All we need now is Spandau Ballet

              I am sat writing this the evening before the first full budget of our 2nd Tory chancellor of the last 20 years, Philip Hammond MP. We have now had a full 6 years of Tory chancellors - even if for 5 of those they were supported in Parliament by a weak and ineffective coalition partner in the Lib Dems. So, it is probably worth looking at how well those Tory chancellors and governments have done for us. By us, I mean the great British working classes. I include in that those of us lucky enough to be working, and those of us who for whatever reason can't or aren't working at the moment. It is also right and fair to measure those chancellors against what they set out as their own priorities. After all, it is not fair to only measure them against things they never promised to do.

              Like most economists (and other political writers) it would be really easy for me to fall into jargon and measures that most people don't understand. Who really feels GDP, deficit, debt ratios? Whilst I want to steer clear of these as much as possible - they are necessary to consider. Mainly because these were the measures which George Osborne and then Philip Hammond have measured themselves against. But there are other measures that they feed into - and these do matter. These are how well-off we as individuals feel, and the future prospects for the economy. As well as these, there are other factors that matter - how well funded and effective our public services are; how much tax we pay and how many of us are in gainful employment.

              Coming into power in 2010 was never going to be easy for any government. The world was still reeling from a financial crisis, caused by global banks, that was as severe as The Great Depression. This was impacting pretty much every country - though some worse than others. In the UK because we had bailed out the banks here we had a massive public sector debt (the amount the government owes) that had risen from under 40% to around 65% a the time of the General Election. This was the worst of all worlds - it was driven by an increasing amount of debt from bailing out the banks, a shrinking economy and a growing deficit. The deficit or surplus is the difference between how much the government is earning (basically through taxation) compared to how much it spends (on services for the people). 

             So whichever Chancellor came in had to do one (or all) of 3 things - grow the economy, reduce the deficit and / or reduce the overall debt the government had. The prevailing idea from George Osborne (and presumably supported at that point by the public) was to reduce the deficit, within 5 years, and thereby start to pay down the debt levels. Surely we could return to surplus? After all, we had run a surplus for the overwhelming majority of the Blair years, after the deficit laden years of the Thatcher government. This therefore gave rise to the austerity agenda - the aim being to reduce how much the government spent to get in line with what they earned. 

             But the Tories also inherited a number of other problems and benefits at that time. For example, we had an NHS that was the best in the world, as proven by a number of international comparative studies. This was not only in terms of the service provided, but also how much it cost to provide. Gone were the days of waiting on trolleys in corridors. We had improved standards across schools. Whilst not all of the policies used were particularly popular, they were, mostly, working. Sure Start and EMA were supported by all parties as right and necessary because of the benefits to social well-being. The unemployment rate however had taken a marked increase - meaning fewer people were working - whilst this had stayed stable around the 5% mark for the majority of the Blair years this shot up as a result of the global banking crisis to 7.5%. This had been a massive improvement - during the Thatcher years it had been between 7.5% and 10% for almost the entire period. 

            So across those areas, how have the Tories done? Well, let's look at deficit and debt reduction, unemployment, amount we pay in tax, and those services mentioned above one at a time. 

Debt & Deficit

Since 2010, the debt as a share of GDP (the most reliable measure) has increased from 65% to 85%. In money terms, these 6 years have added £1trillion of debt. That is debt which our government must now pay back. More worryingly, the deficit is still at 3%. We were meant to be rid of both of those things by now. In fact, neither has been delivered on. We are worse off than we were. 

Unemployment

Here, it appears, we have good news. The unemployment rate has seen a steady downward trend. It has moved from a recent high of 8.5% to 4.8%. We should all be celebrating, shouldn't we? Well, it isn't quite so rosy. 700,000 of those new jobs are zero hours contracts. That is 700,000 people who don't know if they will have work from one day to the next. We may as well go back to the days of the Labour exchange. Workers earnings have not increased - which you would expect from high employment. More people can say they have a job, but more than ever don't have enough money coming in to actually survive. So we must remain cautious if we want to say this is good news.

Taxation

The level of government taxation - ie how much they take out of the economy each year to pay for public services has now increased back to levels last seen in 1986. So whilst they have spectacularly failed to reduce the deficit, they have done that whilst taking more of your money from you. Not only that, but the source of that tax has become far less friendly for you. Much less is being taken from big businesses and wealthy individuals. Instead, more tax is being taken from your wallet, by way of increases in VAT and Insurance Premium Tax. They have openly and actively taken from the poor to give to the rich. A true reverse Robin Hood. 

Public services

Well, Sure Start and EMA didn't survive the first year under the Tories. Our health service is once again falling apart. This winter we had the worst performance during the winter since we started measuring such things. Junior doctors went out on strike - previously unheard of. In education there are experts, councillors (of all parties), headteachers and MPs screaming at the government to address the lack of funding. What it the response of the current government? To instead set aside money for their pet project of grammar schools and free schools. Just consider that, any extra money they find is not going to your child's school - but to open a new one that you have no say over. Teachers are leaving the profession in droves, and recruitment of new ones is drying up. We are back to poor services where only the wealthy will be okay. 

