What's wrong with an Ed Miliband led government?

As I wrote before, it is difficult to get enthusiasm for the past five years of Conservative led coalition government.  Yes, the economy has rebounded, but this is largely been a smoke and mirrors exercise that, if the Tories are honest, may well have been implemented by a Brown or Blair led government.  

It's what the Tories wont do that is the relief

It is based on two foundations.  

The economy is fixed?

One is just barely getting public finances into sufficient order, with a series of tax cuts, that bond markets are content and money that was once being transferred into largely wasteful public sector administration, and welfare handouts, are now in the form of tax cuts (notwithstanding the very damaging increase in VAT at the beginning). Public debt is still rising, the budget deficit is still £90 billion per annum, but the state sector as a proportion of GDP has shrunk from 45% to around 40% and the private sector has more than matched any cuts in state sector "jobs". The Conservatives promise to balance the budget next term (they promised to balance it this past term), but without tax increases.  This means the private sector growing to fill a net shrinking state sector.

The second foundation is printing money.  The Bank of England has maintained its base rate at 0.5% throughout the term, and credit is cheap.  The money is flowing into property, stocks and shares and other investments.  Few in politics question this, those who do point out that one cause of the last crash was the availability of cheap money, because low/virtually non-existent consumer price inflation doesn't reflect the asset price inflation that is part of the bubble of growth.

The boom and bust cycle has recommenced, so let's not think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne is a genius, he is merely following Treasury advice and tinkering over priorities.  

If you want reasons to have a modicum of enthusiasm for the Conservatives there really are only two areas of policy where there is hope for those of us wanting a future of more freedom and less government.  Education and the European Union.

Setting the poor free from the council run education factories

2.2 million pupils are now educated in what are essentially independent "free" schools albeit within the state sector, but completely outside the dead-hand of council control.  They are established by enthusiastic educational social-entrepreneurs, whose focus is on excellence, diversity and choice in education.  They can hire "unqualified" teachers.  You know the ones: the scientists, historians, musicians, writers who can inspire through experience and who are excellent communicators.  Not the BA graduates who can pontificate about "white privilege", "equality", "sustainability" and get children all excited about voting to make decisions as a group, but also tell the brightest to "share their gifts" with others.  The Conservatives offer more of this, and to extend it further, as they pour funding into supporting new free schools according to what parents want, enabling them to remove their kids from the mediocre council schools that are emptying.  This offers a great opportunity to break education away from the deadweight failure of post-war progressive state education teacher union dominated conformity and mediocrity.

Brexit

For the European Union, that club once of free trade and open borders, balancing blatant protectionist rent seeking for agriculture and vanity construction projects.  I once hoped the new eastern European Member States would provide enough influence to drive it more towards the former, but the lure of billions of Euros in structural adjustment transfers has kept them mostly mute.  Moreover, Hungary own government has slipped back into a mode of xenophobia, state property confiscation and corruption of the media and judiciary, and the politicians and bureaucrats at Brussels do little about it. Yes, David Cameron wants the UK to remain in the EU, but the offer of a referendum on EU membership is a chance to change the UK's relationship with it.  It's a chance to leave and have a formal free trade agreement, and to leave behind the subsidies, the customs union and the ever growing regulatory burden of a bureaucracy that is fundamentally unaccountable.  The European Union represents increasingly the decline of Europe, as it remains impotent to demand the structural reforms needed of the sclerotic Italy (which has not had net economic growth for nearly 20 years) and France, whilst seeking ever more states to bring under its umbrella, primarily by offering subsidies from northern Europe including the UK.  It remains notable that neither the Norwegians nor the Swiss or Icelanders have decided to join (although between them they make some financial contributions to it and agree to follow some regulations)

Free schools and freedom from the deadweight bureaucrat behemoth of the European Union are all there is, besides a handful of tax cuts (which are too few).

However, on their own they aren't enough, but there is a reason to vote, in some cases Conservative, but not always, to do something more negative - to keep Labour and the Scottish National Party out.

Had Labour been led by David Miliband, and been a rehash of the previous government, there wouldn't have been much between it and the Cameron-led Conservatives.  However, his brother Red Ed has taken Labour and swung it to the left, with a manifesto and rhetoric that are the most statist, most anti-free market and more disturbingly, anti-personal freedom since the 1983 Marxist manifesto of Michael Foot.

