Common Endeavour

The crunch has been bad for the Conservatives. Unlike some other observers, they failed to recognize the warning signs of a huge, dodgy-debt-fuelled asset bubble. They failed to propose alternative monetary and regulatory policies when those might have sheltered the UK from some of the worst fallout after the detonation of the great Anglo-Saxon Ponzi bomb. They were also afraid---as this government has been and politicians usually are---to criticize the greed and recklessness of many voters that contributed to the unclear winter of 08--09.

Both parties have been shocked by the speed and severity of the downturn, but Labour are in power and, whatever you might think of the things they are doing, they are clearly doing things. This is not an option for an opposition---and Labour have banged away at this effectively. For a short period around the time of the collapse of the Northern Rock bank, "government of national unity" noises emerged from the necks of the recently decapitated Conservative barnyard cluckers. That mood didn't last long. Now, David Cameron has decided to march out of the hen house with his chest stuck out.

Recent hints that the shadow cabinet was going to revert to making more traditionally Tory noises as well as to grub seriously around the farmyard for votes have turned into something more concrete. The crunch is no longer an external shock caused by those vulgar spendthrift Yanks; Gordon was to blame, as sadly were some of those naughty voters---not you, you hardworking Britons, of course. So now it's now time to:

• Attack Labour's recovery plan directly and
• Bribe the Oldies.

These combined in a speech by David Cameron yesterday. He pledged that if the Conservatives came to power, his government would:

scrap the tax on savings for basic rate taxpayers and to increase tax-free allowances for pensioners

British pensioners are, whatever their interest groups try to tell you, mostly better off (asset rich) than the rest of the population---80% of the country's private wealth is in the hands of over-50s---but they are also often dependent on income earned from interest payments, which, in a low interest rate environment, may appear smaller than they actually are.

The Tories' new line is simple to explain: the two most important statistics about Oldies that a cocky young man after votes must know are:

• As time goes by, there are more and more of them, and,
• They vote early and often in a way young people never will.

It's clear that the Tories don't seem particularly bothered by one of the risks of this policy announcement: that people will ask where the money is coming from. They've noticed, rightly, that panic and a kind of collective anti-Great-Depression-II imperative have gripped the media and that representatives of HMG have found themselves in the strange position when they can trump the question "How can we afford it?" with "How can we not afford it?" The result is that the Conservatives have resorted to that old favourite of shadow governments and waved their hands hopefully at "lower public spending".

In itself, the Tories' new policy proposals are silly and as pointless as a parasol under a mushroom cloud (and I suspect they know this), but the tactical shift they signal also carries a serious political risk which is, in a way, a mirror of the original one presented by the crunch. If the Conservative front bench continues its all-out attack on the government's crisis policies; what happens if, by the time of the next General Election, those policies look like they're starting to work?

Here's more commentary on that speech, from Conor Ryan, Tom Freeman, and Chris Dillow.

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About the author:  A war-mongering, anti-communist technocrat who spanks bloggertarians because they like it Read more from this author

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