Everything, everywhere, all at once


Whichever party wins the UK general election this autumn (that'll be Labour, then) will have a mountain to climb.

A quick totting-up of the rough cost even of restoring sequential Tory-led and Tory government budget cuts since 2010 let alone increasing them (if I were a smoker this would be a 'back of a fag packet' calculation) reveals the full scale of the eye-watering costs involved in getting back to anywhere near where we were fourteen years ago.

I'm neither an economist nor statistician (or mathematician for that matter) - as will rapidly become apparent to any reader who is - but even the approximate figures are truly scary. It almost makes one wonder why any political party would want to take on this monumental task. I suspect the Tories actually don't and will be quite relieved when they lose. Ever the opportunists, defeat will give them five years (at least) on the Opposition benches to fight their internal battles, elect a new leader and get their shit together for the next election whilst relishing the prospect of Labour floundering under the weight of problems inherited from them, at which point they will blame Labour for the mess. A ploy straight out of Conservative Campaign Headquarters' (CCHQ) election play book.

If we look back to the achievements of Clement Atlee's Labour government after the Second World War we can see that such enormous odds can be overcome given the will. We can also see that as soon as the good times begin to roll again the British electorate is likely to revert to its conservative (large and small c) tendencies and re-elect a Conservative government. 

Atlee's post-war government achieved a remarkable turnaround in the nation's fortunes between 1945-1951 but then lost to Winston Churchill, albeit on a narrow 1% swing. Sir Keir Starmer warns it could take two terms in office for Labour now to begin to make significant inroads into the catastrophic mess they will inherit from the Tories. I agree with that assessment. Extraordinary to think, though, that things could be worse this time, after fourteen years of Tory austerity, than after five years of global conflict, but I suspect they will prove to be so.

Okay, so let's get down to the number-crunching. The following figures can only be approximate but are taken from an online trawl of various sources such as the Social Market Foundation, Unite the Union, National Grid, Health Service Journal, National Audit Office, Institute of Government, Institute for Fiscal Studies, YMCA, Labour Policy Forum, Gov.UK and many more.

Looking at what it would take to renationalise privatised industries and reverse funding cuts to public services imposed by Tory free market, neo-liberal ideology since 2010 the picture looks something like this (in no particular order):

Utilities
Water: £90 billion (representing a 5% increase in government debt levels);
Energy: £90.3 billion; 
Extending the national grid: £54 billion.

Hospitals 
The '40 new hospitals' promised by Boris Johnson in 2019: £35 billion.

Social care 
Adult care in England: £7billion per annum + £1.74 billion 'system reform'. 
Child care £11.1 billion p.a. 

Education (university/colleges/schools)
£116 billion p.a. + £10bn annual funding upgrade to 2010 levels.

Youth services
£1.5 billion to return to 2010 funding levels.

Rail (train services/infrastructure)
£176 billion.

Roads
£27.4 billion upgrade required.

Canals
£300 million p.a. to restore government funding cut.

Armed forces/defence
£2.5 billion p.a. to restore government funding cuts.
£118 billion nuclear deterrent (including new submarines) over the next decade.

Welfare/benefits
£6 billion p.a. to restore the £20 Universal Credit uplift.

Housing
300,000 new build houses p.a. Despite Labour's pledge of a 'fully-costed' programme no cost seems to be available for this but, at an average price per square metre of £1,400-£3,000 (Check a Trade) and an average UK new build house size of 87.9 m2, you do the maths. Suffice to say It runs into trillions so, for the purposes of this exercise, I'll omit this from the total.
£15 billion p.a. for insulation retrofitting.

Arts/culture/libraries
£500 million to restore government funding cuts.

Local government 
£18.5 billion p.a. to restore the 40% central government funding cuts to local government since 2010.

Foreign aid/overseas development
£4.6 billion p.a. to restore government funding cut from 0.7% of GDP to 0.5% in 2020.

Totting-up these numbers (minus house-building) the total commitment is approximately £620 billion. The bulk of this truly staggering figure includes one-off outlays for renationalisation. The remaining annual upgrades to restore services to their 2010 levels will not compensate for inflation and if real-terms increases are to be awarded that will involve even greater outlay. With the annual interest payable on central government debt currently running at £6.8 billion and interest rates at 5.25% this will be difficult if not impossible to achieve. 

Labour's answer to this conundrum is to fall back on the mantra of economic growth driven by increased productivity. This is valid, of course, but the best incentive to achieving this is wage increases and, as far as the public sector is concerned, Labour has pledged to stick to Conservative spending levels and not make unfunded commitments. 

Squaring this circle will be an enormous challenge and it is one Labour will have to face from day one in government. It is likely to continue throughout its first term of office and into its second, in which latter aspiration it can only hope to be luckier than Clement Attlee.

If it matches half his achievements, though, it will be very lucky indeed.

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