The Alternative Election 2019: It's the morning after, again

The country didn't suddenly becomes heartless overnight. Sorry, I should rephrase that. I don't believe that Britain is (enitrely) a place of selfish, intolerant, poor-bashing Tories. And, really, the statistics agree with me on that.

More people voted for progressive ideas (Labour-Lib Dems-Greens) than voted for the conservative ideas (Tories-BXP), both in the UK as a whole and more narrowly in England. And I'm inclined to believe that the conservative vote was artificially inflated by Brexit, the divisive issue of the day.

For those who see "Getting Brexit Done" as the main issue, it is not a simple matter to write them off as secret Tories voting for privatisation. I'm sure many of them want to save the NHS. I'm sure many of them care about the least well off.

But are electoral system is flawed and our institutions painfully rigged up for hostility to radical progressive change. And last night, that resulted in Boris winning 50 more seats and a majority with an increase in support of just 1%.

More damaging for progressives was that Labour lost 8% of their vote compared to 2017, which spread out across the other parties. Conservative gains where less impactful than - or perhaps rather depended upon - Labour losing votes to other parties.

The stats present a picture of progressives playing the electoral game less well than the Conservatives.

Part of that, but only a part, was Brexit. The Conservatives identified themselves clearly with one polarised side of the debate and got their message through. Labour hedged bets.

But the reasons people voted for Brexit were more complicated than people perhaps like to admit - and Brexit supporters, even in the North, were more middle class than people like to admit.

Sure, former industrial towns in the North voted for Brexit, and then for the Tories yesterday. Yet, as Anoosh Chakelian of the New Statesman wrote, it's a long time now since these places were industrial. I'll be keeping an eye out for a demographic analysis of Tory voters in the North.

However, none of this will be terribly reassuring for those who wake up to the terror of a five year Tory majority.

Those people are on my mind this morning. I think those people were on George Monbiot's mind too when he put together a thread of what we can do next - stressing that community action becomes imperative now, to protect as many people as we can.

And that, I think, feeds how progressives fight back politically.

 Something has to change to make the outcome different next time. I think Monbiot is right, we need to start in our communities. And I think Chakelian is right, too: Labour's problems in the North didn't start with Corbyn and won't end there.

People are terrified by their declining living standards. Others are helpless, their living standards having hit rock bottom with food banks and mounting debts. We need to start organising help for those most in need and maybe find there, or build there, a sense of optimism with which to appeal to the 'squeezed middle', to bring them back into a progressive coalition.

For that, progressive politicians need to get their heads out of Westminster. Labour vs Lib Dem vs Green infighting serves no one but the Tories. They need open, amiable leaders committed, not just willing, to cooperating to offer something optimistic.

And I think maybe more needs to be done on top of that. This can't just be won in Westminster and on social media. There needs to be some tangible movement behind it.

A proper electoral alliance. A proper progressive front. And beneath it all, community action. Municipal movements, rallying individual, concerned citizens together with campaign groups on homelessness and rent, payday lending and benefits debt, on all these cause and more than leave me cold and afraid.

The government for the next five years is not going to represent the majority. Well, nothing new there. But there are plenty of people - the most vulnerable, mostly - who depend upon the state.

We need to do what we can to try and pick up the slack for those people and start building towards winning back the support they need and put that central to our thinking as we move forwards.

The Alternative Election 2019: Conservatives, 'Status Quo'

Boris offers no change, never mind anything transformative. And the promises he does make can't be trusted. Conservative government will most likely continue in the same vein as before - more austerity, more cuts and the cost of it all falling on the most vulnerable.

This is, plain and simple, an argument for voting against the Tories. Why you would be here looking for an endorsement is beyond me. To be clear: you won't find that here. The Conservative and Unionist Party in government has been a disaster.

Austerity has given rise to the return of Dickensian poverty - working poverty and child poverty prominent. Food bank use is through the roof, schools are taking donations and feeding children going hungry. You only need to check out Channel 4 Dispatches to see how the Tories are comfortable with the poorest subsisting.

How do the Tories reply? A meagre 2% or less rise to working age benefits and the carer's allowance. A continuation of welfare policies that will continue to punish the poorest and hurt their wellbeing most.

And all the while our health and social care system is being mismanaged and underfunded, with waiting times now hitting their worst ever level. All the Tories have for an answer is reannouncing old funding as new, funding previously promised and not delivered - that was predicated upon NHS trusts making slashing cuts to their budgets in the first place.

And if the Conservative commitment to austerity, that is destroying the lives of the most vulnerable people, isn't enough to dissuade you from voting for them, maybe the lies are?

Nevermind the well documented fact that Boris lies (or says something racist or sexist) about as often as he opens his mouth. Nevermind that Boris thinks greed and selfishness are good.

Nevermind the Tories' in general governing-by-media approach of announcing and reannouncing the same spending over and again as new to grab headlines. Nevermind the incompetence of the Tories failing to deliver a single one of their pledged new starter homes because they never bothered to take the necessary initial step of passing the bill in Parliament.

Maybe just consider that (in this election, where Boris lied in an interview by saying he's not a liar) the party under his control decided to deceive viewers (that's you, the voting public) of an election debate by renaming their social media account to "factcheckUK" to attack their opponents - in a debate where Boris himself spoke on how little people trust politicians.

The Conservative Manifesto promises no significant change in policy - not that you could trust it, if it did. It's a do nothing manifesto that lets austerity continue indefinitely. The present disaster is lurching towards catastrophe. It's time (long, long overdue) for people to wake up and kick the Tories out.

The Alternative General Election 2019: Progressive parties need to settle their differences

This is another election that will come down to a simple arithmetic: how can progressives prevent another Tory government, led by Boris Johnson as Prime Minister. That simple arithmetic is given a crudity by the fact that most of the progressive parties do not get along.

It's a particularly extraordinary factor in British politics, when you consider how close our progressive political parties are to one another - in their concerns, in their approach, in their policies. Those crossovers continue into this election.

Progressive Goals

All of the progressive parties share a commitment to tackling the climate crisis, with emissions goals set for the 2030s. The features vary, but include tackling energy costs for households and funding the reorganisation of the energy sector and industry to reduce pollution.

Lifelong learning is also a common feature, committing progressives to spending more to enable people to retrain during their working life, and adapt better as the economy changes.

