SOURCE - The Spectator 23/05/20
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/boris-s-next-big-battle-is-against-the-virus-of-socialism
We should always avoid misusing history to underpin exaggeration. Covid 19 is not Nazi Germany. However many qualities Boris has, he is not Winston Churchill. But this virus will pass. British politics will then enter a new phase. Oddly enough, there are parallels between likely developments during that future phase and the course of events in 1944/45. There are lessons which the Tory party ought to learn.
These divide into three categories: history, vision and personalities. In 1945, the Tories lost the battle of history, partly because their foremost historian, Churchill, had been a critic of the 1930s governments. Leaving the complexities of appeasement to one side, Labour's record on rearmament was shameful. The party opposed it until we were in the very antechamber of war. That did not prevent Labour blaming the Tories in 1945.
Moving to future historical battles, the last few months already provide endless scope for recrimination, much of it justified. There have been heroes and heroines in the front line. But when the inevitable inquiry reports, one wonders if any of the major players, corporate and individual, will come out well. This may not matter because much of the public are realistic about the scale of the problem. Anyone can realise that in a single day – perhaps even in a single hour – Matt Hancock regularly had to take half a dozen decisions of the greatest importance, and that the expert advice was often contradictory. The Government would have been wiser to take the British populace into its confidence and indeed to admit errors. Had that happened, I suspect that by and large, the public would have been in a forgiving mood – though this may rapidly change if the lockdown goes on much longer.
Tolstoy would have been delighted by the way that the last few months have unfolded. There has been all the chaos and confusion of a Tolstoyan battlefield. But one crucial point will not be subsumed into shot, smoke and shellfire: the ability of the NHS to cope. At the beginning, this was the great fear; that there would be trolley-loads of dead and dying patients as orderly hospital medicine disintegrated. That has not happened. The inquiry will tell us how near the NHS came to breakdown. Yet it may be that the health service is much more resilient than the shroud-wavers on the Labour front bench and the British Medical Association would have us believe. That should assist the Tories in winning the battle of history over the NHS.
That will help them in the next major political challenge. Whatever happens with a Covid vaccine, the Tories have not been immunised against the next great epidemic: virus socialism. Many Lefties – intelligent ones, not Corbynistas – still cannot forgive themselves for failing to exploit the economic crisis of 2008. They are determined that the social crisis of 2020 will have a better outcome. They will demand that the state should intervene morning, noon and night: that the wealth of the nation should be appropriated and taxed to fund unlimited expenditure on social programmes. A side-effect of the recent plague was the disappearance of Miss Greta Thurnberg from the airwaves. Alas, that is likely to prove temporary. She will be planning her next viral assault: a further children's crusade.
Here again, 1945 offers a precedent: war socialism. The state had mobilised the resources of the nation to win the War. Now let us do the same to win the peace. In response, Churchill had nothing to say. He did not manage to own the Beveridge Report or to exploit the Butler Education Act. War socialism was temporarily unassailable. To prevent something similar happening again, Boris will have to offer his vision of a strong economy creating the resources for first-class public services. Facts and figures would be helpful. If expenditure on health was 100 in 1979, it is now 250, in real terms. That was not financed by tax increases, but by free enterprise and low tax rates.
Over the next few months, in its efforts to promote the nearest possible outcome to a V-shaped recovery, the Government will not make fiscal rectitude a priority and will intervene in a manner that delights Michael Heseltine. So what? The circumstances are extraordinary, and it is vital that we avoid a recession. But the purpose of all this intervention is to revive free enterprise, not to supplant it. Equally, when the economy needs an almighty fiscal stimulus, it would be crazy to put up taxes.
Boris Johnson has to win that argument. It helps that he comes across as socially generous, which he is. He is not the sort of Tory who enjoys lecturing hungry sheep about the price of grass. But he must have the courage to reassert Thatcherite verities and to remind the electorate that a country in which no one is allowed to grow rich is a country in which everyone is doomed to be poor.
Social generosity brings us to Keir Starmer. Decent fellow though he is, that is not his natural mode of expression. This should not necessarily hold him back. The danger for the Tories is that he will come across as sincere, thoughtful and competent. In dealing with that, personal abuse would be counter-productive. In personality, Sir Keir is nearer Attlee than he is to Boris or Churchill. To cope with him, Boris will have to succeed where Churchill failed, and deploy visionary rhetoric to win the battle of the future. It can be done. But it will not be as easy as it seemed last December, when Boris won a majority of 80 and the Corbynites still ran Labour. To win the battle of ideas and defeat the virus of socialism, Boris and his ministers will have to raise their game, both intellectually and rhetorically.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/boris-s-next-big-battle-is-against-the-virus-of-socialism
We should always avoid misusing history to underpin exaggeration. Covid 19 is not Nazi Germany. However many qualities Boris has, he is not Winston Churchill. But this virus will pass. British politics will then enter a new phase. Oddly enough, there are parallels between likely developments during that future phase and the course of events in 1944/45. There are lessons which the Tory party ought to learn.
