Friday, 20 June 2014

Labour too Tory to win! (letter to Guardian)

It is hardly surprising that, as Rafael Behr says, Miliband "struggles to explain how Britain would be different if he were in charge", when his policies on welfare and immigration look as though they`ve been pinched from the Tory manifesto.(To win in 2015, Labour must confront the "Ed problem",20/06/14) So intent on losing the "tax and spend" label for his party, Miliband has lost sight not only of what could win him the election, but also the reasons so many traditional Labour supporters voted Ukip last month. Making youth unemployment benefit "more conditional on claimants seeking training" looks just another Tory-style "youth-bashing" policy, especially when it is not allied with any.proposals to increase social mobility, and exacerbates the impression, as Rhiannon Lucy Coslett says, that the young "are being sacrificed to placate" older voters. (No wonder we whinge,20/06/14) Don`t young people have a vote in marginal seats? Out-gunning Tories on welfare, like trying to out-Gove Gove on education, will not win Labour the election!
      Unlike Damian McBride, I see nothing wrong with Miliband`s advisers attending "a symposium by the French economist, Thomas Piketty".(Underdog Miliband fends of internal criticism,20/06/14) After all, it is he who has de-bunked the Laffer curve nonsense, and who now advocates an 80% income tax on high-earners.Now that really would make a difference!

 

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