Across the progressive parties is also an instinct to ease the burden that comes with welfare, including, in some form or another, a trial scheme for a basic income.

And of course, tackling the housing crisis is a key priority for all of them, with each making their pitch for how many and what kind of homes they will build.

As ever though, the parties have their differences. What primarily divides the progressive parties are their jealous priorities - and also their deep seated dislike for one another's approach to politics.

Priorities

For Labour, it is what they call real change - the role that public ownership could and should play in giving people a fair chance at a good life. A possibly expensive policy objective that has riled up a lot of people within and without the party.

For the Greens, it's the climate emergency. The centrepiece to a manifesto with some big commitments is £100bn to reach emissions targets by 2030 - much more ambitious than those of the other parties.

And for the Liberal Democrats, they have made "Stop Brexit" their slogan, and to the annoyance even of some of their own supporters, almost the single issue for which the party now stands - even when they might make meaningful pitches on welfare or education reform.

None of these priorities ought to rule out cooperation, but the mutual antipathy between the parties and their memberships always makes things difficult. But imagine if they could cooperate?

For now, see for yourself how close the two biggest progressive parties get in their manifestos, which we breakdown in these articles below:

Labour manifesto review, 'Real Change';

Liberal Democrats manifesto review, 'Stop Brexit';

and then contrast those with the manifesto, and the record in government, of the Conservatives, 'Status Quo';

How badly do you want the Tories out?

This election has all the makings of another two horse race - however much Jo Swinson may be hoping for a Canadian Liberal scale landslide shift. This country's two-party system is just too hard to crack without extenuating circumstances, and the Lib Dems have made too many people mistrustful.

Which makes Labour's determination to stick to it's majoritarian big tent attitude - even in the Corbyn/Momentum era - all the more absurd. Yes, Britain has a two party system. But it has many more parties, that all gain votes and all have devoted supporters who at times are openly hostile to the big two.

Not working in alliance with the third parties, and not working to break up this inequitable electoral and parliamentary system, is a ludicrous act of self harm by the Labour Party - which clings to the remnants of power, mostly expressed these days in the one-party-state level of control it holds over some communities.

Not that other parties have been displaying much of an appetite for unconditional cooperation. The Lib Dems have been trying to oust Corbyn, or deny him the Premiership, as their price for working with Labour. Meanwhile, the SNP want a second referendum on Scottish Independence as their price - one that is too high for most English parties.

That's not to say there has been no cooperation. Working in a small progressive alliance, the Lib Dems, the Greens and Plaid Cymru will probably be able to pick up some crucial seats among the sixty where they are working together. Taking seats away from the Tories, but perhaps also taking seats from Labour.

Labour need to be on the right side of these political alliances if it wants to get into government. The balance of support, in England in particular, means that Labour depend upon tactical voting for them against the Tories, and voters elsewhere leaving the Tories for parties who have a chance to oust them where Labour are outsiders.

Like at the last election, it may be left for ordinary voters, campaign groups and local party associations to work out the cooperation that the national level party leaderships can't if progressives are to oust the Conservatives and their damaging era of austerity and government-by-press-release.

And the damaging era of Tory rule must end. It's been a disaster for the most vulnerable, with the return of Dickensian poverty. Austerity is bad and there is no end in sight under the Tories.

Budget 2018: Chancellor does the minimum to avoid austerity deepening, but this was no windfall budget to undo the hurt

By the end of the next five year period, the government will be spending £30 billion more a year - the largest rise in public spending since 2010. That's the headline that the government will want to see rolling out.

But that is only the surface appearance. The reality is - as Institute of Fiscal Studies Director Paul Johnson said - £30 billion was the minimum to stave off deeper cuts. And the benefit of that spending goes squarely to the NHS.

While no one is going to dispute the NHS feeling the benefit of increased public spending, in this budget the increased spending on healthcare disguises the reality underneath of public spending stagnating - the cuts of the past decade are not being undone and departments may face more cuts ahead.

Measures in this budget were plentiful, but it was money spread thin. Just £800 million for local government, £1.0bn for Defence, £160 million for counter-terrorism policing, £400 million one-off emergency fund for schools, £420 million for highway repairs.

There was a range of handwaved increases for tech and infrastructure to the tune of £1.6bn plus. A mixed bag of measures for apprenticeships worth £650 million. A package of complex investment incentives made up of reliefs and loans.

A 'co-funded' £650 million to renovate high streets. The headline Business Rates cut (said to cost £900 million) - a policy where it is still unclear who will bear the burden, the Treasury or local councils, as the Chancellor has already announced the intention to let councils keep larger percentages of the rates. There was a few hundred million to speed up housing developments and around £4bn for the city regions and the devolved administrations.

For households, there was a £200 million a year increase to 'transition support' for those moving over to Universal Credit and the work allowances were to be relaxed to, at a cost of £1.7bn, to mitigate the impact of the new welfare system on the poorest for which the government had been criticised - but only once the roll out is completed, which could be deferred for a long time at this rate.

There is also the cost to be calculated of tax cuts, including the freezes to a series of duties and the further increase in the personal income tax thresholds - up to £12,500 for earnings before tax applies and a higher rate threshold increased to £50,000.

In total, there was about £7bn spread over the next few years, plus the cost of tax cuts, with perhaps less than £4bn in new one-off spending - and a little under £2bn deferred until the rollout of Universal Credit has been completed. It appears the NHS will get an amount reaching more than £20bn a year by 2023.

The economic forecasts, and tax receipts, gave the Philip Hammond what he wanted: the ability to achieve a surplus and completely wipe out the deficit, so the debt could begin to come down at a faster rate. However, the needs of the NHS in crisis seem to have pressed the Chancellor to action.

Otherwise, Hammond stayed true to form. He preferred to use his room for new measures on tax cuts - to 'keep money in pockets' - than funding public services in plight. In fact, to keep in track, how the Chancellor used his headroom means that there will probably be more department funding cuts to come.

Austerity is not over. At best, the Chancellor Philip Hammond has stumped up the bare minimum cash to stop austerity further deepening. Even then it is a temporary measure, as the Spending Review he announced for next year will likely reveal that there are still more cuts to come.

Budget 2018 Preview: Chancellor Philip Hammond will try to patch together competing demands to present a positive vision - which must be closely scrutinised

So, Prime Minister Theresa May announced austerity will come to an end. The Chancellor Philip Hammond told Conservative members they must not surrender the 'party of change' label. Their right-wing colleagues want a bold, positive statement with Brexit just around the corner.

