Jonathan Todd

I know that the other day I again proclaimed the futility of negative politics, at least as far as the Labour Party at the moment are concerned. However, I was asked to comment on this letter from the Tory PPC for Copeland and couldn’t resist picking apart his arguments. I’d be amused at how weak they are, if the prospect of him being the MP for the seat where I grew up and where most of my family still live were not so appalling. This is what I had to say:

If David Cameron is so pro-nuclear, how is his close relationship with the avowed anti-nuclear campaigner and Tory PPC for Richmond Park Zac Goldsmith to be explained? Could it be that the Tories want to say one thing in Richmond Park and another in Copeland?

Irrespective of what they say in different parts of the UK, a Conservative government would not be heard in Brussels, as David Cameron has already made decisions which have, according to France’s European Minister, castrated British influence in Brussels. This materially impacts upon economic wellbeing in Copeland. Chris Whiteside speaks of removing barriers to new nuclear investment, but securing a higher and more stable carbon price would remove a key barrier to this investment. Lowering the cap in the EU-ETS is the best available policy lever for achieving such a carbon price, but this lever will only be pulled by a British government capable of commanding influence in Brussels and across the EU. The castration of British Conservatives in Brussels threatens the nuclear future of west Cumbria should we ever have a Conservative government.

It is odd that Chris Whiteside bemoans, rightly, attempts to misrepresent the policies of other parties and then proceeds not only to misrepresent Labour policy but also his own party’s history.  

As far as his own party’s history is concerned, it is one thing to attempt, as Cameron and Andrew Lansley, the Conservative health spokesman, are doing, to re-brand the Conservatives as champions of the NHS. Great is the joy for the sinner who repenteth. But it is quite another to ask us to forget the sin, as Chris Whiteside’s perplexing praise of the record of past Conservative governments on the NHS asks us to do. The NHS was on its knees when Labour came to government in 1997. We turned it around because we have always believed in the NHS and not seen it “as a 60 year mistake”, as a Conservative MEP recently described it; comments which cause one to doubt the sincerity of the repenting we are being asked to embrace.

As for misrepresenting Labour policy, since when has Budget 2009 been a leaked document? This very public document set out plans for a cumulative 6.7 percent reduction in public spending over the three years from April 2011. I can only presume that the 10 percent figure that Chris Whiteside refers to is the reduction which is implied across most of the public sector by the Conservative commitment to both match Labour’s spending restraint and ring fence increases in health spending. This ring fencing is intended to convince us of the sincerity of Tory repenting on the NHS, but one’s confidence in this sincerity is further shaken by Chris Whiteside’s capacity not only to confuse a leaked document with Budget 2009 but Labour Party policy (which is for a 6.7 percent reduction) with Conservative policy (which is for the 10 percent reduction he refers to).

Nonetheless, Whiteside is correct to be concerned about public debt and we look forward to the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, setting out full plans for the management of public debt in the Pre-Budget Report later this month. He will do so on a basis that both preserves confidence in the public finances and maintains the public services that Labour has turned around since 1997. To re-coin a phrase, this will be prudence with a purpose. Chris Whiteside’s obvious lack of either prudence or sincere purpose is a danger to Copeland.