Tony Blair's Deferred War on the Working Class

Labour knew they were spending, borrowing too much

As Labour leadership candidates Andy Burnham and Ed Balls battle over whether or not the Labour party would have embarked on a program of cuts similar to that of the current Tory/Liberal Democrat government, Lord Andrew Turnbull, former head of the British Civil Service, has dropped a bombshell on the debate:

The Labour party was spending too much, and knew it was spending too much. And it knew in 2005.

Lord Turnbull suggests that it was political pressure that convinced Tony Blair and his government to continue spending at a manifestly undisciplined rate, even after it became evident that there was a problem.

"It kind of crept up on us in 2005, 2006, 2007, and we were still expanding public spending at 4.5 per cent a year," he explained. "You might have thought that we should have been giving priority to getting borrowing under better control, putting money aside in the good years - and it didn't happen."

Lord Turnbull's comments reveal Keynesian economics for precisely what they became under Tony Blair: an excuse to spend, even at the expense of the government's ability to battle a recession by expending savings accumulated during strong economic periods.

Lord Turnbull explained it very simply: "Public spending got too big relative to the productive resources of the economy."

"The politics was that we had put an end to boom and bust," he said. But it didn't work that way. The government overspent even during the time of boom, and now succeeding governments have to fix the problem.

All of this complicates matters intensely for the current crop of Labour leadership candidates, looking to replace Blair's successor, Gordon Brown.

Andy Burnham has been tremendously candid about the necessity of cuts under a Labour government.

"Let's get some honesty in this debate," Burnham said. "There would have been significant spending cuts under Labour and there would have been job losses under Labour."

For his own part, Ed Balls seems to think that things would have been magically different under a Labour government.

"I think Labour would have been creating jobs this year," Balls insisted. "At a time when the economy is slowing down, we should be building houses, not cutting them, building schools, not cutting them."

This of course begs the question of where the money would have come from. But Balls seems to think that he has the answer... or at least something he can easily pass off as the answer.

"The banks should be paying the price of the crisis, not people up and down this country," Balls insisted.

Of course, it shouldn't be the banks that pay the price for the excessively poor fiscal policy of the Blair and Brown governments. One way or the other, under one government or another, the British government will have to pay the price for that.

Unfortunately, it's inevitable that when the government pays, the citizens will pay as well.

Many among Britain's left have gleefully seized upon the looming cuts by the David Cameron government of waging class warfare against the middle and working classes.

But even as Tony Blair spent the government of Great Britain deeper and deeper into debt, he had to have known that a fiscal day of recknoning was coming. Tony Blair had to have known that the middle and working classes would be hit hardest by that reckoning than anyone else -- including himself.

If class warfare is being waged against the working and middle classes at all, it's Tony Blair's defferred class warfare.

Elitism... It's What's For Dinner

Andy Burnham obsessed with New Labour "elitism"

When Labour leadership candidate Andy Burnham suggested that the leadership of the Labour Party was too elitist under Tony Blair, he must have been satisfied with the results.

After all, that was June. Now it's August, on the verge of Labour members voting on their new leader, and Burnham is lobbing accusations of elitism again -- this time at David and Ed Miliband.

The Miliband brothers, he alleges, are both the result of the Labour party recruiting from "the elite".

As such, Burnham charges that the Miliband brothers -- one of whom will likely assume the party leadership -- represent the worst of the old party leadership.

"At its worst, it was self-indulgent, arrogant, elitist, Londoncentric and all of that has to change," Burnham contends. "It looked hollow and rootless at times."

Who is the antidote to Labour party elitism? Why, Burnham proclaims that it's none other than himself.

"I didn't have well-connected parents," he declares. "People are looking for politicians who have real life experience."

Whether or not Andy Burnham was born into any power elite establishment, however, is irrelevant. While Labour was in government under Gordon Brown, Burnham served in a pair of Minister of State roles -- for health and sport -- as well as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

In other words, Burnham is among the elite MPs of his party.

So while Burnham can pledge that he will be an anti-establishment candidate, this is repeatedly undermined by the detail that he, himself, is a member of the establishment within his own party.

He could certainly pledge to be less elitist -- as the Miliband brothers themselves have done -- but to be pretend that he isn't himself now a part of the elite defies credulity.

Labour Leadership Race Getting Crowded

With the Labour Party extending the deadline for would-be leaders to declare their candidacy, the race to become the successor to former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has gotten crowded.

It may get more crowded yet.

The campaign started slowly, with the Miliband brothers, David and Ed, declaring their candidacy. They have since been followed by Ed Balls, Andy Burnham, John McDonnell, and Diane Abbott.