Where does that leave the government ahead of the Budget?

When the Chancellor stands at the dispatch box on Monday, he will have meet a number of commitments and all of them will require him to open the public purse and spend money - something anathema to Hammond's own favoured fiscally conservative approach.

So beware of the narrative. Whatever the Tories in the Treasury have cooked up, take careful notice of how it is being framed. Hammond needs to carefully wrap up his policy announcements in a positive vision, promising a bright future that brings money to spend.

To spend 'sensibly', of course - the note of fiscal responsibility won't be going away. It's how the Conservatives like to paint themselves (despite the way the national debt has ballooned) and they have spent a decade marking it as separating them from Labour.

But something will have to change if the Conservatives are to find £20 billion for the NHS. To find the more than £8 billion a year needed to keep the various taxes and duties from rising. To at least bring a halt to cuts for long enough for it to seem like austerity has stopped - if not been reversed. Is there any room for movement to find this money?

Well there is pressure to bring the tech giants to heel with a tax - though it's not a move without complications. And the Chancellor has already set out his stall, with a brand new narrative, to increase National Insurance contributions from the self-employed - a policy that went down in flames less than a week after last year's Budget.

The other targets for more taxes are only the rich - the main constituents of the Conservatives. From Pensions to private school fees, there are reliefs and loopholes aplenty. But will the Chancellor be willing to close them?

Far more troubling for almost everyone else is that local councils fear even further cuts to their funding are on the way. That would be devastating for essential frontline services, that are already under pressure - as the government forces local communities to raise money in their own neighbourhoods, even those with few resources.

If the Chancellor decides to hold off on these further cuts, it will likely depend more upon halting or deferring various tax cuts, rather than raising taxes in a more direct or conventional sense. But even then, it trimming one advantage for ordinary workers to protect those same people for a new disadvantage. Hardly a progressive pitch.

Hammond will try to dress up these trade offs as the hard-won rewards of decades of hard times and the promise of better to come. Progressives can't let him present that narrative unchallenged, because these measures will be little more than a government that imposed austerity trying to ride the wave of discontent their policies have stirred up.

Conference round-up: What are the main takeaways from party conference season?

The time of austerity is coming to an end. Or at least that is the overaching message of party conference season. It invites the bigger question of whether the Conservatives would actually be willing and able to deliver it's end.

Last year's election showed the Tories that even a coordinated media bashing of Corbyn wasn't enough to dampen enthusiasm for the content of the Labour manifesto and their call for a step change away from the time of austerity.

The Conservatives know they have to adapt. But they will start only by changing their message, rather than reinforcing that with any particularly drastic change in funding - hence Theresa May telling Prime Ministers Questions that austerity was going to end, but not 'fiscal responsibility'.

The Chancellor Philip Hammond used his conference speech to hint at a change of message, telling party members the Conservatives couldn't afford to be a party of 'no change'. The Prime Minister followed that up by saying austerity was coming to an end.

Opposition scepticism is entirely appropriate.

The Tories will be reluctant converts to the anti-austerity cause (except, perhaps those in local government), and the move was probably forced Labour's unabashed commitments to higher taxes, more spending and a definitive end to austerity.

In fact, Paul Johnson at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) called the Labour proposals the most radical in a long time, capable of deeply affecting the UK economy, and transforming expectations and assumptions about how the economy will work.

The other main lesson of conference season was, obviously, Brexit. As it has taken over every other aspect of politics in Britain, so it has taken over party conference season.

The Tories were, as usual, mired in their three way factional splits - hard right Brexiters, moderate Remainers and Theresa May's split the difference

However, Labour took a step towards laying out in more certain terms their position - with the party more or less all onboard. The party's red lines, particularly a customs union agreement, were supplemented by a commitment to a People's Vote second referendum in the event that final deal fails to pass muster.

The party's preference remains to force an election on Brexit, but the concession Labour's Remainers, to support a People's Vote to ensure the public get a say, is a step towards bringing the party to a (mostly) united position.

Meanwhile, as would be expected, the Liberal Democrats lambasted all who would oppose a People's Vote second referendum. But beneath the business as usual, it was good to see the party's radical liberal factions put some progressive ideas on the table - such as a sovereign wealth fund and more support for cooperatives.

The Greens had the same mix of Brexit and domestic policy at their conference. On the domestic front, they pushed for wellbeing - particularly relating to free time - to get a higher place in our measurement of the UK's economic and living standards.

Finally, the SNP joined their push for a second referendum on Scottish Independence with opening the way for their MPs to support a second referendum on Brexit. While it isn't a straightforward piece of arithmetic, opposing Brexit is consistent with how people in Scotland have voted and may prepare better ground for their own ambitions.

The onrolling Brexit steamroller aside, the end of austerity was the biggest headline. It would seem that Theresa May is right, that austerity coming to an end - but in spite of them, not because of them. The Tories seem to sense the mood is shifting.

There is a big opportunity ahead for the progressive parties, to undermine the case for austerity and drag out into the light the ideological choices that enforced it and the consequences of the Conservative choice to impose it.

Chancellor Hammond begins constructing the Tories framing for their budget

Chancellor Philip Hammond took to the stage at the Conservative Party conference to tell his party that they had to make the case of capitalism - and must first and foremost always be the party of business.

On the one hand, this was the latest barrage in a war of words within the Conservative ranks - torn by Brexit and the deep reservations of the business community. On the other, it's also laying the groundwork for the budget.

Hammond told the conference that the party couldn't afford to be seen as the party of the status quo. The Chancellor trailed the possibility of some tax rises to increase spending, but warned against trying to match Labour penny-for-penny.

We've heard this before.

The budget is coming up and the party delivering it are positioning their pitch, delivering up framing devices for the media to use in the coming weeks. For the Tories, they cannot afford to lose control of the message.

In recent months, even senior ministers have been defying the government with a whole barrage of comments to the media. It's making PMQs a whole lot easier for Corbyn and forcing No 10 and No 11 to waste their time running around putting out fires.

For instance, when the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) felt the need to express it's dismay about Brexit - and the danger of leaving the EU without a deal - a former government Brexit minister labelled them a 'grave menace' to the UK's prospects.

