Labour blues

A little depressed this morning to read in the Guardian that the Labour vote, as measured by some recent poll, is at a four year low, just over 30%, not ever having been much more than 40% in the recent past and a long way short of a simple majority of those eligible to vote.

This despite the Conservative trashing of great swathes of the once well established arrangements for the provision of health care and education, just to mention two pillars of post-war public provision. It is further alleged that some of those involved in private provision are looking for rates of return of the order of 15%, which they might argue is only a fair return for being a political football.

This vote because, perhaps, voters don't really care about who provides for these services, so long as there is provision. And they do still blame Labour for having got us into the mess of the last six years or so - they were on the bridge at the time of the crash, they had been so for some time and they have failed to make any apology after the time, even if events were, to some extent, beyond their control.

I dare say we will continue to get health and education but it does look as if our children can look forward to paying a lot more for them than we did. All part of the great upwards redistribution of wealth: all those fees for Eton and such-like places have to come from somewhere.

I also record a point in favour of trashing. Ambulances in our area are provided by http://www.secamb.nhs.uk/, an organisation which might be well adapted to the area that it serves but which was perhaps unlikely ever to have come into existence in a centrally managed, top down, layered organisation. That said, only time will tell whether these new ambulance areas will thrive - and provision of ambulance services is rather easier than, for example, the provision of education services - and a cynic might say that this so-called new structure was largely built on the pre-existing old structure of regional health authorities. Sadly, it would take more time that I care to spend to come to a balanced view so I leave that to a future issue of the Economist.

PS: this long abstaining voter is presently thinking of voting for Labour for once, despite all their faults, as the lesser evil.