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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Osborne’s Gauntlet: How does Labour respond?
Popular memory recalls George Osborne’s 2012 Budget as the Omnishambles. Ed Miliband’s description was a little unfair, but only a little: any political event where opponents gain traction out of three separate criticisms of it is a PR shambles, whatever its other merits.
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Economy de les Francais !
I think the Labour strategy is pretty obvious. They'll accept the basic outline of the Tory plans for the first two years, but with a couple of properly costed exceptions with high political significance and low economic significance. Free cardboard boxes for kittens, funded by a one-off levy on pedophiles, or something like that.
See Kirkup's analysis in the Telegraph (apols for length) - will post separately.
...precisely where within the welfare budget Mr Osborne would find his £12 billion remains unclear, because the cuts he has suggested so far come nowhere near that total.
Total benefits expenditure this year is expected to be £163.8 billion.
The largest single part of that bill, the state pension, will cost £83.3 billion, but the Conservatives have made clear that it is off-limits and will even grow, because of the commitment to the “triple lock” uprating of pension payments.
Of the remaining spending, housing benefit is the single most expensive item: £17.3 billion is spent housing people of working age, and another £6.4 billion on pensioners.
Mr Osborne has suggested that housing benefit spending could be reduced by stopping people aged under 25 from claiming it. The argument may have political force, but the numbers may be less convincing.
A total of 350,000 people under 25 claim around £1.9 billion in housing benefit. Ending all those claims would deliver significant savings.
However, Whitehall officials say doing so is all but impossible. The majority of young claimants have children of their own, and Conservative sources have previously suggested that such people could be spared from cuts in housing benefit.
Many others claimants might also make ministers pause before withdrawing benefits: some are disabled, others are fleeing domestic abuse or have recently been in care.
As a result, internal Whitehall estimates are understood to show that there are barely £100 million of savings to be made from housing benefits for under-25s.
The Chancellor’s other proposal for new cuts would also raise relatively small sums. He suggested ending housing benefits for people earning £60,000 or more.
Yet Whitehall figures suggest that there are no more than 21,000 such people. Withdrawing their housing benefit might raise a few hundred million pounds at most. Not enough for a Chancellor who has committed himself to finding billions.
So where would Mr Osborne find his £12 billion? Well, he could impose real cuts on housing benefit, a course that would almost certainly lead to warnings of making thousands of people homeless.
Or he could look to the other major items in the welfare budget. JobSeekers’ Allowance costs £5.2 billion, but more goes on people judged to have some form of limit on their ability to work.
Employment and Support Allowance costs £9.6 billion and JobSeekers’ Allowance costs £5.2 billion, and Disability Living Allowance is worth £7.5 billion this year.
'The Chancellor’s other proposal for new cuts would also raise relatively small sums. He suggested ending housing benefits for people earning £60,000 or more.'
21,000 higher rate taxpayers claim housing benefits,can't be true?
On topic: at present what Osborne needs to do (both in his day job and as a papabile) is to run ideas for benefit cuts up the flagpole and see who salutes them. It may be, of course, that no one salutes anything. This at least gives him the elbow-room to say "I'd like to cut the deficit faster, but it's politically impossible - we'll all have to be patient". Quite how this will distinguish Osborne from a chancellor who didn't even want to cut the deficit to begin with - well, you tell me.
I shall probably be saying something like this on a daily basis henceforth (a bit like that ancient Roman whose name escapes me for now): abolishing the budget deficit is a political impossibility. Funding it at current interest rates isn't. Only Thatchers and Blairs don't take the line of least resistance, and we haven't got one in stock. Left or right. To get our economy shipshape will take an IMF intervention and (probably, if the job's to be done properly) a Grand Coalition.
NIESR's revision brings its forecasts into line with those of the OBR as released at the same time as the Autumn Statement in December. Annual Growth in 2013 is forecast by both organisations to be 1.9%. This means that the UK will start 2014 some 1.2% below the pre-recession peak level of GDP recorded in January 2008.
With almost all forecasters predicting annual growth greater than 2.0% during 2014, this means that the UK GDP will have 'recovered' from the impact of the financial crisis somewhere between Q2 and Q3 this year. This will be an important political milestone and one that is certain to impact voter attitudes in the run up to the General Election. Using the Obama/EiT analogy, it will be the equivalent of a near write-off of a car being returned from the panel beaters gleaming and ready to roll.
