Tree of Knowledge

Some people will never learn.

While the UK Labour Party is indisputably stuffed at the moment and most definitely needs to address its utter lack of direction and message, it is beyond my comprehension why so many progressives over here want to model a new electoral strategy based on the Labour Party of 1983, rather than the Labour Party of 1997.

Consider the road map to electoral popularity proposed for Labour on the weekend by the left-wing Compass grouping:

- A windfall tax on energy and oil companies to help those struggling with escalating fuel bills.
- A fairer tax system with a new top rate and a cut in taxes for the low paid with all new revenues ear marked to boost benefit levels for the poor. Some have suggested that those earning under £10,000 per year should pay no tax. This is clean, simple and very appealing.
- A new drive to build council houses. By 2010, 5 million people will need social housing, but this year, a start will be made on only 100,000 new homes. With private construction apparently in freefall, the state has to step in.
- A high-profile drive to improve people’s working lives via government setting new standards. As a minimum, we need a new fair employment clause in all public contracts, to make sure that the public sector points the way out of the low pay culture that ensures – contrary to recent headlines about welfare reform – that work is still no guarantee of an exit from poverty. The government should take the lead of London and roll out a living wage nationwide in all public procurement contracts – which even Boris Johnson has raised in London in his first months in office.
- A moratorium on Post Office closures, and new protection for the universal service obligation of the Post Office.
- Abolishing the youth exemptions in the minimum wage.
- Help close the gender pay gap – with statutory pay audits for equality.
- Access to all local authority sports facilities free for children under 16 to confront the issues of obesity and anti-social behaviour head on.
- Across all these policy areas, if money is needed to deal with rising insecurity and anxiety then we should rethink the renewal of Trident and scrap the ID cards scheme. Government insiders claim that the latter is effectively being left to wither away, but where is the political advantage in that? On this, as with so many policies, a clear change has to be demonstrated.

A bold new platform of higher taxes, increased government spending and more pervasive regulation. Oh, and a ban on post office closures. It might not be the longest suicide note in history, but a suicide note it most certainly is.

You’d think that the ten years of progressive government ushered in by New Labour might have taught people a lesson or two over here. Apparently not.

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