Privatisation will be the right’s answer to our ageing population. Labour needs a better argument if it is to win this battle
Back in the days when they couldn’t win an election to save their lives, despairing Tories would comfort themselves with the idea that the facts of life were still Conservative. Sure, New Labour was in power. But it could only stay there by operating within recognisably rightwing political parameters, and it couldn’t keep that act up for ever. Eventually the public would turn back to the real Conservatives.
To anyone who has spent the past decade insisting that the left is winning the argument, if not the actual election, this may sound maddeningly familiar. For as this week’s budget makes clear, the facts of life are arguably Labour now. On all the big economic questions – from taxes to climate change to the virtues of big state intervention during a pandemic – the right is losing the argument. There is broad cross-party consensus that taxes must rise, albeit fierce disagreement on who should pay them. Boris Johnson may balk at the practical sacrifices involved in reaching net zero, freezing petrol duty and cutting the cost of domestic flights days before a critical climate conference, but he no longer flirts with climate deniers. Like toddlers trying to walk in their mums’ high heels, Conservatives dressing up in leftwing ideas will never get it quite right, any more than pro-remain Labour MPs do when awkwardly trying to embrace Brexit. But what seemingly hasn’t yet dawned on much of the Tory party is that they’re stuck in these uncomfortable shoes for the long haul now.
Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading…from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3GxeMI5
from Tumblr https://ift.tt/3jNv4Tq
No comments:
Post a Comment