As someone who is sceptical of both parties’ platforms, but regards some public services as essential and loved by the public, I don’t have much to say about the current budget. It seems to target the rich in order to make sure people on lower incomes are assisted, and although some “celebrity lawyers” are claiming it will decimate Labour at the polls, I’m not so sure it will – higher rate taxpayers are not a huge grouping (after all, MPs don’t even fall into the 50p tax band...which should help fund that all-important bath plug) but those on more moderate incomes are not caught too much and are just the sort of people Labour needs to help it win fairly comfortably in 2010. I don’t believe in Labour’s approach to micromanagement policies such as the recent initiative to withhold benefits from alcoholics that refuse treatment (having worked with the homeless I do believe that alcoholics refused a portion of their benefit would just drink the rest on a reduced budget, sacrificing food and shelter for the demon drink), but as someone who would consider themselves a Christian Democrat rather than a Tory I do believe in a communitarian approach to policy-making rather than the current Tory non-committal attachment to swinging cuts of some vague nature (presumably Tory anger is targeted at Labour yet again stealing their clothes), nor its “let them eat cake” approach to social programmes which do work.
Personally I find Labour the more sensitive party to approach cutting expenditure. Society has largely moved on since the polarisation of the pre-Thatcher era; if Thatcher achieved anything she achieved a society with the balance of aspirations that quelled riots in the UK; no-one now would riot because of a budget because everyone still enjoys relatively cheap consumer goods. Those on lower or working-class incomes are no longer locked out of the affluent society; we can all have cheap designer-style furniture from Argos or eBay, for example, or clothes from Primark where a new shirt costs £2.50, cheaper now than most charity shops. Thanks even in part to Labour we have now got a society which does not need to go on hunger marches, and the Tories really need to explain how they would manage to make the cuts they want to make without endangering the best that Labour have offered in terms of health and education.
Indeed it says too much about how Cameron has failed to modernise the Conservative party that the debate around where not to cut spending still focuses on defence rather than education. So long as we don’t slash spending on nukes, the kids that are the future nuclear scientists will still be educated in expensive schools inaccessible to the majority of the great unwashed. Having left the party (my vote at the European elections is going to Labour, except in the event of Cameron’s immediate resignation and replacement by someone who knows how to run a piss-up in a brewery, but my vote in the general is still just about open to tender) it looks dangerously like this modernisation stuff was all a sham and that with power allegedly only a sniff away the stupid party is making itself look positively idiotic by having these debates when policy should be fully formed and developed and sitting in a compact, readable form on my desk. The only reason I still care is a pathological desire not to see Labour just handed another victory on a plate.
There really still is no alternative.
PART 1 – LABOUR
Situation.
V Swords. This card is the same as the situation for the pre-budget spread I did as regards the European elections. Labour are sitting on a victory which is not complete and total but at least decisive – and won at a cost to themselves which may still prove difficult to heal. At the very least they need a breather of sorts to restore their long-term credibility and re-establish direction, otherwise they do face either defeat or another term of this long, inexorable decline. However they can actually begin to climb back up again – they have maintained their grounding in the face of quite a difficult experience over the last few weeks and have persevered long enough to show their adversary to lack a real backbone or platform. They can by no means rest on any laurels, but they have acquitted themselves well in the opinion of the tarot.
1A. Appearance to the public.
Justice. Justice normally represents a satisfactory conclusion to an issue or a timely and rational decision. The public evidently concludes that the Budget was not a huge shock – in either direction – nor did they really believe Darling could pull rabbits out of hats to defy financial expectations. They will make their decision a bit later, but for now it is not going to do Labour much damage, even if it may not turn around the “decomposition” that some Tory commentators are crowing about without inspecting their own lack of action in their own backyards.
1B. Appearance to the media.
X Cups. The budget was acceptable but the full effects have yet to be felt. Satisfaction in words and explanations may yet dissolve once the rates kick in, but for now the media are not dissatisfied by Darling’s balancing act. Because there were very few surprises, no-one can really say that the media are hostile, though there are as yet few signs of the green shoots of recovery in Labour’s poll ratings as a result – that will have to come later.