Abbott is the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. In 1987 Abbott was the first black woman elected to the British House of Commons. Abbott is a second-generation Birton born to Jamaican immigrants. She has also contributed her talents to the Jamaica Observer newspaper.

Although Abbott, 56, was a member of the National Council for Civil Liberties, where she worked alongside former Labour Cabinet Ministers Paul Boateng, Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt, Abbot has no Ministerial experience -- likely a handicap in the contest.

John McDonnell, 58, is the MP for Hayes and Harlington. He chairs the Socialist Campaign Group, a group by the name of Public Services Not Private, and the Labour Representation Committee. He also serves a group of eight large labour unions as their benefactor in Parliament.

McDonnell will likely be the left-wing standard-bearer of the leadership campaign. Among his acts as a left-wing insurgent within the Labour caucus has been joining together with a number of Plaid Cymru MPs to demand an inquiry into the Iraq War that his own party initiated.

One could expect that a McDonnell victory would be the prelude to a significant leftward shift for Labour Party policy.

Leigh MP Andy Burnham, 40, seems to be the heavyweight of the newcomers. He has served as Secretary of State for Health, Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport, and as Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

Burnham joined Labour at the tender age of 14, in protest to the Thatcher government's treatment of miners.

However, Burnham was also hit by the recent controversy over MPs' expenses. He attempted to claim 16,000 Pounds Sterling in expenses for a home he had been renovating in London. He submitted the claim on numerous occasions. It was rejected each time.

Whether or not the Labour Party manages to attract additional leadership candidates, the stage has been set for an intriguing leadership campaign.

David Cameron's Health Care Dilemma

Disrupt party unity or give Gordon Brown a massive gift?

As the health care debate continues to rage in the United States and (sadly to a much lesser extent) in Canada, British Conservative party leader David Cameron is facing a health care debate of his very own.

He's essentially been presented with two options -- severely punish a group of Tory MPs, led by Daniel Hannan, who have endorsed the views of American opponents of health care reform who have also targeted Britain's National Health Service as an example of why Americans do not want to institute universal health care.

"I wouldn’t wish it on anybody," Hannan told FOX News. "We have a system where the most salient facts of it you get huge waiting lists, you have bad survival rates and you would much rather fall ill in the US."

The Labour party wasted no time whatsoever in jumping all over Hannan's remarks, treating them, in a "secret agenda"-esque manner, as the secret "true policy" of the British Conservative party on health care.

"This lays bare the Tories' deep ambivalence towards the NHS," said British Health Secretary Andy Burnham. "Their election strategy is not to talk about it. Cameron knows there is deep hostility towards it within his ranks."

"Hannan is not the only one. Many senior Tory MPs privately agree with him," Burham added. "Mr Cameron looks rattled today. Dan Hannan's attack lays bare the real face of the face Tory Party."

"Despite Cameron's frantic backtracking, it's clear he and Hannan are much closer than he wants people to think," he concluded.

Which is actually rather different from Cameron actually had to say about the NHS.

"One of the wonderful things about living in this country is that the moment you're injured or fall ill - no matter who you are, where you are from, or how much money you've got - you know that the NHS will look after you," Cameron said.

It should be no surprise that Cameron has been so quick to defend the NHS. Hannan's comments have jeopardized a long-standing rebuilding and rebranding program by the Conservative party, one that has placed it well-poised to win a Blair-esque majority in the next general election.

And with some very stormy political clouds ahead, it's of little surprise that Gordon Brown is eager to jump on Hannan's remarks in an attempt to derail the Tory train.

"It is understandable that the Conservative leadership have tried to distance themselves from those in Tory ranks who criticise the NHS," Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently remarked. "But the truth is that there are two Tory faces on the NHS. Behind all the recent talk of commitment, the party has not truly been reformed."

To make matters worse for Cameron, Burnham has called on Cameron to bar Hannan and the other members of the Atlantic Bridge Group from the upcoming Conservative party conference.

Which clearly places David Cameron in something of a quandry: if he forbids Daniel Hannan and the other members of the Atlantic Bridge Group from attending his party's convention, it will sew disunity within his party and disrupt Tory momentum. If he allows them to attend, Gordon Brown and Andy Burnham will use it as an opportunity to continue smearing the Tories with "hidden agenda" fear mongering.

Unfortunately in Britain -- as in Canada -- the focus on the political side of the health care debate has disrupted any attempt to substantively discuss the issues surrounding the matter.

For example, health care quality in Britain has seemingly stagnated over the past two decades.

Unfortunately, forcing David Cameron to juggle his support of the NHS with Daniel Hannan's criticisms of it draws attention away from issues such as this. Whatever they may have to say about it in public, Gordon Brown and Andy Burnham are not really doing the British public any good by trying to transform the NHS into a political hand grenade.