Workers of the UK unite, you have nothing to lose but your private sector jobs

It has harnessed the class war that the trade unions, who backed Ed Miliband (and outvoted both the party members and the Parliamentary caucus to make him leader), never abandoned.  It's the class war of his late communist father, that Ed - the younger brother - couldn't let go of, and it's fundamentally deceitful, toxic and disturbing.

It's not just that he will end the free schools programme, meaning only wealthy parents can afford choice of schools for their kids, leaving the poorest stuck with the lottery of whatever monopoly school their council offers (but all teachers will have to be "qualified" and unionised you can bet). It's not just that he will introduce new taxes on owning expensive homes, on earning more than £150,000 and abolish the non-domicile tax status that encourages thousands of the best, brightest and wealthiest to live in the UK (and each pay in average income tax on UK earnings 2.5 times the average wage). It's not that he wants to ban household energy price increases, and require all new power generating capacity to be renewable (and so much more expensive).  It's not that he spreads the perennial (and always disappointing) rumour that the Tories are going to dismantle the NHS (they aren't, they're increasing spending).  

Profit is evil

It's that he is at best suspicious, and at worst hostile to entrepreneurship and free enterprise. His agenda includes making employment tribunals free to employees wanting to bring claims, which with his class warrior hat on (purely theoretical mind you, he's never worked in the private sector) couldn't possibly mean employees would invent grievances against employers for personal gain.  His readiness to establish new regulations for the energy, banking, property rental and railway sectors (including helpfully setting up a new state rail operator to compete with private ones), is based on a belief that there isn't a problem that can't be regulated away.  He wants laws to cap profits in the health sector, he wants laws to force energy companies to lower prices when wholesale prices drop.

Your land is our land

Yet it more intrusive than that.  He has said he wants the power to confiscate private land if a property owner obtains planning permission, but doesn't build the approved development within a fixed time.  You need council permission to develop, which can take months if not years, then if they grant permission (at your expense), you lose your land if the market conditions that prevailed when you applied no longer exist.  Not only did Miliband not think what impact this would have on new applications, he didn't think it was morally wrong to confiscate someone else's land.  He didn't think that maybe the problem of housing supply in the UK is because the planning system effectively nationalises land development in the hands of local authorities.

Yet this is all economics, par for the course socialism.  The entrenchment of the NHS and public sector school monopolies are to be expected, as is renewed growth of the welfare state.

Newspapers that oppose the Labour Party are bad

It's Miliband's views on free speech that chill me.  He embraced the findings of the Leveson inquiry and will seek to institute statutory press regulation if industry self regulation does not work.  Given how often he has rallied against Rupert Murdoch (who to Labour, made the sin of once supporting it, then turning its back on it), there is every chance Miliband will require newspapers to be licenced. The mere fact that Labour friendly newspapers, like the Mirror, also engaged in phone hacking and other illegal practices is not acknowledged.  Labour wants to "take on" the "vested interests" of newspapers that disagree with it.

Hating speech

Under Labour men and women are "equal" but separate in Islam

Moreover, Miliband's willingness to appease Islamists is more chilling too.  It's not the image of a Labour Party campaign meeting in Birmingham above, which segregates men and women of Islamic faith so much, but his commitment to outlaw "Islamophobia". 

As Rod Liddle in the Spectator wrote 

There is no such thing as Islamophobia, of course. There are people who dislike Islam and will continue to dislike it no matter what fatuous legislation is enacted by the forthcoming Labour/SNP coalition from hell. And they dislike it for perfectly good, rational, reasons.

Islamophobia? That seems to me an entirely rational response to an illiberal, vindictive and frankly fascistic creed. I am not a Muslimophobe — I am well aware that enormous numbers of Muslims do not subscribe to all of the particularly unpleasant tenets of Islam as it is practised and preached today. 

So it is, but Ed Miliband, as he seeks to woo intolerant Muslim voters, has decided to erode a bit more freedom of speech.  Expect Police to treat this as a form of Islamic blasphemy law, all the time he blames the government for not passing tough enough legislation on surveillance of personal communications to fight terrorism.

I'm sure Ed believes he opposes Islamist terrorism, it's just that his appeasement of those who expound it, and opposition to those who criticise it, says something else.