That's not a good look for a party that sees itself as the true representative of business. No wonder the Chancellor is calling for the party to get back on message. But there's more.

The Chancellor is also dropping little hints that there might be some tax rises - though these aren't yet more than hints - with an eye to some slight increases in spending.

Hammond finally loosened some of the purse strings this year, with a slight relaxing of public sector pay restrictions. But they were only very slightly relaxed and spending measures in the last budget were far below the kind of intervention for which the UK economy is crying out.

The consensus on the economy - and on Brexit - seems to be moving away from the Conservatives. Conceding the possibility of a spending increase lays the groundwork for framing the measures Hammond will announce on budget day.

In previous budgets, Hammond has talked up restricted spending and paying down the deficit only to deliver up, at times uncosted, spending increases - even if only small ones. The order of the day was austerity, but spending was needed.

Now, the consensus is shifting towards much larger public investment than Conservatives are prepared to meet. And so the Chancellor is preparing the ground to present the next budget as one that will deliver responsible spending.

Yet behind the narrative, there is little reason to expect anything but more of the same from the Treasury. Brexit is a hinderance and while the deficit has been reined in, the debt has ballooned under the Conservatives.

And who is going to be happy with Tories raising taxes? The last time Hammond tried to make a major tax adjustment, he had to withdraw his self-employed National Insurance fix within a week of presenting it.

In politics, the next best thing to delivering policies in line with the consensus is to get every believing that you're doing just that - without having to go to the trouble of spending the money. Expect this narrative to build through October.

There's no such thing as politics without ideology - only policy made in the context of hidden or unexamined assumptions

George Osborne and Tony Blair took some time out of their busy, and well-paid, post-government lives to talk to a conference in Dubai about the "moderate, pro-business, socially liberal, internationalist" gap at the 'centre of politics'.

The centre that both have in the past claimed and which both have claimed to be a non-ideological space. It's a common claim, mostly levelled at Labour and it's Bennite left-wing, which Theresa May has used against both them and the EU.

But the use of 'ideology' as a pejorative misses one crucial thing: there's no such thing as politics without ideology - just policy made within the context of hidden or unexamined assumptions.

So what is an ideology? In short, it it comprised of: a philosophy of what the world is, an ethics of how people should behave in that world, an ideal of how society should function, and a politics laying out how to get there.

Politics is active element of ideology. It represents the structures, or absence of them, intended to shape society in a particular way, towards particular outcomes.

Comprehending this is crucial to understanding the Tories' time in government. While accusing their opponents of abandoning the centre for polarisation they oversee policies that, from a progressive perspective, have impoverished working people amid widening inequality.

When the evidence appears to be staring us in the face, when it seems so obvious to progressives, and yet conservatives do not see it, there has to be a bigger picture. That is ideology.

Consider the government's housing policy, born during the Coalition. The plan was to convert social housing into affordable housing, to support private sector house building with a higher rent threshold, thereby saving taxpayers money by reducing government housing spending.

This came with the acknowledged cost of a rise in housing benefit payouts, but it was believed that it would balance out in the public favour. It was, in basic, an attempt to shift an expenditure off the public books.

Yet the move in favour of privatised house building has not delivered for ordinary people. If there are benefits to tax payers, they are not balancing out the rise in average rents that has come with the collapse in social housing construction.

The government pursued a similar course with tuition fees. The cost of higher education was shifted onto the shoulders of students. This private, regulated, debt burden was deemed manageable by the Treasury and preferable to it contributing to the the national debt.

That demonstrates a rather cavalier attitude to private debt and Theresa May recently promising a review shows the government is feeling the need to moderate it's position against pushback from opposition.

So why continue with such policies - on housing, on tuition, on healthcare, on welfare, on so many core parts of society - even after it seems so clear, to progressives at least, that it isn't working and people are suffering?

The only sensible answer is ideology - the belief that the pain is a transitional phase, in a journey towards an ultimately more beneficial light at the end of the tunnel. Or, more darkly, that the pain is the point.

Spring Statement: Even with the deficit reduced, the Tories continue to sacrifice the present and future of ordinary people

Photograph: NATO Summit Wales 2014 by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (License) (Cropped)

On Tuesday, the Chancellor Philip Hammond is set to mark the end of the financial year with the government's report at the Spring Statement - and will perhaps mark the near elimination of the budget deficit.

This month has already seen his predecessor and former boss, George Osborne and David Cameron respectively, pat each other on the back for setting in motion the policy of wiping out the deficit that Hammond has overseen in it's latter stages.

With the deficit is reduced, and a bumper year of tax receipts as well, surely austerity can be eased now? No, is the answer from the Chancellor. There will be no new spending because there is still a debt to pay off. So says the Chancellor.

As a result, the Spring Statement is set to be a plain response to the Office of Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) biannual forecast - and will likely be taken as an opportunity for the Conservative government to revel a little. However, Hammond is expected to be as cautious as ever.

In 2013, then Prime Minister Cameron told the gold plated, black tie, Lord Mayor's Banquet that austerity should become a permanent feature for ever - to produce a 'leaner' and 'more efficient' state that could be afforded in the long term.

That isn't good enough for the worst off. As with the closing of the coal mines in the 1980s, austerity is slashing the state and gambling on the private sector picking up the slack - and perhaps the pieces of those people whose lives were shattered and were left to fend for themselves.

Yet the Conservatives double-down on austerity every time - even when their doesn't really chime well with reality. For instance, the current budget has largely been in balance - taking day-to-day spending against tax revenues - for years. And the national debt is not the product of reckless public spending, but of quantitative easing (nationalising huge corporate financial debt to save the banks) and borrowing to invest in the future.

However, the Conservatives have pursued balancing spending both for the present and for the future against current receipts. They have managed to nearly eliminate this definition of the deficit - but they have done so on the backs of the poor, sacrificing their present and the future for their children in the process.

Squeezing both present and future spending into today's tax receipts makes today harder for the worst off, while hurting our ability to lay the ground ready for the future - especially since borrowing for long term infrastructure investment is so efficient.

The present fiscal situation is not exactly a resounding success story either. The Conservative plan is long beyond it's target year and still borrowing around £40bn a year for investment. And, while growth has helped, it is a very minor up tick to 1.5% - which is simply less bad than thought. The same goes for productivity.

For the Chancellor, this appears to be a sign of work still to do. But there are questions that need answers. There is still a shortage of homes. A necessity for food banks. Household debt being driven by a struggle to afford even necessities.

