, put Trident on hold
Revue all major IT procurement
Look at student fees
Alter council tax.
Tax those that can afford ahead of those that can’t
Define what on earth Labour stands for
“Define what on earth Labour stands for”
That might help.
As it seems that voters prefered the Tories yesterday I’d suggest nicking all their policies and adding a few more more gleaned from the readers’ suggestion box at the Daily Mail. That should do the trick.
Mike Power’s latest blog post… Real leadership material
Oh, and big blonde wigs for all members of the cabinet.
Mike Power’s latest blog post… Real leadership material
How about inventing a faster-than-light drive? Just as likely as any of the other items, and has a much bigger ‘cool’ factor.
I’d settle for a jetpack.
Don’t just U-turn on the 10p band. Instead, abolish tax credits, and double the personal allowance, rendering the 10p band redundant. This should also produce a substantial saving on expenditure on civil servants.
Resolve to crack down on all Government waste, particularly QUANGOs.
Admit that hospital-acquired infection rates are at an unacceptable level, and pay for the re-introduction of matrons by cutting numbers of pen-pushers and initiatives in the NHS.
Repeal the Identity Cards Act, kill off the NHS Spine and ContactPoint, and return to a maximum of 14 days detention without charge. Even 28 days is obscene.
Talking of obscene, drop the Dangerous Pictures Act from the Criminal Justice & Immigration Bill.
QuestionThat’s latest blog post… Chips With Everything
QuestionThat – “Instead, abolish tax credits, and double the personal allowance, rendering the 10p band redundant. This should also produce a substantial saving on expenditure on civil servants.”
…and make a load of families significantly worse off (lots of low paid people with kids get more from tax credits then they pay in income tax).
donpaskini’s latest blog post… Out of touch
With 2 years to the next election, most policy changes will be seen as attempts to buy votes. Scrap ID cards? Great, but the question would be why has it taken so long to realise what a bad policy it is. Troops out of Iraq? Excellent, but why were we there in the first place. Restore the 10p tax band? Woo and yay, but why weren’t the ramifications of its removal considered beforehand.
See, it is just issue after issue after cock up after cock up. Hell, maybe if the Party had actually had a leadership contest rather than anointing Gordon. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
So what should they do? If I were Gordon, I’d be on the blower to everyone’s favourite Gallifreyan, asking for a quick trip to 2003. I’d then leave a note telling me not to back Tony in Iraq, and take a gamble on being sacked from the Cabinet.
Unfortunately the TARDIS is a mere fictional bagatelle, and 2nd May 2007 is really too late to do anything. Like shit on a blanket, the legacy of a multitude of issues will stick, and I really can’t see Gordon managing a “Major-in-1992″ escape act.
When a party has spent so long trying to be one thing, it is more likely to destroy itself than change. Damage limitation for 2010 is what New Labour will focus on now, and they’ll fail abysmally.
I don’t doubt that you’re probably right, Clive. That in mind I wonder if there’d be anything wrong with a shit-or-bust gambit. A massive ‘masochism strategy’, abject apologies, screeching u-turns, showers of cash for the poorest, stop getting on their knees when a millionaire walks in the room…
If you’re going to fall arse over tit, make it a triple somersault.
Rather than paying people to burn more North Sea gas, why not start a big programme of retrofitting old buildings with insulation, up to as close to Passivhaus standard as they can get?
Alex’s latest blog post… Blue Streak, Black Arrow
Like it but it won’t help everybody. We, for example, live in an end terrace and the exterior walls don’t have cavities. Not sure how we’d insulates it without knocking the side of the house off and starting again. I would imagine that would be a common problem amongst the older housing stock.
Public spending is already out of control. There should be no new initiatives without corresponding cuts.
Well, if the cupboard’s as bare as some are saying, I think we might be looking at more of the latter than the former.
Remember that, as a nominally socially-democratic party, you’re supposed to care about redistributing wealth downwards.
Oh, and a “fuck you all” tickbox on ballot papers.
