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The dogma of redistribution embraced by Labour and even some on the Right is deeply pessimistic. There is an optimistic alternative
The Conservative Party’s sixth leadership election in eight years will be properly underway next week. As Westminster returns, Tory MPs will whittle down the current six candidates to four, who will then go on to be showcased at the party conference in Birmingham. This will give the remaining candidates the chance to show that they have a vision for the party’s – and more importantly, the county’s – future.
If the Tories are going to rebuild and be able to present themselves once more as an alternative government, they must offer something different than more of the same, and prove they are not content with managing a Britain in decline. They must show that they genuinely believe that the United Kingdom can be a more prosperous and more entrepreneurial country.
Labour’s message over the last seven weeks is that the better off will need to make sacrifices and pay more to keep the public sector going, despite the fact that the tax burden is at its highest for over 70 years and that the richest 1 per cent already pay 29 per cent of all income tax. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do acknowledge that growth is the best way of boosting the public exchequer – but their policies are set to stymie it.
Their actions suggest that Labour is subconsciously wed to a fixed quantity of wealth fallacy – and that it is the state’s job to ensure that these finite resources are equitably distributed.
It is not only figures on the Left who have seemingly signed up to this economic gloomsterism; it has infested some on the Right too. David Willetts was once director of the original Thatcherite think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies. The former Conservative minister served as an MP for 23 years and was once seen as one of the finest thinkers in the Tory firmament.
Nevertheless Lord Willetts, as he now is, went on the BBC’s Today programme on Wednesday to argue that today’s pensioners have prospered over the last thirty years and now is the time for them to give something back to their children and grandchildren. Willetts now heads the Resolution Foundation, a think tank established by a notably successful wealth creator to make the case for the state-enforced redistribution of wealth both within and between generations.
The next Tory leader must show that theirs a more optimistic vision and that success for the wealthy is good for the country as a whole.