Your choice on May 6th

by Mark

Many people believe that all the political parties are essentially the same, and that it’s time we taught Labour a lesson by voting them out of office. This has historically meant replacing them with the Tories, but I think the question of who should run the country deserves a more compelling answer.

If you vote Conservative, you’re choosing tax breaks for millionaires over jobs for teachers. It sounds polemical, but this is a fact, and not one disputed by the Conservative party. Allow me to demonstrate.

The Conservative Party Manifesto claims that four million households are caught in Gordon Brown’s Inheritance Tax “trap” and outlines a policy that “will raise the Inheritance Tax threshold to £1 million, taking the family home out of Inheritance Tax altogether for the vast majority of people”1. What they don’t say is that the current threshold of £300,000 already precludes the vast majority of family homes from being liable for Inheritance Tax2. They also claimed this policy would “help millions of people who aspire to pass something on to their children”, in fact only 8,000 homes (worth between £300,000 and £1 million) would be lifted out of Inheritance Tax liability completely, while a further 3,000 (worth more than £1 million) would be partially helped. Either a lot of people are living in each of these homes3, or they are being economical with the truth.

Inheritance Tax raised around £3 billion last year4. This is more than the budgets for pre-primary, primary and secondary education all put together5.

The Tories’ planned cut would cost the treasury £1.8 billion a year, and their plans for bridging this gap are pretty insubstantial6. This is the worst kind of regressive, invidious tax break for the rich few, paid for by the many, that causes so many to regard the Conservative party with deeply held suspicion and distrust. They are right to do so.

Let’s examine another of their other flagship policies: tax breaks for married people. Sounds innocuous enough — especially if you’re married — even if it is only worth a maximum of £3 a week. But the less well-publicised side to this offer is that you can only claim it if you are the only one of the partnership who works. So for all the insistence that “although it may only be a gesture, it is a positive one nonetheless that reinforces the state’s commitment to marriage as an institution”, it can equally be seen as a gesture of the state’s commitment to the subjugation of women7. It evokes the stereotype of old-fashioned, bigoted Conservatism that the party has worked so hard to try to dispel.

It’s also a gesture that even in these frugal times, when public services and benefits to disadvantaged people are threatened with cuts, the government can afford to give token tax breaks to the people who least need them. They criticise Labour for failing to address the growing gap between rich and poor, but they openly pursue policies which would undoubtedly exacerbate the problem.

Elsewhere we find more indicators that the Thatcherist free-market ideology associated with the old Tories, the credibility of which has been so damaged by the global economic crisis, is still at the root of many modern Tory policies.

This includes, critically, their economic policy, in contrast with Labour’s broadly successful Keynesian interventionist approach (also used with great success in the States and elsewhere). The success of this policy is particularly marked when compared with the likes of Ireland, which followed plans that are still being endorsed by the British Conservative Party, and now find themselves in so much trouble (while UK unemployment levels are below what was forecast by the IMF, Irish unemployment is double the forecast89.

Looking deeper we find ambitions to switch social care to a US-style voluntary insurance model, just as the US leaves this discredited, costly and unfair system behind10, and ideas to outsource education, policing and healthcare to the public at large, the logical conclusion of which — as the only agents realistically capable of running these services outside of government are in enterprise — is privatisation. The Tory prospectus would bring the same deregulated free-market forces that worked so well for the economic sector into our schools, hospitals and police stations.

So is this really the change that the British public is looking for?

I don’t think so, and I believe that the reason many lower- and middle-class people — who only stand to lose were the Conservatives to be elected — intend to vote for it anyway, is because of the insidious, though increasingly visible, influence of the Conservative media.

Since removing its backing from the previously subservient Labour party, the Murdoch media empire has bet the farm on a Conservative government, and intends to bring its not inconsiderable influence to bear to ensure that it gets one. For a price, of course11, payable on taking government. In return, Tom Newton Dunn, the Sun’s political editor, is reported to have recently proclaimed “It is my job to see that Cameron fucking well gets into Downing Street”, and his paper (amongst others) is demonstrably doing the best it can to make it happen, through fair means or foul12.

Former Sun editor David Yelland, writing in the Guardian last week, exposes the vice-like grip of the right-wing press on political process, and, in revealing that the Lib Dems have hitherto been too insignificant to attract the attentions of it, provides all the reason I would have needed to support them.

But I had already made up my mind to support them before I read this (and indeed before Nick Clegg’s appearance on the first televised leader’s debate catapulted him and his party into the public consciousness). I believe that under the photogenic surface, they really do represent a fresh approach. In contrast to the outdated ideologies and dogma of the traditional parties is a different style, a blueprint for evidence-based government.

The Lib Dem science policy spokesman, member of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, formidable exponent of evidence-based policy, and general scourge of bullshit13, Dr Evan Harris, spells out a compelling vision (and one that is backed up by their manifesto14) of a future Britain made Great again by investing heavily in science and technology, so building a stable foundation for recovery from economic misadventure and towards a more prosperous future.

It sounds terribly corny, but I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that in this election we have a choice to make between fear, and hope.

I know which one I’d rather be a part of.

  1. Source: http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Economy.aspx ↩
  2. The average UK house value in 2009 — including London — was £219,832, coming in comfortably under the threshold ↩
  3. By my calculations, assuming “millions” means more than 2 million, that would mean at least 182 people living in each house. ↩
  4. To be precise, £2.85 billion for the year 2008-2009. Source: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/tax_receipts/table1-2.pdf ↩
  5. At £2.7 billion for 2009. Source: http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_education_spending_20.html#ukgs302 ↩
  6. Source: http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/2010/03/15/closing-the-non-dom-black-hole/ ↩
  7. I know, it’s a stretch, but so is the idea that £3 a week will encourage stronger marriages. ↩
  8. Source: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2010/01/pdf/c3.pdf (chart on page 19) ↩
  9. There are a lot of contentious points here, I acknowledge, but I plan to go into more detail on the economy in a future essay ↩
  10. Source: http://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/04/tory-social-care-policies-will-hit-the-poor-hardest/ ↩
  11. Compare James Murdoch’s speech at the Edinburgh International Television Festival to Conservative media policy (this piece by Jonathan Freedland does the job for you) and tell me if you can spot the difference. I can’t. ↩
  12. Some examples of the foul: failing to cover a poll showing the Liberal Democrats are less feared by the electorate than the Tories or Labour, printing anti-Clegg stories complete with a soapbox for Conservative heavyweight Ken Clarke, blanket coverage of minor Lib Dem infractions and pro-Tory propaganda in their Election column, and perhaps even leaving fake and incriminating documents in a taxi? Perhaps not, but it’s an awfully convenient thing to have happened by coincidence. ↩
  13. You can read all about his credentials on the Skeptical Voter wiki here. He doesn’t mess about. ↩
  14. See the Guardian’s assessment of their science policies here ↩