These divide into three categories: history, vision and personalities. In 1945, the Tories lost the battle of history, partly because their foremost historian, Churchill, had been a critic of the 1930s governments. Leaving the complexities of appeasement to one side, Labour's record on rearmament was shameful. The party opposed it until we were in the very antechamber of war. That did not prevent Labour blaming the Tories in 1945.
Moving to future historical battles, the last few months already provide endless scope for recrimination, much of it justified. There have been heroes and heroines in the front line. But when the inevitable inquiry reports, one wonders if any of the major players, corporate and individual, will come out well. This may not matter because much of the public are realistic about the scale of the problem. Anyone can realise that in a single day – perhaps even in a single hour – Matt Hancock regularly had to take half a dozen decisions of the greatest importance, and that the expert advice was often contradictory. The Government would have been wiser to take the British populace into its confidence and indeed to admit errors. Had that happened, I suspect that by and large, the public would have been in a forgiving mood – though this may rapidly change if the lockdown goes on much longer.
Tolstoy would have been delighted by the way that the last few months have unfolded. There has been all the chaos and confusion of a Tolstoyan battlefield. But one crucial point will not be subsumed into shot, smoke and shellfire: the ability of the NHS to cope. At the beginning, this was the great fear; that there would be trolley-loads of dead and dying patients as orderly hospital medicine disintegrated. That has not happened. The inquiry will tell us how near the NHS came to breakdown. Yet it may be that the health service is much more resilient than the shroud-wavers on the Labour front bench and the British Medical Association would have us believe. That should assist the Tories in winning the battle of history over the NHS.
That will help them in the next major political challenge. Whatever happens with a Covid vaccine, the Tories have not been immunised against the next great epidemic: virus socialism. Many Lefties – intelligent ones, not Corbynistas – still cannot forgive themselves for failing to exploit the economic crisis of 2008. They are determined that the social crisis of 2020 will have a better outcome. They will demand that the state should intervene morning, noon and night: that the wealth of the nation should be appropriated and taxed to fund unlimited expenditure on social programmes. A side-effect of the recent plague was the disappearance of Miss Greta Thurnberg from the airwaves. Alas, that is likely to prove temporary. She will be planning her next viral assault: a further children's crusade.
Here again, 1945 offers a precedent: war socialism. The state had mobilised the resources of the nation to win the War. Now let us do the same to win the peace. In response, Churchill had nothing to say. He did not manage to own the Beveridge Report or to exploit the Butler Education Act. War socialism was temporarily unassailable. To prevent something similar happening again, Boris will have to offer his vision of a strong economy creating the resources for first-class public services. Facts and figures would be helpful. If expenditure on health was 100 in 1979, it is now 250, in real terms. That was not financed by tax increases, but by free enterprise and low tax rates.
Over the next few months, in its efforts to promote the nearest possible outcome to a V-shaped recovery, the Government will not make fiscal rectitude a priority and will intervene in a manner that delights Michael Heseltine. So what? The circumstances are extraordinary, and it is vital that we avoid a recession. But the purpose of all this intervention is to revive free enterprise, not to supplant it. Equally, when the economy needs an almighty fiscal stimulus, it would be crazy to put up taxes.
Boris Johnson has to win that argument. It helps that he comes across as socially generous, which he is. He is not the sort of Tory who enjoys lecturing hungry sheep about the price of grass. But he must have the courage to reassert Thatcherite verities and to remind the electorate that a country in which no one is allowed to grow rich is a country in which everyone is doomed to be poor.
Social generosity brings us to Keir Starmer. Decent fellow though he is, that is not his natural mode of expression. This should not necessarily hold him back. The danger for the Tories is that he will come across as sincere, thoughtful and competent. In dealing with that, personal abuse would be counter-productive. In personality, Sir Keir is nearer Attlee than he is to Boris or Churchill. To cope with him, Boris will have to succeed where Churchill failed, and deploy visionary rhetoric to win the battle of the future. It can be done. But it will not be as easy as it seemed last December, when Boris won a majority of 80 and the Corbynites still ran Labour. To win the battle of ideas and defeat the virus of socialism, Boris and his ministers will have to raise their game, both intellectually and rhetorically.
Comments
Post a Comment