Bye bye Scotland

It goes further of course.  Polling indicates that Labour is likely to lose between half and all of its seats in Scotland, primarily because when the 45% who voted for Scottish independence cast their votes for one party in a first past the post general election, it's enough to sweep aside those who believe in the union, since they are split between four parties. 

What this means is that it is almost certain that for Labour to form a government, it will rely on support from the SNP (despite Ed Miliband's protestations).  What does this really mean?

Let's be clear, despite the claims of the SNP, its primary interest is in getting a majority of Scots to vote for it at the Scottish elections, get another referendum and to win it.  It wants independence.

To achieve independence it needs there to be Scottish disenchantment with the Westminster government, not a comfortable arrangement that delivers what it promises.  Its ideal outcome is a Conservative led government, for then it can shout on the sidelines, finger point and say "look, we never voted for the Tories, we must get ooot".  However, what if it, and Labour can form a "progressive coalition", which is what its Marxist leader Nicola Salmond claims?

The SNP says it will push Labour to the left and wont agree on any legislation or budgets that don't meet its demands.  Either Labour will surrender to it, and face disenchantment from voters from elsewhere in the UK that they are subsidising Scotland (more), or Labour will say no, and call the SNP's bluff and say "go on, bring us down and risk a Tory government".  For the SNP, either works.

If Labour gives it what it wants, involving much more money being transferred north of the border, the (mostly) English disenchantment will make it easier for another Scottish independence referendum to be held, because English voters will express a similar antipathy towards Scotland as the SNP has promoted against England.  Much better to get both sides to resent each other.  However, Labour may hope that it gets credit for supporting Scotland. 

If Labour calls its bluff, the SNP will revert to the "Red Tories" line and say that Scotland doesn't get what it wants from the Union.  It can abstain from supporting a Labour budget or indeed a Conservative confidence and supply motion, and claim the moral highground, although it is undoubtedly the risker line to take.  Labour wouldn't mind this of course. 

What it all means, is that any Labour option lies within it the seeds to break up the United Kingdom. Yes, that might seem like lancing a socialist boil, but it is my ancestral homeland and also the land which brought us Adam Smith, David Hume and Francis Hutcheson, as part of the Scottish Enlightenment.  Did the descendants of all of that really all emigrate?  I don't want the union to break up, and I don't want the Labour Party to facilitate it.  Labour did create Scottish devolution, after all.

Hold your nose

There is a lot to loathe about the Cameron government, but a Miliband one will not only steal from the productive and kneecap the most promising reform in education since the war, but will further limit freedom of speech, and will further erode property rights.  

If you're in a safe seat everywhere but Scotland (which has no such seats anymore), you can do whatever you wish, it wont matter.  That's roughly two thirds of all seats that wont change sides. Beyond that, if you think you'd rather not sit by and let a government emerge from the election muddle without ticking a box, here are some ideas.

1. Positively vote for a few Tories.  Steve Davis, Kwasi Kwarteng and David Davis positively deserve your vote, they are positive, proven friends of liberty.  

2.  Positively vote the one libertarian UKIPper likely to win.  Douglas Carswell. 

3.  In Conservative/Labour or Liberal Democrat marginals, consider voting Conservative, except in Hampstead and Kilburn, where Lib Dem Maajid Nawaz will be a formidable battler against Islamism.

4.  In Labour/Liberal Democrat marginals, consider voting Liberal Democrat except Bradford East (to oust the vile David Ward).

5.  In Labour/UKIP marginals, vote UKIP.

6.  In Scotland, vote Conservative, to hell with the two cheeks of the arse of socialism and nationalist socialism.

7.  In Bradford West, vote Labour to oust George Galloway. 

8.  In Ulster, vote Conservative or the Alliance.  To hell with the sectarianism.

9.  In Wales, it doesn't matter.

10. Have a long bath, consider your strategy to protect your investments and assets and watch the circus.

What's going to happen?

You're going to pay more, you're going to get more of your life regulated, and a lot of people are going to lose their jobs (and a bunch of others will be eager to do stuff to affect your life).

It's grim and depressing, but it truly is the case that David Cameron is better than Ed Miliband, because of what he wont do.

Most exciting UK election in ages? Other minor parties are banal (Part Five)

Having run through the Conservatives (who want to shrink the state a little, just wont say how), Labour (who want to grow the state, and balance the budget, except the latter doesn't add up) and UKIP (who want to shrink the state a little more, except for healthcare, education and immigration), what about the others?

Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats are the other party of government, who have taken a schizophrenic approach over the years since the Liberal Party merged with the breakaway Social Democrat Party in the 1980s. It was in the centre, then when Blair led the overthrow of Saddam Hussein (and the green political religion was in ascendancy) it moved left.  Now, it has spent five years supporting a Conservative government in coalition, and has been severely hammered by its voters, used to feeling morally superior by supporting policies that they knew would be highly unlikely to be tested with reality.

Given Labour's swing off to the left under Ed Miliband, the Liberal Democrats are playing the only logical card they have, by claiming to be more fiscally responsible than Labour, and more "caring" than the Conservatives.  For a libertarian this doesn't mean a lot.  The Liberal Democrats are happy to support some lower taxes, but also support new taxes on the "rich" including a mansion tax.  Beyond that it is much of the same, except for a commitment to five new environmental laws, and the Liberal Democrats are solid supporters of retaining EU membership.  What sliver of liberty remains is a belief in a slightly less criminalised approach to cannabis, solid opposition to further state surveillance powers on communications (which both Labour and the Conservatives battle to support), and a handful of candidates (such as Jeremy Browne) who are more "classical liberal").

Or indeed neither

The one thing the Liberal Democrats do have is bargaining power. This is the largest minor party that would credibly help support either major party to be in government.   The avowedly leftwing parties wont, so it is difficult to see how they can have that much bargaining power.   Yet, what really can be said of it?  It is so plagued with the disease of environmentalist unilateralism that it is difficult to see it, on economic policy, as being anything more than a hindrance.  Yet it's rather fractured approach to personal liberties is better than the two main parties (although UKIP may end up being better, it wont have the 20-30 or so MPs the Liberal Democrats are likely to have).

With few exceptions, there is no good reason to vote for a Liberal Democrat candidate.  They are, after all, usually moderate socialist politicians with a deep green tinge.  It's a shame.  The old Liberal Party, while it did have a mixed centre-leftish tinge on the welfare state, it also has a strong commitment to personal liberty, a position not comfortably held by the "tough on crime" two main parties.  The Liberal Democrats have found identity only because Labour swung off to the left, if Labour loses and returns closer to the centre, it's hard to see what the point of the Liberal Democrats is.  Yet, it is the first time one can say that the Liberal Democrats are the most likely of any of those standing, to be in government after the election.  It is difficult to see how either major party could govern without its acquiescence.

Scottish National Party

Shrill, nationalist socialism with two key motives.  First and foremost, engineer a path towards a second referendum on Scottish independence, and secondly to implement an almost Bennite approach to policy.  In the first instance, polling indicates that it could go from 6 to the majority of the 56 Scottish constituencies, if not most or all (some polls suggest all but one), and so making itself essential in propping up a Labour government (it has vowed not to ever support a "Tory" government, which it treats as poison).  So, is a price of keeping Labour in power, a path to another referendum?  Of course, if the Conservatives form a government, it feeds the absurd narrative that, yet again, Scotland is led by a government it "didn't elect".  It's absurd, because:

1. The SNP doesn't stand candidates outside Scotland, so could never be a government to lead Scotland in the absence of independence.

2. A plurality of voters in every safe seat in the country can claim they never get the government they elect half the time.  Indeed, given the majority of voters never change their vote, they can say the same thing.  

However, the SNP is riding on the back of nationalist hysteria and scapegoating, which, given it is on the far left, it claims isn't racist, but is incredibly intolerant.  Other parties in Scotland have noted that it is much more difficult than it used to be to get supporters to put placards or billboard up on their properties, because SNP supporters may vandalise them or throw bricks through their windows.  Now it's clear most wont do that, but a handful of incidents have made Scots "feardies" for good reason.  As such, it might be that the SNP "surge" isn't quite what is seemed, as many Scots quietly think they've had enough of the intolerance of the nationalist socialists.

The fact the SNP actually runs the devolved Scottish government now, but blames Westminster for any ills in Scotland, and once campaigned on all the "oil wealth" that could shower Scotland with a generous welfare state, but low oil prices have knocked that idea away.  However, it is nationalism, a psychological disorder based on pure tribalism.  Driven moreover by an utter delusion that there can be an end to so-called "austerity", because debt and deficits can be willed away.  See Greece's current state to check out that fib.

