This is when Harold Wilson lost the UK general election on June 18th, 1970.
David Dimbleby was doing an ‘inquest’, in Wilson’s own words, as to what happened.
Wilson attributes, partly, his election defeat to so many people ‘staying at home’, because there was a cigarette paper difference in policies between the Conservatives and Labour. The ‘millions of votes’ problem still persists to this day, arguably. For example, Labour and the Conservatives do not substantially differ on the McKinsey ‘efficiency savings’, free schools and ‘high speed 2′. Labour has not said it would reverse the closure of English law centres. Of course, Labour supporters and members will wish to point out that there are clear differences in areas of social justice, for example repealing the bedroom tax. At the time, the economy appeared to be recovering. Currently, the UK economy appears to be recovering, although not many people would like to hazard the epithet ‘green shoots’ for it.
Where Ed Miliband has a relative luxury compared to Harold Wilson is that his party is relatively united. Despite the issues about Labour wishing to reform its relationship with the Unions, it cannot be claimed that members of the Unions are at each other’s throats as in the old days. The Conservatives will be arguing, no doubt, that Labour should not be the beneficiaries of the ‘new-found’ ‘economy strength’ on May 7th 2015. The economy which Labour inherits in 2015 will have the same fault lines, however. There will still be competition problems in the privatised industries such as energy and water. Workers will have even weakened employment rights in areas such as unfair dismissal. Right-wing commentators still advocate that the Conservatives are ahead on the economy, but all the polling evidence suggests that Labour is ahead on issues to do with the economy, such as employment rights and utility bills.
In 1970, the Conservatives highlighted a different ‘cost of living’ crisis. However, the reasons for that particular crisis were rather different then:
The cost of living has rocketed during the last six years. Prices are now rising more than twice as fast as they did during the Conservative years. And prices have been zooming upwards at the very same time as the Government have been taking an ever-increasing slice of people’s earnings in taxation. Soaring prices and increasing taxes are an evil and disastrous combination.
Inflation is not only damaging to the economy; it is a major cause of social injustice, always hitting hardest at the weakest and poorest members of the community.
The main causes of rising prices are Labour’s damaging policies of high taxation and devaluation. Labour’s compulsory wage control was a failure and we will not repeat it.
The Labour Government’s own figures show that, last year, taxation and price increases more than cancelled any increase in incomes. So wages started chasing prices up in a desperate and understandable attempt to improve living standards.
Other countries achieve a low-cost high-wage economy. So can we. Our policies of strengthening competition will help to keep down prices in the shops. Our policies for cutting taxes, for better industrial relations, for greater retraining, for improved efficiency in Government and industry – all these will help to stimulate output. This faster growth will mean that we can combine higher wages with steadier prices to bring a real increase in living standards.
The issue of whether our economy is a ‘low wage’ one has now become a powerful issue given the ‘record number of people in employment’ claim. The number of people who are paid less than a “living wage” has leapt by more than 400,000 in a year to over 5.2 million, and this single finding contributes to the idea that the economic recovery is failing to help millions of working families. A report for the international tax and auditing firm KPMG also shows that nearly three-quarters of 18-to-21-year-olds now earn below this level – a voluntary rate of pay regarded as the minimum to meet the cost of living in the UK. The KPMG findings highlight difficulties for ministers as they try to beat back Labour’s claims of a “cost of living crisis”. The London mayor, Boris Johnson, has announced a new, higher rate for the living wage in the capital, while in a speech tomorrow, Ed Miliband, will flesh out how his party will create economic incentives for companies to adopt the living wage. There is therefore a curious political consensus emerging between Ed Miliband and Boris Johnson, in a way that will midly concern David Cameron at least.
A famous headline from “The Bulletin” of December 23rd 1964 states that, “Prime Minister Harold Wilson has confounded critics in Britain with razzle-dazzle tactics.”
The opening paragraph states that Harold Wilson greatly admired the election-winning tactics of the late President Kennedy. In November, it will be 50 years since John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and David Miliband has written a nice article in the Times to explain what JFK means to him. Whilst there has been some problem with this project accelerating from standstill, Labour seems on-track again to support the Conservatives over ‘high speed 2′. But, even not that long ago in August 2013, it was reported that the Institute of Directors had become the first large business group to call for the planned high-speed rail link between London and the north to be scrapped, saying the £50bn project would be a “grand folly”.
Whilst the circumstances surrounding the Harold Wilson governments are different today, one noteworthy criticism of the Wilson approach is that he seemed to promise simple solutions for complex problems. Ed Miliband is equally at danger of this, in claiming that he will be able to solve the energy prices problem with a price freeze. His team are at great pains to point out that the price freeze is only part of the strategy. The rest of it involves reforming the market and the regulatory framework overseeing the market. One of Ed Miliband’s favourite catchphrases, in as much that he has them, is that he wishes to be the person who ‘underpromises and overdelivers, not overpromises and underdelivers’. This is of course prone to accidental mix-up like his other catchphrase, “We promise to freeze prices not pensioners” (which has already been misquoted by Chris Leslie MP as, “We promise to freeze pensioners not prices”, on BBC’s “Any Questions” recently.)
In the criticism to end all criticisms, it’s been mooted that Harold Wilson was not in fact a socialist at all, but a Liberal. This may seem pretty small fry compared to the idea that Nick Clegg is in fact a Tory. But Ed Miliband may not be a socialist either. I still feel he is essentially a social democrat. Anyway, whatever label you decide to give Ed Miliband is not particularly relevant in a sense. Miliband’s first concern must be to win his election for his party and his own political career. Supporters of Wilson and Blair are keen to point out that they won four and three general elections, respectively. However, it is also true that many feel that their Labour governments were essentially trying to ‘do things better’ rather radically changing things. The criticism has been made of both periods of government that Labour let down the working class vote. The cardinal criticism is that their periods of government were essentially missed opportunities, even if Blair was more of a ‘conviction politician’ than Wilson.
Time will tell whether Ed Miliband will emulate the “successes” of Wilson or Blair; or whether he can go better.
Many posts like this have originally appeared on the blog of the ‘Socialist Health Association’. For a biography of the author (Shibley), please go here.
Shibley’s CV is here.
My blog on dementia is here: http://livingwelldementia.org