Rochenko’s latest blog post… Precaution & Democracy
Oh, and a “fuck you all” tickbox on ballot papers.
Which are tallied and announced at the count. If ‘FYA’ wins, the election is held again but the original candidates are forbidden from standing again.
Exactly. And that’s why I intended my last comment literally. A box labelled clearly and explicitly “Fuck You All” might just get the non-voters out, especially in that oh-so-crucial 18-24 age-group. It’s about time childish glee was enlisted in the service of democracy; it’s one resource the UK still has in abundance, after all.
Rochenko’s latest blog post… Precaution & Democracy
Time to stop toadying to the BNP/Tory agenda. After the “British jobs for British People” debacle you realised how how right wing Labour had become.
Time to put migration in context. Time to educate people as to why we need our new guests and why opposing them being here is morally wrong.
Time to put our migration issues in context with the world. Time to stop letting the right wing press set the agenda on this.
And time to stop pointing the finger. If services aren’t working it is due to under investment – not overuse by a supposedly growing population.
Time for Labour to start fighting fascists and racists again.
ourman’s latest blog post… Take the Pledge
“Well, if the cupboard’s as bare as some are saying, I think we might be looking at more of the latter than the former.”
This is the ray of sunshine here.
Conventional wisdom (well, me and my Dad, chewing the fat one day) realised that in the US the Democrats fix the economy and the Republicans break it. Same in the UK with Labour/Conservatives. Until now, that is, when the Tories may well inherit empty coffers, rising inflation, falling house prices, falling pound, rising fuel prices, rising food prices and lots of cash-greedy PFI deals they can’t cancel. If Gordon had any sense he’d have thrown himself on the grenade, called and lost the election, retired into a nice lucrative job and watched a minority Tory administration with no experience (George Osborne anyone?) take all the incoming fire. Instead he’s going to sit there with his thumb up his arse until the roof falls in on him and we get another bloody huge majority do-what-we-like set of muppets in.
Tom’s latest blog post… Who The Hell Do I Vote For Now?
“Like it but it won’t help everybody. We, for example, live in an end terrace and the exterior walls don’t have cavities.”
Aye, but the number of people who live on sod-all money in nice Victorian end-of-terraces is pretty limited, and certainly not very representative.
We need to accept as a society that energy *actually is* a lot more expensive than it used to be, not because of Evil Profiteers, but because oil and gas supplies are running low at the same time as everyone in China and India wants to buy a car or at least a moped.
It’s harsh that Gordon gets the domestic blame for this, but that’s politics…
“Admit that hospital-acquired infection rates are at an unacceptable level”
MRSA rates are 1/3 the European average. Levels of tabloid bitching about irrelevant crap are at an unacceptable level, but unfortunately the government can’t fix that without excessively illiberal measures.
“Public spending is already out of control.”
My arse – it’s only 45% of GDP, barely above where it was under Mrs T…
Oh, sorry, this was supposed to be the constructive thread.
Constructive Things:
1) as the man said above, keep the 21% basic tax rate; abolish tax credits; and use the money saved by abolishing the 10p band to raise the personal allowance
2) relatedly, abolish NI and raise the basic and higher tax rates to compensate [this helps part-time workers, who don't earn enough to pay income tax but are currently forced to pay NI anyway]
3) assume an acceptable public sector deficit level of 5% this year and 8% for 2009. keep spending flat as a % of GDP and use any “surplus” cash to raise the income tax threshold
4) bring in a few daft-but-populist-and-fairly-cheap things: halt post office closures (even though no bugger uses them, they clearly have some kind of talisman value to Middle England); bring back matrons (this probably involves renaming ’senior charge nurses’ to ‘matrons’ or similar); raise the state pension by a few bob; accept that the justice system is too beholden to the tabloids to get prison numbers down so build more *local* prisons; etc.
