The pleasure is likely to be short-lived

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One of the many things on which government and opposition are agreed (effectively confirmed in a speech by the Shadow Chancellor a few weeks ago) is that the ‘solution’ to the UK’s problems revolves around economic growth. Rather than debate whether the current pie is fairly distributed, the answer, they say, is simply to bake a bigger pie.

The first and most obvious question is whether economic growth is really as desirable as this approach suggests. Whilst the abstract numbers might suggest so at a macro level, if current levels of economic activity are making unsustainable use of resources then more of the same simply means that we will run out sooner. Whilst it is possible to imagine types of economic growth which are not resource-dependant, that is a much more nuanced objective; and that nuance seems to be missing from both Labour and Tory analyses.

The second question it raises is how to ensure that the extra pie doesn’t simply accumulate in the hands of those who already have the biggest slices. This has, after all, been the default outcome of economic growth in recent decades, leading to increased levels of inequality. Without taking specific actions to control the way the pie is allocated, it will be the default effect of future growth as well. It’s another aspect which neither party seems to be willing to address.

But bigger and more important than either of those questions is the issue of how that growth can be ensured. And here we come to another aspect of shared ideology – both parties share an absolute faith that the answer lies in reducing taxes and regulation, especially on businesses. Empirical evidence for this proposition is 'limited' (and that's being charitable), but one of the features of blind faith is that it doesn’t need any evidence. They don’t usually spell out what they mean in any detail, preferring to hide behind neutral-sounding jargon such as ‘supply-side reforms’, but what they mean is tax cuts and less regulation. And the regulations which they usually want to cut are things like health and safety and environmental protection – cuts which, if people are asked more directly about, they are more likely to resist. And, for all the apparent logic behind the idea of helping businesses to retain more of their profit so that they can invest in new capacity, the economic reality is that most new investment is funded by borrowing, not out of profit. Yet the parties have no other plan.

There have been a number of polls recently, one of which suggested that the Tories could be reduced to fewer than 100 seats. Whilst my first reaction was along the lines of, ‘come on people, we can get them closer to zero than that’, a more considered response was ‘so what?’. Whether the balance is 350 Labour to 250 Tories, or 450 Labour to 150 Tories, or even 600 Labour to 0 Tories, we would still have 600 MPs committed to the faith-based policy of reducing tax and cutting regulation. We would also still have 600 committed to a form of austerity, and 600 committed to the folly of Trident replacement. Even if all of the other 50 MPs were to take a different view (and that’s unlikely: Sinn Fein refuse to take their seats and the DUP are even more of a faith-based cult than the Tories; and then we have the Lib Dems – who knows where they stand on anything? – leaving only the SNP, Plaid and the Greens with any possibility of taking a different view), the chances of a significant policy reset are vanishingly small. A Labour government might be more competent – they could hardly be less so – but the idea that competent austerity based on blind faith is better than incompetent austerity based on blind faith is not exactly the killer argument as which some seem to see it.

The undoubted pleasure which many will feel at the forthcoming near wipeout for the Tories is likely to be rather short-lived.