2. Actuality within.
Page of Pentacles. The Budget does suggest a growth period for Labour, though it will have to be nurtured further because while this card predicts development and could charitably also be called “Green Shoots of Recovery”, the green shoots are too fragile at the moment to take for granted and since this card is representative of the Labour Party rather than the economy, one well-placed Tory hoe could shatter them completely. That is maybe an “if” rather than a “when”, but nevertheless, Labour cannot take the Budget for granted and cannot assume that it has been extremely successful in reversing the trend again and reviving their fortunes to any considerable degree.
3. Roots of the situation.
III Pentacles. Someone has been doing a lot of work behind the scenes and laying the foundations of some sort of recovery, though the work is not yet far advanced and risks still remain to be taken with the direction of Budget plans. Development of the plans here made sure Labour were able to fight back, mounting a certain counter-offensive against their political opponents (and also to stimulate the economy; this however is largely irrelevant because this is a political spread rather than an economic prediction). Labour do the necessary work to remain in contention, and the result of this is the current counteroffensive shown by the V Swords.
4. Seeds of the outcome.
Wheel of Fortune. Events are now in control of the outcome, and this card does not predict good, bad or indifferent results so much as a change beyond the control of mere mortals. It may be more in the Tories’ control, though they have a habit of wasting the points at which they are in control of the game and allowing Labour to ride out storms rather than succumbing to their destructive energies. It’s not rocket science to predict that, with the current Conservative direction, Labour do still need to keep their eye on the ball, but need do very little to maintain control of the agenda.
5. Advice.
X Wands. The situation is not going to ease, but get more difficult. Labour need to keep going, and to keep working hard to pull together to keep outrunning the Tories and their lazy ideas of glory with the minimum of hard work. Labour have the burdens of office, but it is exactly these burdens which need to be used to maximise the exposure that their positive intentions get while minimising the ability of the Tories to gain carte blanche support because of their still-handsome poll lead. Slow and steady wins the race – the Independent articles suggested Labour are not losing many votes amongst the target families and that although they may not be popular on paper, they are still the choice of many who have supported them since 1997 and see no reason to change their allegiance.
6. Warning.
Strength. Labour need to relax their attempts to control the agenda and use their actions to speak louder than words. If the information I am getting from their spin doctors is correct, then they are not saying a lot of what they should be saying in the run-up to the general election, and are more positive than their previous incarnation under Blair that I discarded in 2004. The need to control their less diplomatic personnel is now a good thing, but they need to release their best material now and keep hammering the message home – they may be suffering from the same disease that affects the Tories, a kind of message constipation that makes it hard for potential supporters like myself to judge them on their proposals for a fourth term rather than get sick of the unfair scandals such as Smeargate which are atypical of anything the people who sign up for free spam get sotto voce.
7. Development.
VI Wands. The VI Wands suggests temporary victories which can be developed and made permanent or left to wither on the vine, depending on the desire of the people involved to believe in their permanency. There is a good omen in this – they have not only won against the tide – as in the V Swords – but can reverse that tide and direct it in the way they choose to shape events. The Wheel of Fortune may throw them off balance again as it did with Smeargate, but this Budget is a good way of getting the messages I discussed in (6) above out into the open after a number of months of me thinking: “If they put this message on a billboard outside ASDA, they’d romp home next year”.
8. Solution.
IV Cups. Events are controlled and given to Labour to reinvent themselves and develop current ideas into a practical programme, something New Labour is pretty good at (otherwise they would have gone the way of Attlee, Wilson and Callaghan in 2005, if not 2001). The IV offers a solution where none can previously be found, and Brown, having escaped once last year from the dangers of a premature challenge by Miliband, may find himself being handed a similar lifeline by events.
9. Outcome.
Queen of Wands. An ability to still direct and focus energies, albeit with less control than a King of Wands might have. The Government can be reactionary against events, moreso because they still possess the levers of power, such as the ability to put a Budget to Parliament and comfortably pass the relevant legislation. They may find their absolute ability to manipulate and shape drastically reduced, but they can still function as a government, and with this particular Opposition, that may be all they need to limp home safely.
The Tories will get their spread later on...but for now, The House of Elliott is starting on YeSTERDAY and I have to work at 5 o’clock, so things might have to wait until this evening.
