The similarities between the Labour leader and France’s socialist president François Hollande have been sufficiently underlined already. On various occasions business leaders have warned that the UK’s economy could look a lot like the mess across the Channel if Labour wins the elections in May. However this isn’t just about the next five years, this is about the toxic culture Ed Miliband wants to implement to make sure he holds on to power on the long term too.
The truth is France should be an example not to follow considering the high level of unemployment and national debt, something that nevertheless doesn’t seem to deter Ed Miliband from wanting to follow the same path. The first and most obvious parallel that can be drawn between the two leaders is this populist and misguided belief they share that raising taxes is the key to a fairer society. As we have learnt from our continental friends, everyone ends up worse off as a result.
Even trying to make the wealthy bear the biggest burden has had the opposite effect: while France’s richest always find a way to expatriate themselves or keep their money in a foreign account – recent examples include members of Hollande’s very own socialist government – the real burden falls on to the middle classes. This directly contributes to their disappearance and as a result dramatically increases the poverty gap. Pretty ironic for a policy seeking fairness. Besides, the real reason to worry only appears when looking at what the money is being spent on.
When a socialist government promises jobs, it creates bureaucrats. It expands the state at the taxpayers’ expense to subsidise artificial positions and divide a workload that only requires one worker by three or four. Pushed to an extreme, the result is a significant chunk of the workforce that ends up having nothing to do. If we go down that road we will soon get scenes like in the city of Montpellier in the south of France, where hoards of civil servants can be seen in restaurants at lunchtime for hours or even spending the afternoon in the park. A very comfortable lifestyle that obviously, they will never want to give up. So as a result, they vote for the type of government that will guarantee them jobs that no one needs.
This is how the left operates; its most powerful weapon has always been to take away people’s independence from the state so that workers have no choice but to vote for those behind such a patronising system. In short, a vicious circle that becomes incredibly difficult to break once it has been normalised by time and accepted as part of the work culture.
This is exactly what Ed Miliband will do with our money if we give him a chance. He won’t raise taxes to improve public services or increase wages. He will use them to create an army of civil servants because that’s what’s in his best interest. And this is not to say that we do not need civil servants, but it should be about adapting the workforce to the amount of work available. However in this case Ed’s artificial jobs will add absolutely nothing to the economy; on the contrary, they will slow it down and be a burden for society. A big burden for us all and that will lie entirely on our shoulders, not his, all in the name of one man’s vanity and a false dream.
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