So no.  The SNP offers nothing but an anti-thesis to reason and a smaller state.  It is led by an unreconstructed fan of Michael Foot, who remains committed to the far-left foreign policy position he held.   Conservatives will delight in its evisceration of Labour in Scotland, but the SNP is far more dangerous than Labour - it seeks to use its presence in Westminster to machinate the break up of the UK, and in the meantime to demand more socialism for it.  The only bright hope for Scotland is that the Conservative leader in Scotland, Ruth Davidson, is head and shoulders above most of the Westminster Tory front bench.  However, given many of the best and brightest Scots left the country already, she will feel lucky for the Conservatives to hang onto their sole seat there.

Greens

Think Green Party and think more mad, led by a poorly prepared Australian, who is standing in a seat that she has no chance of winning.  The party that said membership of ISIS shouldn't be considered a crime or a reason to keep someone from immigrating to the UK.  A party that wants everyone to have a guaranteed welfare cheque, and engage in a spending programme the Institute for Fiscal Studies described as:

This sense that there is free money out there just waiting to flow into the Treasury’s coffers without anyone noticing reached new levels in the Green party manifesto, which claims to have identified a truly staggering £200 billion worth of tax revenue from tax avoidance, financial transactions, the rich and the wealthy.

That would be laughable if it weren’t playing into a wider narrative that there is a magic money tree that we can pluck at will. There isn’t. All these taxes, if collectable at all, are paid in the end by individuals. Many of them, especially when layered one upon the other, will have damaging economic effects.

The Greens will be lucky to retain their single seat.

Plaid Cymru

SNP in Welsh, with much less chance of winning many seats.

Ulster

In Northern Ireland, politics is mostly about which sectarian side you identify with.  On the Protestant/Unionist side it is the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)  for the hardline, and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) as more moderate.  On the Catholic/Nationalist side it is Sinn Fein for the hardline (which also takes the salary but never turns up to Westminster) and the SDLP for the moderates.  For the unaligned, the Alliance, the Conservatives and UKIP are standing.  What does it all mean?  Well the Conservatives may try to get DUP and UUP support to form a minority government.  Labour is aligned with the SDLP.  Rarely do the MPs from Northern Ireland become part of any government, it might matter more than it has for a generation this time.  Sinn Fein may be incredibly vile, but it does have the record of doing the least harm in Westminster in recent years, having never voted for any taxes or new laws (or anything).

Respect

Catholic communist appeaser of Islamism and supporter of Scottish Unionism, George Galloway, is the MP for Bradford West.  This is one seat I hope Labour snatches.

Conclusion

Nothing to see here, except people who want more of your money, who mostly want more control of your life, property or business. Beyond a handful of Liberal Democrats (one-hand), there is no reason to consider supporting any of this lot,

Most exciting UK election in ages? No to UKIP (Part Four)

UKIP is not a libertarian party.  It is not a free market party. It is not the UK equivalent of ACT.  It is a populist party with some good policies, and an outspoken leader who, sometimes, is rather good. 

So if you vote for a UKIP candidates, judge the individual on their merits, because the manifesto is a very mixed bag.

For me, in a first past the post system, a minor party better be pretty good, a decent alternative to deserve my vote.  After all, in most seats it has no hope of winning, so you might vote for it there as a statement of moral principle in support.  In those where it has a hope, it is more serious.  Is it better than the incumbent major party candidate?

So how does UKIP stack up?  Yes it wants lower taxes (although it wants a diverted profit tax too), yes it wants to leave the EU, but wants to keep agricultural subsidies.  Yes it wants to cut foreign aid, scrap the Scottish subsidy (the Barnett Formula), the HS2 vanity project, merge government departments, end fake charities, limit child benefit to two children, deregulate childcare, tighten up access to social housing, repeal the Climate Change Act and withdraw from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. 

So why the hesitancy?

It's not so much the contradictions of liberalising the smoking ban for pubs and restaurants, but wanting to ban smoking in parks and introduce a sugar tax.  It isn't the tightening of protection of Green Belts and a new planning presumption in favour of conservation.  It isn't the desire to just pour more money into the NHS and ban foreign companies from tendering to supply services.   It isn't the creation of a sovereign wealth fund from taxes on energy extraction to pay for social care for the elderly.  It isn't the higher tax on empty homes, the abolition of tertiary fees for those studying science, medicine and engineering.

