From now until the election, Labour’s narrative is simple: The Tories are only looking out for the rich. There is only one response - to tackle the issue head on, and show it to be the lie that it is.
Having seen much of Gordon Brown’s new year address leaked to the press, it’s clear GB still sees the ‘dividing line’ as tory cuts versus labour investment. Nowhere in his message, it appears, is there any acknowledgement of the huge reduction in Government spending that will be required to get the defecit under control. Nowehere is there an acknowledgement that taxes will have to go up for everyone.
If Labour want to play the ‘many not the few’ card then I for one will be happy to throw it back in their face. This is a Labour Government, who, after all have taken the hugely progressive steps to:
- Abolish the 10p tax rate, hitting the poorest hardest
- Burden future generations with a collosall public debt
- Raid pension savings, hitting anyone who was responsible enough to save for their retirement
- Do nothing as managers in local government and public services inflated their pay packets to more than the Prime Minister
- Encourage schools to drop science, history and maths in favour of ‘less challenging’ subjects
- Stretch our armed forces to breaking point by invading Iraq before Afghanistan was stabilised - and with scant evidence of any real threat
- Allow a huge expansion in the unregulated labour market by failing to control immigration
- Oversee a massive increase in the growth of the surveillance state and the harvesting of DNA data from innocent people
- Do nothing as unsecured personal debt and 125% mortgages spiralled out of control
- Annointed a Prime Minister and a European President
Over the next few weeks, Labour are going to lower the tone of political debate in the UK to new depths. The Sun abandoned them, donors have abandoned them, and voters have abandoned them. Now, in a melle Karl Rove would be proud of, they will blame everyone but themselves for the mess.
The response must be clear - Labour are not a progressive party. Short-term political gimmicks aimed at those percieved as privileged have long since become the driving force of Government policy.
Every time we speak for freeing public servants from whitehall control, or restoring rigour to our education system, we are speaking for the many, not the few. Every time we speak about lower taxes for small businesses or giving communities greater power over how their taxes are spent, we speak for the many, not the few.
If Labour want to talk about who has the interests of the majority of the British people at heart, let them. Indeed, we should encourage it. The Conservatives have a vision for Britain, Labour have lies and misdirection. We must not let them escape the truth - in Government they have failed Britain, and we will not rest until Britain is rebuilt.