Electioneering is about parties showing us how much greener their grass is, but on so much there seems to be barely a Rizla between them, never mind a fence.
The latest example being Cameron’s pledge to enable public sector workers to set up cooperatives to deliver public services. He’s promised to ‘get rid of those targets and that bureaucracy that drive you so mad’; clearly the ramblings of an ingénue who’s never delivered a publicly funded contract.
According to him it works like this: ‘Here is your budget, deliver this service’; a statement blissfully ignorant of the monumental amount of monitoring third sector organisations are burdened with. While he’s dispensing with targets maybe he could also do away with the fanatical financial accounting that goes with public funding – knowing how tempting it is to fiddle the books, the government doesn’t even trust you with a book of stamps. But the main point he misses is that Labour have been pushing this idea forward for years and it’s long been expected to form part of their election campaign.
One of the most frustrating effects of electioneering is how important issues get lost and cheapened by parties seemingly unable to pass by any opportunity to take potshots at the other side.
This week the Tories boycotted a conference on social care for the elderly with charities, local authorities and care providers set up by health secretary Andy Burnham in an attempt to achieve cross-party consensus where previous talks with his counterparts had failed. The Tories claimed the government had already decided on a ‘death tax’ and that the conference was a political ploy (can anyone tell what isn’t these days?). But flouncing off in an I’m-not-playing-anymore hissy fit doesn’t say much for the Tories’ ability to negotiate and compromise. Neither does it reflect well on their ability to engage with and respect service providers, an attribute that might come in handy should they get the chance to implement their promise to allow cooperatives to deliver services.
Where there is a clear divide between Labour and Conservative is how to tackle the budget deficit. We’re told the recession is over and I don’t know about you but I’m definitely feeling 0.1% chirpier than I did; maybe it’s my submerged optimism grinning through. This election can’t help but be about the economy: every other issue is dependent on someone tidying up the nation’s bank balance.
The Tories plan immediate cuts to public spending and got support from 20 economists in The Times backing their plans. Right-back-atchya Labour rustled up 60 economists in the Financial Times to voice support to delay cuts in public spending. Clearly a bit miffed by scoring fewer economists, shadow chancellor George Osborne responded ‘in the end the public has to decide in an election’. All very democratic, but if ‘leading economists’ (and who’d have guessed we were blessed with so many?) can’t decide which is the best way forward, how can the electorate? Do three times the number of economists make for a better prediction? Which carries more authority, The Times or the Financial Times? Seems to me that all expert opinion is telling us is that no one knows which is the best way forward and either could be a disaster. I find this pretty scary (but I’m desperately clinging to my 0.1% of chirpiness).
What is encouraging is Labour finally admitting there might be an election and launching Operation Fightback, whose opening salvo was: ‘A future fair for all’. You have to wonder about the people who dream up these straplines. This one could be described as friendly fire as the Lib Dems and the Tories gleefully grabbed the free ammo and stamped all over it with the government’s own statistics proving that the last 13 years of governance has seen the gap between rich and poor grow to record proportions. No winners so far in this phony war.
About Keren Suchecki
Keren Suchecki previously worked at Hartcliffe and Withywood Community Partnership in Bristol.
Added on Tuesday, 2nd March 2010 | This entry has 0 comments
Electioneering is about parties showing us how much greener their grass is, but on so much there seems to be barely a Rizla between them, never mind a fence.