The Chancellor is flying in the face of opinion by pursuing debt reduction over ending austerity. Economic growth has been strangled and the UK national debt is not proving to be very worrying to anyone. He has room to manoeuvre.

But Hammond is the model of a fiscal conservative. He wants rid of the debt and to put something aside for a rainy day. That means another £40bn or more is still to be cut from public spending - either through budget cuts or raised in taxes.

At the weekend came the news that around a £1bn went unspent from the housing and local government budgets - which was ostensibly for building affordable homes - and was recouped by the treasury.

While there are people asking why was this money not spent and if it will it be reinvested in building affordable homes, the reality is that it simply be squirrelled away for the rainy day fund.

It is telling, perhaps, that the Chancellor and the Government don't seem to see this as a rainy day - perhaps looking gloomily ahead to the impact of Brexit? But there are many people out there in the real world who may very well disagree.

It is understandable to rule out major changes to taxation and rules - the IFS were among those recommending it stop. Doing so twice a year is a lot to keep up with. However, no one struggling under the burden of austerity is looking for a complicated readjustment of fiscal rules and tax brackets.

For those who have carried the burden of getting to this point, they want a little more support. A little more investment, or cheap credit, that could create a few more opportunities. Some surety of a roof over their heads and a means of putting food on the table. Care they can rely on when they're ill or retire. None of this should be considered too much to ask.

Wellbeing has been forgotten in the drive to improve employment statistics

Photograph: Job Centre Plus by Andrew Writer (License) (Cropped)

As we approach eight years of Conservative government, the impact of their time in government is becoming clearer. If we judge a society by the wellbeing of it's poorest members, the Conservatives have fallen short.

Despite low unemployment and a real terms rise in household incomes - about £600 a year between 2007/8 and 2015/16 - the poorest have not seen the benefit, caught beneath the weight of the rising cost of living and Conservative cuts to benefits and tax credits.

As we wrote in October, you can't count on increasing employment alone to improve people's wellbeing - especially if the work available is precarious, with insecure pay and hours.

Last week, Resolution Foundation released a report looking at how employment had changed over the last twenty years. It pointed out that there has been a shift among working people, on the lowest incomes, towards lower hours and part-time employment.

Resolution described this shift as, in part, unwelcome and involuntary - with a quarter of working class people wanting more hours. The squeeze on working hours is not being helped by the increasingly precarious, non-standard form of hours worked.

This situation is coinciding with the real terms increase in earnings being offset by several forces: the rising cost of housing, the rising cost of energy and the rise in households servicing growing debt.

With wage growth lagging behind consumer price rises, the cost of living is putting a great deal of pressure on the least well-off households. The Conservative drive to clamp down on welfare and drive people into work has not delivered greater wellbeing.

For seven and a half years, the Conservative approach has been steady as she goes. Even a change of Prime Minister and Chancellor has not led to a change of plan. The evidence shows that, for the wellbeing of the poorest, this needs to change.

First of all, there is a need to address the punitive impact of welfare reforms - that will see the incomes of the poorest fall 10% by 2021-22 compared to 2010. Work is not paying.

Consider: how does the government expect a household that struggles to stay afloat on a precarious income - juggling high rent and servicing debt - with no extra for savings, to meet it's needs when a job if lost and they're faced with a five week benefits application waiting period? Answer: More debt.

Second, the cost of living must be tackled. We need cheaper energy and cheaper rent. How this will be achieved in the long run - whether by community-owned services to breach the energy monopoly and an expansion of social housing and a living rent, or through increased market competition - in the short term they government action.

And third, bound to the first two, a concerted effort must be made to address the growth of household debt. Debts caused by living costs, mostly rent, are a damning indictment of the failure to make work pay - debts that only increase when help is needed most.

The least well off are being crushed and trapped under Tory policies, living with growing anxiety and precarity. Wellbeing is suffering to no discernible end. That is the tale of eight years of Conservative government.

Budget 2017: Hammond gets a second attempt at Budget 2017, but will he act?

Photograph: NATO Summit Wales 2014 by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (License) (Cropped)

On Wednesday, Chancellor Philip Hammond will present his second Budget of 2017. It has been trailed with promises of doing more. But the big question is whether any of the measures will be enough.

Between the growth of wages being anaemic, price rises eating away at households and the private sector not stimulating any positive movement by holding back from investment, it's being argued that Hammond has cornered himself against his own fiscal rules.

The government has made big promises - or at least big announcements, with little that is tangible behind them. The governing reality has frequently been the denial of the existence of a crisis, making excuses or tinkering around the edges.

Consider the big pledges Hammond has made on housing. The Chancellor has refused much needed additional funding, so tinkering measures - such as adjusting stamp duty or loosening restrictions on councils borrowing to build homes - are expected to carry the burden of getting the government to 300,000 new homes a year.

That will mean achieving the completion of around 100,000 extra homes, each year, to reach the target. Which makes it relevant to note that this is, of course, the same pledge that hasn't been met over the last seven years - at times struggling to reach 100,000 at all, never mind an extra 100,000.

These kind of promises, made over and again only to be missed, serve to undermine future pledges to do more. So too, do gaffes like Philip Hammond's Mitt Romney -esque announcement on Sunday that there are no unemployed people (there are).

It hurts the government too, that funding is denied where it is asked for by services, but is magically pulled out of thin air to solve the latest Conservative political crisis - a billion to secure a DUP-Con deal, for example.

The denials, excuses and tinkering extend to other areas. The NHS is expected to be denied the £4 billion in extra funding it's chief has demanded and the existence of a healthcare crisis has been refused.

These attitudes, these tinkering measures, point towards Hammond's approach to the last Budget, which responded to big challenges with a 'steady as she goes' attitude, spending in the millions not the billions.

There are questions still ahead, however, and people who remain vulnerable. What tinkering will help those women, particularly young women, suffering from period poverty? How will tinkering, with cautious suggestions of reducing waiting times, deal with welfare debt traps?

Universal Credit, in the midst of a disastrous rollout, is exacerbating problems - like mounting rental arrears and the simple fact of more than a month without a means on which to live - that are entangled with all areas of life for the most vulnerable.

While the government may be more focused on avoiding any further embarrassments, of which it has had a string lately, by avoiding any backtracks and climbdowns - such as the major reversal on self-employed National Insurance changes back in the spring.