If George is lucky he may even get a further milestone to celebrate before the election: the UK overtaking France as the fourth largest economy in the world as measured by GDP. OECD figures in USD PPP for the end of 2012 show the two countries to be very close, with France at the end of 2012 on $2 371.9 bn and the UK on $2 368.2. And the quarterly figures for 2013 do show that Citoyen Hollande's attention may have been on figures other than his country's GDP. See: http://bit.ly/KRPM1G for a comparison between France's and UK's performance in 2013.
So with the restored motor standing proud on the drive, the "key" question must be who should be permitted to drive it.
Should the country allow Balls the Boy Racer anywhere near the keys? A second prang would almost certainly mean a total write-off. The answer appears obvious to all but the most partisan. Labour's driving ban has at least another five years to run.
But what about Car Coat Clegg? A much safer prospect. Plenty of hand signals and no revving at the traffic lights from this one, but does the electorate really want to be stuck in a tail back behind a middle lane motorway driver doing 40 mph?
The answer is clear. George the Shoe Maker Osborne. A sound, multiple winner topping all the measurement tables. The only thing we would need to do is keep him off the ski slopes.
I despaired about Brown and I despair about Osborne. What we want is a grown up chancellor who puts dealing with the economy first rather than political games.
The man who would be ideal is Andrew Tyrie.
While Osborne plays his games the CON brand gets damaged further.
It's a chicken-and-egg situation about who started it, though.
Osborne's also having to play a very difficult hand. Brown had it relatively easy: a growing economy which he just had to keep growing until it burst. Osborne has had to try to get the economy growing, which is fundamentally harder. It's up to individuals to try to decide if he's done a good job of it.
But you're right: we need grown-up politics, instead of the playground type we get all too often (with some honourable exceptions). But that problem infects all parties.
As for Tyrie: a strong candidate. But he's privately educated and did PPE at Oxford - all we'd get are the ignorant 'one of the chums' calls.
Accordingly the government need to review further child benefit and IMO restrict it to the first two children and taper down the qualifying threshold.
The range of goodies for the over sixties need to be curbed substantially and means tested and all benefits, except state pension and pension credit, frozen until 2020. Pension age to rise to 70 by 2025.
On the flip side the main assistance should be levelled toward the working poor, aiming to raise the tax threshold to £12,500 by 2020.
That'll do for starters ....
I'm fed up with two main parties whos only principle is whether the policy gets cheap electoral advantage (which it often dosen't anyway). I think we are at the beginning of a historic alignment and in 30 years Lib Dems and UKIP will dominate (much as has happened in Northern Ireland to UUP and SDLP).
What UKIP and Libdems have in common is that their party structures are democratic. Members can debate, vote on and inflence policies. Labour and Tories internal democracy is on a par with North Korea. That is what lies at the bottom of events like this weeks Haverhill by election.
We need to look at the macro-economic measurements, Mr. Smithson.
In 2010, UK growth under Gordon Brown, was the weakest of all but three of the OECD's pool of over 30 measured countries.
Today UK growth leads the G7 in rate of growth.
At the end of 2009, the UK was borrowing £155,623 bn per year. At the end of 2012, this has reduced to £93,522 bn. It is still falling and the official OBR forecast, based on Osborne's current plans is for PSNB ex to reduce to just £2 bn in 2018-19.
I could go on (and on and on) but almost every macro-economic performance measure shows the UK to be heading in the right direction at a globally competitive rate. This compares with the diametric opposite of these trends recorded under Gordon Brown.
And what is more, not only is George presiding over an impressive economic recovery confirmed by objective independent metrics, he has also had the time to be a successful political gamester.
Boy George, Boy Wonder, Mr. Smithson.
Prejudice maybe, but one wholly underpinned by objective fact.
If all this did not end up having a real, adverse impact on real lives that real people only have one chance to live, then it would still be utterly pathetic.
The first would be to freeze benefits across the board, thereby eroding them over time. A not dissimilar move would be to freeze benefits to new applicants, such as stopping child benefit to new claimants (or new claimants with more than one child etc. These would gradually provide the money rather than instantly. As most employed people have had sub inflation pay rises over the last five years while benefits have been CPI linked this would restore differentials gradually to 2008 levels.
