Added Value

I am delighted to hear that Labour leadership contender, Owen Smith (His name is an anagram, appropriately enough following his outburst against Theresa May, of *‘Hits Women’) is promising to replant and nurture the good old socialist fall back, the magic money tree. Yes, when Labour say ‘investing in the economy’ to cover up their standard policy of ‘borrow and piss up the wall’ it is the mythical missing ingredient they hope, this time, will finally materialise. Oh how we’ve missed the bonkers conjuring up of filthy lucre from fresh air.

Like vengeance-seeking Labour figures before him Smith (*'twin homes') first imagines that he will become Prime Minister and then he promises to soak the rich and double the NHS budget. Given that a wealth tax is likely to raise approximately the square root of zero-point-fuck-all it will be fascinating to see how those books balance. Maybe he believes that, post Brexit, rich Brits will have nowhere to run to, but he forgets that the rich are welcome everywhere their money is good... which is just about everywhere.

Owen Smith (*'theism now') has also promised that other quart-in-a-pint-pot policy of equality of outcomes (not opportunity, note) despite nobody in history ever achieving such a thing without aiming very low indeed. Positioning himself even further to the left than Jeremy Corbyn seems a curious move, given that the left have been unelectable since Maggie killed them off in ’79. Presumably he is hoping to capitalise (irony intended) on the recent surge in Labour membership from, we can surmise, mostly poorly educated, unemployable people. The Tories must dance their way into work each morning.

You see, the Labours have never quite grasped that if everybody can have it, it isn’t worth very much at all. You have to take what is there and add value. Those apples that grow for free in nature? Effort is required to harvest them, then that effort is later exchanged for currency, which can then pay more people to pick, while others go out and seek markets for the increased production. Effort adds value. In Labour-Land apples would be free to everybody and as a result they would have no real value which could be transferred.

Without incentive, where is the drive to acquire knowledge and push the boundaries of science and technology? Where is the reward for competing, for being better? Surely nobody actually believes that ‘all men are created equal’? Look around you... and then look up and down. Equality of outcome isn’t even a remote possibility without equality of origin, upbringing, education and aspiration. Face it; some people really are better people. And some are very much worse and society isn’t always to blame.

Labour's economic plan in detail

But wait, after fifty years of socialist thought in education isn’t it the case that the electorate come pre-dumbed to the franchise? With ridiculous notions of knowledge being redundant now we have the internet, child-centred (for which read ‘soft’) ‘facilitation of learning’, the ever decreasing levels of literacy and the near universal inability to work with numbers, it’s no wonder our school leavers are poorly equipped to compete with migrants. Owen Smith (*'moist hewn') may be onto something - now, there’s an equality of outcome for you. 

(*Play the Owen Smith anagrams Game!)