English Labour offers Scotland crumbs

Austerity, asset stripping and Westminster control

Published in The National, March 11th, the Edinburgh Evening News on March 12 and The Herald on March 13th.

Rachel Reeves told Laura Kuenssberg that an English Labour government’s economic inheritance “will be the worst since the Second World War.” 

Then Reeves should study how the 1945 Labour Attlee government dug itself out of the fiscal hole it inherited. It launched a massive public spending programme that created the NHS, brought coal mines, power companies and railways into public ownership, and invested in education, social services and housing. The economy flourished with full employment and no inflation, enabling the UK to retire its war debt. The People became the owners of public assets that were subsequently sold off to private companies under Margaret Thatcher, robbing the people of trillions of pounds.

The post-war economic miracle was possible because John Maynard Keynes, Attlee’s advisor, knew that cutting spending during an economic slump would only deepen it. He understood that because the government creates all the money it can never go broke. He knew that government spending priorities signal to the private sector where it should invest, e.g., in new hospitals, schools, energy efficient homes. Public, not private, spending drives growth. 

The last 15 years demonstrate that spending cuts don’t grow the economy. The UK’s in recession, unemployment is up, businesses are failing and inequality is worsening. Yet Reeves promises more austerity.

English Labour has also reneged on its pledge to renationalise energy, rail, mail and water (in England). It need only look to Norway, France and Denmark, who fully or partially own their energy companies and are part-owners of UK energy where they make significant profits. If they can see the benefits in public ownership, why can’t Labour?

Reeves bragged to Kuenssberg that leftover croissants from meetings go to her staff. Crumbs, even if from croissants, are all that English Labour offers Scotland. It’s time to end the failing union.