One of the best lines that Labour has in this mess that they’ve given this country is that the best way to get rid of the deficit is to grow out of it. Don’t increase taxes, don’t cut spending (by more than Labour were promising) but grow, baby, grow.
If this is not a euphemism for higher inflation, which it may well be, then this is a cogent argument against the cuts. After all it was a cogent argument that Ronald Reagan used with some effect to cut taxes in the supply side revolution. That certainly had some success but there was another shoe.
To grow you need to deregulate, and fast and hard. This does not simply mean a Heseltine style removal of antiquated laws banning absinthe or forcing black cab drivers to carry around a bale of hay, but real deregulation in the way things are produced, distributed and exchanged (to paraphrase a genocidal German). This would certainly give a shot in the arm to business and we could get on top deficit without massive cuts in government expenditure.
Of course a pro-growth policy would start hitting against our membership of the European Union (although as I’ve recently been a Tory candidate I should simply stick my fingers in my ears and loudly protest that Europe can be reformed and its all about gold plating directives). If buses in Wherstead Road aren’t allowed to run to a common time table due to anti-competition rules from Brussels, you know that any pro-growth policies are going to hit trouble from those economic colossi in the European Commission like Baroness Ashton.
But let’s imagine that we could deregulate. If we could would Labour support it? I suspect that their attitude in everything from their continued opposition to job creation at a local level to a competition among their leadership contenders as to who can tax small businessmen most ruthlessly proves that their bias for the man in Whitehall is still strong.
So Labour is either hiding its deregulatory zeal, not really serious about cutting the deficit or confusing vigorous opposition with an providing alternative narrative.
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