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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   29886 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024

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Ultimately, the Conservatives are dead, and they will not resurrect without a substantial change in attitude.

You probably know more about your own country than me, so take it with a grain of salt, but...

There's this old quip that a pessimist is someone who says "it can't possibly get any worse", while an optimist is someone who'll respond with "oh yes it can!"

You're right that Tories are a failure on their own terms, and because of that the idea that the neoliberal wing of Labour will be some sort of an improvement is absurd to me. You'll get the exact same thing, but more. By the time they're done, people may very well decide that Tories weren't that bad after all. They might implode, but for that to happen they'd have to be replaced by someone like Reform.

You're right that Tories are a failure on their own terms, and because of that the idea that the neoliberal wing of Labour will be some sort of an improvement is absurd to me.

I disagree. Specifically, I think that Labour is considerably more likely to be good at growing the economy and reducing the deficit for several reasons:

  • Labour is much more likely to spend money on services (and in particular on public sector salaries), rather than on tax cuts for the wealthiest, and this is likely to be better for overall economic growth.
  • The Conservatives dedication to austerity, Brexit and lettuce-brained tax cutting has been so appallingly damaging that it would be difficult to do worse.
  • Labour has not suffered from the purge of competence and expertise that the Conservatives inflicted upon themselves in an effort to get Brexit through. There has certainly been a purge of Corbynites from the party at large, but the parliamentary party was mostly dead set against him from the beginning so this was much less costly of experience and expertise what the Tories did to themselves.

There is also historical data to suggest that Labour tends to do better on economic growth than the Conservaives, which fits with the pattern that I have repeatedly observed: that, at least in my lifetime in the US, Canada, and the UK, the centre left party (Democrats / Liberals / Labour) has typically done better on some of the key measures, such as deficit reduction, than the centre right party (Republicans / Conservatives / Tories) usually try to lay claim to. (I recall some years ago finding a nice set of graphs looking at defecits in particular; alas I can't quickly relocate them, so consider this more my stating my priors than making a specific claim.)

Labour is much more likely to spend money on services (and in particular on public sector salaries), rather than on tax cuts for the wealthiest, and this is likely to be better for overall economic growth.

Unlike in 1997, there isn’t much more money to spend on services and public sector salaries. For all the much-maligned cuts in NHS spending, NHS spending grew every year under the Tories, even when inflation was almost nothing. The only way to spend more is to raise more, and that doesn’t mean taxing the rich, it means taxing everyone, either by bringing the 40% bracket down further or adding a new 30% bracket from, say, £25k, both of which would be extremely unpopular.

the idea that the neoliberal wing of Labour will be some sort of an improvement is absurd to me. You'll get the exact same thing, but more.

That's my expectation. There probably will be some modest benefits if you're a front line public sector worker, and some negligible trickle down in turn to their clients, but the overarching mismanagement and short-termism will continue as it has for the last 20-30-40-x0 years. In the meantime I expect mainstream variety wokery to continue unabated while Labour's biometric-internet-porn-licences style of soft authoritarianism gathers momentum.

I mean, very possible. For me voting Labour was indeed a bit of a throw of the dice. Even ignoring their policies - and there are some good ones in there I think - my suspicion is that they will do better simply becase they have more competence, more ideas, more vigour. Britain's primary problem is stagnation, and a stagnant government doesn't solve that. But if Labour do fail, and the Tories come back in 2029 with a bit of sincerity, a bit of talent, and a goddamn plan this time, well then brilliant. If marginally worse governance is the price the country has to pay for a reinvigorated Conservative party than I think that's a price worth paying. Certainly the Tories were never going to improve until they got a punch in the mouth like they got today.

If marginally worse governance is the price the country has to pay for a reinvigorated Conservative party than I think that's a price worth paying.

Absolutely, I abhor the "lesser of two evils" logic.

Sure, but the alternative logic is so much worse.

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