20 December 2018 | OPINION
Anyone in Britain under the age of 45 years old has never experienced a hard left wing government run by the powerful trade unions with regular strikes amongst the rotting rubbish in the rat invested streets. At one time in the seventies you could not even be admitted into hospital or bury the dead without the consent of the unions.
Under James Callaghan as Prime Minister, the unions brought the country to its knees and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had to step in to bail out Britain.
This week Betfair placed Jeremy Corbyn as favourite to become the next British Prime Minister with odds of 4/1. Next came four Conservative names: Home Secretary Savid Javid, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson and former Brexit secretaries David Davis and Dominic Raab all on 6/1. Michael Gove who is currently the environment secretary was listed at 8/1.
But if by some fluke, Labour were able to garner more parliamentary seats than the Conservatives in a general election, there would be a fundamental shift in the way Britain is run.
Jeremy Corbyn is an experienced protester with a strong track record for marching in the streets and opposing government policy – but that is where it ends. He has no real plan on economic policy or leaving the EU and his performance at the dispatch box during Prime Ministers Questions is dreadful.
But more importantly Jeremy Corbyn is also judged by the company he keeps. Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas and Hezbollah are just some of the “friends” he still associates with while admiring Hugo Chávez,the very man that destroyed Venezuela with the same economic policies his shadow Chancellor would pursue.
When Chávez died in 2013, Corbyn tweeted: Thanks Hugo Chavez for showing that the poor matter and wealth can be shared. He made massive contributions to Venezuela & a very wide world.
But Venezuela collapsed into civil turmoil and economic crisis and has been in recession for five years. According to the IMF, inflation reached a shocking 1,000,000% this year.
The crisis in Venezuela is not just confined to the economy with mass protests across the country but also to the high death toll. Still Corbyn praises the current President Nicolás Maduro for “his commitment to democracy and socialist values.” But Maduro banned nationwide protests last year and anyone who defies the ban faces a jail sentence of 5-10 years. Not exactly the democratic paradise Corbyn so emphatically endorsed.
Corbyn’s camp continues to hail Chavez and Maduro as shining examples of the change they want to see in the world – a vision to be replicated in Britain.
So what’s with Britain’s current hard left fetish with a totalitarian regime in which civilians are starving and dissenters are locked up.
Labour says they will offer “mainstream politics” because austerity has failed and wages have not risen for 10 years. But will re-establish links with trade unions and change the law where strikes can take place anywhere anytime in solidarity with other workers.
Labour plan on generating the cash by introducing an active business economy and industrial policy and point to Germany as an example.
It is true that the German government were influential in using high skilled workers especially after the integration of the east to build a manufacturing base economy and this was instrumental in the development of the country, but what can Britain manufacture and sell if it is cheaper to import from Asia?
Former Director General of the CBI and Minister of State for Trade, Lord Digby Jones says he and others are happy to pay more tax because they want to see a public sector that works.
But Lord Jones says Labour is driven by a political ideology which is the hatred of capitalism and business and they are very open about it.
“It is only business that creates profit that pays tax and creates jobs” he said this week. “Nothing else in Britain actually generates the money that pays for the jobs which pays the tax and therefore pays for the public sector. So if you hate the very thing that generates the money to pay for your hospitals and schools, people will move somewhere else and bang go the jobs.”
According to Jones the entrepreneurs and good quality business people will say that “globalization allows us to leave the country whilst the boardrooms in Detroit, Delhi, Beijing and Cape Town will say we are not going to invest in Britain and the people who voted Corbyn in will be stuck in Britain paying more tax and getting nothing.”
We know that Corbyn doesn’t like America, the world’s largest economy and potentially a major trading partner and if you go on record to say you hate capitalism which actually generates the wealth in the country, history tells us that you cannot compete in a global economy.
One MP told me this week at Westminster as the leadership vote took place that Theresa May is incompetent but Jeremy Corbyn is dangerous.
Elections in Britain are always held on a Thursday and by Friday morning shock would have set in. Come Friday night the country will be on a new path to disaster after the political left destroyed South America.
Therefore it is unlikely Corbyn will ever get his hands on power and crash the economy.
————————————————-
James Marlow is a journalist and international news contributor. Follow him on Twitter @James_J_Marlow