It's not even the substance of the policy on immigration, which is to have what is called an "Australian style points system" for all migrants.  It is the deeper, more insidious focus of UKIP rhetoric which is to consider that for most problems in the UK, immigration is a core contributor. The problems of EU membership, in terms of regulatory hindrance and waste are obvious, and to its credit, UKIP talks about withdrawing from the EU not to engage in little Britain isolationism, but to promote more free trade with the rest of the world.  Good.

Whilst, on the face of it, there is quite a bit to like, let's not pretend what is at the centre of UKIP's support base - opposition to immigration.

Blame for many of the UK's so-called ills is laid at immigration from Eastern Europe.  Not immigration of Islamists (for which I have some sympathy in terms of national security), but of people whose families spent at least two generations previously under totalitarian communism.

NHS waiting lists? Blame immigration

Housing shortage? Blame immigration

Traffic congestion? Blame immigration

Lack of school places? Blame immigration

Lack of jobs for the unskilled? Blame immigration

Moreover, the more disturbing, economic nonsense, is that immigration lowered wages which is bad for the economy.

With the exception of the arrival of some criminal gangs, all of the problems attributed to immigration are problems of statist solutions to allocating resources, not immigration.

The NHS problem is because it is free to anyone who turns up.  The housing problem is because Councils have a legal obligation to house whoever turns up, and Councils severely limit permissions for building housing.  Roads are congested because they are poorly priced and state funding of new road capacity was severely constrained for political reasons for many years.  There is a lack of school places because funding for schools does not follow pupils and parents, and so on.

Yes, there is a real issue about a country with a welfare state, with free health, education and housing offered to those who are poor, with open borders to countries which are much poorer per capita.  Yes, there are genuine issues about serious criminals, and gangs of criminals coming to the UK with no way of intercepting them.

However, UKIP has tapped into something darker,  It's the envy dripping xenophobia of part of the British working class who don't like these new people, with their funny ways, showing us up, working longer hours, for less money than they'll take, raising families, with aspiration.   That is exactly what UKIP is tapping into, as much as many of its well meaning folk deny it.  It made a colleague of mine at work, who is Romanian, and far from unskilled, feel unwelcome and uncomfortable.  

After all Nigel Farage did say:

Any normal and fair-minded person would have a perfect right to be concerned if a group of Romanian people suddenly moved in next door

Not a gang of men, as he previously said, not squatting Roma, but a "group of Romanian people". Really?  Even if I give Farage the benefit of the doubt, in not carefully using words, it's the expression of xenophobia that IS unreasonable, and unfair. 

It is this the far left have taken and run with, to claim UKIP is racist, wants to deport foreigners and hysteria.  All of which is deplorable nonsense and smears.

Yet the mere fact that the far left can play this card is because UKIP has created the space for it.  It offers absolutely no solutions to health, education, housing or transport issues that are meaningful, it wants to sustain or even worsen the status quo.  Yes, its policies on energy and climate change are laudable, and withdrawing from the EU is commendable, but playing a tune on the back of the xenophobia of many is just plain irrational and wrong.

There is another dimension, which is the EU blaming when it is not only wrong, but actually gives succour to tyranny.  For some time, UKIP has blamed the EU for the events in Ukraine, claiming the EU orchestrated the popular revolt against the Putinesque thug Yanukovych, and that somehow Putin should be admired.  Seriously?  Whilst there was definitely a Western wooing of pro-Western politicians in Ukraine, including the EU, how was this evil?  Was it wrong to encourage Ukraine to ditch the 20 years of bankrupt kleptocratic autocracy that meant its per capita income has stagnated? Yes, Ukrainian nationalists are awful, yes the Russian minority does have genuine fears, but to damn the EU more than Putin? Seriously?  As bad as the EU is, it isn't executing its opponents, and we are a long way away from Russia - just ask the former satellite states of the USSR.