But now is not the time for 'little c' conservatism. Change will perhaps undermine the Conservative position, ever talking of the chaos Labour will unleash by deviating from their fiscal restrictions.

But the Tories failure to match their rhetoric with reality is a party affair. The wellbeing of the people has to come before the wellbeing of the party. It is time to act.

Argentina midterms raise the question: What's so funny about compassionate realism?

Mauricio Macri's hold on La Casa Rosada lightly reinforced by small gains at the Argentina legislative midterms. Photograph: La Casa Rosada from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

The midterm elections in Argentina did little to settle the future of Argentina. President Mauricio Macri's movement gained a few seats, just enough to keep his project rolling forward.

That Macri's project is essentially austerity in a more extreme context is important for progressives to consider. It presents the epitome of what the Centre-Right consider the justification for strong dose of 'realism', but raises the question of why that has to be delivered in the form of harsh measures?

The Midterms elections covered a third of the Senate and half of the lower House. It would have been hoped by Cambiemos to be an opportunity to reinforce Macri's presidency with a stronger legislative contingent - just 16 of 72 in the Senate, with just 86 Deputies out of 257 in the Chamber, to around 46 and 105 for various Justicialist groups combined, respectively.

The four biggest parties each had about half of seats their Chamber seats up for reelection, while most of the Senate seats were being defended by Justicialists (Peronists).

As it happened Cambiemos made gains, though they were few. The coalition took 19 seats, not enough reach a majority, while those were offset by the 25 seats gained by former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, rallying voters from various populist parties to her particular faction.

Even if this result is more than Macri and Cambiemos might have feared, it is still less than they will have hoped. Part of the reason why may be that, after two years in office, Macri has yet to deliver a deep sea shift in the country's economic condition.

That shouldn't really be a massive surprise, because two years is nothing. But the public are restless and what Macri has asked for is a huge change in approach from the Kirchnerist-Peronist years.

Not least are the cuts to subsidies that help with the cost of living for low income families. This is the austerity programme familiar to many progressives around the world.

In Argentina this has particular significance. In reason years, at the least, the Kirchnerist-Peronist populists - especially under the presidency of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner - have tended to offer up big promises, comfortable lies to package harder truths and deeper crises.

Of relevance to all of those resisting austerity is the response of Centre-Right, Argentina as elsewhere: to serve up cold reality and a cold shoulder.

The Cambiemos coalition, that Macri has serving up a meagre helping, includes most of Argentina's Centre and Soft Left - social democrats and social liberals - and you have to wonder have these partners feel about their direction.

Macri has bet the house on austerity, in the meantime putting the poorest in some jeopardy, gambling that foreign private investors will step in and take a chance on Argentina. But it's yet to pan out that way.

The midterms buy Macri some space. Over that past year he has poured the blame for the present situation on the Kirchner "K" movement - calling it the "K Inheritance", probably fairly. But that approach will only work for so long.

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is already building for a comeback, taking seats at the midterms while Macri's approval ratings hover dangerously low at 41%/46% (approve/disapprove).

Macri has offered some consolation to his Cambiemos partners. Last year he announced what he called a 'Marshall Plan' - a reference to the huge public investment made by the US government in it's allies after World War II.

In reality, it was a public-private investment initiative foucsed on lowering the cost of business - in that conservative vein of reduced costs hopefully leading to reduced prices and reduced cost of living.

But these pledges are coming alongside efforts to force Trade Unions and dockworkers to accept pro-competition measures - and while cornered, they are far from convinced.

All of this leads back to the central question. Populists offer an unrealistic view smothered in giveaways and the Right demand a reaction steeped in a cold austere reality. The question is, why can't we address reality with warmth?

Why is it so difficult to imagine a compassionate realism? To pursue a course that does not abandon the most vulnerable to the mercy of corporate interests and charity, when righting a sinking ship.

Politics in Argentina is raising this question. Progressives and their allies the world over need to find a way to respond.

The reality of austerity Britain: work and life are now poor, precarious and uncertain

People gather in Manchester to march against austerity past the Conservative Party Conference 2017.

The reality of the Tories' austerity Britain was exposed in the figures released last week. Those figures revealed that wage growth remains poor at 2.2%, barely above pre-crash levels and falling behind consumer prices rises, with inflation now at 2.9%.

But what do these figures tell us about the big picture of austerity Britain?

Consider Theresa May's response when confronted on issues like poor wages - unemployment is falling. Whenever the PM is confronted, she turns to the unemployment/employment figures. The trouble is, you can't just say that employment is in itself a fix.

Especially when it evidentially isn't the case. Britain might have it's highest recorded employment and lowest unemployment, but what do we know about the quality of life that is providing? What we know, is that working poverty is now very high.

There is no essential truth that employment fixes people's problems or empowers them. Work can only bring liberty under certain conditions.

And austerity Britain is a land of precarity, where social security has been replaced with - or perhaps, outsourced to - uncertain and scarce low paid work. All of which is now threatened by automation, and pits ordinary people against each other in long applicant lists.

This is only heightened by the flaming wreckage of the welfare system. People in need are left without support, and in mounting arrears, for a month and a half when claim out of work support - a situation the government are struggling to even convince there own party to support.

Inevitably, Brexit comes into this. It is important that the ideological case behind leaving the European Union was never made clear. But it's argument for 'freer trade' and less regulation, is a pitch to go further down the road on which we currently travel - to a place of permanently less surety or stability.

But why would those who have campaigned so hard for Brexit want this?

Pete North, Editor of LeaveHQ, blogged how - what he himself described as - the long, painful years of austerity still to come, will in fact be a price worth paying (by ordinary people whose lives would be left in tatters) to accomplish a kind of vague social change, that displayed for more ignorance about young people than any comprehensive thought on the subject.

The governments of David Cameron and Theresa May have pledged a more compassionate conservatism, that takes care of those most in need, while being responsible with the public finances. They have been failures on both fronts.

None of their measures have delivered on even one of these aims. The debt continues to climb. Meeting deficit targets is still delayed. All the pain of austerity and ordinary lives dropped in uncertainty, and the government has nothing to show for it - neither in the public finances or in producing a compassionate society.

Seven years of Conservative government has been a diastrous experiment. It's time to get off this road and find a new way forward.

