'Browneronism'

The "UK is moving towards higher tax with no debate."  So wrote the FT's Martin Wolf in an article from October last year - shortly after Lord Forsyth's Tax Commission had reported.   I overlooked the article at the time but I have just Googled it after Andrew Marr referred to it in his exchanges with David Cameron, earlier today.  It's a powerful piece.  A subscription is required to read the whole thing but I list some key extracts below:

"The UK has become a significantly higher tax country since the mid-1990s, while taxation has moved in the opposite direction in most other high-income countries. If the country had witnessed large improvements in the quality of public services, the abandonment by David Cameron’s Conservatives of any attempt to argue for a significantly smaller state would be understandable. What is remarkable, however, is that Mr Cameron is arguing for higher spending – notably in his opportunistic opposition to Mr Brown’s mythical “NHS cuts” – even though he apparently believes that much of the spending has been wasted."

"It is little noticed, moreover, that the UK government spends less on pensions as a share of GDP than most eurozone members. Its spending elsewhere must, therefore, be generous by all but the standards of the world’s most highly taxed countries, such as France and the Nordics."

"One does not have to be a fanatical tax-cutter to fear the longer-term economic consequences... The OECD, for example, has concluded that: “The increase in the average tax rate of about 10 percentage points over the last 35 years may have reduced OECD annual growth rates by about 0.5 percentage points.”"

"The UK seems to have moved, without serious debate, towards a political consensus in favour of a high-tax, high-spending state even though there is next to no confidence that the state knows how to spend the money well. This is an extraordinary success for Mr Brown and a no less extraordinary failure by the Conservatives.  Can Mr Cameron win on this terrain? Should we care if he does? Thatcherism looks ever more like a brief interlude between Butskellism and something that may be called “Browneronism”."

Tomorrow's ToryDiary will summarise some other key ways in which Conservative policy is 'Europeanising.'

Comments

[TomTOm]

Yes the Conservatives have sold the pass. Europe continues to trade of US defence spending, and has poor contingencies for energy supplies, a very high cost-base, and seemingly every country in the EU runs budget deficits but Britain manages a large trade deficit to boot and rampant inflation in house prices due to excessive credit expansion.

Looks like the years of Stagflation will be returning. Labour has worked its black magic yet again

[Josh]

Don't dismiss the legacy of Thatcherism too easily. I don't see British Steel anywhere. Do you?

[Umbrella Man]

Your point Josh?

[Richard Carey]

Tomorrow's ToryDiary will summarise some other key ways in which Conservative policy is 'Europeanising.'

Oh, the comment threads on those are going to be so much fun after today's single-track mind convention on the Marr interview thread!

More on topic, I kind of agree with Josh that Brown perhaps hasn't had the profound long-term impact on economics he thinks he has. Yes, in the short to medium term he's done great damage with stealth taxes and over-regulation, but he hasn't managed to push us back to "sick man" status - yet...

[Og]

I can't tell you how many times I have discussed this with fellow tories over the last six months, that we are headed into the soft-left European socialist/liberal consensus, and without a meaningful choice at the next election. The answer is always the same - we need to change to this in order to win.

WIN WHAT? There is no silverware to be had this way, only a wooden spoon.

[Sam Tarran]

Cameron's changing the party, but he's still a Conservative and was one of those working in the party through the Thatcher/Major years. I find it unlikely that any doomesday predictions about "45% and up under the Tories" will prove valid when it comes to it.

Besides, Thatcherism was only good on the economic level. When it came to administration, Thatcherism was about centralisation, derived from Thatcher's (and Blair's) distrust of local government.

[lazydavismustgo]

ITN TV news just now. No sign of Tories or Davis. Davis is famous in CCO for his laziness and unwillingness to work on Sundays (early mornings, evenings) etc.

So instead all anybody saw tonight was Clegg...

Davis should be sacked. With the HO in meltdown, the guy can't score a run without being led by the hand by some hack. Hopeless.

[Andrew Woodman]

What are you on about? I've seen Davis on the news more than once today. I would imagine Clegg is occasionally on to give a bit of balance. I think Davis's scalp record with the Home Office speaks for itself.

