Tony Blair is the only sensible voice left in Labour
After reading Tony Blair’s essay on the state of Britain (and the state of the Labour party) I was struck by the realisation that large parts of it sounded as if they’d come straight out of one of my own columns. Regular readers will know that I’ve often used this slot to point out the contradiction between Labour’s pro-growth rhetoric and its actual policy decisions.
Now, we have this from the only living former PM to have won three general elections: “The government took with it into power commitments which meant that there was an inevitable gap between the government rhetoric around growth and the impact of these commitments on what the business community needed to restore the so-called animal spirits and get the private sector moving.”
And there’s more! Blair singles out “new workers’-rights laws; the net-zero acceleration and phasing out of the British oil and gas industry; the uplift in the minimum wage beyond inflation; and the non-dom changes” as big mistakes that have held back economic growth. I should have offered him a guest slot on this very page.
He adds that the pension triple-lock is unaffordable and that the current welfare system is a disaster. He was particularly critical of Andy Burnham’s “delusional” left-wing aspirations. Tony, welcome to the club.
Intervention has infuriated all the right people
His intervention – a bit like some of my columns – also infuriated all the right people (the left-wing rump of Labour MPs are livid with this dastardly election-winner’s advice) and Blair’s hard truths are understandably being viewed through the prism of Labour’s impending leadership election.
One suspects that neither Burnham nor Wes Streeting will embrace the essay’s arguments as they seek to burnish their own ‘change’ credentials. As the consultancy WPI pointed out in a dispiriting note to clients yesterday, “Burnham’s agenda points towards greater public control, redistribution and higher taxes on wealth, property and capital” while “Streeting’s offer is more reformist and pro-growth in tone, but his support for substantially higher capital gains tax and closer UK-EU alignment would be far from unambiguously positive, creating new risks around investment incentives, tax certainty and regulatory freedom.”
I never thought I’d say this, but could Blair be persuaded to throw his hat into the ring? He seems to be the only Labour figure talking sense these days.