As the Tories experienced back in 1997, the Labour party since 2010 has been in difficulty as all of the big 'names' are indelibly linked to the previous long-running administration. Most of the biggest Labour party characters fell on their swords in the Blair/Brown era, the two Eds have now gone and this leaves people such as Burnham who are perfectly competent but were never overly ambitious and Cooper who is
very competent but lacking the common touch. Kendall and Umunna have been spouting the Conservative propaganda as if it were the truth.
http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/labours-growing-macroeconomic-illiteracy.htmlWhy would a Labour politician do such a thing? They either aren't competent enough to understand the falsity of the Tories' economic and other policy bullshite, aren't brave enough to stand up and point out the lies or are cynical enough to go along with them in an attempt to appeal to a misinformed electorate. The two Eds failed appallingly by acting in a similar manner about the economy especially yet these two 'leadership' candidates want to attempt to replicate them? The mind boggles as to what they are thinking.
Cameron spent most of the election campaign (and the year or so running up to it) lying about pretty much anything you can think about and could get away with it thanks to the backing of the massed ranks of the right-wing press and an acquiescent BBC unwilling (or simply incapable) of reporting on pretty much anything but the stuff printed in said press. Being able to outspend Labour by around 2 to 1 certainly hasn't helped them in the past couple of elections, either.
As for Osborne, he is entirely politically and ideologically motivated and must surely the least competent Chancellor we've ever had. You talk about a recovering economy? Osborne oversaw the weakest recovery following a recession for around 200 years in the last parliament! Osborne's austerian policies cut off a moderate recovery and have (and continue) to increase poverty amongst the poorest whilst transferring wealth to the very richest. Real wages are still below the pre-recession levels and the only reason anybody was feeling a bit better about things from 2014 onwards was due to the drop in oil prices and inflation which was absolutely nothing to do with Osborne, yet he still somehow claimed the credit!
His latest 'policy' targetted at setting up the Labour party is his promise to legislate for surpluses in good times to try and get them to say this isn't necessary. This policy from Osborne is so far beyond stupid, it has been ridiculed by the FT and Economist - has he got anybody that understands macroeconomics working for him at the Treasury? The chart at the top of this blog post from Frances Coppola shows the figures from the OBR's economic forecast back in March:
http://coppolacomment.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/repeat-after-me-sectoral-balances-must.htmlThe red line shows recent and forecast government spending. The OBR thinks that, under Osborne's plans, the government deficit will become a surplus some time during 2018/2019. Now look at the green line. This is our balance of payments deficit, money leaving the country because we import a heck of a lot more than we export. Incidentally, I can't imagine why they think our trade deficit is likely to fall in the near future - what do we actually have to export these days? Perhaps something to do with a drop in the cost of oil? Dunno. Anyway, the yellow line shows that they expect the corporate sector to start borrowing more soon which is actually good news as businesses only borrow when investing in expectation of profit. When things aren't great, they just fire people.
The really interesting one here is the blue line showing household borrowing. As you can see from the downward trajectory since 2011, Osborne's much-vaunted economic plan has relied greatly on households taking on more debt, mostly through the inflation of another housing bubble, aided and abetted by various government subsidies! As Coppola notes, sectoral balances must sum to zero - the only way the government will be able to run Osborne's planned surplus is by households taking on increasing amounts of debt as clearly shown in this OBR chart. How whacky is that? Osborne is saying it is so vital that the national debt is paid down as soon as possible that we've all got to borrow more ourselves. This despite the fact that the UK government borrowing costs are at an all-time low. The only way that the government can run regular surpluses is through households running regular deficits. Wonder if any of the newspapers or media will actually, you know, forcefully point out that the Emperor Has No Clothes with this latest 'plan'?
Anyway, sorry about that little rant. When somebody says anything positive about Osborne my head explodes!
Back to your other points. The reorganisation of boundaries was chiefly arranged by the coalition government because in general, the Labour party has required fewer votes to win seats than the Conservatives. I'd imagine that much of this was due to the previous Conservative lock-out in Scotland which meant that the small constituencies there gave Labour the benefit. This time, however, the Tories actually needed around 6,000 less votes to win each seat than Labour! The SNP needed 14,000 less votes than Labour to win each of their seats. The utterly ridiculous electoral system we have here allows these margins which is bad enough until you see that the LibDems needed over 300,000 votes to win each of their seats and poor old UKIP needed almost 4 million votes for their one seat! Absolutely crazy and you can see why our voting system is considered so comical by most of the civilised world. The boundary changes which come into place next election will make it more difficult for Labour but would have been entirely fair if we had a proper proportional electoral system. With first past the post, it remains little more than gerrymandering.
You're correct that we're not as impoverished as previous generations, but we're certainly heading that way for the majority of the population. You note that these days, working people have their own homes, nice things and leisure time. Really? How many working people do you know under the age of 30 or 35 who own their own home? Average age for first time buyers is now 36 in the country as a whole, 41 in other parts of the country. Average house price is
7 times the median wage. I was lucky enough to buy my house over a dozen years ago - it is now 'worth'
double what I paid back then and this in Cleethorpes, hardly a property hotspot. My wife is 11 years younger than me - none of her friends from University (some reasonably well-paid) have been able to afford to buy a house as yet. When I was her age, most of my friends had owned homes for 6 or 7 years. Not nearly enough houses are being built (possibly another part of Osborne's genius plan as building houses would reduce prices?) so it is only going to get worse for the young in the future.
In addition to housing policy, don't forget employment. Unemployment for ages 16-24 is three times as high as the rest of the population and most of the jobs the young can get are sub-McShite jobs. Retirement ages are going up as well so that means fewer jobs for the young to take over as well. We simply can't go on as things are, especially when Osborne's further planned cuts are going to hit the poorest in society once again. Note the cutting of
Working tax credits which has been mooted recently is for those who already have low-paid jobs in the first place! Tens or hundreds of thousands more children will be forced into poverty. Poverty leads to greater crime, the druggies and burglars you mention.
For me, we need an effective opposition so the likes of Kendall and Umunna are about the worst thing that could happen to the country. Burnham or Cooper it will have to be and I only hope that they will actually start speaking up, noting the failure of Tory policies and how they are economically illiterate, taking on the right-wing press and forcing the BBC to actually report the news.
I still doubt it will be enough to win a majority (the Tories will probably be able to spend triple or even quadruple as much as Labour next time), but they need to make their voices heard and hopefully inform some of the electorate what is actually going on in the country.
If they do that, then at least the aging "I'm all right Jack" voters in the country will only have themselves to blame when the
excrement inevitably hits the fan in future years when the rightfully disgruntled young begin to have their say.
Shite. That was a bit longer than planned.