Not good enough, Darling


by David Semple    
9:05 am - April 23rd 2009

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Credit where it’s due, Rahm Emmanuel masterfully pinched the jam-tomorrow glee of some nuttier revolutionaries when he said, “Never allow a crisis to go to waste, they are opportunities to do big things.” That is precisely what Alistair Darling has done with the new budget.

The crisis has gone to waste as the clock runs down on a Labour term of office. No mighty reforms to banking, more of the same tokenistic gestures (e.g. the £200 million to be raised by a 50% income tax band) and little else.

I’m probably being a bit too harsh, since there were some very helpful measures included – on pensioners, retraining for employment and on the carers of young people – but delivered with brevity and solemnity amid the jeers from the opposition benches, a 2009 “People’s Budget” it was not.

There was no watershed moment, excepting that the Labour leadership published a headline grabbing tax band whilst extending corporate subsidies through tax relief on profits for the last three years, without tying that to a promise to keep workers in jobs.

It should be painfully clear to even the Newest of New Labourites that the leadership has lost direction and focus. This is not to do with the individuals – it’s to do with an equivocation caused by NuLab’s realisation that they’ve been essentially abandoned.

By Labour activists, by the working class, by the wealthy (to whom New Labour offered so many anti-tax or PFI carrots) and by history.

Before the budget was announced, John Band made a good joke by saying that now is the time for socialists to rejoin Labour. I damn near looked at the calendar to see if it was April 1st.

The Labour Party’s internal democracy is corrupt (as if we needed Alice Mahon’s resignation letter, Erith & Thamesmead, or Calder Valley, to prove that!). The membership has been depoliticized; however abandoned Brown may be, there are still members touting David bloody Miliband or some other cabinet figures perceived as ‘more left.’

With its token populism, this budget has demonstrated that Labour’s leadership has not the inclination to turn back the clock on Labour policies. What it hasn’t demonstrated is that Labour’s leadership has lost control of the Party – in fact, it hasn’t. The same student hackery, the same policy wonkery, the same endless carousel of circle-jerking junkets is still going to produce leadership figures because it still has iron controls over parliamentary selection and over a marketing machine that invalidates internal democracy – and Conference is toothless besides.

The people in charge of Labour are champagne socialists and their control is nigh unshakeable. No leadership battle, no economic crisis is going to change just how far individuals can get by knowing the right people and mouthing the right platitudes.

In Labour, out of Labour; the difference has now been rendered irrelevant by a continued course of massive borrowing and no structural change. Amongst all those opposed to capitalism, we’ll swim together as we arrange protests, pickets and occupations, to derail what comes next or we’ll sink together. Such weapons as we need – new media to communicate and new methods of inspiring and organising the working class – we’ll have to fashion without reference to the leadership of any political party but according to our principles.

Otherwise we’re simply asking to repeat the whole situation all over again – and, as this budget and this crisis clearly demonstrate, we can’t afford that.

A longer version is over at my blog

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About the author
David Semple is a regular contributor. He blogs at Though Cowards Flinch.
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Story Filed Under: Blog ,Economy ,Equality


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Reader comments


1. Neil

Light the blue touchpaper and retire to a safe distance…

2. Dave Semple

What I didn’t explicitly mention in that article, and which gets discussed in the comments over at my blog are the cuts Darling’s budget pushes:

“The 2009 Budget announced a further £9bn on public service cuts, on top of the £5bn announced in the Pre-Budget Report. The Chancellor also announced £16bn of “asset sales”, which will include the privatisation of Royal Mail and the Royal Mint. This is a total of £30bn of public service cuts and privatisation.”
- Left Economics Advisory Panel.

3. cjcjc

This says it all:

http://blogs.ft.com/maverecon/2009/04/darling-is-doing-his-best-to-clean-up-browns-mess/

Brilliantly expressed.

4. vulpus_rex

“their control is unshakeable” – this is not true.

All it needs is for enough Labour bank benchers to grow a spine and vote with the opposition in a vote of no-confidence. There must surely be some who are considering it.

