Why I really dislike the Labour government

This past week I voted for the conservatives at our general election. 

I wasn’t voting for a party — I was voting against the Labour party.

As it happens, I needn’t have bothered as my constituency overwhelmingly favoured Labour. But, I wanted to feel that I registered my protest.

However, it seems Labour won with fewer votes than it secured in 2019, when it lost. Its share of the vote was smaller than Tories and Reform UK combined. People have not turned to Labour — they simply rejected the Conservatives and SNP after a spell of awful few years. They reached out primarily to the Lib-Dems and Reform UK.

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Statism

The Conservative Party has made a real hash of things, but a Labour victory will now send us straight back to the 1970s. There is a great article by Janan Ganesh in “Britain will dislike the Labour government in no time” (The FT):

In a word, statism. Labour exists to spend money. No disgrace there: it is the quickest route to some of its social objectives. But with taxes and public debt so much higher than when Labour last governed, the pain this time will be sharper. Here is a prediction. After some initial fiscal restraint, Labour, in frustration, will borrow more — on past evidence, much more — than markets currently expect. If taxes rise, too, the public’s reaction won’t be the kind of grudging assent granted to Gordon Brown’s penny on national insurance in 2002.

Worse, public services won’t improve much because Labour won’t reform them. When Tony Blair challenged producer interests in healthcare and education, unions revolted. Sir Keir Starmer shows little intention of even testing their patience. If the Tories are a lobby group for old people, Labour is one for the public-sector middle class. If the most important social schism under this government is between the wage-earning young and asset-rich pensioners, expect the next one to be between private and public sector workers. [...]

So, corporatist institutions are going to proliferate. The texture of public life will feel 1970s-ish. Voters will remember that “fat cats” purr away in the state sector, too. Trade union special pleading will be what bankers’ bonuses were under the Tories. The almost mystical faith in “investment” will come under the scrutiny that it somehow escapes now. (What have been the economic returns on New Labour’s decade of investment?). [...]

Voters, busy with their well-warranted dislike of the Tories, haven’t had to reckon with these things for 14 years.

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Other reasons

Some other reasons why I’m dejected about our upcoming 5-year cycle:

• The “culture war” will be worse under Labour. It’s part of its natural tendency to like telling people what to do — which is more pronounced in the centre left than the centre right. Fine cars, shout at smokers, chip away at property. Indeed, opposition to covid lockdowns came largely from the conservatives themselves rather than any official opposition. E.g. Phillipson recently wanted to depart from the new guidance for schools that bans teaching radical gender ideology, or giving government contracts to “black-led firms” regardless of merit etc.
• By and large, nowadays, the centre right is more tolerant of divergent views than the centre left — which, esp. on social media, adopt an all-or-nothing approach. People who disagree with Labour on trans “rights” are automatically designated a “fascist” who must be cancelled — most excellently illustrated with the former darling of the left: JK Rowling. It’s part of the saying that the left are constantly looking for traitors. Amazingly, left that used to be the fighting against censorship and were pro-free speech during the 60s right up to recent times. Now, they have flipped that script.
• They will continue illegal & mass migration to while fostering a culture of “you’re a bigot if you don’t agree” attitude. Our housing shortage is also quite heavily linked to these record levels of immigration, which the Labour party is even more ideologically committed to than the Tories.
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  Finally, Labour will bring in their constitutional changes and policies as New Labour which embed them in the structures of government in a way to prevent repeal. It will reflect their own philosophy of life — e.g., the legal duty on public bodies to “reduce inequality” (i.e. the public sector must spend more & redistribute on groups of “victims” of inequality, the House of Lords (see opposite re: Ed West & J Sorel from The Spectator on Gordon Brown’s notions - namely “illegalising all opposition”), votes for 16 y/o and foreign nationals etc.