The Breached Cap: Austerity wavers as the pressure on the Tories mounts

A hole has been burst open in through wall of austerity built by the Tories. The demands of NHS staff threaten to widen that breach and bring the prospect of toppling the wall altogether closer to reality.

Since the impromptu 2017 general election - where the Conservatives were the biggest losers, foiled by their own arrogant power grabbing scheme - the austerity regime has been badly shaken.

Austerity has depended upon Tory swagger, and myths about Labour's profligacy, and the election punched holes in both of those. Their majority lost, the Tories have been under mounting pressure to scale back. To compromise.

Last week they finally cracked. The public sector pay cap was breached. Now, on paper, it is a very small breach. In fact, there was anger as the breach was not even enough to prevent a real terms pay cut for those receiving it. But it is the first sign of austerity finally wavering after seven long years.

So, last Tuesday the Government took the decision to rescind the public sector pay cap for the police and prison officers. It was only a small breach of their long term policy. In fact, half of the 2% has been designated a 'reward' and won't be permanent.

The fact that it was only for a selected few was deeply criticised. Unions were obviously upset at what appeared to be an attempt, from their perspective, of pitting public sector workers against one another - undermining their collective bargaining stance.

The Government followed up with more announcements that didn't help to assuage the Trade Unions. The Government departments would now be allowed to make some discretionary decisions about where to breach the pay cap for it's public servants - but within a limited purview of managing recruitment issues.

The breach of the cap is not, however much the Tories would like to advertise it as such, a pay rise. In reality, the rise in prices, with consumer price inflation hitting 2.9%, will leave the less than 2% pay increase (for the select staff the Tories deigned to give it to) as, effectively, a pay cut. As with any good Tory policy, there's always a way to get out of actually funding it.

The Tories did win some important votes last week. They just about edged their key vote on the second reading of the exit bill, but with expectation even from Tory benches of huge changes to prevent a massive Government legislative power grab. The Government also won the vote to control the key legislative oversight committee.

But from the Tories there came a tangible sense that the wagons were being circled. Defeated on a non-binding motion, which they ultimately chose not to oppose, calling for a fair pay rise for NHS staff, they announced they would take no part in other non-binding motions. NHS staff immediately called for a 3.9% pay rise.

While the votes have no practical effect, they represent the will of Parliament. While for the Tories it will be about avoiding any fights that might provide the possibility of a perceived defeat, it doesn't look good for them after their power grabbing actions over the last few months - from the election, to the exit bill, to the legsilative oversight committees.

The Tory backdown on the pay cap, even if slight; it's incessant grasping after legislative power; it's choice to avoid fights; these are the signs of a Government on the backfoot, with the tide against it. The limited lifting of the cap is a first big breakthrough for anti-austerity campaigners in a long, long war.

The Tory's loss at their power grabbing election may prove to have been the first nail in the coffin of austerity. And it's long overdue. The most vulnerable in Britain have been put through seven years of pain. And for what?

More debt, a Government spending millions taking disabled people to court to cut their welfare, no recovery, the cost of living still outstripping wages, a 'light touch' approach to welfare that has driven homelessness.

There is light coming through the breach. But austerity is not yet toppled. The next big fight against austerity will be on the rollout of Universal Credit. The Commons Work and Pensions Committee heard testimony from a range of contributors from charities and councils, who all warned of impending disaster.

Failures in the set up of previous rollouts, failure in project delivery, claimants facing a cliff edge on rising rents. The Tory failure on other rollouts doesn't bode well either: the 'free' childcare expansion was underfunded and is falling short.

This is the Britain of austerity, where the impact of policies, and approaches implementing them, on ordinary people is seen as less important than headline announcements and the artificial balancing of numbers for moralistic ideological reasons.

We can do better and progressives need to come together to oppose austerity, to get hands into that breach and bring down the wall.

General Election 2017 - The Budget: Progressive optimism vs Tory pessimism

In the general election campaign so far, there's a determination on the Right to spread the idea that their own plans are sensible and that their opponent's are chaotic and don't add up. But that's a crudely simplistic narrative and it comes with a couple of main assumptions that need to be broken through.

On the first assumption: none of the six main parties in England, Wales and Scotland are calling for a drastic overhaul to Britain's economic system. On the second: most economic systems work on their own terms. The sums will add up, whoever is in government. The biggest difference between progressive and conservative versions is their contrasting optimism and pessimism.

While conservatives, and progressives, will try to make the management of the budget a question of competence, or a question of right and wrong answers, those are not the primary questions facing voters. The real question to consider first, is: what are you trying to achieve?

How Ideology affects Economics

All approaches to the economy are ideological: they propose a set of steps to follow, with an intended outcome - an intentional attempt at shaping society to maximise certain behaviours and to minimise others.

When looking at the pitches made by progressives and conservatives, there are two elements you should consider, one for each of the two main categories of public spending - Current and Capital.

For clarity: Current spending is the day-to-day spending on the departmental budgets, historically offset against government revenue. Capital spending is long term infrastructure investment, usually funded by government borrowing.

On Current spending, you need to consider the question of intervention vs laissez faire: do you consider government action in any given policy area to be helping or interfering?

On Capital spending, you need to consider whether to invest in the future or tackle public debt: do you consider public debt or out-of-date technology and buildings for schools, hospitals, or roads and rails for businesses, the bigger burden on the future?

These two questions are deeply connected.

How entwined they are can be illustrated by the long term plan pursued by the Tories. Planning to 'balance' the budget by having both Current and Capital spending offset by revenue, severely limits how much the government can do in the present and for the future. Even more so as they pursue a huge reduction in the proportion of Britain's GDP, the country's gross wealth, the government is spending.

Now, borrowing to fund Current spending, on the day to day department costs, would theoretically be adding to the public debt at the expense of the future (hence the Tories popular refrain about not burdening our children). But Labour - whether you take the vision for the treasury as assembled by Brown, Balls or McDonnell - has not and does not intend to do that.

Under Labour and the Liberal Democrats, the intention has been - from at least the leaderships of John Smith and Paddy Ashdown - to follow a Keynesian approach: to balance just Current spending against tax revenues, thereby not accumulating public debt to pay for the needs of the present.

This approach does, however, leave Capital spending to be funded by borrowing.