The Labour party then faces a long, long time in the wliderness but that can easily be employed to wrest control back from the champagne socialists and deliver it to people who have earned a stab at control rather than had it handed to them.

The events in E&T and Clder Valley show the mood is unhappy and grassroots supporters have reached a tipping point and the norm will now be to resist the abuse of electoral process.

5. Alex

“the £200 million to be raised by a 50% income tax band”

Where did that £200 million figure come from? Everywhere else I’ve seen claim it will be at least £1 bn.

6. Dave Semple

I’m pretty sure it was either Cameron or Clegg who mentioned that the Red Book predicted gains of £200 million by such a tax – though Clegg’s full speech isn’t on YouTube (or at least I can’t find it just yet) and Cameron’s full speech is a bit mangled by whoever put it up.

7. cjcjc

Well the IFS has said that the 45% rate would have reduced the tax take as high earners will take more active steps to avoid it. We’ll see what they say about the 50% rate.

At best it’s tokenistic. At worst it might lead to lower receipts.

Typical Brown stupidity. (I won’t blame the puppet.)

8. MatGB

For once, I agree with CJCJC. The Lib Dems had a 50% tax for high earners policy, but analysis by tax experts said it wasn’t going to make any money at all. Far better to close loopholes and sort out anomalies in capital gains.

Which is why the policy was dumped in favour of the current policy, which would take the capital gains system back to what it was like before Brown’s reforms, and raise a lot more money from the wealthiest.

Darling knows all of this, it’s gesture politics to placate people that don’t. Utterly pointless and counter productive

9. Diversity

Dave is quite right about the Budget. It does not begin to match up to what is needed nor to what people know is needed.

But there is an alternative to wasting the next few years futilely marching, protesting and occupying against a know-nothing New Con/Lab political establishment. Vince Cable is not a socialist, but the LibDems are a long way more sensible, more responsive to real needs and more intent on getting power to the people than the other two.

10. Dave Semple

Diversity, whilst I respect many Lib Dems, the Lib Dems are not an alternative. Even if we take it as read (red? haha) that they are more progressive than Labour, their policies do not hold the solutions to the current economic crisis – as Chris Dillow clearly points out in his most recent article for this site.

Indeed, the only reason for socialists ever to join Labour was not to do with the policies of their leadership but was because socialists had a hand in founding the party, and the meaning and dominant traditions of the party were at stake with every internal battle. That’s not the case with the Liberals, still less with the Lib Dems.

It is the question direct political engagement which motivates me in this article – whether party political membership or campaigning. Two prime reasons being a) the Lib Dems are not going to win power and b) even if they did, it would simply mean that it would be them we need to campaign against, since they still wouldn’t solve our problems – merely some of them.

Incidentally, I’ll probably be voting Green at the next election.

11. Lee Griffin

“their policies do not hold the solutions to the current economic crisis – as Chris Dillow clearly points out in his most recent article for this site.”

I think the time has come to ask if there is a solution out of the crisis? We can certainly get ourselves to a stage where the nation is no longer living under recession conditions, but no matter who you vote for this crisis will run and run as we pay it off.

If that’s a certainty, and it seems to be, then I’d rather go with a party that is willing to restructure the tax system to benefit the poorest and therefore most hard hit during these tough times. The Tories and Labour are not able to take that accolade.


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
  1. Liberal Conspiracy

    New post: Not good enough, Darling http://tinyurl.com/cufnwj

    [Original tweet]

  2. The Labour party then faces a long, long time in the wliderness « Various Philosophies of Cynicism

    [...] Over at LC Dave Semple did a post about how Darling’s budget wasn’t good enough – and I agree with him – even using Rahm Emmanuel’s “Don’t waste a crisis” quote – Darling missed that by a mile – he could, as I said yesterday, have done so much more. [...]

  3. The Labour party then faces a long, long time in the wilderness « Various Philosophies of Cynicism

    [...] Over at LC Dave Semple did a post about how Darling’s budget wasn’t good enough – and I agree with him – even using Rahm Emmanuel’s “Don’t waste a crisis” quote – Darling missed that by a mile – he could, as I said yesterday, have done so much more. [...]





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