Showing the money
October 3rd, 2009 | This post was written by Fiona MelvilleNo, David, this isn’t going to be yet another of my doom and gloom, we’re all bankrupt posts…
Last week Gordon Brown announced a variety of policies in his conference speech. Some were good so let’s give him some credit: well done for nicking our idea of recalls for MPs. And I’m pleased that Labour are slowly slowly slooooowly inching back from ID cards – but honestly, I wish they would just get on with it. It would do them a lot more good. An all elected House of Lords – tick.
Some were appalling – when did Britain turn into the Handmaid’s Tale with ‘foyers’ full of unmarried mothers?
Some were bonkers – how on earth does he think he can instil morals into markets? People, yes; society, yes – but markets? And anyway a new law on bonuses isn’t the way to do that.
Some were unbelievable – do we really think this government is capable of paying off debt?
And some were just ridiculous. As in worthy of ridicule. Like the abolition of charges for personal care and for parking at hospitals. In an ideal world these are absolutely policies I’d support – but there are two problems here. One is we aren’t in an ideal world and there isn’t any money. The other – which for a change is a bigger one – is that the announcement is coming from the centre but the money is going to have to be found locally. There’s no more central money – so any savings which hospital trusts make locally will have to go into meeting these two new pledges.
So the number two problem then divides again. One, I think those sorts of decisions are best made by local communities, deciding together what’s best for them. Two, I thought we were supposed to be saving money to pay down the debt? That’s not what this sounded like at all.
Fundamentally, while I thought the speech itself was better delivered than normal, and had some pretty good sections (liked the bit about Labour’s achievements,; impressed by the fact that Brown has realised that elections are about the future not the past; thought the anti-Tory sections were better than normal though that’s not saying much), it was just the same old, same old. He spent money he doesn’t have, he thinks he can say ‘do!’ and everything will change, and he thinks people will believe him when the evidence of their own eyes is the opposite.
Or instead of reading all of this, you could just go and read the Guardian’s between the lines of the speech. Brilliant.
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Tags: Brown, Conference, Labour, Money
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