The reasoning behind this is that the longer term Capital spending behaves much differently to Current spending. For a government, borrowing is cheap and the added value created by using it for long term investment is huge - so much so that the actual cost of borrowing is ultimately offset by the increased economic growth that results, and the rise in tax revenue that follows.

How to fund investment

The progressive view of these budget questions has a particular focus on Capital spending, refusing the simplistic calculation that public debt equals a burden on the future. Public debts, within reason and where they result from investment in the future, are largely harmless.

But the negative impact of poor infrastructure, on every area of society, could be disastrous. Just look at the mess that resulted from outdated operating systems on NHS computers. But the same point extends to more mundane situations: old and crumbling school buildings, potholed and traffic strewn roads, ports with insufficient capacity, a telecommunications network that doesn't keep up with the needs of people and businesses.

There are, of course, always attempts at being clever in order to reduce borrowing for Capital projects, even when they aren't covered by tax revenues. New Labour tried something new, expanding on plans they inherited to seek out private investors for its controversial and now infamous 'Private Finance Initiatives', as a way to fund Capital spending without adding to the public debt.

The New Labour plan for private-funded public investment built hospitals - but the private sector expects returns. The PFIs left those institutions with the expectation to deliver astronomical returns on those investments - some £300bn all told - and private benefactors continue to receive interest payments from hospital trusts in the hundreds of millions.

In a way, New Labour's approach resembles the Coalition plan for funding higher education - shifting a public debt, weighing on the Current budget, onto citizens as private debt. In a stroke, a chunk of Current spending and public debt was privatised.

But like the burdens that were shifted onto the backs of hospital trusts, the treasury saw a clever accounting trick,  not the social impact of burdensome debt - though at least more limitations were put in place to protect students than the hospital trusts received with PFIs. In either case, the financial burden ends up on the public books anyway.

The Conservatives plan was to oppose borrowing and fund both Current and Capital only with tax revenues. From a progressive view this was reckless, as it would result in one of two outcomes: it would mean slashing spending on people's wellbeing in the present, while still having them pay tax to fund Capital projects that will never bear fruit for them, or it would mean slashing both to endlessly pay off mostly harmless debt.

The underlying motivations for conservatives to pursue this path is as simple as 'faith' in the market. A belief that private schemes are better than public action - seeing public action as interference that just distorts outcomes. Instead of taking the advantage of scale provided by the collective public option, where resources are pooled to maximise their use, conservatives prefer personal private schemes of insurance to pay for services.

How the government finances stand

The overriding aim of this privatising conservative mentality is to fight against 'dependence'. But to pursue that low tax, low interference, approach, that promotes private action, is not compatible with maintaining well funded public services. At some point, something will have to give. To emphasise the point, consider how the public finances stand after seven years of Tory government.

Current spending stands this past year at around £720 billion to £740 billion in revenue, while Capital spending sits at around £80 billion. As the Tories combine Current and Capital spending to calculate the deficit, the public debt increased by about £59 billion.

That will mean, in the coming years - helped perhaps if revenues rise due to economic recovery or growth - 'balancing' the budget will still require a combination of tax rises and budget cuts, to both Capital and Current spending, amounting to over £60 billion a year - and perhaps more, if the aim is to produce a surplus with which to pay down the public debt.

We know that some £22 billion is to come from the NHS, through the finding of 'savings'. Another £3 billion is coming from schools, thanks to recent funding changes. More will come from the welfare freeze. There is clearly an intention to clear some of the cost of social care off the public books by making middle class homeowners pay with their assets. But that still leaves a lot of cuts.

As for the Liberal Democrat and Labour plans, both are actually fairly similar and neither are that tremendously radical. In fact, they're downright sensibly Keynesian. Both intend to balance the Current, day-to-day departmental, spending against tax revenues - with modest tax rises, mostly on the rich, making more room for manoeuvre.

And here is something interesting. On the measure of balancing the Current budget: it's already balanced. In fact it's in surplus. By some £20 billion. It is projected to be in surplus by about the same amount next year. The previous year the Current budget was only £3 billion in deficit. If the job was to rebalance government spending and revenue, the job is nearly three years done.

With their commitments fully costed, either Labour or the Lib Dems would come into government with a very positive outlook on the public finances - seeing the public books as being in a healthy state. The positivity of either of these parties would alone be a drastic turn around from the doomsaying Tories, who promise nothing but ever more cuts.

It is remarkable the affect that optimism and positivity alone can have in economics, particularly in contrast to the Tories doom and gloom and neverending warnings. But the renewed public investment, called for by all progressive parties, could provide a huge long term boost to Britain. From the mass building of new homes to long term support for innovative new industries - particularly in green energy - there would be a lot to be optimistic about.

How we frame debt matters

As for the deficit and debt? Well, how these are drawn up may have to change when the Tories are eventually ousted, because the way we frame these matters. Conservatives have been very successful at getting into circulation the idea that fiscal credibility means opposing public debt. Progressives must counter that narrative by reframing the ideas.

If the value added by Capital spending vastly outweighs its cost - thus removing it as a factor in balancing a budget - it might well be worth starting to calculate it separately from the deficit and debt which results from the Current budget. That means separating out public debt into two categories: productive Capital debt and unproductive deficit debt.

The progressive aim will be responsibility with productive Capital debt and credibility in tackling and avoiding the unproductive Current deficits and debt. Consider: In the three years between 2015 and 2018, there will have been a Current budget surplus of £47bn. The deficit in that period, that Tories use to justify austerity, is the result of £233bn in Capital spending - investment in long term projects.

That means, at the end of that three year period, around 12% of our total public debt is just from that productive long term investment. When you consider the long term, positive impact of that Capital spending, it makes the public debt a lot less intimidating. It also resets priorities.

How we move forward

To be a progressive is to be an optimist - to be believe that people have the power to change things for the better. While government spending is not the be-all-end-all mechanism for that, progressives argue that it has an important role to play and is currently being poorly utilised.

There are huge challenges to face and most them require sturdy long term commitment. Poverty needs to be addressed with affordable housing and energy, and with compassionate welfare that gets people back on their own feet.

Britain's imbalanced economy needs restructuring around innovative new industries and businesses, spread out across the regions, with green energy power them and the technical skills to run them.

The public sector is able to deliver that long term investment in a way private finance has not yet been able to match. It is part of the solution. The next step is to grasp that idea and to pursue it with positivity and energy. Progress is possible and austerity not inevitable.