Author: johnredwood

The Conservatives have seen the choice for the election as a simple one. Do you want the Conservative team to continue, who have presided over a decent recovery, with 2 million new jobs and now rising real incomes? Or do you want to hand the keys back to the people who crashed the car in the first place? Labour in its last period in government put up unemployment and brought down real incomes with a jolt.

Labour sees the election as being about the NHS, as we discussed before. Drawn into the economy, Labour has now pledged to get the deficit down, though by less than the Conservatives. Labour has pledged to avoid tax rises for most people, and has been imprecise about their public spending plans. Conservatives have been very clear about the overall pattern of spending, tax revenue and borrowing for each year of the next Parliament, but have not published details of how the extra cash public spending they are proposing  is divided between departments.

The polls show either a Conservative government or a Labour minority  with SNP support on a vote by vote basis. The SNP say they wish to end austerity, which they say means they wish to spend a bit more than Labour’s plans, and therefore borrow a bit more, whilst still gradually bringing down the deficit.

So there will be a difference- Conservatives will borrow less and get the finances on a stable and sustainable footing earlier.

The bigger difference will come in the attitudes towards enterprise and the private sector. More than 25 million people work in the UK private sector, more than five times as many as work in the public sector. The left of centre parties all see the private sector as needing more price controls, regulations, taxes and even state control and ownership. They have a range of policies to limit rents in housing, to control energy prices, to increase state control of the railways, to tax the banks more, to tax property and homes more, to tax foreign residents more and above all to tax anyone who is financially successful more.

This approach was tried by Mr Hollande in France, with very poor results. The French economy lost talent and money, the economy stayed depressed when the UK’s grew well, and in the end Mr Hollande had to moderate some of his ideas.

The choice on May 7th is between a policy which is delivering growth, more jobs and rising living standards, and a series of measures which however well intentioned will make the outlook worse.

 

Labour has proposed a number of interventions to control prices in the energy sector, for housing rents and certain kinds of lending. Such controls usually reduce supply and end up damaging those they are trying to help.

Everyone agrees the General election is no re run of the Scottish vote on independence. Even the SNP are making it clear they want a mandate to negotiate the best possible settlement for Scotland whilst still being within the UK. On this basis current polls show them attracting some voters who voted against Independence last autumn. It is unlikely Welsh nationalism will make much impact. The majority of Northern Irish MPs are likely to  be elected as unionists.

This does not mean the issue of the future of the UK is off the agenda, or that the next Parliament makes little difference. The next Parliament, it is true, is bound by its predecessor to honour the promises made to Scotland by all three main Westminster parties. These promises are likely to be interpreted in a pro devolution direction by the new SNP MPs who will probably be elected in some strength and may be the third largest party. In contrast the next Parliament is not bound by its predecessor to solve the English problem. Mr Hague as Leader of the House would not  put the matter of EVEN, English votes for English needs, to the vote, as Lib Dems said they would vote with Labour against the scheme.  The new Parliament has a blank sheet to resolve the question of England.

Many in the  SNP accept the justice of England’s case, but their party will doubtless bargain against it in any way they think will help their cause. The Lib Dems have some complex scheme based on votes in the UK Parliament for England calculated by some notional proportional representation, which is unlikely to get support from the  two main parties in the Commons. Labour wants to fob England off with devolution to cities and maybe counties, having no answer to the question why can Scotland chose her own income tax rate but England cannot chose hers? Conservatives have a version of English votes for English issues, which is a start to tackling the problem of England.

The Lib Dems and Labour want to delay justice for England as well as denying it. They favour a long and detailed Constitutional Convention to examine devolution for England, whilst hurrying through more devolution for Scotland with no such consideration. Conservatives wish to press on with proposals for England, after years of examination and thought which has gone into them.

The future of our union will be very affected by what the next Parliament does. As it legislates for Scotland, it is vital it understands the mood in England. Only one party seems to understand the need to do something soon for England. There will be a big difference between a Conservative led government and a Labour led one on the question of England.

One of the most significant differences between the  four main parties (parties likely to win more than 10 seats) is the approach to the European Union. The three left of centre parties all support our current membership, would be happy to see a continuing erosion of power as the EU passes more laws and gains more control over our lives, and are happy to pay a substantial contribution to the rest of the EU. The Conservatives argue that the current relationship is not working in the UK’s interest, that too much power has already passed to the EU, and we need a new relationship with them.

