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THE GUARDIAN |
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COMMENT
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On the road
to total ruin
Think the Conservative party couldn't get any worse? Wait until you see their latest policy proposals Polly
Toynbee Labour ought to be in trouble - and yet it isn't. For the first time the prime minister is on the back foot. Public trust flashes red in the danger zone. The trade unions gave an old-time snarl this week. A quick Iraq exit looks dangerously distant while the war costs soar. The death of David Kelly is dragging out painfully, with Hutton still a long way from reporting. Targets are getting ever harder to hit and money is tight. Yet if there was an election tomorrow, Tony Blair would walk it. A Times poll this week put Labour five points ahead. So how can the Tories be quite so devastatingly, hog-whimperingly hopeless? Everything they say is windy dust and their rare concrete policies will be millstones to sink them at the next election. Before launching yesterday's new policy announcement, Iain Duncan Smith foolishly proclaimed it would be "the most radical proposal we shall put forward before the election". It was fanfared as "the road map to victory" but what emerged instead was yet another signpost on the road to ruin. The theme is "Total politics: Labour's command state" - an attack on Labour's centralisation, targeting and inspection. Decentralisation might indeed by a trump card to play right now - reconnecting with the people, grassroots politics, escape from the heavy hand of the state, a vacant plot of political land others are scrambling to grab. But what emerged yesterday must be one of the worst written, most puerile pieces of political thinking to gain the imprimatur of any party leader in a long while. If it passed an A-level in politics, the Tories would be right to say A-levels had dumbed down. Quoting heavily from a book by Lord Hailsham - (modern or what?) - on "elective dictatorship", it ambles painfully through debating society platitudes. But never mind its mindlessness, it is empty of policy or strategy. It attacks Labour's "state centralism" and "centrally controlled funding". Decentralisation of Whitehall funding would be a useful device for a Tory government, since it hides cuts by letting the centre blame local authorities for shortfalls in services. How is it to be done? "Local government needs to be granted a far greater degree of financial autonomy and self-responsibility," says the paper: indeed the current formula, with councils only raising 25% of their funds - as fixed by the Tories - does need reform. So how to change it? A higher local property or wealth tax, a local income tax or maybe a sales tax? No clue is given. Well, IDS said yesterday, wriggling when pressed, there would be an answer before the next election. So here is their "most radical proposal" with a big zero at the heart of it. Then comes the promise to free the country from "the target culture" and "bureaucratic inspections" - apparently ready to abolish them all. Politically, this is a serious tactical blunder. Just as Labour is feeling a tight pinch on its targets, along comes salvation from the Tories, calling for these commitments to be relaxed. So when the health secretary wisely says there will no longer be strict four-hour waiting targets in every A&E because it distorts what hospitals do, the Tories throw away their chance to pounce on it as a failure. This is excellent news for Labour, as it finds its more extreme targets are indeed constricting success. As for the public, when they see these much-derided targets and inspections are under threat, they will discover a new-found affection for them. IDS complained: "Not a teacher, nor a nurse, nor a childminder nor a home care manger is free of inspections, assessments and regulations of the state." In the week when Victoria Climbié was remembered with policies to make sure children like her don't fall through the net, is there really hot public demand for less inspection of children's nurseries or old people's homes? The Tories ridicule the cost of inspectors such as the commission for health improvement, but promising cuts will be nothing but a liability at the election. Who wants less local information on hospital cleanliness or surgical success rates? All this anti-regulation mania emerges from a "less government" ideology in the weird back rooms of central office. Testing it in an election, this party will be slaughtered - again. Even the Tories' most populist efforts are so batty they never fly. This week's banana was putting asylum seekers on an island. Which island? They hadn't a clue. (And will that decision be devolved down the islanders?) The Tories think their best winner is their voucher schemes for health and education. The document promises: "In most cases, money will follow the individual to wherever they chose to receive services." At first sight, it looks appealing. People facing bad inner-city schools will be able to take their £4,000 out of the state system and buy into private schools, (if they can pay double that in fees). Anyone wanting to go for private health treatment can take 60% of the cost out of the NHS and top it up with 40% from their own pocket. So why haven't these gems soared into public awareness? They have sunk because they are unbelievable and still uncosted. Imagine the NHS bearing 60% of the cost of all those currently using private health - for no extra gain. Imagine all those not able to raise the top-up 40% watching the money fly out of their local services. Or imagine all those who use private schools suddenly getting a grant of £4,000 out of the education budget, making those in state schools some £2bn worse off. How is Michael Howard to come up with a tax and spend policy at the election that starts with these colossal dead-weight extra costs? It is hard to believe that the brainless, dippy leadership of IDS can last for much longer, especially if the Brent East byelection next week pushes his party into third place. But who else is there? David Davis is no better: he oversaw yesterday's non-policy. Old something-of-the-night is one of their few recognisable faces with a big brain, but he might frighten the voters. Even if someone clever and popular like Ken Clarke was willing to face another probable humiliation, the decrepit and daft local Tory members always choose the worst and dumbest on offer. Absurdly, some say the Tory's problem is that Tony Blair has stolen their clothes. But that's not it. The Tories problem is that they are brain-dead in the water. There is always a good hard-headed rightwing ideological critique available of a high-spending social democratic government whose progress is vulnerable to attack. But give this lot a golden goose and they wouldn't even kill it for dinner, they'd let it run away. Is it a waste of space to discuss them at all? No, because the government needs reminding what a waste of space it is up against. Labour need not move a scintilla in their direction. These voucher policies need not be countered with anything called choice in the NHS or schools that imperils equity. The problem is never excellence at the top, but failure at the bottom. The next election will be a brilliant illumination of the choice for voters between Labour's fairness versus the Tories' privilege.
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