What I felt was a need to reply in more than 14o characters to answer three questions. The first is why it had been worth giving Corbyn a go. The second is why that did not work. The third is what now?
I’ve recounted several times, already, that despite the media suggestions I did not, as such, write Corbynomics. It’s true that a significant number (but not all) of the ideas in Jeremy’s economic manifesto (
which has now gone from his website, and of which I never seemed to keep an electronic copy) were written by me, but not for Jeremy per se, and certainly not in the way in which he presented them.
The
three main ideas are summarised here. They were more progressive taxation to create greater equality both as a matter of fact and to deliver justice in the way that the deficit was tackled. Second, the tax gap was to be tackled to provide funding and to create a level playing field for business. And third, People’s Quantitative Easing was, in combination with a National Investment Bank, to be used to fund a new industrial strategy. What the document did not say was what the overall vision was: it focussed on policies not philosophies but it rattled the mainstream media and much of Labour nonetheless.
A year on it’s hard to see why. Progressive taxation was hardly a surprising proposal from a left wing politician whilst closing the tax gap is just about everyone’s aim: the only problem was Jeremy used my £120 billion figure and did not make clear that not all of it could be collected.
And People’s Quantitative Easing now looks as if it will be delivered by the Tories. All were issues on which I had written extensively: of course I was going to support a politician who said they were going to use them.
So why didn’t things work out? There are four fundamental reasons.
The first was a lack of conviction. John McDonnell became shadow chancellor and the
first thing he said was he would sign up to George Osborne’s bizarre, and now abandoned, fiscal charter, guaranteeing a balanced budget. It was lunacy. I told him so. He still put it in his conference speech
only to have to U turn on it. But the damage was done, and has remained done. The message was clear: a Corbyn / McDonnell opposition was going to do economic policy on Tory ground. Radicalism disappeared and never returned.
Labour’s own fiscal charter is evidence of that: it was re-heated neoliberals Balls at best. If this was meant to be what left wing economics was meant to deliver then it looked very much more like a lot more of the same failed policies to me based on a total misunderstanding of what the role of the government in the economy actually is..
Second, Corbynomics disappeared. PQE, which had been the defining economic and industrial symbol of Jeremy’s election campaign – the policy that was going to deliver growth, jobs, new industry and hope – might well have never happened. It’s taken Stephen Crabb and Theresa May to revive it. In its place nothing was offered at all; just vague words at best for months and then reference to a National Investment Bank on occasion but nothing else.
Third, I had the opportunity to see what was happening inside the PLP. The leadership wasn’t confusing as much as just silent. There was no policy direction, no messaging, no direction, no co-ordination, no nothing. Shadow ministers appeared to have been left with no direction as to what to do. It was shambolic. The leadership usually couldn’t even get a press release out on time to meet print media deadlines and then complained they got no coverage.
Fourth, and critically, there was no vision. A team of economic advisers were set up, but never properly consulted, let alone listened to. Three enquiries, into the Treasury, Bank of England and HM Revenue & Customs were established and given far too long to report: none has as yet. I gather the tax report is in draft: I have not seen it. Whether it will be presented is anyone’s guess. The Bank of England study has collapsed with the departure of Danny Blanchflower. Of the Treasury report I haven’t a clue. The point is though that for coming on for a year now policy has been on hold for these reports and the world has moved on. That’s just not competent.
The same problem has been seen around Brexit and so many other issues. If Jeremy and John had known what they were doing these impasses would not have happened. The impression left is that they have created a movement that hates what’s happening in the world and can get really angry about it, but then has not a clue what to do about it.
If this movement was really visionary that would not be the case. Vision is about having a guiding principle that directs your actions. It is about what you want to achieve. It is positive. It can never be negative. So the Tories know they want to make the market ever friendlier for a limited number of businesses: that is apparent in all their policies, like it or not. All that I have got so far from the Labour left is a message of what it is opposed to. That’s something. But it’s a long way from being enough. Vision is about knowing what goes in something’s place and this is what I cannot see coming from Momentum or supporters like Paul Mason, whose book Post Capitalism in many ways typifies anti-visionary thinking by offering nothing of substance at the end of a long analysis.
Vision in required on the economy and what it is for; about the role of the private sector, and its banks; on tax and benefits and social justice; on health and so much more.
