Labour is malignant, not incompetent
By Simon Heffer
2/04/2008
The problem with accusing a government, or any institution or person, of incompetence is that it seems to excuse its motives.
When we say, as we should often feel the temptation to do, that the Labour administration that has governed us for the past 11 years is incompetent, we should be aware also that we are saying the following: that, but for its administrative and technical failings, it would have done well.
I do not believe this to be true. Despite the sheen of reason that Gordon Brown and, before him, Tony Blair and their chums have sought to put on all they do, this Government has had dark motives from the start.
It has followed policies deliberately that have enabled it to pursue its own political agenda - and this has always been a deeply politically motivated government in the way that Lady Thatcher's was, and that John Major's wasn't - and irrespective of some of the dire consequences that might flow from those policies.
The element of deliberation and deliberateness in what Labour has done makes an accusation of incompetence, or carelessness, seem wide of the mark. Things were meant to be this way.
Labour has pursued policies, be they social or economic, for ideological reasons: and when they fail, as so many have, it has not been because of slipshod administration. It is because that was how things were always going to work out.
I mention this in the specific context of the House of Lords report on the benefits - or lack of them - of mass immigration. The theory applies, however, to much else, immediate or not. Some feel that mass immigration happened by accident; or that Labour's economic miracle was, indeed, so miraculous that it required hecatomb's of foreigners to come here and undertake it.
The second contention was paraded in an interview yesterday by the immigration minister, Liam Byrne, on Radio 4's Today programme. With one and a half million unemployed, perhaps the same again on nebulous "training schemes", and about three million on incapacity benefit - many of whom would, if asked, be fit for non-manual work - the idea that we have so small a pool of labour here that we must borrow from abroad is simply preposterous.
That does not stop Mr Byrne from saying the opposite. He must. He has to cover up for the deliberate decision taken at the time when Jack Straw was Home Secretary, and maintained (though he often protested to the contrary) by his successor, David Blunkett, that immigration controls should not be enforced.
Why was this decision taken? It was because of a doctrinally driven determination by the new Government in 1997 to destroy our national identity and to advance multiculturalism.
How funny it is now that we should have a Prime Minister - who as a member of the government at the time no doubt was busy when such decisions were made - who bangs on about "Britishness", amid the sound of the slamming of stable doors.
How amusing, too, that in the aftermath of four young British men blowing up themselves, and 52 other people, on public transport in London in 2005, many old Leftists should now decide that multiculturalism wasn't so great after all.
Mr Byrne well understands his political duty to try to minimise harmful perceptions of the awful consequences of this policy, and he sought, not especially successfully, to do that too in his interview. This process of denial is long-standing.
When eventually an immigration officer, Steve Moxon, had the courage to put his head above the parapet in 2004 and expose the lack of enforcement of controls, he was promptly sacked (as indeed was the then immigration minister, Beverley Hughes).
The Government had blithely ignored torrents of stories in the press about the inflow of "asylum seekers", who, in the days before the former Soviet bloc entered the EU, came here purely for economic reasons, and not because of any fear of persecution. Ministers - Mr Blunkett was especially good at this - started to talk about the impending mass deportation of illegal immigrants, but it never happened.
It was hard enough to find the political will to throw out those inciting terrorism and racial hatred against the indigenous Christian community, never mind removing those who were comparatively harmless.
So now, confronted with hard evidence that immigrants add a matter of pence each to our economic growth, while putting impossible strains on housing, transport and social services (and particularly in the south-east of England), Labour has to find excuses.
Mr Byrne's seemed to be that what happened was all very successful, so successful that it might have to stop. You will not hear him admit that it was a plan by Labour ideologues to shake up society, and to pursue the movement's traditional internationalism, in a cynical and determined way.
When one applies the doctrine on non-incompetence more widely, one hears other echoes. We have lived beyond our means not because economic growth has not, or will not, live up to its earlier billing, but because Mr Brown's priority was to create a client state of feather-bedded Labour voters.
Knowing it would harm economic stability, he set about printing money and borrowing excessively to put people on the public payroll, and to cushion hordes of the undeserving, Labour-voting poor with welfare benefits. This was not incompetent, however it might look: it was deliberate and stunning in its calculation.
So, too, for a further example, was education policy. A Marxist-driven philosophy of anti-elitism forced down standards: but if the level of attainment required to pass a public examination is forced down too, then, voilà! we all look much cleverer than we used to be.
The results of this only become apparent when the halfwits produced go out and try to run something, such as getting our railways repaired on time, or even Terminal 5.
Mr Brown also had a policy of making fathers redundant in families, by downgrading the state's respect for marriage, and providing a career structure for single mothers that included state-provided childcare.
Coupled with the Blairite policy of turning the police into a weapon of social engineering from one of crime fighting, he has presented us with today's under-achieving, feral youth, with its knives and guns, going around killing each other and making our cities seem like the dirtier suburbs of Los Angeles.
I know it is tempting to call these terrible things the results of government incompetence. They really are not. Mr Blair and Mr Brown between them chose to do these things, or allowed ministers and officials to do them.
They were all part of the plan for "change" (oh, how we love that word) after 18 years of Tory misrule.
We need to reflect more, indeed hourly, on how well those plans have turned out; and what should happen to those still in office who remain responsible for inflicting their bigotries and stupidities on the rest of us, under the guise of "progress".