5) change the electoral system to make sure the Tories don’t get as much power as Labour had if they win: introduce some kind of PR (probably a Scottish Parliament kind of thing), create more elected mayors, devolve more central responsibilities to local authorities, give the GLA the same responsibilities as the Welsh Assembly (double-bonus: short-term, you look statesmanlike for handing power over to Boris; long-term, you get even more PR benefits from him f***ing up…)
john b’s latest blog post… If you disagree with this, you have no soul and no brain
We need to accept as a society that energy *actually is* a lot more expensive than it used to be, not because of Evil Profiteers, but because oil and gas supplies are running low at the same time as everyone in China and India wants to buy a car or at least a moped.
But how to square that with, for example, BP and Shell’s profits announced this week, which are linked directly to rising oil prices.
True-ish – by “energy companies” I assumed you meant people like Centrica and EON, who buy oil and gas at the New! Ultrahigh! wholesale price, sell it at the New! Ultrahigh! retail price, and end up reporting enormous paper profits due to the accounting treatment of inventories which aren’t matched by real cash gains.
With oilcos, changing the tax regime on future North Sea extraction so that the government gets a bigger cut of revenues above marginal cost would be a Good Idea (i.e. if it costs $50 to extract a barrel of oil from a new, previously unviable field, we shouldn’t impose any tax when the oil price is $55 but should impose a whole load of tax when the oil price is $120). I don’t like windfall taxes in principle though – retrospective legislation is A Bad Thing…
john b’s latest blog post… If you disagree with this, you have no soul and no brain
I don’t like windfall taxes in principle though
Yes, they are a bit ad-hoc. The trouble is that Brown’’s approach to all this seems to be asking these companies nicely to stop being bastards. I see the words ‘voluntary agreement’ and allow myself a long, hollow laugh.
Their profits are from the drilling operation not the retail side? Companies that are just resellers are really fucked, but the companies getting it out of the ground are raking it in as demand has soared and the market price is stupidly overvalued (see Palast passim on the Iraq effect on oilmen profits, etc).
Shell and BP are, IIRC, obliged to sell oil from their extracting company to their distribution company at “market rate”, which is why they’re raking it in.
I’d say I don’t care because I dumped owning a car a year back, but our electric bill went up 66% last month. Lovely.
MatGB’s latest blog post… Linkspam for 8-5-2008
Aye, but the number of people who live on sod-all money in nice Victorian end-of-terraces is pretty limited, and certainly not very representative.
And I’ll concede that one, John. That said, I think this is probably is something we might have to think about seriously one day and I wonder just how adaptable some of the older housing stock might be.
[...] hindsight, 100% of the time May 2nd, 2008 Justin is looking for constructive suggestions on what Labour could possibly do to get over their steamrollering. Mine [...]
Hey, a property crunch is just the time to do it!
Oh yes, can we install a 7.5MW Clipper Windpower turbine on Sir Bernard Ingham’s arse?
Alex’s latest blog post… Blue Streak, Black Arrow
On, or up?
john b’s latest blog post… 100% hindsight, 100% of the time
john b: If you don’t think public spending (and corresponding debt) is out of control, you REALLY need to read this.
Pay particular attention to the numbers in the second white box.
QuestionThat’s latest blog post… Chips With Everything
Already read it, thanks.
It’s true that if you take the government debt and add lots of things which aren’t classed as accounting liabilities and which the government doesn’t actually have to pay, that makes the government debt higher than if you don’t do that.
It’s also apparently true that if you do the above whilst calling the government a f***ing bunch of c***s, and ignoring the fact that more than 80% of the ‘debt’ you identify was inherited from previous governments, then lots of people will praise your amazing insight and analytical skills.
[some of the PFI stuff ought to be counted and will be when the government moves to IFRS; the two NRs have assets that offset their liabilities so it doesn't really matter either way; nuclear clean-up doesn't actually ever need to happen; and counting pensions paid by the state sector as 'future liabilities' is crazy talk for fairly obvious reasons - viz, the "Cutting State Pensions Because We Don't Have Any Damn Money To Pay Them Act 2025"]
john b’s latest blog post… 100% hindsight, 100% of the time
f***ing bunch of c***s
I won’t have asterisks on this site, John. Consider yourself warned.
lots of people will praise your amazing insight and analytical skills
In fact it’s normally possible to achieve this goal by writing anything that says well-off people are paying too much in taxes, because the whining of the well-off is really what it’s all about.
