THIS BUDGET IS LABOUR'S GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO START TO SPLIT THE COALITION

Why examining the coalition's DNA reveals the seeds of its own destruction

Marjorie Smith

One of Labour's main strategic pre-occupations has to be how to unpick this coalition of parties (if not of interests).  Any hope of returning to Government has to be dependant on the Tories and the Lib Dems either hanging separately or being hung together. Either the coalition splits, or it becomes overwhelmingly unpopular at the next election.

Whilst an extended marriage of convenience, at first glance, may well be in Labour's interest, with the probable deep unpopularity of this coalition becoming a political fact. It would also mean five long years in opposition and having to fight the next general election with a new 'reformed' electoral system stacked against the party.

The budget of Gideon Oliver 'George' Osborne (heir to the baronetcy of Ballentaylor), presents a golden opportunity for Labour to point out the massive internal contradictions that are presently submerged in this coalition of self-interest, exemplified by how so-called 'progressive' politicians are being mealy-mouthed in the face of a Tory ideological drive to reduce the power of the State.

Make no mistake, the sheep's clothing of a small rise in personal allowances for a few, does not disguise the devious impact of the 2.5% rise in VAT for all, the massive cuts to the public sector (both in terms of financial and personnel resources), slashing housing benefits and cutting future pension rights. This is a budget of deceit, sophistry, obfuscation and political fraud. Already, those on low incomes, benefits and state pensions will be hammered by the rise in VAT with no compensatory action to increase their incomes.

Nick Clegg may spuriously claim that these cuts are 'progressive' but the truth will be radically different for the many millions, both directly and indirectly, who depend on the public sector for their livelihoods. For example, a one year freeze in council tax allied to a 25% cut in central Government grants to Councils will guarantee massive cuts in jobs and services by local councils.

Since Tories like Cameron and Osborne can afford to opt out of Council provision (e.g. free education) so do not have to avail themselves of Council Services (beyond having their bins emptied and the odd PC to wander past their Special Branch-guarded residences), they like most of the rich in this country, will be able to remain completely unscathed by the cuts to come.

Furthermore, the claim that the coalition will be able to ring-fence budgets relating to health and education is mere window dressing, more designed to appease Liberal Democrats in Parliament than to convince the population as a whole.

Vince Cable's claim that the Lib Dems have tempered Tory policies by persuading them to raise tax allowances for some of the low paid in the country is a deceit. Like Lenin's 'useful idiots', the Lib Dems are being drawn into a glaring trap. Not only has it allowed Osborne the political cover to freeze child benefits for 3 years but it has also allowed the numerate Tories in the Cameron leadership clique to be happy to go along with the Lib Dems aspiration of a move to a minimum income tax allowance of £10,000 for a particular reason.

That is because both Osborne and Cameron are committed to the ideological prize of introducing a flat tax (in the region of 22% for all tax payers, including the mega-rich). Right-wingers see this as the holy grail of tax reform, whereby the rich and high-earners are able to insulate themselves from the needs of the population as a whole. Make no mistake Cameron and Osborne are committed to a flat income tax rate for all.

The introduction of either a Flat Tax or large rises in the threshold for Inheritance Tax (or both) will represent the greatest example of self-serving class interest at Governmental level since Robert Peel's 1845 administration, when the landed gentry fought tooth and nail to keep the pernicious Corn Laws in the teeth of evidence that it was the poor who paid the highest price for such iniquities.

Osborne's token gesture of a net rise of income for lower paid people is £170 per year, this will be completely wiped out by the rise in VAT. To put £170 into context it is the equivalent of two days tuition fees at Eton College, we are manifestly not in this together. The changes to the budget will not affect, by one iota, the family trust funds of the Camerons or the Osbornes, but millions of ordinary people will lose out.

Whilst most of the Mainstream media in the UK seems to have meekly accepted that the recent compact between the (what is now quite apparent) two UK parties of the centre-right is a sustainable concoction. The DNA of the two parties is still radically different, as any perfunctory analysis of the make-up of either party reveals.

The coalition's leadership may well sit (and fit) comfortably with each other, after all they share common backgrounds, common schools, common universities, all very different from the experiences of the common man. There is very little political capital to be made out of trying to divine differences between Clegg and Cameron (paternalistic 'One Nation' Tories in all but name). However, there are also significant elements in both parties, presently marginalised, that are as different as chalk and cheese. 

For simplistic (but pertinent) purposes, it is highly revealing to examine the two extremes of the coalition. If one accepts that there are still some well-meaning centrist, or even some who would claim they are of the centre-left, then they are to be found in the Beveridge Group of Liberal Democrat MPs. Whilst many of those on the right of the Tory party are members of the Bruges Group, a radically eurosceptic group that also appears to share a deep and abiding belief in free market fundamentalism with libertarian tendencies.

It is into these obvious fissures that Labour has to drive home the opportunities presented by this budget, at every opportunity, by exposing the crass hypocrisy that is so blatantly obvious in the make-up of the coalition. The idea that Lib Dem figures such as Simon Hughes and Don Foster can sit comfortably on the government benches with the likes of Bill Cash, John Redwood and the odious David Heathcoat-Amory is a vacuous illusion that deserves to be shattered.

The social market values that the Beveridge group used to share is a total anathema to most Tory MPs (including most Ministers) and that is why most of the Lib Dem MPs belonging to the group have been deliberately ignored for Ministerial posts (even at junior level). This faction of the Lib Dems should be a rich source of discontent and internal unhappiness with the direction of the centre-right coalition.

In Prime Minister's Questions, Deputy PMQs, Ministerial Questions, speeches in the chamber, Select Committee meetings, appearances on TV, radio etc, i.e. at each and ever opportunity, Labour has to focussing on exposing and magnifying the discomfiture of Beveridge group Liberal Democrat MPs. The idea that there is a permanent air to this coalition needs to be exposed as a lie as soon as possible. It is beset with strange bedfellows and internal contradictions.

Most Tories are virulently anti-statist and instinctively opposed to nearly all aspects of public expenditure (except for the Ministry of Defence obviously). The Conservative Parliamentary party is the most eurosceptic it has ever been and the most Atlanticist (in a neo-con sense) ever. This exposes a rich seam of discord that Labour must exploit mercilessly.

Every Labour party member and supporter has an opportunity to contribute to undermining this real threat to labour's interests by foreshortening the lifetime of the coalition by helping to spread a growing discord amongst its supporters and members, thereby establishing an irresistible momentum that will destroy this iniquitous government.