Housing benefit should be the real target, and goes to subsidise two main groups: low income families ant buy to let landlords. The first will be rarely conservative voters, the latter probably Tory. This can be done in part by increasing supply (as the coalition has done) and by restricting immigration. Freezing and capping claims here would also be viable, and restricting housing benefit to people resident in the UK for five years would probably play well to the kippers also.
A further drop in unemployment should also cut the benefits bill, both directly via JSA, but also indirectly via other benefits that are means tested such as Housing benefit.
The needlessly complex tax credit system also has potential for restrictions, particularly at the top end. Is it ever right for those on above median incomes to be getting these?
Osbornes real success though is in framing this debate. While individual cuts are difficult to make, or have only minor effect as NPXMP discusses, It all feeds the perception in Tory inclined voters minds that Labour is soft on benefit bludgers, and forces Labour into either matching the harsh language or sticking up for unpopular cases.
It's easy to tell t'other from which on a site like this, Jack. Less easy in the real world. Are those who give away their life savings in the couple of years before they need residential care being canny or feckless? Does it not depend on where you look at them from?
I certainly don't think the 18% who bothered to go to the polls were overly concerned about dubious internal democracy in the Labour or Conservative parties and as for the 82% who couldn't be arsed .....
A very good point on giving away assets before they become a mean test liability. The means test for elderly benefits means it unwise to hold many assets past the age of 80. Good retirement planning should involve running down these assets by that age. I certainly intend to do so!
The life savings would have been taxed, probably several times, over time and accordingly the parents are rightly entitled to dispose as they so wish and indeed especially to assist their children as has happened for generations in the past.
The sad truth is that the country cannot afford the welfare bill. Osbornes measures are stunts that nibble at the edges in cost terms and hit people whos welfare is already minimal.
There are two real problems that need sorting in welfare
1) Housing benefit is welfare benefit that funnels straight into private landlords pockets (and also into housing associations with over generous salaries and pensions, particularly for executives, pockets). Building council estates and rent control + licencing for private landlords would bring down housing benefit far more than osbornes vicious proposal against under 25s
2) Child tax credits. These are grossly over generous in four regards.
(a) for each child an addtional child allowance of over £2,750 p.a. is given. Tapering is consecutive. This is absurd and encourages child farming. Subsequent children do not cost as much as the first as you can hand down cots clothes etc. The child allowance for second and subsequent children should be halved.
(b) Disabled element (£3,100 p.a.) should only apply for serious disabilites, not for things like attention deficit disorder which disreputable parents are keen to get a diagnosis of to access the cash machine.
(c) Self employed fiddle. Someone registering as self employed can claim tax credits indefinitely even if they only make £500 a year, they don't actually have to do much work and are ratrely if ever monitored to ensure they are working. (Universal credit will end this by deeming self employed people to be earning 35hours x mininum wage even if they dont earn that much after first year)
(d) The part time fiddle. Someone with children can work 16 or 24 hours part time (16 for some, 24 for others) on tax credits for the minimum wage and get an equivalent salary to a wage of £30,000. This is an outrageous subisidy to businesses employing un/low skilled people who knowing this cut their salaries to minimum wage and offer mainly part time work. People without children who cannot access tax credits are left high and dry in poverty by this.
(
Voters do not do gratitude parrt 2
Winton Churchill 1945
Mr. Smithson, really not my period, but didn't Churchill massively cock-up the election campaign, expecting instead to just cruise to victory? If so, that'd be an argument against complacency, more than anything else.
That said, I agree with you that gratitude is not a way to retain power. A party has to be seen to be best for the next term (or least bad).
Most of the reason for the increased Labour vote was the near extinction of the Liberals and National Liberals. 1951 had the biggest vote share for the big two parties ever, as I recall.
Labour's motto of "Cheer Churchill but vote Labour" seemed to sum up the mood accurately.
It is alright for rich Tories. They can just take to their apartments in Villeneuve-sur-Mer or their Villas in Tuscany to while away the mistake. Although given what is going on in France and Italy, the solution this time may be their stud farms in Ireland or olive groves in Greece.
Which party is most complacent at present?
I agree though that voters choose on the basis of expected future perfomance, over past performance. This is where Milibands front bench looks so weak. Where are the strong performers here with a vision of government and the ability to communicate? It looks like a talent free zone to me.
You must be one of the few who thinks a Scot doesn't know what canny means.
