Sunday 22 July 2018

Labour`s pre-election homework

With May`s government continuing to rack up crisis after crisis, rift after rift, it becomes ever clearer that Jeremy Corbyn has a wonderful chance of entering No.10 in the not too distant future. It is not, however, inevitable, especially as the right-wing press will do its utmost to prevent it.
      It was antagonistic enough during the last election, with Corbyn joking about the number of Daily Mail pages devoted to criticising him from every angle, and that was when Labour was thought to have little chance of victory! Now that the chance has increased, imagine what will be thrown Labour`s way in the weeks building up to the election. The deluge of anti-Corbynism which will flow from the Mail and Murdoch press will be unprecedented, which is why Labour must not only be prepared to counter all the allegations, it must, to use an old rugby phrase, "get its retaliation in first".
     One of Blair`s many problems was, that having won the 1997 election, he was too afraid of the press, and unwilling to antagonise it; it led to a refusal to regulate and tax sufficiently. Corbyn is unlikely to make the same mistake, but he and his shadow cabinet colleagues must prepare the ground in advance.
      Make no mistake, Corbyn`s nationalisation pledges will be seen in right wing circles as the return of communism, Stalinism and gulags. Labour`s case for nationalisation of the railways is strong and popular, and if the programme is stretched further, plenty of figures must be made public prior to the media`s attack. In fact, figures are crucial; they must be accurate, and used by all Labour MPs and candidates to show how taxpayers have been ripped off by the privatised companies, and their rich shareholders.
      Labour will be criticised for pledging to borrow too much, so the figures need to be accurate, not only showing how in recent history,Tory governments have borrowed more than Labour ones, but stressing how the present low interest rates make it almost criminal for a British government not to be borrowing to invest.
      The pledge on higher taxes will be seen as an attack on aspiration, or some such nonsense, and inevitably the Laffer Curve will be used to prove the rich actually pay less when the rates go up. Labour must be prepared to challenge this, explaining its origins in the Reagan days, when the president needed an excuse to lower taxes on America`s most wealthy. The media will attempt to show how Labour wants to increase taxes for everyone, so again figures must be learned by everyone about which people will actually pay more income tax, and repeated frequently.
      When it comes to corporation tax increases, the press will try to show how firms will take their business elsewhere as a result; the figures this time must refer to the higher rates of corporation tax imposed in countries enjoying far more economic success. There are plenty of them!
   Labour`s policies on defence will be attacked, and here the tactic could be to emphasise how the first line of any government`s defence should be against illness, disease, and ignorance, which is why the government`s deliberate underfunding of the NHS and schools is so shameful. Not to mention, of course, the understaffing of food safety agencies, and HMRC (again up-to-date figures required!) which makes a lie of Tory promises to check tax avoidance and evasion!
  Unless Brexit policies are clarified, more problems will arise, and more opportunities for the right wing press to attack will be offered. Whatever they are, all Labour supporters must be urged to support them.
     The election is there for the taking, but Tory ability to recover from disaster must not be underestimated. Tories will have the majority of the media behind them, which makes Labour preparations all the more urgent, not forgetting, too, the small matter of getting young people to register! Recent history proves how the lack of figures, or the presentation of inaccurate ones, can ruin a politician`s reputation. No labour politician can afford to relax; they all have plenty of homework to do!

No comments:

Post a Comment