A Conservative government would recognise that the Euro area members of the EU will need to take more and more power to the centre, to add political, fiscal and budgetary union to their currency union. The UK has no wish to do that, and needs a new relationship with the Euro area as it emerges in a more centralised form. A Conservative government will seek to negotiate a new relationship based on trade and political co-operation. As Mr Cameron made clear in his Bloomberg speech, a central task will be to restore UK democratic accountability of government to Parliament. Voters will then have a referendum to decide if they like the new relationship or would rather leave the EU altogether. Those who are sceptical of the UK’s ability to negotiate a new deal without leaving, will be free to vote for Out. The presence of the referendum will provide a good incentive to the rest of the EU to negotiate, as very clearly they do not wish to lose all that money we pay in.

The other three parties would fail to address the real issues which are already upon us over our membership. As non members of the Euro we are finding that regulation and control of our large financial services and banking sector is increasingly under EU law and administration  in ways which can be damaging to business. We are finding it impossible to run a low priced energy policy thanks to EU energy rules, making  our wish to expand UK manufacturing more difficult to deliver. The EU wants the UK to stand behind the debts of the banks and states of the Euro area. We need to resist this. Any likely government  but a Conservative one will not stand up for UK interests, and will not seek to resolve the growing tensions between Euro and non Euro members.

This election will make a huge difference on the matter of our EU membership. There is only one chance now to vote for an In/Out referendum before many more EU shackles are placed upon us if we have a government formed from the 3 pro EU left of centre parties.

 

This week I am going to write a series of articles on what differences there might be depending on who governs after May 7th. The main media concentrates on the spin lines from the major parties, which tend to hype  differences. They follow the daily diet of mistakes, gaffes and set ups which characterise a modern media driven election. Some of these should not matter and are usually trivial and of no lasting significance. My objection to David Miliband was not that he once carried a banana, which many others have done with no harm to their reputations. My objection was his uncritical love of the EU. My objection to Gordon Brown was not his unfortunate facial expressions when waiting for an interview in a studio when tired, but the way his banking and economic policies put us into the most violent boom/bust cycle since the 1930s. These articles will ask what difference will there really be? What matters?

Labour have sought to put the NHS at the centre of this election. They mean by that health in England. This General election will make no difference to the way the NHS is run in Wales or Scotland, where it is a devolved matter under their Assembly or Parliament.

Labour claim the NHS is only safe in their hands. There are no grounds whatsoever to take this view. The management of NHS England say it will need an extra £8billion a year by the end of the next Parliament. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have both promised to find this. Labour has promised less, but I assume were they to be in office they would also find the money. The UK bureaucracy is usually good at extracting money for public budgets, and will doubtless make a strong case. It seems unlikely that there will be a lot of difference on total NHS England spending between the parties.

Labour say they will stop people making money in the private sector out of the NHS. They do not of course mean this in most cases. It was Labour who set up a lot of the most expensive PFI schemes when in office, encouraging the private sector to profit from providing new NHS facilities. They will not be able to get out of these. Any government will have to buy drugs and medical supplies from with profit companies. All will stick with the system that most GPs are private sector contractors to the NHS. The NHS has always been a mixed economy system, a partnership between leading pharmaceutical and medical supply companies, doctors under contract, and directly owned hospitals with state employed staff. No main party is proposing any change to this pattern.

Labour dictates the terms of the debate on health. This debate prevents discussion of reform or change. This has been a very conservative election on health, with all main parties competing to keep it as it is, with more money.

Conservatives have promised to recruit more GPs to offer longer opening hours and week-end service. This would help relieve pressure on A and E if more people could get an appointment with their GP to deal with the things that do not need hospital treatment. That would be a practical change to offer a better service to patients, and to save money at A and E departments. I conclude there would be little difference to the NHS whoever wins, but Conservatives do have an attractive policy of improving access to GP services which I think could be a beneficial change. It has also taken a Conservative Secretary of State in the coalition government to expose the problems in some hospitals properly that had occurred under Labour, and to get improvements.

 

 

As Labour left office in 2010 there were 2.5 million people out of work . There were 1.5 million claiming Job Seekers Allowance.  Today there are 1.84 million out of work, and 770,000 claiming Job Seekers Allowance. Employment has risen from 28.8 million to more than 31 million.

Most people now know the UK economy has created an additional 2 million jobs over the last five years. Fewer know that many of these jobs are full time, and many  of them have been taken by UK citizens who were out of work or just joining the workforce from school and college. The fact that people on Jobseekers Allowance  has almost halved is good news.

The figures are also a reminder that more needs to be done to help more of the remaining people who are  out of work into employment.

If we compare the UK with other countries in Europe, we can see that the UK has been one of the best performers, alongside Germany. The table beneath shows the problems in most of the larger EU countries, and in Greece, the worst performer:

Unemployment rate

Greece        26%

Spain         23.2%

Portugal    14.1%

Italy          12.2%

France      10.6%

UK             5.6%

 

Employment rate

Greece         49.6%

Italy              56.0%

Spain            56.8%

Portugal       63.0%

France          64.1%

UK                73.3%