COME ON KEIR

As Cautious Keir and Robot Reeves hunker down in the political trenches watching Sunak, and Hunt continue to march onto the political minefield well, this is not exactly an election-winning strategy that excites me. Though to be fair, even with this approach I do still expect Labour to win, for several reasons:

1. Recent polls suggest that Labour can raise its game from 1 miserable Westminster seat in Scotland to the mid-teens, thanks to the SNP and the red wall is coming home.
2. Disappointed and disgusted One Nation Tories can no longer support a party that is overseeing the UK’s decline, has no vision, Global Britain is a fairytale, Brexit was a disaster topped only by the narcissism of Johnson, the ineptitude Truss and “Slick Sunak’s” 5 fairy tales, masquerading as deliverable political pledges.
3.  The broader electorate has accepted that Keir has exorcised the Ghost of Corbyn and now extols the virtues of fiscal responsibility.
4. The failing NHS, the 7.6 million people on NHS England’s waiting lists, and the £37 billion wasted on the track and trace app.
5. Food inflation still running at 13%, hammering the least well-off in our communities.
6. The debacle that is HS2 and the levelling up agenda.

 Sunak has no characteristics of a PM; he is a political opportunist which is on trend with his background as a hedge fund manager. This can be seen when he announced that he intended to introduce a ridiculous and unenforceable new law to coerce convicted murderers to appear at sentencing hearings and listen to families’ impact statements. How much force will the state need to use, and how do you stop the perpetrator from becoming the centre of attention? Followed up by a photo released of Rishi embracing Oliva Pratt Korbell’s mum. This was morally reprehensible and self-serving because if there was any real empathy, he would have expressed it in private and out of the gaze of cameras. He is waxing about a reduction in inheritance tax which affects under 4% of deaths. I am sure there were not many nurses, teachers, and care workers in that 4%. He is also building a cynical election campaign around “small boats” and climate sceptics. This after ULEZ gave the Tories an unexpected victory in Uxbridge. His wing woman Suella, the new Enoch, is preaching the failures of multiculturalism to right-wing think tanks or anyone who wants to listen. In the same breath, she also tries to undermine the core values of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, written to ensure the term “never again” meant never again. Sunak’s strategy is simple; no vision, no plan for our collective future and giving red meat to the right of his party on the issues of climate change and immigration. Not to forget, a few little tax tempters to the “have’s”.

So, as Keir gets closer to the election, he needs to set a vision for the country with key priorities: food security, energy security, biosecurity, building a sustainable economy and the climate emergency. In addition, he needs to set out an education reform package that focuses on the future of work, the role of education in an interconnected world and embedding the 5 cs of education into the curriculum. They are collaboration, communication, curiosity, critical thinking, creativity, and a bit of empathy. We need to have a nationwide push on civics education, especially considering the Onward report highlighting that the current generation is at best, ambivalent about the role of a democratic system in delivering anything.

Keir and his team need to be bold about not raising taxes but equalising taxes. In the case of equalising capital gains and income tax, the Institute of Public Policy Research calculated that this could raise £18 billion per annum. In addition, Arun Advani of Warwick University and LSE Inequalities Institute calculates that extending National Ins to investment income and removing the cap on higher earners could also raise an additional £28.0 billion a year. OMG, fiscal policy that gives you real “fiscal headroom”. This additional tax revenue of £46.0 billion would be equivalent to adding 2.0% to the UK’s GDP. This is not redistribution, I would call it fair taxation, and in Daniel Chandlers’ terrific book about Rawls, he describes it as a form of pre-distribution, a core part of achieving “economic justice”. Keir’s mate Rachael needs to show some progressive fortitude and seriously look at a wealth tax. Tax Justice UK estimate that a 2% tax on wealth of more than £10m would generate a further £22 billion per annum.

Grand total £66 billion, yes billion which would bring us up to 41% of GDP. Just to be clear there is no evidence that this would blunt the entrepreneurial spirit, other than the BS from the neoliberal right, I know, I’m an entrepreneur. In recent polling from YouGov, they found that 78% of voters support an annual wealth tax on those with assets worth over £10 million. Surprisingly, this included 77% of Tory voters. It would be a vote-winner if properly articulated and explained to the electorate. It is also worth noting that the right-wing press bang on about the taxes being at a historical high of around 38% of GDP, this is still well below Denmark, France, Germany, Austria Finland, and Sweden to name a few. Denmark at 47% and Finland at 44% rank first and second in the European Happiness Index so, let’s talk about tax baby. However, I understand Keir’s apprehension on the issue of tax policy, but this must be addressed. He could hypothecate this revenue, cut the debt, invest in our NHS, education, and other public services, build that green sustainable economy, tackle the climate emergency and even in the longer term consider public ownership the fount of all life, H2O.

Keir wants the UK to be Europe’s fastest-growing economy, and who would disagree with that? However, he is up against the 100’s billions of dollars pledged by the Biden administration in the form of the Chips Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the equivalent €70 billion from the Eu. We need to see the details of his new industrial policy covering onshore wind, building the infrastructure around the transition to EVs and the broader transport infrastructure. Reindustrialisation is no longer simply about growing GDP but about national resilience and security. The route to achieving this is described by Mariana Mazzucato as the” entrepreneurial state.” His team must understand the challenges of the future and do something that the British state has failed to do for decades: prioritise, then plan and then execute. What is also clear, is that growth alone will not be enough to deal with the many issues facing this country. Keir and his team need to get on top and a grip of Ai before it gets a grip on us. Ai will not just improve the human condition in terms of climate change and medical science but if left unregulated could have huge consequences for society in terms of, social cohesion and the future of work.

I understand Keir’s cautious approach to the next election, this is because the Labour Party is still haunted by “Corbyn’s Ghost,”. However, the slow downward trajectory of the UK is real. What is needed is for Keir to reimagine liberal democracy in the John Rawls way, as described in Daniel Chandler’s terrific book Free and Equal. If as a society we value real equality of opportunity, political equality, social cohesion and want to deal with the twin vagaries of inequality and economic injustice, the time is now for Keir and his team to be bold, progressive, and radical. A precursor to this is to engage with and explain to the electorate that these words have no relationship with the word, reckless. Finally, I fear that Keir and his newish Labour Party will become a party of the petit bourgeoisie with a sort of trickle-down economics to the most vulnerable in society. Keir and Reeves project themselves as being grown-up centrists in this political landscape, a word of caution from one of the Labour’s greats, Aneurin Bevan” We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.”

Suneil Sharma

29thSeptember