The Conservative Case for the Left

Owen Jones writes:

‘Trade unions are a long-established and essential part of our national life,” said the firebrand.

They are “pillars of our British society”, he declared from his podium as he defended “the right of individual labouring men and women to adjust their wages and conditions by collective bargaining, including the right to strike.” 

This passionate defender of trade unionism was none other than Winston Churchill, who two years earlier had been defeated by a Labour landslide. And when he returned to office, his attitude remained unchanged.

“The cabinet resists all efforts to bring trade-union restrictive practices within the orbit of the Monopolies Commission,” said Labour’s Tony Crosland of the 1950s Conservative governments.

“Industrial legislation is planned only after the most anxious consultation with the unions.” Even when there was “considerable public clamour”, the Tories united “in adamant opposition to proposals for ‘outlawing’ even unofficial strikes”.

What a contrast to today: confronted with the lowest level of strike activity since records began, and benefiting from what Tony Blair described as “the most restrictive union laws in the western world”, the Tories plan to make lawful strikes all but illegal.

Strike ballots will be illegitimate unless they reach a voter threshold only a small minority of MPs achieve: one rule for Tory politicians, another for bin collectors and shelf-stackers.

But trade unions are voluntary societies – the Big Society in action, if you will – that raise wages, and so help reduce dependency on in-work state benefits. A true conservative should be championing trade unionism – as Churchill did – not savaging it.

The conservative case for the left goes much further.

At least half of Britons in poverty are in work: so much for making work pay. And so the state shells out perhaps £11bn a year on poverty pay, effectively subsidising major businesses.

Instead of these vast state subsidies and the rampant state dependency, why not increase the minimum wage to one on which workers can live, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds and reducing spending on social security in a sustainable way?

If true conservatives wish to confront state dependency, then look no further than housing. Billions of pounds are wasted subsidising private landlords.

Yes, sure, some Conservative MPs have let the team down by becoming lavish benefit claimants, such as the Tory MP Richard Benyon, whose company has received £49,000 in housing benefits from the taxpayer. 

But, in the 1950s, the Conservatives competed with the Labour party over who could build more council housing, ensuring money was spent on bricks, not benefits.

Then there’s tax. When Churchill was prime minister, the top rate of tax was 97.5%, far above anything today proposed by the left. Even under Margaret Thatcher, the top rate was 60% until the fag-end of her reign. 

New Labour did not just tax less: it spent less, too. Until the global financial crash, public spending under Blair and Brown consumed on average less of the economy than under Thatcher.

And neither is obsessing over budget deficits and surplus a right-wing trait. During Thatcher’s 11 years in power, the government only pulled off a surplus for two years. Since the Tories took office in 2010, they have added more debt than every Labour government put together.

The right of the past has been more than happy to spend public money, and all too relaxed about deficits and debt.

What about public-sector workers? “Anyone working in the public services could easily have heard a pretty negative message from my party: ‘There’s too many of you, you’re lazy and you’re inefficient’,” confessed one maverick Conservative a few years ago. “This is far from the way I see things.” 

That, of course, was David Cameron, before he embarked on his relentless mission to drive back the state.

Then there’s nationalisation. It was Tory prime minister Ted Heath who brought Rolls-Royce into public ownership in the early 70s. As Crosland once wryly observed, the Tories once fought elections “even, occasionally, on the success of the nationalised industries!”.

A true right-winger cannot be happy with splashing out far more subsidies on our inefficient, fragmented railways than in the days of British Rail.

A true right-winger must surely advocate bringing each rail company back under public control – as they were under Thatcher – as each franchise expires.

A true conservative must surely wish to conserve and protect our environment, now threatened by climate change. They would look to Germany – governed by the right-wing Christian Democrats – whose active industrial strategy has both defended manufacturing and created hundreds of thousands of renewable energy jobs.

And a genuine right-winger will be appalled at Cameron’s support for the Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership, a treaty cooked up in secret by EU bureaucrats, which gives companies the power to sue elected governments over policies they dislike, a direct threat to our democracy and sovereignty emanating from Brussels.

The conservative case for the left is surely overwhelming.

Workers’ rights; public ownership; tax justice; public spending; saving the planet from destruction. These are what true right-wingers should be advocating.

What a shame this Conservative government has turned its back on unimpeachable conservative principles.