Let's not luxuriate just yet

​According to my ever helpful Microsoft Co-Pilot, as of 10th May 2024 the NHS waiting list stood at 7.54 million. Labour is promising to provide 40,000 new appointments every week, so that sounds like a good thing—so far as it goes. But at 40,000 a week it would take 3.6 years to clear the backlog—assuming of course that new cases don’t eat into the target. Essentially, we’re talking about a full parliament to erase waiting times. It might also be noted that ‘appointments’ aren’t necessarily treatment episodes. And at what point with the new government will the target kick in? So the question must be: is this commitment good enough? I might add that the official waiting list figure probably isn’t the whole story. Some of us have been taken off the waiting list because our condition is not ‘serious enough.’ It is also unstated how Labour will resolve the NHS staffing crisis as, e.g. evidenced by the doctors’ strikes. We may hear how we’re going to recruit x number more staff, and less about how we’re going to retain them.
 
These observations have been inspired by another ‘big’ speech from Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor. Reading a transcript one is struck by how much padding it contains. Loaded with attacks on the Tories’ record, all of which may be justified, there isn’t a great deal about exactly how Labour is going to reverse the damage done these last 14 years. I acknowledge that that task will require time, but it won’t happen with timid baby steps. Here’s a typical section from her speech:
 
‘To serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer would be the privilege of my life. 
Not to luxuriate in status;
Not as a staging post in a career;
But to serve.
I know the responsibility that will come with that. 
I embrace it. 
I know that it will not be easy.
It will take hard work.
And it will require harder choices.
I am ready for it.’
 
The Churchillian tone! Rachel has nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears. But we aren’t at war with Hitler, we’re at war with a far more insidious enemy—our economic system, which has locked us in a downward spiral whose most egregious consequence is climate change. On that front I don’t imagine Reeves’ love of ‘partnerships with business’ means anything more than the likelihood of government bowing to corporate greenwashing demands. Oh to be wrong, but I’m not hearing a contrary message, nor even an intellectual interrogation of the fallacious concept known as ‘net zero,’ - which is long overdue. Reeves doesn’t mention climate change specifically, one can hardly blame her I suppose since the remedies are too electorally frightening. But so is this from the Independent six days ago:
 
‘A vast  Antarctic glacier is more vulnerable to melting than previously thought, according to new research,  with potentially devastating consequences for billions of people. The  Thwaites Glacier — dubbed the “Doomsday” glacier because of the grave impacts for  global sea level rise if it melts — is breaking down “much faster” than expected, according to a peer-reviewed  study published Monday in the academic journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.’
 
It could be that Labour’s proposed Great British Energy company will be our green energy solution. This, according to the Party’s website will be:
 
‘    a new, publicly-owned clean energy company.
We will harness Britain’s sun, wind and wave energy to:
·            Save £93 billion for UK households.
·            Deliver one hundred percent clean power by 2030.
·            Cut energy bills for good.
·            Create thousands of good local jobs.
·            Deliver energy security.
·            Make the UK energy independent.
·            Labour will build an energy system for the future, run for the British people.’
 
Sounds good doesn’t it? I wonder in how much detail this has been worked out. Somebody writing this list of bullet points seems to have missed out nuclear power for some reason. Perhaps that’s because nuclear will inevitably swallow the bulk of any public investment. Perhaps it’s no co-incidence Reeves made her latest speech in a Rolls Royce factory since Rolls Royce would love to start building their little modular reactors all over the place asap. We also need to know how this publicly funded company will work in partnership with existing green energy businesses. What form will that partnership take? I have a fear that Great British Energy will be a new iteration camouflaged in soft language, of Margaret Thatcher’s NFFO—the so-called Non Fossil Fuel Obligation which added 10% to our energy bills to pay for nuclear power projects. The nuclear industry has some powerful support in the Labour Party, so I don’t see Great British Energy being given the support it will need to harness genuine green technologies.
 
To really judge what Labour’s leadership faction means by ‘change’ will of course partly depend on policies such as these, but two things will stand out for answers. Will Labour tackle wealth inequality? I’ve not heard anything yet to suggest that this is featuring significantly if at all in the Starmeroid narrative. I detect a Mandelsonian attitude here—get filthy rich but pay your taxes (as if). Wealth inequality has grown dramatically in the UK and it contributes enormously to our non-productive rentier status. The second issue is to what extent Labour uses Tory incompetence to deflect attention from its own unwillingness to challenge the underlying problems with the economy. No doubt we’ll have more to say about that in the coming weeks.