[Josh]

Umbrella Man, my point is that Thatcher completely revamped the economy. The trade unions were reformed. The nationalised businesses were privatised. None of that has changed under NuLab. In fact, NuLab have just continued the process. We may be giving more of our money to the government, but at least what little we keep can be put to more use thanks to the efficiency of a free(er) market in consumer goods.

[Tam Large]

Cameron is not just going for higher spending, but he also made the breathtaking comment that the EU "should be doing more", with regard to his pet subject of the environment.

Having seen how the EU has destroyed the marine environment through its Common Fisheries Policy (supported by Dave), then thank God it is not doing more.

We need less EU control, not more. His statement above defines the Cameron pro-EU view as much as his stalinist ban on more MPs siging up to the cross-party Better Off Out campaign. I thought we were supposed to be the freedom & free speech party. Oh, sorry, that was before we were re-branded... And, er... he pledged to allow non-front-benchers freedom to campaign on leaving the EU. Oh, sorry, another promise broken...

[Scotty]

"WIN WHAT? There is no silverware to be had this way, only a wooden spoon"
Og, the British taxpayer spends a lot of their hard earned cash funding parliaments all over the UK. Now call me a loyal conservative but I actually do think that we owe it to them and ourselves to try and represent their views and make a concerted effort to win an election so that we can govern the UK on sound conservative policies.
I do not think that being the British political equivalent of the French in CAP negotiations is a right of a minority of conservative members.

[Opinicus]

This is an extraordinary success for Mr Brown and a no less extraordinary failure by the Conservatives. Can Mr Cameron win on this terrain? Should we care if he does? Thatcherism looks ever more like a brief interlude between Butskellism and something that may be called “Browneronism”

The FT has been a new Labour supporting newspaper up to now but this is my point. What is the purpose of Victory, if nothing changes. Better to let Labour ruin the country than insist on the chance to do it ourselves.

[Scotty]

"This is an extraordinary success for Mr Brown and a no less extraordinary failure by the Conservatives. Can Mr Cameron win on this terrain? Should we care if he does? Thatcherism looks ever more like a brief interlude between Butskellism and something that may be called “Browneronism”"
I simple despair of the attitude that there is no point giving the electorate the type of politics they want, and therefore we should allow the present regime who are not delivering on their promises to continue to govern until the country is in ruin!
I for one need the NHS, education etc, etc to perform now not in a few years time, when the hope is that we will get in what ever we offer. I would give up on being active in politics if that was the aim of the party.

[Off Message]

Cameron will cut taxes. He has consistently said he will cut taxes. He's just not going to go into the election with specific pledges because they do little to win support (people are sceptical of such promises), yet provide lots of ammo for our opponents. So unless you are one of the many split the right UKIP/New Labour trolls then relax and breathe a little.

[Tam Large]

He has implied he would like to cut taxes "if possible"; but he has said he plans to increase spending in a number of areas. Er... he can't do both...

This is Mr "everything to all people"... so expect soundbites to calm all sides - and expect inconsistency, which flows necessarily from that approach.

[Scotty]

Tam, your comments are not factual, and therefore your insults towards David Cameron are even more puerile.

[Alexander Drake]

Jonathan, you said:

What is the purpose of Victory, if nothing changes. Better to let Labour ruin the country than insist on the chance to do it ourselves.

Even if Con and Lab had identical policies (which won't happen), then surely it is (a) good for the government to change every so often to refresh the pools from which ministers are drawn, and keep the Westminster system of government functioning as intended, and (b) a sufficiently desirable objective to keep Britain out of the hands of a union-run party riddled with shop stewards.

After all, much of what a Government deals with in each term isn't neatly addressed in the manifesto it faced in the election it won office. "Events, dear boy, events". I'd much rather have the non-union, private sector orientated Conservative Party dealing with 'incomings' than the union bruvvas.

Again, I re-emphasise - that's not all I would want from the next Conservative government, by a long shot. But it's enough for any fair-minded voter to strongly consider dumping Labour.

[Yet Another Anon]

Cameron's changing the party, but he's still a Conservative and was one of those working in the party through the Thatcher/Major years. I find it unlikely that any doomesday predictions about "45% and up under the Tories" will prove valid when it comes to it.
Edward Heath was in the Conservative Government in the 1950's, he certainly campaigned in 1970 largely on an agenda of retrenchment and instead ended up expanding Social Spending and overall spending more than the previous Labour governments, Harold Macmillan actually presided over the beginning of the rise in spending as a proportion of GDP in the 1960's - Labour Governments have always left the tax burden a lot higher than when they came in, but so have many Conservative governments too!

