In his regular iC column, TV politics pundit ANDREW FISHER looks at the daunting mess left in the in-tray for any new government next year
Overload: the in-tray for any new government is getting bigger by the day
This year has been a rough one – living standards have fallen again, NHS waiting lists have got longer and more children than ever will spend Christmas without a home to call their own.
Early in the New Year, our energy bills will rise again, by an above-inflation 5%, and Council Tax is likely to be hiked again by 5%, while our council cuts even more services. Pay more, get less.
In the last week, the man who will likely become Prime Minister in 2024, Keir Starmer, has said he “won’t turn on the spending taps” if he enters Downing Street next year.
Back in September, I worked with the former shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell MP, to produce a report What’s in the in-tray of an incoming Labour government? (which you can download here: https://bit.ly/labourintrayreport).
It is 20 years ago this month that I started working in John McDonnell’s office, where I spent six years. During that time, McDonnell would present alternative budgets to the policies being put forward by Chancellors Gordon Brown or the late Alistair Darling. It was a means of showing what is possible, with political will.
With the economy stagnant, unemployment rising and living standards falling, we need more than ever an honest debate about the situation facing us. Too much of today’s politics is substance-free spin and empty rhetoric, and the only qualification for high office seems to be tribal loyalty. Look at the state we’re in as a result …
As McDonnell wrote in the introduction to our report, it “sets out the scale of the challenge facing an incoming Labour government if it is to improve the situation facing our economy, our public services and our people”.
Alternative vision: John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor. And Andrew Fisher’s old boss
Across a range of public services there is severe underfunding and chronic understaffing. Resolving these issues isn’t just something that would be “nice to do”.
It is absolutely critical not only to get public services working properly once more, but to get the economy working again, too.
On a conservative estimate, we calculated that it would take around £70billion extra spending a year to get public services back on track – filling vacancies, clearing backlogs and meeting basic targets.
Take the National Health Service: there are now 7.8million people waiting for operations on the NHS (the largest backlog in NHS history); there are more than 100,000 staff vacancies (we have fewer GPs now than we had a decade ago, despite a rising and ageing population).
Then there is social care, a sector where again there are more than 100,000 staff vacancies – and according to Age UK, 2.6million people with unmet care needs. In Croydon, the council cut the adult social care budget by £12.5million while hiking Council Tax by 15%.
And that leads us on to councils, who have lost a cumulative £100billion-plus in funding in the last decade or so. It is estimated that increasing council funding to 2010 levels to restore services would cost approximately £15billion per year.
Just this past week, Nottingham has joined the growing ranks of councils issuing a Section 114 notice – an admission of effective bankruptcy. Sir Stephen Houghton, the leader of Barnsley Council, is the chair of the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities. They have surveyed their member councils and found “30% of our members risked issuing a Section 114 notice in the next two years”, according to Sir Stephen.
Austerity 2.0: how the Grauniad reported Keir Starmer’s stated intention to follow Tory spending plans
At some point, the government is going to have to increase funding and write off these debts, or statutory services will not be met.
None of this is news to people in Croydon. Our council has already issued three Section 114 notices, and despite the largest Council Tax hike in the country last year, is apparently weighing up whether to issue another. Services are collapsing and the council is wasting scarce resources by going to court to try avoid its legal responsibilities.
In our schools, too, there is a teacher recruitment and retention crisis, and schools funding is set to decline in the coming years. Labour will need to “turn on the spending taps”, especially if it is to upskill the workforce to deliver what shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves calls its “Green Prosperity Plan”.
Labour needs to understand why it has a poll lead. It is because people are fed up with the damage the Tories have done to the economy and our public services. Unless an incoming Labour government starts putting things right, that frustration is going to rapidly transfer onto them.
As John McDonnell and I conclude in the report: “Our country desperately needs a Labour government to be successful in addressing the appalling legacy of a broken Britain that it will inherit from the Conservatives. To be successful it will need an honest appraisal of the scale of the problems that need to be tackled, an effective policy programme sufficient to meet this challenge, and also clarity on how much this programme will cost and how it is to be funded.”
Honesty and straight-talking in politics? You never know. It might catch on …
The signs aren’t good though. In the latest act of hubris, the Labour Party’s ruling National Executive Committee claims that 154 of the 165 recommendations set out in the Forde Report – which investigated allegations of bullying, racism, sexism and factionalism within the Labour Party – have now been implemented. Job done!
It must be inconvenient that following alleged acts of factional data manipulation, and even vote-rigging, the selection of Labour’s candidate for Croydon East was suspended at the end of November. Members have heard nothing since.
The NEC was told it was all down to local factors and would be resolved soon. Members look forward to open and transparent explanation .
As well as the BBC’s Politics Live, Radio 4’s Today and various other broadcast outlets, Andrew Fisher is a regular guest on The Croydon Insider, the podcast that analyses the latest news from inside Croydon. Click here to listen to his contribution in this month’s episode (requires subscription)- From 2015 to 2019, Andrew Fisher was the Labour Party’s Director of Policy under Jeremy Corbyn. He is a former chair of the Croydon Central Constituency Labour Party. Fisher is also the author of The Failed Experiment – and how to build an economy that works, and now writes regular columns for InsideCroydon
Andrew Fisher’s recent columns:
- ‘Teetering on the edge’: Hunt does nothing for local councils
- ‘Donkey jackets’, nod-sense and the wisdom of old Harry Patch
- Labour pledge goes walkabout as Reed drops right-to-roam
- Starmer’s Labour conference left lots of unanswered questions
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SIXTH successive year in 2022 in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Well done, Andrew Fisher. Your generation has to clean up the mess. It won’t be easy, but it has to be done.
Red Andy is right about honesty – a rare commodity amongst today’s grifting politicians. But it will take a miracle to get true socialists to vote for the dull Thatcher-loving ‘Sir’ Keir and his ceasefire denying cronies.