CNJ COMMENT - Labour need a moral compass to steer past cuts

Published: 22 July, 2010

THAT master of spin, David Cameron, who began his working life as a PR man for a TV channel, has set the Con-Dem Coalition on a new course.

He is accusing Labour of being  the authors of the financial crisis and, at the same time, being in “deficit denial”.
Neither noose can be hung around Labour’s neck.

Not all that long ago, the public knew the banks had caused the crisis.

Now, it seems the Tories and Lib Dems want the banks to be able to  slip away from the “crime scene”.

In Orwellian fashion, Labour is being made out to be the ogre.

Labour – and several eminent economists, such as Paul Krugman and David Blanchflower – realise the gravity of the deficit, but argue that George Osborne’s policy will drag the economy into a deeper swamp.

Osborne hopes private firms will replace jobs lost in his slash-and-burn public spending cuts.

But a sign of the times came this week when the City wiped £1 billion off the share value of Britain’s housebuilders – including Taylor Wimpey – as Osborne’s spending cuts began to take shape. Public and private sectors are inter-dependent.

While arguments rage at the top, at local level, the cuts are real.

Can the Labour council manoeuvre its way through the jungle of cuts handed down by Whitehall?

But no matter how cleverly it body-swerves here and there, deep cuts are inevitable.

This would explain it’s U-turn over the sale of the Town Hall annexe – a plan dreamed up by the previous administration.

Now that Labour is in the hot seat, it may be asked: What else can it do?

The sale of the annexe will bring probably net tens of millions.

The site must be worth a fortune to a hotel chain – it is opposite two major railway termini.

Labour could cut overheads in the classical way – by shedding jobs among the 6,500 who work for the Town Hall, along side 2,500 casual and agency staff.

But they would have to sack at least 1,000 staff to make economic sense of their action.

And this is unimaginable.

To steer a purer course, Labour should cut where it must, sell off, if possible, “commercial properties” – even though the market is in the dumps – and, above all, be brave enough to involve the public in a campaign which places the blame at the door of the government.  

Has it got the courage – and moral compass – to do this?