Work To Rule

We have been told by every government for 30 years that we can have full employment or low inflation, but not both. So how come, and not exactly for the first time during that period, we now have desperately high unemployment and desperately high inflation simultaneously? I am reminded of the not unrelated argument, occasionally still trotted out, that minimum wage provision would destroy jobs, making low wages the condition of low unemployment. It always rang more than a little hollow here in the North East, with both the lowest wages and the highest unemployment in the country. Here in County Durham, we had both the lowest wages and the highest unemployment of the lot. I know. Imagine that.

With even the meaningless jibe that Ed Miliband was not as popular as his party now blown out of the water, the time is ripe to insist on the successful combination of full employment with low inflation. A strong financial services sector with a strong food production and manufacturing base, and with the strong democratic accountability of both. A leading role on the world stage with a vital commitment to peace, including a complete absence of weapons of mass destruction. Academic excellence with technical proficiency. Superb and inexpensive public transport with personal freedom and with close-knit rural communities. Visible and effective policing with civil liberty. And very high levels of productivity with the robust protection of workers, consumers, communities and the environment, including powerful workers’ representation at every level of corporate governance.

In a number of other Commonwealth and European countries, these combinations are taken for granted. Or they were until recently, in much happier times.