Last weekend’s opinion poll showing Labour just six points behind the Tories ought to be received with cool heads. Polls go up and down and we should proceed with caution. Its significance has more to do with the fact that such a poll is even possible than in taking it at face value.
There appears to be some volatility in the polls at present. The Guardian’s coverage of its own ICM survey gave much space to the notion that David Cameron is now a Prime Minister in waiting, but even this survey found the gap between the parties had closed.
What all this tells us is not what will actually happen on polling day, but that the Conservatives no longer have good cause to be cocky – and that it is possible to shift the situation back in Labour’s direction if we can seize back the agenda onto one of investment and growth rather than cuts in public spending.
However smooth Cameron may be, the Conservative Party is an unappealing prospect, with economic policies that would equal or even surpass Margaret Thatcher’s in their viciousness.
You only have to look at the real views of party activists on websites such as ConservativeHome to see how little has changed underneath. Tory boroughs in London such as Hammersmith & Fulham and Barnet are introducing a radical right-wing agenda that is in no way opposed by the Tory front bench.
Surely the main reason for the Tories’ failure to be consistently further ahead in the polls is the harshness of their economic message. If you argue that people should work longer, have their pay frozen and their services cut, but simultaneously promise inheritance tax cuts for the wealthiest, then no amount of spin is going to insulate you from public concern. It is only because of the way the Labour Government approached the bank bailout that the Tories were able to seize any kind of initiative at all.
The problem with the economy is not public spending on services or public sector pensions. The mistake was to spend billions on bailing out bankers and shareholders rather than taking these institutions into public ownership at their true worth. This is then being compounded by plans to return the banks to the private sector as quickly as possible, and by failing to instruct the banks to lend.
The Tories say the size of our debt means we must have massive cuts in public spending. Yet, throughout history, most countries have had debts much worse than today. It took us 60 years to pay off the billions we borrowed from the United States to fight the Nazis in the Second World War. But that didn’t stop the post-war Labour Government borrowing to rebuild Britain and create a welfare state. If we could establish the National Health Service, build homes and schools and
rebuild our shattered country with a bigger debt than now, then we have no excuse for pursuing the exact opposite course in the current circumstances.
Slashing public spending would push Britain back into recession worse than we’ve just been through. The post-war Labour Government planned the repayment of debt over many years once the economy was growing strongly. We can do that again because, even after the banking crisis, our debt is still less than the debt owed by Germany, France, America or Japan.
The Tories would not have stepped in to stop recession turning into depression. They would have cut spending this year in the middle of a recession and they want to slash and burn if they win. That would further stymie growth.
The TUC has produced excellent data on the impact of cuts to public services. Its Touchstone pamphlet argues that, for every £1 of public money invested in public services through direct employment and through procurement of supplies and services, a further 64p is generated in the local economy. It also shows that a 10 per cent cut in spending levels would see around 200,000 public sector workers losing their jobs.
As around 29 per cent of public sector expenditure goes into the private sector, this would mean a loss of around £16.8 billion in investment – a move which would also lead to many private sector job losses.
The narrowing of some polls shows that the public is wary of Cameron’s party – and with good cause. All the indications are that, while the Tory leader has been successful at packaging himself as an acceptable face of Conservatism, this does not extend to his party. He is vulnerable on this because, when push comes to shove, public concern at what the Tories might do in power is based on reality.
