What if?

Jon Cruddas has expressed his support for Harriet Harman in an article in today's Independent. I sense a little political manouvering there. Let's consider the 2014 General Election. On the one hand, you have David Cameron and George Osbourne. In 2012, George Osbourne unveils a budget similar to Geoffrey Howe's 1981 budget. Robert Peston follows his father's footsteps, and with 363 economists, they write a letter to the Times, criticising the policies of the Cameron government. On the other hand, you have Harriet Harman as the Leader of the Opposition, with Jon Cruddas as her deputy. Both are on the left wing of the Labour Party, whereas Brown can be put on the centre left. As we have compared Osbourne to Howe, let's consider the ticket of Harman-Cruddas. Michael Foot replaced James Callaghan. James Callaghan was on the Right of his party, whereas Michael Foot was an unreconstructed socialist, whose 1983 election manifesto was the most extreme and radical manifesto ever unveiled by a political party. Harman and Cruddas are definately to the Left of Gordon Brown and Captain Darling. They paint Cameron's government as the party of avarice and cupidity. They unveil a manifesto in which they propose full scale nationalisation of the banking system. Cameron and Osbourne unveil their manifesto, where they propose further spending cuts to finally turn the once enormous budget deficit into a surplus, and the tax rises announced in the 2012 budget are reversed, but the spending cuts are larger than the tax cuts. They then say once the budget is in surplus, they will offer further income tax reductions and corporate tax reductions. And with the resultant strong economic growth, spending will rise in line with inflation. In Gordon Brown had increased spending in line with inflation, we'd be spending approximately £400 billion a year, not the £650 billion we currently have to fund.

The 2014 election is a milestone election. For the majority of their term in office, Cameron's government had been extremely unpopular. Like Mrs Thatcher during her first term, he had to impose severe restrictions on spending and wages, because the supposed deflation had now turned to rampant inflation because Brown's government, with characteristic hubris and obfuscation, had set of a wave of panic about deflation in order to get public support for their horrific expansion of public spending and quantitive easing. The 2012 budget did much to correct this. And in 2013, Britain finally pulls out of Afghanistan, victorious, leading to a massive wave of patriotism and support for the government for being steadfast on foreign policy, and for not shying away from the problems of the economy.

Because the public can see that the market does work when it isn't distorted by governments, the increasingly left wing campaign waged by Harman and Cruddas falls flat on its face. They then resort to personal attacks. They mock Cameron's baldness, as four years in office under extremely strenous conditions have caused him to lose the remainder of his hair. They try to play class warfare, leading to Eric Pickles and William Hague, two bald Yorkshiremen, to denounce Harman and Cruddas as sour, and to gain more support amongst the aspirational working classes, they paint the Labour duo as the enemy of ambition. This causes the Labour Right to split away from the party, defecting to the Lib Dems, who have managed to build themselves into an electoral alternative to Labour, eating away at Labour's heartlands in the North, Scotland and Wales. Chris Huhne welcomes the defectors with open arms, and Cleggover, who has been relegated to the bankbenches, welcomes them with open legs.

Cameron goes to see King Charles III, who dissolves parliament. The campaigning begins.

The counting begins, and the results pour in. David Dimbelby announces a whole swathe of newly Conservative constituencies. Labour's share of the vote falls to it's lowest level since Michael Foot, and the Lib Dems also win new seats, but the Conservatives win 50% of the vote, on a 79% turnout. Cameron wins a mandate for his second term, and because of Osbourne's sound stewardship of the economy, he can focus on the social reform he made such an issue of during his days as Leader of the Opposition. Harman and Cruddas are deposed, and a welsh windbag who happens to be called John Smith replaces them, with a fat Yorkshiremen as his deputy, Eric Illsley. I do hope the comparisons between Neil Kinnock and Roy Hattersley are evident.

The 2014-2018 government is one of the most radical and sucessful periods in British politics.

These are just predicts, but the increasingly obvious parallels between Gordon Brown's government and Jim Callaghan's government cannot be ignored for much longer. Both bottled an election and it cost them hugely. Both are going to leave an economic disaster to their sucessor, though I doubt Gordo will accept a peerage, and I doubt even more that he would be offered one. The Labour party is going to overtly distance itself from the legacy of Blair/Brown, and Dennis Skinner will be revered as a God.