The Alternative Candidate

Simon Baker is one of Felix’s more entertaining writers. Here is a man who arouses the most amazing passions in me. Fascist he is not, but he IS Harry Enfield’s (the "Bollinger Bolshevik") poor misguided Tory Boy.

Contrary to Mr Baker’s economy boasts, the latest OECD study shows our country’s relative decline in prosperity and an 8 per cent fall in manufacturing investment last year. We have some of the worst living standards in Europe. The Tories have made improvements in some aspects of micro-economic policy but these worrying findings alert us to the fact of their poor macro-economic management and a failure to tackle the alarming education and skills gap with our competitors.

We are surfacing from one of the worst recessions in our history, and on the brink of another dangerous Tory boom and bust. Growth is heavily consumer-led, a phenomenon described by economists as unstable and unsustainable. They would prefer an investment-led recovery, with companies re-investing in this country. The UK is the only country whose expenditure on research as a proportion of its GDP has not increased since 1979. The party that claims to be the party of low taxation has actually increased the overall burden of taxation.

The Tories trumpet their low unemployment figures as a huge success yet a report by the LSE revealed that 20 per cent of households do not have anyone who is working. Since 1979 they have reclassified the term "unemployed" no less than 32 times. Now, unemployment benefit is denied to all 16 and 17 year olds and those in temporary work or training are not included. In 1979, there were just over 1 million people that were jobless. The Unemployment Unit recently calculated that 28 per cent of the working population in Britain are unemployed and there is a now real demand for 5.4 million jobs.

His assertions that the minimum wage and Social Chapter would be damaging to Britain are so misinformed that he would be perfectly at home on the Tory front bench. The CBI and TUC support both measures. Intellectual argument and academic opinion is swinging behind the minimum wage. Two leading US labour economists have concluded that if not set too high, minimum wages have positive effects on employment raising the supply of labour and therefore productivity and profits, while the opportunity to extract profits, by lowering wages and employment will disappear. Due to changes in the labour market, such as more flexible contracts, less collective bargaining and more performance-related pay, as well as company reorganisations, employees are unlikely to mind about differentials and would adapt to the introduction of minimum payments for their lower-paid colleagues. The Employment Policy Institute argues that the Treasury would also benefit from a minimum wage. For example, a modest minimum wage of Ł3.40 would have helped the Treasury to a tune of Ł1.2 billion in 1995-96. The national minimum wage must be seen as part of a wider "welfare to work" strategy involving changes in benefit so the low paid are removed from the poverty trap. Under Labour, "the minimum wage will be introduced in a way which promotes the competitiveness of business and ensures fair competition". The decision on the level of of the minimum wage will involve significant representation from members of the business community and unions.

According to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, Britain has been overtaken by France as the prime European destination for inward investment. The biggest slice of the investment in France - heavily regulated, high cost France, the country that John Major denounced last week - comes from Britain. British firms, such as Tesco, Kingfisher, ICI and GKN have been investing in France since 1990, despite the fact that the country operates a minimum wage and adheres to the Social Chapter. While the UK has been quite successful in attracting labour-intensive projects, it has lost out over money to start businesses heavily dependent on capital and R + D. In fact it is EU membership itself - not the UK’s flexible labour market alone - that has made the UK a prime nation in Europe for inward investment. Anything - including standing aside from EMU - which puts that in jeopardy could cost the country in terms of lost jobs, new productive capacity and innovation. Announcements by companies such as Toyota and Unigate confirm this.

It has taken almost two decades for the adjectives "divided, incoherent, reckless and spendthrift" to adhere to the Conservatives rather than to Labour. Recently, several prominent businessmen stated that "Britain cannot afford another five years of weak and ineffectual leadership....a New Labour government is essential to our future prosperity".

Far from being radical, the Tories are sticking to their old chestnut - public bad, private good. There are of course privatisation successes, but there have been huge disasters. The electricity, gas and water companies exist in a pseudo-competitive environment, with no real choice for the consumer. The rail companies are existing on subsidies by taxpayers that have doubled since privatisation, whilst providing worse service.

Labour has learnt to acknowledge that not everything that the Tories have done should be reversed but that cannot conceal the scale of reconstruction. For me there is a gulf of difference between the two parties. It is the distance between Blair’s statement that "we achieve more together than we do alone" and Baroness Thatcher’s enduring credo: "There’s no such thing as society." Her legacy has been to leave in her party a determination to rid us of our faith in any sort of collective society. We have all become infected with the virus of Thatcherism, and now any social activity is suspect if its end result cannot be quantified. The views of new Labour are the same as that of Kier Hardie or Clement Atlee, but we live in a completely different world to then. "Labour tragically became stuck with the same policies while society moved on. We got ourselves into a situation where we no longer seemed to be a party of aspiration." Labour appeared to represent those who were poor and unemployed and rightly so, but the party has recognised that it must champion the whole nation. The Tories believe, "There is no such thing as a one nation Tory". They are dinosaurs - politicians wishing to run the world as they would like it to be, rather than it is. That is why yesterday I voted for a party led by man who believes we achieve much more together than we do alone.

Mr Baker will undoubtedly refer to me as a cliched, naive, idealistic airhead so please allow me to get my insult in first - SIMON BAKER IS MAD MAGGIE’S FILTHY SPAWN, so there!