UK General Election June 2017 – Post Mortem

Trying to be modest I pointed out, prior to the election results coming in, that Labour’s smoke & mirrors campaign was looking successful and the Conservatives approach was not. And that Scots would probably move away from their previous massive support for the nationalists. Both appear to have come about.  It seems that many Scots have learned from their mistakes in the last election and a slightly more balanced representation has resulted.  The likelihood of a second referendum has probably reduced. Scots may well be asking their devolved government what is being done with the extra income tax they’re paying (compared to elsewhere in the UK) and why their economy & public services are still poor.

I suspect Labour’s support was boosted by young voters seduced by free university and potentially higher pay.  They probably didn’t understand the dire consequences of Labour’s tax & spend or nationalisation policies. So well done to Labour’s campaign team; getting out the voters was a major success. Fortunately their disastrous economic policies are unlikely to be implemented. However, I’m relatively sure that Mr Corbyn will take this campaigning success as an endorsement of his economic policies. Old dog, new tricks.

The Conservative campaign, as mentioned previously, was poor and now we can conclude it’s near disastrous.  Mrs May must take responsibility and offer to step down as leader of the party.  The country is not behind her and clearly she cannot run an effective election campaign, so there are significant doubts about her ability to run the government, let alone take the country out of the EU.  If I were advising her I would recommend she shows humility, calls a spade a spade and takes advice from her Cabinet about the best way forward; including who should be the leader. This is based on the fact that her strategy has clearly failed.  Failure to heed this advice will further reduce her status in most people’s eyes.

The UK is at (another) pivotal point where the whole country’s future is at stake. This is bigger than party politics; however, politicians don’t appear to realise this. Mrs May needs to realise she is not the best solution and probably never was.  This is the time when an experienced, principled and competent politician, along the lines of a Churchill or Thatcher, is needed.  I don’t think Mrs May is up to this job; however, I’m sure she thinks she is. Dear old Tony Blair would probably be a safer pair of hands (but is too toxic because of his huge failures in Iraq and elsewhere), as would Cameron, Osbourne and Gove (all of whom managed to win elections).

If Mrs May remains as leader of the Conservatives, this implies there is no one in the Conservative Party who is prepared to take on the biggest challenge to the country since the Second World War?

Jeremy Corbyn is completely unsuited to the required role; so the problem is how to take the country forward?

If you agree that the UK is at a critical pivotal stage then one approach is to acknowledge that party politics needs to be subordinated to the overall good of the country; in other words form a multi-party coalition designed to address the BREXIT process whilst keeping the country from going backwards. The benefits are obvious because the coalition is aligned on achieving the best result from BREXIT and the form of BREXIT will be democratically decided by a diverse number of MPs from a number of parties.  The downside is putting this together, because politicians tend to be too tribal and Mrs May’s already indicated forming a government with the DUP.

How else could progress be achieved?  If you agree the political challenges are too great for any one person to lead, then regarding BREXIT, the entire process needs to be open and debated by Parliament, rather than undertaken by the majority party from start to finish.  The obvious benefit is that Parliament then owns the results, which collectively should be better than if a single party has driven the process.

Recognising these options is a key element.

Mrs May doesn’t appear to want to proceed via the parliamentary approach, whilst her preferred approach has now been rebutted by the country.

Does Mrs May have the necessary understanding, courage and real leadership to do what’s needed for the country?

I don’t think so.

Will she try to implement the Conservatives pre-existing approach with help from another party, such as the DUP?

Almost certainly. Old Dogs New Tricks.

Very concerning.

Thoughts on the UK General Election, June 2017

Sadly, pre-election campaigning has generally been rather poor, particularly from the Conservatives.

Interestingly, if you believe the polls, Labour has been doing a lot better, which is contrary to what was predicted. However, even though Labour’s manifesto could have been used in the 1970s or 80s, there’s a lot of younger voters who won’t have experienced the painful demise of nationalised industries and socialist policies. It’s likely these people won’t understand that Labour’s manifesto is a complete recipe for disaster, even without the prospect of negotiating an exit from the EU.

Below are some Labour manifesto budget numbers which are supposed to demonstrate their proposed policies add-up.

The origin of these numbers isn’t known, so they may be incorrect. However, the costs are almost certainly underestimated and the “How to Pay for it” revenue is likely to be unachievable because, if you try to squeeze £19 Billion out of businesses and £6 Billion from the top earners, THEY LEAVE the country.

So, Labour’s predicted revenue would not be achieved and businesses, plus top executives will not want to be based in the UK.

Well done Labour, you’ve just started to wreck the economy, rather like in the 1970s, whilst leaving the EU, when the UK needs to attract more business than ever before. A complete disaster!

So a vote for Labour is a vote for economic disaster.

As for the Conservatives, their manifesto is rather poor; but not as disastrous as Labour’s, in terms of the economy. The Conservatives understand the UK needs to attract lots of business to compensate for the negative impacts of Brexit. This means competitive business taxes, low unemployment and low personal taxes to maintain consumption (personal spending). If this is achieved the increased tax revenue allows further investment in public services.

Herein is the main difference between the Conservatives and Labour; the Conservatives policy is to boost the economy in order to increase overall tax revenue, whereas Labour want to nationalise businesses and load remaining businesses and high earners with large tax burdens, resulting in a contraction, unemployment and consequently, reduced tax revenue.

The least worst case is clearly the Conservatives. However, to keep the Conservatives from going off the rails, an effective Opposition is sorely needed. It would appear Labour is not up to this.

By comparison, the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto is rather good with logical and pragmatic policies which appear to have reasonable costs. They follow Labour’s direction in raising taxes to pay for public services, which is somewhat admirable; however, as Labour found out, the more money you throw at public services, the more is wasted. Increasing budgets doesn’t result in increased efficiency; the service has to be reformed to become more efficient. Which is why governments should not be running businesses (as nationalisation demonstrated very well).

Sadly, the Lib Dems have no chance of securing power and probably couldn’t deliver a viable form of Brexit. Voting for the Lib Dems is understandable but won’t help deliver the least worst solution, but could help deliver a disastrous one.

Scotland is an interesting case study. The SNP, being so dominant from the last election, could be considered to have peaked and the only way is down. Personally, I cannot ever recommend voting for any nationalist party because of the direction nationalism takes. However, having said that, when Scotland overwhelmingly fell for the SNP message in the last election they (unwittingly?) helped to elect the Conservatives, by demolishing Labour.

I can well imagine a large number of Scots in deep anguish when they realised what had happened after they supported the SNP at the last election. Is Scotland going to be wiser or smarter this time?

To finish up, the Conservatives have a poor manifesto and haven’t campaigned well. Labour has a disastrous manifesto but have campaigned quite well. The Lib Dems have a reasonable manifesto and have campaigned reasonably well. The SNP is largely unchanged from the previous election with the exception of their desire for another independence referendum. Scotland needs to decide whether they want to be represented by a party that expends a lot of effort trying to separate them from the UK, or one that works hard to improve their failing areas. As before, a vote for the SNP is a vote for the Conservatives.

Voters born after 1980 are likely to be variably ignorant of the failed policies that Labour is proposing to bring back (nationalisation, increased business & personal taxes on the hated rich).

So younger voters could have a significant impact on this election, to the extent of potentially wrecking the country!

The conclusion is to vote for the (economically literate) least worst, which is the Conservatives. This should lead to the best overall economic strategy, maintenance of the Union and continuation of the Brexit process.

If you’re undecided, a vote for Labour’s manifesto would be a complete disaster, so choose another party to support, bearing in mind a landslide for the Conservatives is not a good result, but neither is a hung parliament or small majority.