So no.  I wont be voting UKIP.  Not because I disagree with some of its policies, but because they are all entirely tainted by an overwhelming emphasis on blaming resource issues that are due to statism, on the arrival of foreigners, and the result of this rhetoric is this:

Yes, I'm oh so tempted to vote UKIP for what is good in it, I'm tempted to do so to stick two fingers up at the far left fascists who have vandalised UKIP property and threatened UKIP campaigners. However, I cannot in the depths of my conscience give moral authority to a party that has deliberately played on the xenophobia of ignorant bigots - even though it is actually against Europeans!  Yet there are a few who are deserving of your vote.  Douglas Carswell in Clacton is most clearly the best hope for a more libertarian UKIP.  Nigel Farage in South Thanet, might be tempting, given how well he debates at the European Parliament, but while most of his instincts are right, he IS the leader

So what about the other minor parties?

Most exciting UK election in ages? What small government option? (Part Three)

What do the Conservatives offer?  Rebuttal of the Labour narrative?

Barely.

In fact, Labour's accusations that the Conservatives will "privatise" and "destroy" the NHS (with implications of the doomed "American style health system") are total fabrications.  Labour also claims the Conservatives will cut public spending to the level of the 1930s, which is also a fabrication.  Yes, there will be cuts, but the level of public spending as a proportion of GDP will drop to levels seen around 2000-2001 under Tony Blair, and still higher than both Australia and Switzerland. Labour implies that the sick and poor will all suffer, and its class war narrative reinforces that, regardless of how much of a fictional piece of agitprop it all is.

The Tory narrative is "we've fixed the economy, there are two million more jobs, we fixed the mess Labour left us, we've cut the deficit, we're on the path to prosperity".  That is all very well, but is there a serious attack of the core Marxist narrative of Labour?

No, not really.

The Conservatives plead, rightly, that they cut the taxes of the lowest paid, by raising the threshold where income tax gets paid, to over £10,000.  However, they don't defend cutting the top rate of tax from 50% to 45%.  They find it difficult to defend raising the threshold at which inheritance tax cuts in to £1 million.

They talk about the money they have poured into the NHS, but never rebut the narrative that the way to get better healthcare is simply to put more money into an enormous bureaucracy full of producer capture, because who can say nurses and doctors are paid too much, or are not experts on how to procure supplies for enormous enterprises very wisely? 

The Conservatives play the "tax avoidance", "tax evasion" narrative as well, but don't say it is good for people to keep their own money often enough, although to his credit David Cameron has said this occasionally.  The problem is the Conservatives have raised other taxes, like Air Passenger Duty and have never addressed the biggest problem of the tax system - its complexity.

What about business?  No, the Conservatives have not argued that big business is good for Britain, and that the best way to deliver better goods and services for consumers at reasonable prices is to lower barriers to competition.  There is little talk about enterprise, entrepreneurship and how more people ought to set up their own businesses, and grow the economy and jobs through the private sector.  Yes there are votes in that, obviously, but when HSBC is looking to leave the UK, who is going to say this is bad?

What about welfare?  Yes, the Conservatives are seen as being tough on welfare, but the only real gap identified by the IFS is that there are to be £12 billion in welfare cuts, but no one from the party will say where these will come from.  So instead of saying that we shouldn't be borrowing to sustain people on welfare, the main narrative is that the Conservatives "hate the poor".

The number one weakness the Conservatives have is that the "class war" narrative, which has been waged not so much by Labour until recently, but certainly spread amongst its foot soldiers in unions, the public sector and crucially, the education system, has taken hold.

The Conservatives are said to be the party of the "well off" and look after their interests, but Labour is the party of everyone else, and looks after them.  Not the party of individual enterprise, effort, responsibility, opportunity and freedom versus the party of large government, ever growing welfare, subsidising irresponsibility and failure, more regulation and identity politics stereotypes.  It's a view expressly commonly by young people, no doubt having been taught this by their Labour aligned teachers.

Beyond a few tax cuts, the Conservatives are mostly offering "we're not Labour", and most recently given the high polling of the Scottish National Party (meaning Labour will most likely need SNP support to get a governing majority), which is more leftwing, the narrative is "you don't want to be ruled by a government held to ransom by those who want to break up the UK, and want to vote on English laws".

It's fear, which is much less than a positive defence of the government incrementally rolling back. Because, you see, this Conservative Party is not offering much rolling back.  You see, I can have the same headlines as with Labour and you get this...

Most exciting UK election in ages? Philosophical commitment vs. capitulation (Part Two)

I was wrong.