When we say, as we should often feel the temptation to do, that the Labour administration that has governed us for the past 11 years is incompetent, we should be aware also that we are saying the following: that, but for its administrative and technical failings, it would have done well.
I do not believe this to be true. Despite the sheen of reason that Gordon Brown and, before him, Tony Blair and their chums have sought to put on all they do, this Government has had dark motives from the start.
It has followed policies deliberately that have enabled it to pursue its own political agenda - and this has always been a deeply politically motivated government in the way that Lady Thatcher's was, and that John Major's wasn't - and irrespective of some of the dire consequences that might flow from those policies.
The element of deliberation and deliberateness in what Labour has done makes an accusation of incompetence, or carelessness, seem wide of the mark. Things were meant to be this way.
Labour has pursued policies, be they social or economic, for ideological reasons: and when they fail, as so many have, it has not been because of slipshod administration. It is because that was how things were always going to work out.
I mention this in the specific context of the House of Lords report on the benefits - or lack of them - of mass immigration. The theory applies, however, to much else, immediate or not. Some feel that mass immigration happened by accident; or that Labour's economic miracle was, indeed, so miraculous that it required hecatomb's of foreigners to come here and undertake it.
The second contention was paraded in an interview yesterday by the immigration minister, Liam Byrne, on Radio 4's Today programme. With one and a half million unemployed, perhaps the same again on nebulous "training schemes", and about three million on incapacity benefit - many of whom would, if asked, be fit for non-manual work - the idea that we have so small a pool of labour here that we must borrow from abroad is simply preposterous.
That does not stop Mr Byrne from saying the opposite. He must. He has to cover up for the deliberate decision taken at the time when Jack Straw was Home Secretary, and maintained (though he often protested to the contrary) by his successor, David Blunkett, that immigration controls should not be enforced.
Why was this decision taken? It was because of a doctrinally driven determination by the new Government in 1997 to destroy our national identity and to advance multiculturalism.
How funny it is now that we should have a Prime Minister - who as a member of the government at the time no doubt was busy when such decisions were made - who bangs on about "Britishness", amid the sound of the slamming of stable doors.
How amusing, too, that in the aftermath of four young British men blowing up themselves, and 52 other people, on public transport in London in 2005, many old Leftists should now decide that multiculturalism wasn't so great after all.
Mr Byrne well understands his political duty to try to minimise harmful perceptions of the awful consequences of this policy, and he sought, not especially successfully, to do that too in his interview. This process of denial is long-standing.
When eventually an immigration officer, Steve Moxon, had the courage to put his head above the parapet in 2004 and expose the lack of enforcement of controls, he was promptly sacked (as indeed was the then immigration minister, Beverley Hughes).
The Government had blithely ignored torrents of stories in the press about the inflow of "asylum seekers", who, in the days before the former Soviet bloc entered the EU, came here purely for economic reasons, and not because of any fear of persecution. Ministers - Mr Blunkett was especially good at this - started to talk about the impending mass deportation of illegal immigrants, but it never happened.
It was hard enough to find the political will to throw out those inciting terrorism and racial hatred against the indigenous Christian community, never mind removing those who were comparatively harmless.
So now, confronted with hard evidence that immigrants add a matter of pence each to our economic growth, while putting impossible strains on housing, transport and social services (and particularly in the south-east of England), Labour has to find excuses.
Mr Byrne's seemed to be that what happened was all very successful, so successful that it might have to stop. You will not hear him admit that it was a plan by Labour ideologues to shake up society, and to pursue the movement's traditional internationalism, in a cynical and determined way.
When one applies the doctrine on non-incompetence more widely, one hears other echoes. We have lived beyond our means not because economic growth has not, or will not, live up to its earlier billing, but because Mr Brown's priority was to create a client state of feather-bedded Labour voters.
Knowing it would harm economic stability, he set about printing money and borrowing excessively to put people on the public payroll, and to cushion hordes of the undeserving, Labour-voting poor with welfare benefits. This was not incompetent, however it might look: it was deliberate and stunning in its calculation.
So, too, for a further example, was education policy. A Marxist-driven philosophy of anti-elitism forced down standards: but if the level of attainment required to pass a public examination is forced down too, then, voilà! we all look much cleverer than we used to be.
The results of this only become apparent when the halfwits produced go out and try to run something, such as getting our railways repaired on time, or even Terminal 5.
Mr Brown also had a policy of making fathers redundant in families, by downgrading the state's respect for marriage, and providing a career structure for single mothers that included state-provided childcare.
Coupled with the Blairite policy of turning the police into a weapon of social engineering from one of crime fighting, he has presented us with today's under-achieving, feral youth, with its knives and guns, going around killing each other and making our cities seem like the dirtier suburbs of Los Angeles.
I know it is tempting to call these terrible things the results of government incompetence. They really are not. Mr Blair and Mr Brown between them chose to do these things, or allowed ministers and officials to do them.
They were all part of the plan for "change" (oh, how we love that word) after 18 years of Tory misrule.
We need to reflect more, indeed hourly, on how well those plans have turned out; and what should happen to those still in office who remain responsible for inflicting their bigotries and stupidities on the rest of us, under the guise of "progress".
