Policy U-turns that the left interprets as surrender to a Blairite revanche are construed by the leader’s allies as rational choices by a man who wants to win an election, has looked at the evidence of how it can be done and will be ruthless in taking down obstacles in his path.
This is definitely part of the equation. Lots of people were understandably confused/annyoed about Rachel Reeve’s recent promises about tax cuts but the point is that she got that interview into The Telegraph. The media strategy is at this point not so much to win over Tory voters as to reassure them that if they spoil their ballot, nothing ‘bad’ is going to happen.
A critic might describe that as Labour trying to win by default, to which the answer is: winning by default is still winning.
Winning and then doing almost nothing to fix the problems doesn’t really help the rest of us though.
What we’re banking on then is that they’re actually misleading everyone right now and are actually going to do quite at lot once in office. But the question is whether that’s actually likely or not…
Even if it was the case - it’s not exactly a symptom of a health democracy…
I don’t think they’re misleading anyone. I think the commitments are serious, as far as they go. Like any government, they’ll change strategy as events develop, but that’s a truism.
I also don’t think it’s true that they’re not going to do a lot in office or that they’re pretending that they won’t. Look at what they’re going to do on workers’ rights, for example, or housebuilding, or green energy. These are all big, serious commitments. They’re also quite clearly going to move closer to the EU on a lot of things (Europol is an example that came up today) and are not shy about that.
I feel if you think this you’re in some kind of denial. They’ve rolled back on so much…
And the commitments (if that’s the right word) they do have are so wishy-washy and toothless. For example the housebuilding one is that they’ll let developers build on more green belt and increase housing targets, no talk of investment of any kind - I’m sorry that’s not a serious policy! That’s like homoeopathy for policies! Green energy is much the same now that they’ve postponed (i.e. canned) the £28 billion green investment plan.
I guess we’ll see on workers’ rights, but as said in the article you’ve linked, a lot of the unions are dissatisfied with labour on that front which isn’t really a good sign for a big, serious commitment.
They’ve changed plans because the circumstances have changed. And to some extent, they’ve changed message because the target audience has changed.
They haven’t canned the £28 bn. It was just a recognition that you can’t magic up a whole load of results just because the cash is available. That’s how you get disasters like unusable PPE, flammable clad ing or concrete that crumbles to dust.
Most unions back the proposals, as does the TUC. Sure, they want them to go further, but do you really think any group is going to go, ‘Yep, that’s everything we wanted. No further demands from us!’ It’s our job as trade unionists to demand more!
They were the result of not spending enough money, and going for the cheapest options available (then using them way beyond their intended lifespan in the case of RAAC), not overinvestment.
But I don’t want to draw out an argument, so let’s just agree to disagree. I hope you’re right though.