Today’s FT has interviews with both Gordon Brown and Ken Clarke, agreeing with each other, well some of the time.
Gordon Brown points out that he warned the Lib Dems that if they got into bed with the Tories it would end in tears and that he cannot believe how bad things have become over the last 14 years. While Ken Clarke points out, quite rightly, that he left Gordon Brown a healthy economy and this time the Labour party will not be so lucky. They will, he thinks, inherit the worst situation since the end of the Second World War.
I fear they are both right. It is not just that the Tories have wrecked the economy, forced us out of the EU on terrible terms, run down the state, wrecked the NHS, increased child poverty and made the country a laughing stock. They are also desperately trying to burn the boats and poison the wells.
Leaving the ECHR, Rwanda, free ports, a crumbling NHS, unaffordable tax cuts, attacks on the courts, undermining universities, watching companies flee the London Stock exchange, attacks on the poor and the ill.
But of all their failings Brexit is the biggest. Not just the lies during the campaign and the endless battles since about how to make Brexit harder and “purer”. But the total refusal to even talk to our neighbours and friends about how to make it work better and the truly pathetic claims that any dealings with Brussels amount to treason and betrayal.
One big leap forward, an easy and cheap win for a new Labour government will be to just start having grown up conversations with the EU and its members.
It will not change things overnight but after 5 years it could change a great deal. Just small changes on pet passports and passport controls, checks at borders and the length that ex pats can stay in Spain and France will make a huge difference, just not in themselves but to the mood and merit of the conversations.
Think how much better we might feel if we actually stopped cutting off our nose to spite our face.
A few more heavy hitters in government like Clarke and Brown would also help, but you can’t have everything.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
By Jonty Bloom Media
“A few more heavy hitters in government like Clarke and Brown would also help, but you can’t have everything.”
If only.
I wonder whether Labour has yet woken up to the damage Streeting’s pronouncements are doing to the willingness of progressives to engage in tactical voting?
I just wanted to say how valuable I find Jonty Bloom's commentaries.
I just question (on Brexit) whether there is a middle ground where trade arrangements would improve without the UK accepting at some level the "4 freedoms ". I also wonder if making things easier for long stay travellers would simply ease some of the electoral disquiet without solving more fundamental economic problems.