Last week, Phil Hammond, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, attempted to woo those working in the public sector with three little words: “more for less”. As chat-up lines go, it is unlikely to lead to his party forming a meaningful relationship with the public sector anytime soon. In fact, Tory demands for increased productivity through an on-going efficiency drive are unlikely even to see them get past first base.
Hammond was talking to the right-wing Policy Exchange think-tank, specifically about the need to cut the costs of government, but you only have to listen to other Tory frontbenchers to know that expenditure would be slashed across the public services under the Conservatives – almost certainly in proportion to the number of users each service has among people who vote Tory at next year’s general election.
The result would be poorer public services than we have at present to provide for those who most need them. And that need would increase dramatically under a government led by David Cameron and George Osborne.
Despite the congestion in the centre ground of mainstream British politics, the forthcoming election looks like it will be fought along traditional party lines to an extent not seen since the 1980s. And public services will be at the heart of the debate.
So far, so good. Most Tories are not covered by private health insurance, while private education for their children, such as that enjoyed by the progeny of senior members of the Tory frontbench, remains little more than an aspiration for the majority.
Commuters remember when the railways, both the trains and the tracks they run on, were operated by a single accountable entity and obscene bonuses were restricted to the private sector, which did not include
vital, monopolised utilities such as water and energy.
Given that the public and the electorate are one and the same, surely it makes sense for Labour to play to its strengths and defend the services it established, which remain vital to all but the very wealthiest in society, from Tory attack?
Hammond was absolutely right when he spoke of the need for a “hearts and minds agenda”. He said: “Coercion is hard work and can only be maintained for a limited period of time. Win the hearts and minds and the dynamics change radically.”
Things may have been a little rocky under Tony Blair, but Labour’s heart has always been with the public services. Now is the time to take the intellectual argument for strong public services to the country.
Hammond claimed that an incoming Tory government would “oversee the task of turning the efficiency drives of the past into an institutionalised culture change in the public sector of the future”. These are words to make the blood run cold. Institutionalised culture change? Culture shock, more likely – and not least to those frontline staff in the Tory firing line.
However, according to Tory tenets, they are not important. “What matters is whether or not a successful outcome is delivered at an affordable price-not who delivers it”, said Hammond. Substitute the word “cheap” for “successful” and the first half of that sentence becomes almost believable.
The contrast between the Conservative and Labour approach to addressing the national debt could not be greater and Tory proposals do not bode well for public services. Although the Tories have not ruled out tax rises, Osborne insists: “The bulk of the strain in dealing with this debt crisis has to be cutting public spending”. Only health and international development aid have been ring-fenced – although, in the case of the National Health Service, not actually guaranteed.
Given that Europe’s two largest economies, France and Germany, emerged from recession earlier than Britain precisely because of their high public spending levels, it is difficult to credit Osborne with any motivation other than traditional Tory heartlessness when it comes to the public sector.
But the Tories need to tread carefully. In Ireland, the private and public sectors are virtually at daggers drawn amid discussions on public sector pay ahead of the budget. There is no reason for the Tories to assume that public sector workers in Britain would not give vent to similarly high feelings, should the Tories take power, with tens of thousands marching to protest against cuts in services, job losses and, for those still in work, enforced pay freezes.
It is the stuff of which Cameron’s nightmares are made and has the potential to paralyse the country and bring down a Conservative government – if we allow the formation of one in the first place.
With a recent opinion poll indicating that the Tories’ lead over Labour has been cut to just 6 per cent, it is clear that their slash-and-burn approach to public services will not deliver them the election on a plate.
Now is the time for Labour and the whole country to demand answers to difficult questions and so explode the myth that privatisation equals competition. Who knows? At the election, Labour might yet succeed in proving it’s a case of “who cares wins”.
