Dan Hannan speaks his mind

If I didn’t post this here I wouldn’t be doing my job properly.

What do 5.764 Million people actually do?

Continuing the recent theme on waste, I thought I’d add my tuppence worth on a recent article on ConservativeHome. But while my last post was about relatively small amounts of money, this one is concerned with one of Labour’s biggest wastes of all. You may be wondering what the 5.764 Million people in the title are. Well, it’s the amount of people currently employed in the public sector.

While you try to digest that fact, consider that only about 60% of the UK’s 60 Million people make up the working age population. 60% of 60 Million is 36 Million. Take away the various people out of work and only about 29 Million people in this country of 60 Million actually work. One in every two of us.

Now let’s get back to the 5 Million people in the public sector. What does this mean for our working population? Well, it means that one in every six of us who works is now employed in the public sector, while only around 40% of people are now employed in the ‘wealth-creating’ sector. Is that right? I’ll leave it to you to make up your mind on that.

My concern is that there have been far too many new public sector jobs (half a Million) created since Labour came to power. These jobs on the whole do not contribute to the wellbeing of the economy, and mean higher taxes, while reducing spending on other vital services now and in the future. Civil servants are automatically entitled to a pension when they retire, something that workers in the private sector often have to save up for separately. These pensions mean that we, the taxpayers will have to continue paying for these civil servants until long after they are gone.

And this mess continues to roll on until we now have a higher median pay in the public than in the private sector. Another “Community Policy Manager” for you sir? There you go, another 50,000 a year down the drain. It’s time for change.

Why Labour still doesn’t understand the economy

By Will Stobart

One of the things which continues to astonish both myself and other Conservatives I speak to is the view held among the British public that the government is doing a good job on the economy. I was telephone canvassing last night, and got into a conversation with a Labour supporter who told me that Gordon Brown had started to do well once the economic crisis started. Well, where do you start on that?

The wrong way to approach this is to criticise Labour spending. We’ve all seen and heard the Labour party criticise both Conservatives and Lib Dems for “wanting to cut public spending in the downturn”. So no, let’s not attack the spending directly; that plays directly into their hands. Instead we have to engage the way in which the masses of cash the government spends is used. I’ll give you a passage from the Chancellor’s Pre-Budget Report. See if you can find what’s wrong with it.

“Since 1997, we have doubled the NHS budget, cutting hospital waiting lists. (see below) Spending on education is 60 per cent higher, improving schools and exam results. Transport spending is up by 70 per cent, with over 130 major road schemes, and record numbers now travelling by rail.

Total Government spending on much-needed investment and public services has increased from £322 billion 10 years ago to £584 billion last year. Through the current spending review, we will continue to support and improve key public services, to meet the ambition of the people of this country. The challenge is to continue to deliver these improved services while ensuring that we continue to get value for money.”

Have you found it yet? Yes, exactly, there’s almost no mention of any of the things that our money has bought. The government’s line is how they “increase investment”, but shouldn’t we be focusing on the outcomes instead? And note first of all, that the only outcome the Chancellor mentioned there (improving hospital waiting times) has been debunked as utter rubbish. However apart from that, not many results. Inputs are mentioned, but outputs are not. Coincidence or strategy?

Strategy of course. The reason why the government does not mention the outcomes is because the spending that Labour has put in place has not been used in the right way. Qangos, civil servants, reviews and bureaucracy has eaten it all up, while efficiency has fallen and a smaller proportion of the money has reached the frontline services.

Labour don’t realise that people want results. They think that if they spend enough all will come right. Because we’ve been in a boom nobody has noticed they’re so rubbish. Now they’re going to have to face up to their record. Record lows in house building, a real threat of blackouts in the coming years due to complacency in dealing with the future energy supply, productivity falls in the NHS and key services. I could go on. Labour governments have always left the country in a mess, but this one threatens to do more damage than any that have come before. Let’s hope we can get that election soon.

There’s plenty to be cheerful about, is there?

by Will Stobart

As Conservatives, we seem to have penchant for being miserable and seeing things in the worst light possible. At least that’s the spin that’s currently being put on us by the more vacuous members of the cabinet and the Labour Party in general. They accuse us of being “irresponsible” and “talking down” the pound/economy/Britain. Yet the aspect of this which is entirely disregarded by these various peoples and many media outlets is that our assessment of the problems that Britain faces may be real, and that a critical assessment rather than a rosy-eyed endorsement of our current status may be more appropriate. Tomorrow we will be given the Pre-Budget Report (PBS) by our Chancellor in which we have been told to anticipate tax cuts. Usually this would be a wonderful chance to pounce upon Labour’s policies and to hold them up for all to see. Osborne and Cameron could attack Labour on the state of the economy and the public finances and tell the country what a mess we’re in.

They can, should and no doubt will do so. But will the message resonate? So far, it would appear, it has not. Instead, the message that is being given out is that the economy will be safe with a fiscal stimulus and that we should all trust Gordon to get us out of this mess. Furthermore it is all the fault of the evil and greedy bankers in the US who were irresponsible, none of it was caused by anything to do with the UK. And the Tories are being horrid and are talking down the British economy which is fine, despite growth having been almost entirely based on a banking sector which is failing. Right?

Thus we are fed a constant stream of false positives. The fiddled figures for unemployment and debt are only the two most obvious examples to give. The difficulty for us is to find a way to combat it, and it would appear that we have missed several tricks here. There are several mistakes that have been made and several opportunities that have been missed, which could have easily kept us running on the high we were on just a few months ago.

No strong or consistent message:

There has been a clear problem in getting the Conservative view on the economy out into the public domain. This is the result of rather weak initiatives which have never been held down with enough conviction or determination. Rather, there has been a light-touch approach, while hoping that the general views expressed will turn out to be vindicated by the events. There is a profound need for a message that will resound with the people. Rather than promise some vague notions of like-for-like taxation reduction, why don’t we promise a cut in public spending? We’re apparently currently committed to growing the state at a lower rate than Labour. But in many areas this is unnecessary. Why can’t we promise, as we should, a destruction of the Whitehall culture? A removal of bureaucrats? A reduction of spending through a reduction in the size of government? These are the most basic of ideas, yet they are not being expressed as they should be (excepting John Redwood). Massive savings can be made by reducing some of the money departments spend on projects that don’t aid the economy? Cameron has pledged to have the shadow cabinet look at their individual areas to find savings, but this message should be a cornerstone of our economic policy. Instead it is used as a throwaway line and vague notions such as “sharing the proceeds of growth” are given priority.

Moving ahead of the events:

Another difficulty has been that the party has been seen to be reacting to Labour, rather than anticipating their actions. Some commentators have compared this period with the same time last year, where George Osborne’s speech at the conference caused the government to announce some panicky measures to reduce inheritance tax. We must look to move ahead of the government, not to follow in its wake.

Attacking the figures:

As I mentioned above, the government’s lines on the economy, the NHS or inflation never fail to be criticised by pundits or presenters (and even Rory Bremner). The party does finally seem to have followed suit on this, yet many of the so-called “Brownies” remain to be exposed to the public as a whole. We should work on that.

There are other small niggles, but most have been in some way been covered above. We could be doing a lot better than a 11% lead, and we can do so under Cameron and Osborne. However the party must be able to articulate itself properly. Soft words and spin won’t work in this recession, the people are annoyed. We need a strong message that gives people reassurance and hope. We need to lay down again what the party stands for and should stand for, what the Conservative principles are. We must ensure that if we are victorious in the next election it becomes one in a series of many.