SOMETIMES you have to wonder who won the last General Election.
Of course we all have memories of Jeremy Corbyn losing the December ballot. And the Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran still isn’t our Foreign Secretary. So Corbyn must have lost. But to look at some doings of Boris Johnson’s Tory Government there is reason to doubt it.
Consider one of the stories that warned people off Labour at the last election. It was said that Jeremy Corbyn was planning an £83billion tax robbery on the public. Based on spending plans that would have taken this country back to the 1970s.
But look at the cash the current Government has been splashing around.
Borrowing in the first quarter of this year was £128billion — more than £100billion above the same period last year.
Indeed, Government spending since April has been the highest on record. No government has been on such a spending spree since World War Two.
Of course, these have been unusual months. No government in the world was well prepared for a pandemic like the one that came in from China earlier this year.
There are few easy answers in the era of Covid. But only in Britain is the answer to everything a left-wing one.
In the US, President Trump has been urging the American economy to get going again.
He has encouraged people Stateside to be brave and to boom again.
For private business to roar back into action.
Compare that with the UK, where the public have been so terrified into our homes that a quarter of us say we won’t come out of lockdown even after all the conditions for lifting it are met.
It seems Eat Out To Help Out has helped restaurants to recover — but we need to be prised out of our homes every day of the week, not just Monday to Wednesday.
It’s the same on everything. Even on our history and culture.
When gangs of activists started tearing down statues around the world in June, other world leaders stood up to the mob.
President Macron of France took an especially firm stance. The French Republic “will not erase any trace, or any name, from its history” he said. “It will not take down any statue.”
Compare that with this country, where a Conservative government sat quiet for days as hooligans assailed the Cenotaph.
Boris Johnson stayed silent even as the statue of his personal hero Winston Churchill was boxed up for its own safety.
It is understandable in some ways. Our Prime Minister became very ill after contracting the coronavirus.
But even that has produced left-wing, nanny-state answers.
Being overweight increases the risk of complications after getting the virus. The fact that Boris isn’t slim didn’t help. But look at the solutions he has come up with.
Instantly the Government started announcing campaigns to “tackle obesity”. Boris Johnson called on the public to “get your weight down a bit and protect your health”.
Spending: Estimated cost of his manifesto was £1.2trillion.
Debt: Borrow more than £106billion to meet election promises.
Railways: Re-nationalise the entire network.
Wealth: Threaten to tax all inheritances above £125,000.
NHS: Increase health budget by 4.3 per cent.
Wages: Universal Basic Income to give every person a fixed sum to cover the basics, whether they are rich or poor, in work or jobless.
Low-paid: Raise mimimum wage to £10 an hour within a year.
Nanny state: Increased use of sin taxes and ban on junk food ads on TV before 9pm.
Spending: Overseen biggest increase in public spending since World War Two.
Debt: Borrowed £128billion in the first quarter of this year.
Railways: Nationalised with emergency legislation to suspend rail franchise system for six months and provide refunds to ticket holders.
Wealth: A review of capital gains tax launched, raising the possibility rich will be targeted to plug budget black hole.
NHS: Enshrined in law a £33.9billion increase in annual NHS spending by 2023/24. Plus an extra £6billion over next four years. Plan to cut corporation tax ditched.
Wages: The state is paying 80 per cent of the wages of 9.6million people from 1.2million different employers this month under the furlough scheme running since April.
Low paid: National Living Wage is now £8.72 an hour.
Nanny state: Junk food ads banned on TV before 9pm.
And why? For the same reason every other order we are given. To protect the NHS.
There’s a lot to be said for the health service. But it exists to protect the public. The public do not exist simply to protect the NHS.
Of course, we will now see a slew of the usual campaigns such as the one to ban pre-watershed advertising for “junk food”. I doubt even Corbyn’s Labour Party at this stage would have been telling us what to eat.
On issue after issue, it is the same thing. There was a time when the Conservative Party favoured the privatisation of things such as the railway system.
Today they seem to be gearing up for a renationalisation of them.
At the same time, there is a promise for an endless campaign to get everybody on bicycles, using public money to do so. Our city centres have clogged traffic lanes — and now have clear, empty cycle lanes, many of which have popped up without consultation.
In case after case, we are seeing policies that would have made Jezza proud.
Like endless promises to raise the wages of staff in the public sector.
Nobody doubts there are parts of the sector that could do with a pay rise. But who is going to pay for that? What magic money tree does this Tory government expect to be able to shake?
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has made himself popular by his constant cash giveaway. But all the time the question grows: Who is going to pay for all this?
I doubt Sunak will be so popular once he starts to ask for the money back.
For decades our politics have followed the same pattern. Labour governments come in to a good economy and leave office with a wrecked one. This time it is a Conservative government’s turn to wreck the economy.
It is a lot for voters to stomach. They might, in unusual times. But only so long as this Government doesn’t look like on every other issue it is red all the way through.
So far, that IS what it looks like. And it needs to change. This country needs to roar again, not mew. We need to boom, not cower. And we need to encourage the private sector, not just endlessly praise the public one.
Of course these are exceptional times, but Boris Johnson must remember these key Tory instincts: Low taxes, incentive for business and smaller government.
If that is going to happen, a lot of things will need doing. But the first is to leave the spectre of Jezza behind. Not smuggle him into the centre in a Tory disguise.
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