In truth, if spending really was out of control we’d know about it because the EU would have stepped in to say so, given that there’s nothing they care more about than restraining public spending – well, that and paying off traitorous politicians to complete the subjection of a free people to Brussels. Or something.
Also I rather suspect that the FT and similar would be reaching the sort of levels of concern they usually reserve for leftist governments in Latin America, – instead, it seems they simply can’t see what’s in plain view to every teenage libertarian with a blog.
Which is too many of ‘em.
ejh’s latest blog post… People’s theatre
What. The. Fuck. Over….
Local election results are coming in. Labour got a good kicking. Good. What’s not so good is the HUGE gains made by the Conservatives. How can a reactionary, floundering party with absolutely no leadership win so many seats? It gets even worse. …
Problem you’ve got is that those things would require decisions and you’ve got the monocular fence sitter in charge.
You have to admit that ‘a lack of depth perception’ is a metaphor that keeps on giving.
@john b: If you take the official figures and add other things that will have to be paid for through the public purse, you might get a more realistic public debt figure, you mean?
Sure, some of it was inherited from previous Governments. But Labour have done NOTHING to alleviate the problem, and have let it expand at a constantly increasing rate as the size of the public sector keeps on getting bigger. This “blame it on the Tories even though they were last in office over ELEVEN years ago” has gone past laughable into utterly deluded.
What you’re now talking about, with your ‘Act of 2025′, is consciously doing precisely the reverse, leaving the Tories with a great big mess to clear up when they do eventually get in, and letting them take the rap for doing what needs to be done to bring the situation back to something resembling sanity.
@ justin: That warning was uncalled for. john b was clearly making a point about DK’s posting style, nothing more. Are you really that much of a [bleep]ing puritan?
QuestionThat’s latest blog post… If Voting Changed Anything…
@ justin: That warning was uncalled for. john b was clearly making a point about DK’s posting style, nothing more. Are you really that much of a [bleep]ing puritan?
I was joking/being sarcastic, if I have to spell it out. You know, pretending to be offended by the censorship of ‘c**ts’ rather than the plain speaking of ‘cunts’? I couldn’t give a shit what language is used on this blog as long as it isn’t directed at other commenters. I’m sure John was just being courteous but I thought I’d let him know that he doesn’t have to be in a jocular manner.
@justin. Oh, OK. Well done, I was whooshed
QuestionThat’s latest blog post… If Voting Changed Anything…
What we really need is for Gordon brown to dissolve Parliament and call a general election
I think I would rather have GB thanks. You’re mad. Second thoughts, I’d rather have a General Election so that sane people can run the country.
I thought I’d kick them while they’re down and join in the trend of writing open letters to Labour MPs.
http://mtbnut.blogspot.com/2008/05/letter-to-labour-mp.html
Phil’s latest blog post… Letter to Labour MP
[...] May 4th, 2008 | 2:10am by Jim Bliss Justin at Chicken Yoghurt has made some suggestions as to how the British Labour Party might reconnect with the electorate in the wake of the sound [...]
counting pensions paid by the state sector as ‘future liabilities’ is crazy talk for fairly obvious reasons
Yes, for some reason no-one ever talks about our future unfunded education, police or defence liabilities. I mean, what if what if what if we had to pay the coppers, teachers and squaddies’ wages out to an infinite time horizon ALL AT ONCE? Eh? Eh?
Alex’s latest blog post… Donal Blaney: Hypocrite, Political Whore, and Torture Fan
1. Phase out MRSA, and replace it with MDMA.
2. Kiss my sweaty ass.
Larry Teabag’s latest blog post… Satirical comment spam?
We have a winner!