You should also know, as one of PB's "Old Contemptibles, that the product of my ARSE is profit .... something us Scots also know a deal about.
It was The Scots wot brought down Attlee as I recall by voting Tory in droves.
I suspect the Lib Dems are least complacent, but by going turtle (withdrawing into the shell of defending constituencies and only having a crack at a few others) it'll greatly simplify their approach to the next election. It'll be trickier for the big two parties.
Mind you, if Scotland votes Yes that'll throw the velociraptor amongst the paleontologists.
Labour offered the NHS and the Welfare State and a group of proven wartime ministers whereas for all of Churchill's war time brilliance the Conservatives offered the past that voters were desperate to leave behind.
Of course not.
it's only Spads, out of touch PR twits and Osbrowne who think that posturing, counter-positioning and triangulation on economic minutia will have the voters gripped. In the real world the public really don't give a sh*t about which proposed master strategy is supposed to make which party move left or right and by how much. Those same Spads and PR idiots also delude themselves that they have any chance whatsoever of dominating the narrative and deciding what the public chooses to care about and what events will shape the news and politics.
The tories will continue trying to capitalise on any and all economic news that can be spun as good while labour will continue to try and focus on cost of living. Neither party is about to suddenly concede their preferred strategy just to please the other. The very idea is preposterous. While the tories and labour keep trying to push their own preferred agendas the EU elections will get closer and closer so any thought that Farage is going to suddenly go away as a problem for either party is yet more delusion.
As for posturing on more cuts, Osbrowne and Cameron had better hope no tory MPs will start to wonder if any of those billions in savings Osbrowne keeps talking about could somehow be made from the EU and would be prime targets for red lines on renegotiation. Since, if the EU elections are very bad for the tories the eurosceptics are quite obviously going to push hard for some red meat and big concessions.
NO NO .... @Morris_Dancer, I know you're a great follower of my ARSE .... But not that RING !!!
http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/an-entry-list-appears/
Vettel will have 1 now, but 5 when he's no longer world champion (assuming that happens before he retires).
Maldonado, Venezuelan crashing enthusiast whose name means 'ill-favoured one', has chosen number 13.
Chilton and the still unnamed Caterham drivers (first test is only 3 weeks away...) have yet to decide. There's a rumour Kobayashi might get a drive.
From Labour to Conservative (21 seats): Barry, Battersea South, Bedfordshire South, Berwick and East Lothian, Bolton East, Buckingham, Conway, Darlington, Doncaster, Dulwich, King's Lynn, Manchester Blackley, Middlesbrough West, Norfolk South West, Oldham East, Plymouth Sutton, Reading North, Rochdale, Rutherglen, Wycombe and Yarmouth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1951
Of course, the Scots may have already seriously wounded Labour in 1950... But Wiki does not have seats changed for that election....
Mike, why don't you just back off and let David post his threads on a Saturday? You come across as a spoilt child when you pitch straight in to criticise. At least this week you waited until a few others had commented but it demeans you and this site. It's not like you don't have your left-leaning biased threads every other day on pb.com is it?
As for the political manoeuvres, one minute I'm reading on here that the Tories are rubbish at politics, when they start playing games they get denigrated. Anyway nothing can match the disgusting trap laid by Brown when he increased the tax rate to 50%.
Thank goodness we will get rid of this guy in 2015.
The 11% rise in salary was determined by an outside body. It was matched with a decrease in expenses and less cushy pensions, saving money for the taxpayer overall.
Quite aside from the fact that as in any other area of life the moment you publish it in the public domain it ceases to be wholly and exclusively 'yours' if you want a site to expand beyond the parochial then you need to learn to let go and permit those of differing opinions the freedom to express themselves, even when you don't agree. Pb.com has evidently been getting fewer and fewer hits (and comments) and this is not only because of the paucity of 2013 betting markets.
This has the potential, still (and just), to be the foremost political site in the country but only if some slack is cut to those who don't share Mike's distinctive slant, and more importantly are given the freedom to say so, without getting shouted down by the host when they do - a very un-liberal (but very typically Liberal) antic if I may say so. A classic example was that poor fellow a few months back who was told his opinion that the Conservatives would win outright in 2015 was "pure fantasy".
