The Ideology Trap

Overheard in a shop:

Hay: "Would you like one of these (pointing) for your birthday?"

Chairman: "I already told you what I wanted for my birthday, but I can't remember what it was."

Hay: "Neither can I."

When most of the problems the Conservatives face, and the reason voters are turning against them in their droves, are caused by a lurch to the right, who in his or her right mind would suggest that the solution to this should be lurching even further to the right?

It would appear that the thinking is; "Well, we're obviously not getting things right because we're doing it wrong and need to be even more right wing - we're obviously not pure enough." That's certainly the thinking on Brexit - "Brexit isn't working because we've not done a hard enough Brexit and have tonnes more damage to do to the UK before it's pure."

It's an ideological trap that leads to disaster and no-one within the current cohort of Conservative MPs is capable of recognising this, with the possible exception of Rishi Sunak. Yet he's not immune either, but he does seem to be the only adult in the Conservative room.

For rabid Conservatives, the answer to everything is tax cuts - cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy. The argument is that the benefits of tax cuts will trickle down, but that again is pure ideology without a shred of evidence to support it.

All governments want to turn their countries into an economic powerhouse and, yes, tax cuts can play a part in that, but only if other fundamentals are also in place. It's pointless giving wealthy people tax cuts if the incentives are to merely trouser the proceeds. Economic benefits need spreading through the entire population, incentivising them to generate more overall wealth, and that takes long term planning.

No, tax cuts are not the only answer and, in some cases, tax increases are needed to provide the fundamentals for the workers to enable them to devote more effort to their work - such as free childcare, a decent minimum wage, investment in new equipment, start-up grants, etc. 

Scandinavia is a prime example where high taxes provide the majority with lots of benefits. Your workers should be able to afford the products you manufacture, within reason. The strategy should be to offer tax cuts, but only on certain conditions being met.

It's almost as if the Tories are behaving so abominably because they actually want a Labour landslide so that Labour succumbs to the same factionalisation the Tories have suffered from as a consequence of a huge majority, thus shortening Labour's tenure on government.