David Cameron must be disappointed with the lack of a Tory revival in the polls and frustrated that he can’t make more of the Labour loans scandal because his party is up to the same seedy tricks. As the Labour Party implodes, few seem keen to embrace Cameron’s cuddly Conservatism. But the Tory leader should console himself with musing that Gordon Brown’s tenth Budget would have been impossible without him.
The headline measures – a green tax on gas-guzzlers, a firm commitment to education reform and an extension of the private finance initiative in the health service – would have been impossible without the Tories. (Tellingly, however, the deeply controversial PFI measure was announced in a separate report, not on the floor of the House.)
It is hard to imagine that Brown would have bothered with the rise in road tax for 4x4s, had Cameron not banged the drum with such boyish alacrity on the environment, the Chancellor’s most discernible blind spot. Surely Brown must know that £210 a year will make absolutely no difference to someone who can afford to spend £50,000 on a car? The £26bn expansion of PFI, under which the private sector raises the money and runs public sector projects, is a sign that Brown has been roused by Tory claims that he is Labour’s “roadblock to reform”. The plan for 200 new projects published with the Budget should knock on the head any idea that the Treasury has “gone cold” on PFI. Even the increase in per-pupil spending on secondary schools to close the gap with the independent sector is intended as a direct challenge to the Tories, to say that Labour would not have spent the cash on tax cuts.
Cameron has proclaimed himself to be Blair’s true heir, and he should be content that he has provided so much input into the Chancellor’s plans. This Budget was billed as setting the stage for Brown’s premiership. On the evidence here, his government would continue with the principles established under Blair, rather than setting out on a markedly new direction.
As the media furore over loans for peerages has exploded into a full-blown crisis, culminating in a police investigation into the sale of honours, it has been suggested that the Chancellor has been secretly delighted at Blair’s misfortune. And yet, despite Cameron’s claims to primogeniture, Brown knows that he is the only true heir to the new Labour legacy and he has nothing to gain from inheriting damaged goods. The reality of the past few weeks, as the Prime Minister and his allies have stumbled from one disaster to another, is that the Chancellor has been loyal – much to the irritation of Labour traditionalists who would have preferred him to have distanced himself from Tessa Jowell’s money woes and Downing Street’s education reforms.
The tragedy of the Blair government is that it could have been remembered for economic stability, redistribution and narrowing racial, sexual and gender inequality. Instead we have the open sore of Iraq and a growing whiff of corruption and sleaze.
It would be too much to expect a mere budget to provide a way out of the mess. But in such difficult times, MPs were looking for more reassurance than usual that any economic slowdown would not further erode core Labour values. The commitment to raising tax credits for poor children will go some way to protecting the most vulnerable in society, but the Chancellor will need to go further if he wants to honour the government’s pledge to eradicate child poverty. The genuinely radical measures, such as the decision to provide free education to up to A-level to those aged 25 and under, are in marked contrast to the general tone of caution.
One significant piece of research emerged in the past week, only to be engulfed by the loans firestorm. The interim report of the Equalities Review, commissioned by the Prime Minister and produced by Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, passed almost unnoticed. Yet it may be a blueprint for renewal, demanding a new approach to looking at inequality.
Phillips says that where inequality has been viewed through groups such as women, blacks and gays, these categories are now meaningless. A progressive government, he argues, should focus on “stubborn inequalities”: damage done to women’s prospects as soon as they have children; the one in five women taking time off work after suffering domestic violence; black boys expelled from school; gay schoolchildren turned off education by homophobic bullying; the middle-aged men and women who find themselves as carers after the death of a parent. Food for thought.
Labour needs an inspirational leader with a sophisticated strategy for tackling these new forms of inequality. This Budget, designed largely to draw the sting from a resurgent Tory party under David Cameron, shows that it does not yet have either.
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