Work is good. And it's good not just in a generating taxes and economic output way, but good in a having a purpose in life way. People who work are happier. People who work are less likely, all other things being equal, to commit crimes. People who work are healthier both physically and mentally. And it's the correlation is clearly from work to these good things: having a routine in life is - simply - a good thing.
Once you've got understood this point, it's clear the tax and benefit system is completely and utterly broken.
We should offer no benefits whatsoever for people without jobs, but should have negative income tax at the low-end of the scale. So, someone who can only command a job paying £1/hour in the free market, should receive benefits of £5/hour. £2/hour should result in £4.50/hour, etc.. In this way, *all* work pays. But someone who chooses to stay home receives nothing.
People without skills become more much employable under this system - and once they start working (and earning) they start having an interest in the economic and political system.
We would have to get rid of benefits like housing benefit - of course - under this system, as they continue to discourage work. All benefits should be based around the fundamental assumption that work is good and should be encouraged.
Would you immediately expunge all comments that do not agree with a tory leader or merely ask that they politely withdraw anything too critical? Perhaps you could get CCHQ to help you in your righteous quest for 'fairness'?
Interesting though the economic debate is, it's not really one that's new and while Osborne's speech has done a great deal to change; it's simply extended what's current through well into the next parliament.
For me, the big change - one potentially with significant betting implications - is the role of the Lib Dems in this. Both Tories and Lib Dems need LD-Lab switchers to move back if they are to not to suffer badly in 2015. Osborne's speech and the Lib Dem reaction seemed to me to be an indication that both parties recognise this and are acting on it.
MORE CUTS TO WELFARE
...precisely where within the welfare budget Mr Osborne would find his £12 billion remains unclear, because the cuts he has suggested so far come nowhere near that total.
Total benefits expenditure this year is expected to be £163.8 billion.
The OBR Dec 2013 EFO forecase for "Net Social Benefits" is £193.5 bn. The difference may lie in defintion of "benefits expenditure". And the OBR are not consistent on a single figure through the EFO.
The largest single part of that bill, the state pension, will cost £83.3 billion, but the Conservatives have made clear that it is off-limits and will even grow, because of the commitment to the “triple lock” uprating of pension payments.
The Basic State Pension is not inviolable, as Neil so often reminds us. Lower inflation and lower average earnings growth reduces spending on pension credit and the BSP. Net immigration, rescheduling the pension age, changes to pension contributions. the introduction of Universal Credit and greater employment will all affect pension payments. Just fluctuations in the above variables has seen the OBR reduce pension cost in its five year forward by £0.7 bn in 2013-14 to CPI to £1.8 bn in 2017-18. This is a £6.7 bn downward revision in the forecast for forward pension costs in just nine months (March EFO to December EFO).
If £6.7 billion of savings can be found without substantial policy changes being implemented between a forecast made in March to a forecast made in December of the same year then it does rather suggest £12 billion savings over a five year term is probably achievable without too much blood being shed.
Effort would be better employed chasing down tax dodgers and tax evaders.
I'm not a Conservative, or at least haven't voted for them for about 20 years.
It's a point of principle, but only those who are able to step out of their own shoes would get it … have a look at my longer reply a few comments down if you're interested in learning.
The most likely person to replace Osborne is Balls who has the required experience.He has to learn the lessons of Gordon and George`s failings and deliver a gradual falling deficit with rising living standards.
Looks like populist bullshit.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/223587/SFR15_2013_Text_withPTR.pdf
If in doubt pile on another box ticking exercise.
I would love to know how the benefits are measured against the costs.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/96/UK_opinion_polling_2010-2015.png
That's three years of basically flatlining. Lest we forget the lib dems have tried differentiation already. Regular as clockwork already before local elections and at various other times. Sometimes, as with the AV vote and the Lords Reform/Boundary changes debacle, it wasn't even mere posturing but full on vehement disagreement that simply could not be hidden. The result of all that? Flatline with ever more of their base and councillors being lost every single year.
Clegg will clearly need to try and differentiate like never before come the EU elections since a very bad lib dem result will have his own MPs in far from safe seats staring down the barrel of a GE with the prospect of a toxic leader as their frontman. However, there is no reason whatsoever to think that the differentiation this time will be any more successful than all the other attempts.
And Chancellors don't deliver "rising living standards" - employees and companies do - through more profitable work that enables the tax base to pay for rising living standards in the state sector too.....
