Labour has a plan?

 Rachel Reeves, Labour's putative Chancellor of the Exchequer has donned the sainted Margaret Thatcher’s free market mantle and declares that she will bring about the resurgence of Britannia. Draping herself in the flag which has never rightly been Labour’s to fly she promises that the incoming Labour government – a near certainty, given the parlous state of the Tories – will create growth.

Like all political promises this is long on rhetoric but desperately short on policy. How will this growth be brought about? By improving Britain’s desperately poor productivity. But how will this be achieved? By attracting investment! From whom? From companies and individuals wishing to invest in British know-how and technology. But why? Why? To make profits, of course which will create more wealth for all.

Ask how these attractive investments will be persuaded to come and the answer is that Labour will bring about growth, by attracting investment and improving productivity. It is a circular argument which poses one gigantic question; if it was as easy as wishing it into being, which seems to be Labour’s entire plan, why has it not been done before? Seriously, if there was a way of magicking up a nation-saving productivity plan, why has nobody yet come up with such a paradigm?

Well, for a start, nobody – least of all Labour – has the balls for the level of fight which will be needed. We need a US-style protectionist stance and the guts to say no to industry’s demand for cheap foreign labour. We need to reject demands for yet more NHS funding without any apparent improvements. And most of all we need to take a very long, hard look at society as a whole; everybody needs a good kick up the arse.

Of course, those for whom a kick up the arse would work have already delivered said kick to themselves, gone out and worked longer hours, scrimped and saved and kept the wolf from the door. A lot of them will have left for more friendly climes, possibly too ashamed to admit of their British origins for fear of ridicule. As ever, once the sturdy crew leave the sinking ship, all that’s left are the rats and the ne’er-do-wells…. and other assorted vermin.

Does Britain even have left a population worth fighting for? When the USA besought ‘your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…’ they would have quickly changed their tune when they saw the miserable wretches lining up to see what the New World was prepared to do for them. The welfare state that is HMS Great Britain is a tawdry, lacklustre tramp steamer ready to strip any charitable undertaking of every last shred of its philanthropy.

Rachel, dear, you haven’t a chance. Once you have seen that the idle British, who have grown fat on the fast food of benefits culture, have no intention of  being any part of your solution, you will do exactly what the current, nominally Conservative, government has done. As your industries struggle you will open up the borders to ever-lower calibre immigration and lie about it. And when you give the vote to children, too callow to see through you, you will drive the final nails into the coffin of state.

Gosh, why didn't we think of that?

RIP England, RIP, disunited kingdom. Would the last Brit out please turn off the lights? Oh, wait, no need; the grid will have failed long before the end of your first term in charge. Politicians, may you all rot in hell.