Six months ago, if the Labour government had proposed to respond to what was already then the impending economic downturn by introducing a subsidy of £2,500 for any company taking on someone unemployed for more than three months, and claimed that this measure would not cost the Exchequer money - indeed, would be more likely to save a bit of money - what would you, Dear Readers have said? What would right-wing bloggers have said? What would the Telegraph, Times, Daily Mail etc. have said?
I'll tell you. We'd all have said that this was the Labour Party reverting to socialist type. We'd have said that such a measure would introduce distortions - encouraging firms not to hire people unemployed for less than three months and not to renew the contracts of staff on short-term (say, six month) contracts. We'd have said that the claim that such a measure would "pay for itself" was exactly the sort of thing Socialists always claim for government interventions, but that the reality is that in the medium term, as with the New Deal, few real jobs would be created whilst there would be large deadweight costs of the measure by subsidising lots of jobs that would be created anyway. We'd have said that it should be for private businesses to work out for themselves which are the best staff for them to employ, not for the government. We'd have said that this was further evidence of the trashing of Blairism, and designed to appeal to Gordon Brown's backbenchers and his heartland voters.
Post-bank-bailouts, however, we live in a new age, and having supported the bank bailouts that ushered in the new socialist settlement the Conservative leadership is being flexible, adaptable in responding to this new age. Having said that this new Socialist settlement (though it could and should have been avoided by opposing the banking bailouts) was now inevitable, and recommended some principles by which the Conservative Party could operate in this new paradigm, I suppose I can hardly complain when our policy proposals are nakedly socialist. Fair enough. A socialist solution for a socialist age. But in twenty years' time (if I'm spared) I'm going to be campaigning against these sorts of policies. Until then, I hope we rule competently, even if ruling well is, perhaps, infeasible...
