The Spectator's Isabel Hardman said recently: "One jubilant (Conservative) MP jokes that ‘we could strap babies to foxes and then tie them up with badgers, shoot them, and Labour wouldn’t know how to oppose it’."(1) The hunt for Jeremy Corbyn (mainly by his Labour own colleagues) has indeed provided the government with a useful distraction, although Harman continues: "That facetious analysis (by said jubilant Conservative MP) rather ignores the fact that the Tories didn’t manage to get their modest change to fox hunting legislation through, but the point still stands: the longer Labour is in a mess, the more powerful the Tories can become." However, whilst the British system of governance requires an effective opposition, in my view the present government may still end up hoist by their own petard, and rather sooner than they might have expected. (2)
The Financial Times pointed out this week: "...The recent disruption at Calais is estimated at about £250m a day in lost trade to the UK, factoring in wider costs to businesses such as retailers and manufacturers who do not receive crucial goods in time or have to write off spoiled food." (3) A full account of the problems is provided in this BBC report: Why is there a crisis at Calais? (4) As Keith Vaz, Labour chairman of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, told The Daily Mail: 'This is a real crisis, and it's a crisis that in the end is going to affect not just the south east of England but also other parts of the country.' (5) In fact, this Labour veteran has had some of the most sensible things to say on the situation in Calais, including an article yesterday in The Huffington Post (6). Meanwhile, sense from the government on the crisis seems, it is widely agreed, thin on the ground.
If Mr Cameron and his colleagues do not wish their turn at UK governance to be defined by the famous words "Crisis, What Crisis?" reputedly spoken by 1970s Labour prime minister Jim Callaghan, although in reality spun by The Sun newspaper, they must consider how to set their houses in order sooner rather than later. Chancellor Osborne may have convinced his party and some of the British electorate that, in the words of Gordon Brown, there will be "no more boom and bust" (7), but this defies the now accepted view of the capitalist system as recently described, for instance, by the Financial Times journalist John Plender. (8) In government, economic and other crises will come around with reliable regularity, and particularly at times when those in office least expect them.
References
1. http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/07/tory-mps-congratulate-lynton-crosby-on-his-election-success/
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petard#.22Hoist_with_his_own_petard.22
3. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fb4f3370-3603-11e5-bdbb-35e55cbae175.html#axzz3hZU0vvaU
4. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29074736
5. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3180997/Moment-migrants-slice-way-lorry-West-Midlands-climbing-250miles-away-Calais-Keith-Vaz-warns-crisis-affect-country.html
6. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/keith-vaz/calais-summer-crisis_b_7913228.html
7. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2551691/House-price-boom-DECADE-George-Osborne-says-demand-homes-continue-outstrip-supply-years.html
8. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/33d82de6-2bc3-11e5-8613-e7aedbb7bdb7.html#axzz3hZU0vvaU
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