[Serf]

Alexander makes a very good point. Its not enough for us to get excited about a Conservative Government, but its surely enough on its own to make one better than the outgoing one.

[Denis Cooper]

There is something to be said for a change of management, because as the years go by any governing party tends to be depleted of its best talent and it becomes increasingly incompetent. However some changes in policy would also be welcome. As I've said previously, I think it unwise to talk about "tax cuts", which is too easily equated with "service cuts", and it's unnecessary to do so when the plan is that public expenditure would continue to increase, but less rapidly than it has been, and less rapidly than the size of the economy.

[Michael McGowan]

Alexander, I used to think what you think but I am no longer so sure. The Conservative Government in the mid-1930's (for that is what it was in reality) nearly brought this country to the brink of total disaster by giving an isolationist apathetic public what the head-in-sand politics it wanted. Heath talked the talk, couldn't walk the walk and paved the way for even more highly-taxed decline....Major blew away forever any presumption that the Tories are more "competent" than Labour.

[Yet Another Anon]

Major blew away forever any presumption that the Tories are more "competent" than Labour.
Forever is rather an overstatement - both parties have had their economic disasters in the past 40 years and both have government, Labour's economic credibility was destroyed by devaluation, Heath's by the 3 day week and then Labour's was again destroyed by the Winter of Discontent - both have come back, after Gordon Brown has gone his successor is going to find it impossible to stop a battle between those wishing to continue New Labour and many others who feel that Labour would win even more strongly if it adopted much more profligate higher regulation more liberal policies and quite possibly the Conservative Party might have found a new radical reforming vigorous agenda and unite on a strong policy base and sweep to power, or UKIP might.

[James Sproule]

Let’s not loose sight of Wolf’s original comment, the present rates of taxation are having a negative effect on our ability to generate economic growth. Given that simple economic accounting points to our growth rate is going to fall to around 2% in the next few years (largely through demographics) anything that cuts our ability to grow further should be avoided at all costs.

Cameroon’s approach is good, but hardly adequate. Remember that sharing the proceeds of growth is what we did with Thatcher, and we were always being accused of cutting and under-funding. If we are to find room for tax cuts, we have to do the even more important job of cutting back on the size and intrusiveness of the state, indeed this is even more important than cutting taxes. How is this to be done, in particular when we are also advocating decentralisation? Obviously difficult, but a start could be made by offering a generous central redundancy programme to the public sector, with the proviso that any post where the person has taken redundancy results in an equal reduction in that departments funding.

Do we give people what they want, or what we think they need? It is a key question, in my mind, economic growth is the engine of opportunity and dynamism in an economy and therefore a society. We therefore do as much as possible to foster such economic growth. For the moment that means cutting back on bureaucracy through cutting down on the number of bureaucrats. This will have the happy result in also giving us scope to cut taxes.

[James]

If reducing the size of the state is the goal - which it surely ought to be for anyone calling themselves a conservative - then one of the only ways I can see how is by sacking hoardes of civil servents and government employees who have been craftily built up by Labour over the past decade as client voters. By one estimate (from a year and half back) the total number of these employees amounted to a city the size of Sheffield. I wonder how many more have been added to ranks since then. I would love it if these people got a proper job in the private sector and stopped milking it off productive private sector tax-payers.

I don't expect Cameron to put it in such blunt terms, though I'd love it if occasionally he had the balls to say something even slightly controversial that every right-minded person knew was the truth. Cloak it in soft-focus mood music language if you like David, but please do something about this.

After that, we can move onto aggressively smiting other enemies and avenging old grudges, to be celebrated with a blood-thirsty fox-hunt around a true-blue Home Counties location.

[TomTom]

James - go look up where the 5.5 million employees/voters in the public sector are employed.

Research is so much better than ill-informed comment.

>50% are in Health and Education
Then we have Local Councils
Then we have Central Government
Then the Armed Forces

So you draw up a list of where your cuts would fall. This is what the public expects not silly comments without detail

Post a listing of all your staffing cuts.........note that people in the Southeast get steamed up when someone proposes closing their local hospital