                  So, it is amazing that we find ourselves here again. A government that can't get spending under control, where services are so poor they are a laughing stock, where only the wealthy are benefitting. Things haven't been this bad across so many measures since the early 1980s. Some would argue that there are other similarities - for example a Labour leader who is painted as a dangerous leftie by the media and who doesn't seem either willing or able to shake off the tag. What is worrying is that against this backdrop the Tories are still enjoying electoral success. This really should be a wake up call and warning to the Labour Party. The question is whether they are listening - or repeating the internal fights of the 1980s. Only time will tell. The problem is, how much of a country will we have left at the end of it?

The greatest battle

I understand that we all have our own battles, our own focus and our own drive. What makes us feel this most is generally our own experience or what we see other people experiencing. There are some news stories that just ring a bell and we are out of our seat and swinging. I am telling you this so that you understand why I am publishing a badly written and anger-filled blog instead of trying (as I normally do, really) to build an argument based on logic, evidence and conclusion. Really, you can blame the next ten minutes of reading on my upbringing.

                I am talking about a news story last week that has been picked up by the BBC in relation to failing children on social mobility http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35120792 and also picked up by the Guardian. Obviously, the Telegraph, Times, Daily Mail and Sun are saving themselves to splash on to the front page the fact that David Cameron was talking out of his arse when he pretended to give a damn about this during the last couple of elections. Clearly, a shrewd move setting up a Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission and putting Alan Milburn in charge of it – after all, this counts as action doesn’t it?

Clearly, it doesn’t. The Commission’s first report is out since the General Election– you remember that don’t you – an Etonian Prime Minister, supported by his Etonian friends standing in front of 10 Downing Street saying he wanted to make Britain “a place where a good life is in reach for everyone who is willing to work and do the right thing”. How they must have laughed into their piles of family money and unattainable privilege about that one afterwards. The report from the commission (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/state-of-the-nation-2015-report-published ) doesn’t make easy reading if you feel passionately that this is an intrinsically unfair country OR if you fell for the crap that he was selling.

                To set the scene of where this current government is taking us, the Commission itself said this

 “In our report last year we warned that without a dramatic change in approach to how governments, employers and educators tackled child poverty and social mobility, Britain would become a permanently divided nation. Nothing we have seen in the last 12 months has made us change our view.”

Nothing has changed. Nothing has improved. What is probably more disturbing is that the actions of the last two governments would appear to be directly opposed to the objective it pretends it has set itself. It is still a sad fact that in our country if you are born rich and stupid you are far more likely to end up with a high-earning job than if you are poor and gifted (and for a worked example of this see Boris Johnson). How can this be right? Even the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child makes it clear what we need to do: “2. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child's parents, legal guardians, or family members.” (Part 1, Article 2, para 2).

I do not think at the moment we are even close to achieving that. There are 1 million children living in persistent poverty. 1 million children living in persistent poverty. Yet, we are told that unemployment is the lowest it has ever been, that wages have started to rise. You would be forgiven for expecting a “you’ve never had it so good” speech at any moment. There are a lot of factors to this. The most obvious ones appear to be the collision of zero hours contracts and the attack on in-work benefits. Whilst we may have increased employment, how much of this is valuable employment? When there are 700,000 people on zero hours contracts (http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/feb/25/zero-hours-contract-rise-staff-figures) and this government are trying to push through ever tighter rules on financial aid it makes you wonder how keen they really are. When families are faced by the bedroom tax making decisions onwhether they eat or whether they stay warm? How are you meant to grow, develop and achieve in circumstances where all you can think about is the hunger in your belly and the misery in your families faces? 

Then we get this government promising us jam tomorrow – by way of a “living wage” – which even when it is FULLY implemented will not achieve the living wage called for by the Living Wage Commission. We only have to wait 4 years for it. That’s OK – you stay hungry for 4 years kids – it’ll all be alright. Meanwhile the prosperous families at the top of society will send their children to private schools, and on to Eton and Cambridge – so they can retain their god-given position at the top of society. Just ask Tristram Hunt MP.

What can we do about it? Well, there seem to be some clear actions that we should take as a country. Some of these were mentioned in the Commission report.

      1.      Reduce the use of zero hours contracts (as proposed in the Labour party manifesto for the 2015 election)
2.      Replace ideology-driven austerity (which has no basis in economic theory) with funding to improve the lives of children by reversing the ridiculous benefit cuts 
3.       Targeted funding to tackle problems faced by parents of young children – such as SureStart centres (which all the research shows have a phenomenal impact on outcomes)
4.       Improved educational resources – better teaching through proper investment in training and allowing teachers to teach
5.       Improved social care – better funding and more staff – and this should include CAMHS

Unfortunately, we are not going to get any of this under the current government. This is why I joined Momentum. I also think this is the sort of area that Momentum should support the Labour party in getting the message out. Whilst I agree the question of spending money on Trident is vitally important, do you really believe that is the best way to connect with the Labour voters who didn’t turn out at the last election? When you are crying yourself to sleep because you can’t provide Christmas dinner for your kids do you think you really spend much of your time worrying about global nuclear disarmament? Maybe you are. I would wager for most people on the breadline it is an ephemeral conceptual debate. I’ve got to be honest – if you have time and energy to worry about Internationalism vs globalism then I would wager your life is already comfortable.

This may be where Momentum ends up in the same place as Progress – a talking shop for people who have aligned themselves to positions rather than people. Where the loudest voices get heard – instead of the most desperate. Only time will tell of course. But whilst we are working out what we want to be and why we want to be – children are starving and freezing, and another generation is being left behind compared to the privileged few. Merry Christmas.