Nov 21 2009
A seismic shift in politics this week
Underneath the crude politics of the Queen’s speech were two great watersheds. This week was the passing of an era.
The government seems to have moved on from any idea that we can win a war in Afghanistan by pitching troops into battle to win and hold territory. The impossibility of putting in enough troops to garrison that vast and difficult country has at last dawned on Ministers. Whatever they may say, the hunt is now on for an honourable exit that can leave us with some reason for past sacrifice and with some hope for the future. Even if reinforcements are sent in the short term, the remit will be fundamentally different. The aim will be to support the civilian power and to reinforce a political strategy rather than to win and hold territory. The West needs to talk more and fight less in the Middle East. It now also needs to pursue its own self sufficiency in energy to curtail the power of King Oil.
The second even starker watershed was the one on public spending and borrowing created by the government’s Deficit Reduction Bill. This Bill has two origins. The first is the Treasury led market imperative. The deficit sums are so implausible that it is only a matter of time before the markets force up interest rates on government debt. Even this government will have to stop the printing presses soon. The Treasury is seeking to reassure that sometime soon the government will take its deficit in hand and start to return it to more realistic levels. The second is the manic politics of this dying administration. Labour strategists think it would be a good idea to force the Tories hands, to smoke them out, to put them in a straightjacket for a future Parliament should they win. The government wants Conservatives to have to run on Labour spending plans for the next Parliament so they can portray them as the party of cuts.
It is one of the stupidest attempts at digging a poltical trap I have ever seen them attempt. No incoming Conservative government need feel bound by Labour spending plans, even if they are set out in law. All would expect a Conservative Chancellor, if one is victorious, to review the public finances urgently and produce a new set of spending plans tailored to the needs of the economy, the fears of the markets and the priorities of the new Parliament. It would be a minor matter to repeal or amend any Budget Law he inherits as part of his first Budget, with the Finance Bill offering the obvious legislative route to put things back on a more normal budget footing. There is no need for a Tory to walk into Labour’s trap. It can be sidestepped by behaving normally.
It will instead prove to be a trap for Labour. Now the Opposition does not need to have its own answer to the question how big need the cuts be. It will be able to say that halving the deficit by spending cuts is a necessary good start recommended by the government to its successor. These can rightly be seen as Labour cuts on Labour spending plans. Some of the balance of the deficit may be curbed by economic recovery. The Conservatives may wish to shift the priorities when they see the small print of the Labour plans in the Pre Budget statement. They need not incur Labour’s wrath by suggesting a different total, as Labour itself is proposing almost £100 billion of spending cuts or tax increases.




John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...