It’s all gone a bit quiet out there. Labour Party conference was a call to arms. The fightback starts here was the rousing declaration from ministers led by Gordon Brown. But where is it?
The first weeks of the Commons return from its stultifyingly long summer recess has seen a return to business as usual. The expenses row continues its corrosive weakening of MPs’ credibility while the bankers prepare for a new wave of obscene bonuses as though the biggest crisis in the history of British banking never happened. Thank you very much, taxpayers, for bailing us out, now pass me that free money trough.
The governor of the Bank of England got it right when he identified the obvious pollution of the retail banking function by the casino side of the business. Yet the answer is not to separate the two functions but to make all banks behave like responsible banks. And that requires tougher regulation.
And that’s just one conspicuous area on which the Government is too quiet. We have heard much about calling a halt to the bonus culture through international action but little actual action here, in this country, where the banks reside. We started to see some evidence of some clear ideological differences between Labour and the Tories and this is one area in which a Labour Government should be showing more gumption but is failing to do so.
The Tories in conference made clear their ideological hostility to “big government” and the public sector neither of which was responsible for the financial crisis they would not have been capable of handling. What was responsible was New Labour’s obeisance to the market. It is this ingrained fear of upsetting big business that is now acting as a mute on the so-called fightback. Peter Mandelson’s conceding to Tory demands to hold up the introduction of new rights for workers is a case in point, though entirely in keeping with his political instincts. Frantic efforts had to be made to get the Business Secretary “not to stand in the way” of Acas involvement in the Royal Mail dispute when it was the only viable option.
Now, as Unison’s Dave Prentis warns (see page 6), the political agenda is focusing on making the public sector pay for the bankers’ mistakes. Gordon Brown held the moral high ground when he said the difference between the Tories and Labour is that while David Cameron’s party are ideologically hostile both to the state and the public sector, Labour would defend frontline services and the role of government.
But where, then, is the defence of Big Government, where is the pride in what a strong Labour Government can do? Why is the fightback call not being followed with a fusillade of ministerial statements on affordable housing, the green budget, fair taxation? It is time to take the fight to the Tories. When MPs are asked what they did in the battle to keep out the Tories they don’t want the truthful answer to be: “I fought back against Gordon Brown and got the lawn paid for.”