When I first envisaged this blog post, the UK election campaign looked like a lot of "me too" ism, which moved away from the early rhetoric of Labour Leader Ed Miliband, to a middle muddle ground of mediocrity, where both major parties campaign on different versions of the same policies. Although in substance both main parties are not too far apart on most policies, the truth is there is a yawning gap, and it is one based upon not simply political philosophy, but the very notion of having a political philosophy and set of principles upon which to base policies.

In that sense, the Labour Party has got both.  The Conservative Party, has almost neither.

It's relatively easy to look at the policies of both major parties and see that the gaps between them are not significant.  Although they may joust over the economy (the Conservative claim of success) and the NHS (Labour's claim of disaster), the truth is there is little between them on both issues.  The Institute For Fiscal Studies said as much in its review of their fiscal plans.  The Conservatives would cut spending more than Labour and run an actual budget surplus, although there is no clarity about proposed cuts in welfare spending.  Labour would run a current (i.e. not capital) budget surplus, "as soon as possible", but is also unclear how it would make up the gap (it's claims of "savings", and revenue from new taxes and the perennial "crackdown on tax avoidance" are pitiful).   

On the NHS (note no one talks about health policy, but rather how much to spend on the world's biggest civilian bureaucracy), it's about "we'll spend £8 billion more" or "we'll spend £2.5 billion more per annum", both basically wanting to throw more money into the same system.  No debate, at all, about whether it is fit for purpose or whether there are better ways to deliver healthcare. 

Beyond that, there is a lot of noise about tax.  Both parties claim they will crackdown on tax evasion and avoidance, both parties claim they will get more money from the rich (who despite the top 1% paying 27% of income tax apparently should be fleeced more, in different ways).  Both have announced either direct or indirect measures to do this, Labour by increasing income tax on those earning more than £150,000 and by a wealth tax on homes worth over £2m, the Conservatives by cutting tax relief on pension contributions.

What about housing?  Well a review by Paul Cheshire, Emeritus Professor of Economic Geography at the LSE, indicates that both parties are doing little to address the real issue, which is supply.  Both parties offer various fiscal bribes through either subsidies or targeted tax relief to make housing more "affordable", and Labour advocates returning to the heady days of building public housing, but Professor Cheshire says:

The illness is real but all that is on offer is snake oil; displacement activities treating some symptoms but not the underlying causes and – paradoxically – having the net effect of making the crisis worse. Perhaps that is just a little harsh on Labour but I did just hear their spokesperson offering the party’s solutions and the whole emphasis was on how the ‘market was not working so the planning system needed to be tougher’. Not so: the problem IS the planning system. It needs root and branch reform but that would take serious political courage.

The combined impacts of the Town and Country Planning Act, the power-hungry dedication of local authority planners and the banking of vast tracts of urban land as "green belts" is the problem, but no party will address any of these meaningfully.  Labour does want to introduce rent-regulation, whereas the Conservatives want to nationalise the social-housing held by privately owned Housing Associations so their tenants have a taxpayer subsidised "right to buy" them.  Neither is exactly a market oriented solution.

What about other policies?  Education?  Well, here there is more of a difference. The Conservatives have been pushing their somewhat successful "free schools" programme, which allows anyone to set up new schools, which is roundly opposed  by Labour and the teaching unions, and so Labour has promised to stop new ones being developed and to wage war on "unqualified" (read "non-unionised and not indoctrinated into state progressive teaching ideology") teachers.  Meanwhile, Labour wants to cut tuition fees, even though they don't have to be paid until a university student earns above the average wage.

How about the environment?  Who cares, thankfully (pledges on that have largely gone unnoticed).

I could easily go through a bunch of policies.  Labour's pledge to regulate energy prices, the Conservative pledge to freeze rail fares, both party's support for renewing the Trident nuclear weapons' system, but they aren't really the point.  On immigration, both want to "crack down" on immigration, except of course from the EU.

Yet what is actually going on between the two main parties is more fundamental.  Both embrace solutions to problems that are interventionist, that are sceptical about free markets.  The difference is that the Labour Party, and the Labour leader in particular - Ed Miliband - is back to its roots of Marxist rhetoric, narrative about the relationships between business and labour, and more explicitly a class based analysis of what is wrong with the UK (with some identity politics thrown in).