IT'S NOT THE ECONOMY, STUPID
British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the House of Commons that Britain had been 'chronically under-invested' on Thursday, as he unveiled the government's Annual Report. Government spending under New Labour has been held at a much lower rate than under the previous Tory government, famous for its spending cuts. Between 1997 and March 2000 annual public sector investment fell from four to just over two billion pounds sterling, where the Conservatives averaged around eight billion.
The message of the Annual Report is that Labour's prudent management of the economy as freed the country from debt and now 'the Government is releasing substantial new resources for Britain's key public services':
· Health, two billion · Education, one billion · Crime 285, million · Transport, 280 million
Given the Government's tendency to announce new cash many times over, the amounts are disputed.
'Prudent' Chancellor Gordon Brown's election war chest was accumulated by a spending freeze in the first three years of New Labour - provoking the ire of critics who wanted to see greater welfare provision. But the Government is mistaken in thinking that it can overcome its problems by spending money.
There are problems with Britain's infrastructure, but it is wrong to say that the country is 'chronically under-invested'. Reduced unemployment has reduced the greatest component of government expenditure, social security. Spending per school student is up by three hundred pounds sterling on 1997 and numbers in Higher Education continue to climb. The National Health Service treated a record 20 million patients last year. Police budgets are up by an average 3.6 per cent and the Government are putting 1.5 million 'criminal profiles' on the DNA database as well as spending 153 million pounds on Close Circuit Television schemes. The one area where money has been cut drastically is in road-building, without any real investment in alternatives.
Blair and Brown hope that more spending will be popular. But the problem of popular disaffection that the Government faces is not about money. The money Labour does spend does not translate into popular support. Rather, spending on law and order, health screening and extending young people's educational careers all contributes to the alienation of the populace. The question is not the money, but the policy, and the policy is to play upon the anxieties of an individuated society. Supervised, regulated, and patronised, people are being robbed of their independence. Increased spending is experienced not as increased opportunity, but as a loss of control.
In the past, welfare spending arose out of a popular will to defend the weakest from poverty and illness. Consequently, spending aroused a greater identification with the state that translated into a patriotic social democracy. But the New Labour project was created to dismantle the last vestiges of that popular movement. Today's spending promises, unlike Lord Beveridge's welfare state, will only compound the disaffection of the voters, since the underlying philosophy behind Government spending is dis-empowering and patronising.
AN INJURY TO ONE
London postal workers at the Almeida Sorting Office settled their two- week stoppage on Friday. Last week members of the Communication Workers Union walked out on an unofficial strike in support of sacked colleague Tom Doherty. Doherty was victim of a panic over football hooliganism stoked up by the Home Secretary Jack Straw. Having failed to prevent England fans from travelling to Euro 2000, Straw had the press and television show pictures of English 'hooligans' so that they could be identified. Pictures apparently show Doherty fighting with Turkish fans - and he was summarily dismissed by the Post Office.
Though fellow workers were prepared to stand up for Doherty's right to a hearing to put his side of the case the CWU ran a mile at the suggestion that they were defending hooliganism. The Almeida workers' exemplary action against the impact of the hooligan panic was too political, and CWU officials quickly turned the whole dispute into a question of pay and conditions relating to the backlog of work built up during the unofficial walkout. Post workers have a big fight on their hands against the deal their leaders made with employers 'The Way Forward' - which is turning out to be cutbacks and more work. But the unofficial stoppage for Tom Doherty showed Almeida sorting office willingness to strike out against the wider political climate of moralism and repression under Home Secretary Jack Straw.
-- James Heartfield
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