So what about the exceptions. Those listed on the thread:
1945. As Jack has said, this was an electorate looking to the future. Churchill was the right man for the war, he was not seen as the right man (and more accurately, the National parties were not seen as the right men) for the peace. Gratitude for Churchill might have been deserved but it wasn't relevant.
1951 (more accurately, 1950 - which was when most of the losses occurred). This is a rose-tinted spectacles nomination built on left-wing myths. Yes, Labour delivered the NHS and extended the welfare state. They also nationalised pretty much anything that they could, and did so at the cost of maintaining and even extending rationing. It was a hugely expensive programme when the country was broke. Unsurprisingly, the country revolted. Gratitude was not deserved.
1997. This was really a deferred booting out from 1992, when the circumstances would have justified it but the opposition was still if not unelectable then certainly the less trusted. By 1997, Labour was far from unelectable while the Tories looked a shambles. In addition, while the economy had recovered, it wasn't due to government policies; indeed, a large part was due to something diametrically opposed to government policy. And the economy had fallen down the list of concerns (the NHS and education topped the Mori issues index at the time). Gratitude was not deserved, nor would it have been seen as particularly relevant even if it was.
So in fact, the exceptions were not; they were misreadings. The question is whether gratitude for a recovering economy now is deserved and whether it's relevant. On the second point, the answer is surely yes: the economy still tops the issues index, with two other economic responses in the top five. As for deserved, the jury's still out on that in the public mind.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/
It is a source of great mirth to all seeing OGH being hand-bagged by a new poster of such eloquence.
Even Robert is having problems keeping a straight face.
Not to worry. It was at least very funny if nothing else.
David Herdson sets out the awkwardness for Labour of either accepting the terrain or rejecting it. The left of centre posters don't seem to have realised that Labour lack the credibility to accept the terrain and move on. The Tories are gearing up to present this in terms of Labour's lack of backbone on tough decisions and lacking seriousness. This is one of the critical battles where the next election will be won and lost.
And as for the "cost of living gym membership crisis" what, exactly are Labour's policies to deal with this?
"The unemployed can claim child tax credit, housing benefit, child benefit, free school meals etc. up to a limit of £26,000 per year. Those on minimum wage can claim working tax credit, child tax credit and child benefit adding £10,000 on top of their £13,000 salary, but they can also claim housing benefit on top. They will pay almost no tax. Add all that up and they will have a post tax income of roughly £30,000. That’s around £40,000 per year Gross– whilst being paid a minimum wage of just £6.31 an hour. "
http://thebackbencher.co.uk/monsters-benefits-street/
Exactly. - and a shame so few here can argue their point on that bases.
Arf - especially cutting as bedroom antics are a source of French national pride..!
The country revolted in 1950 and 1951 by casting more votes for Labour than for the Tories. And, in 1950, by voting in greater numbers for Labour than it had in 1945.
Lansley for Leader.
Seems like he`s seen the polling along teachers and thought `We can afford to lose a few of them`.
Osbrowne thought he had Cast Iron justifications for the omnishambles and such things as his tax cut for the richest.
How did that turn out again?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/96/UK_opinion_polling_2010-2015.png
Not great, was it?
No doubt comedy posters like Seth O Logue thought his justifictations and spin for the fop giving an MBE to his hairdresser were somehow convincing. But in the real world it just looked bad and simply reinforced the out of touch image.
Some things just can't be spun or justified with a few cursory exculpatory lines. You don't need to like it but don't act surprised when the public doesn't suddenly come round to your point of view on the MPs 11% pay rise. Since, rest assured, they will not.
Equally, you'd have to have a lot of kids to max out the CTC, which cost money.
I'm interested to know how you would cut child tax credit without punishing the children for the sins of their parents
IA's Law states that people on the political right hate others, those on the political left hate themselves and LibDems are still trying to figure it out who they hate. Healthy people ignore politics and get on with their lives, which is what I'm about to do for to-day...
The bottom line is that the outcome of the next election is almost entirely in the Tories' hands. It is theirs to win or lose. And, given Labour's many obvious weaknesses, if they do lose they will have no-one to blame but themselves - though clearly they will not see it that way and the BBC, the EU, conniving LDs, an unprincipled Labour party, immigrants, public sector workers, stupid voters that believe in the magic money tree and various other bogeymen will be assembled to explain it all away. Labour is essentially a bystander in this process.