I was on Petrie Hosken’s show on LBC last night discussing politics and the week’s big news stories with the Tory blogger Iain Dale and the Lib Dem blogger Mark Pack (the former “head of innovations” for the party – what on earth is that, then?) for an hour. As the show came to an end, Petrie gave each of us less than a minute to tell the listeners what one thing Gordon Brown should do to revive Labour’s fortunes (Pack said “Resign!”). I have been kicking myself since, as my rather flat and dull answer was to say he should take a risk and hold a referendum on proportional representation on the same day as the general election. Now, don’t get me wrong. I do care passionately about electoral reform and genuinely believe that proportional representation would revolutionise British politics (and prevent future landslide majorities for both Labour and, thankfully, the Tories) but I accept that it’s not going to set pulses racing. Nor is it going to energise the rank and file of the Labour Party or, for that matter, the wider left. As I left the LBC building in Leicester Square, one friend texted to say, “Jeez, PR? What kind of lefty are you?”
She has a point. PR is a necessary but not sufficient part of a robust and risk-taking Labour fightback. Like Polly Toynbee, I think Gordon Brown has nothing left to lose over the next nine months, so it’s time for him to throw out his copy of the Daily Mail, stop worrying about “Middle England” and go for broke. As a wise man once said: “This Labour Party [is] best when we are boldest, best when we are united, best when we are Labour.”
So here are ten things Brown could do in the coming months that I should have pointed out on LBC last night:
1) Scrap Trident, saving the taxpayer around £20bn.
2) Crack down on tax havens and tighten tax loopholes, saving the taxpayer around £25bn a year.
3) Impose a retrospective 90 per cent tax on all 2008/2009 UK bank bonuses.
4) Scrap ID cards and the national identity register, saving the taxpayer at least £5bn.
5) Increase Jobseeker’s Allowance from the miserly £64.30 a week to at least £75 a week.
6) Scrap charitable status for private schools, saving the taxpayer around £88m a year.
7) Impose a windfall tax on the multibillion-pound profits of energy and utility firms.
8) Abolish prescription charges in England to ensure equality across the UK and to bolster the NHS.
9) Lower the threshold for the new 50p top rate of tax from £150,000 to £100,000.
10) Raise the threshold at which tax is paid on redundancy money – currently £30,000 – to £50,000.
There you go! I feel a bit better now.
Now, what would your left-wing advice for G Brown look like?
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