One must have some sympathy for Ed Milliband, but this rarely extends to being willing to entrust leadership of the country to him. There is very little sympathy vote in general elections.
Yesterday young Ed had his tenth attempt at a relaunch of his leadership; and this time what he said was seriously scary. He suggested that all employers should be made to pay a raised minimum wage, and should eradicate 'zero-hours' contracts: this would throw millions into unemployment. In addition he suggested that 'the richest' members of society should be even more heavily taxed than they now are, and partially excused this by asserting that an unspecified proportion of these 'rich' currently pay no taxes. The sublime silliness of this proposition vindicates all but the most personal and vitriolic attacks that are made on the sinking man. The great majority of British residents who are rich pay their taxes. Some people, within the rules, receive income from UK sources in other domiciles [or have alien-domiciled wives or husbands who receive the bulk of their incomes] which is within the existing rules. There is a strong possibility that many of that minority of the rich will decamp themselves to foreign domiciles and stop paying rates and the taxes on all their personal purchases in the UK if the basic rules of residency are changed: so tax revenues would go down, not up.
He plans a scenario where entrepreneurs will feel even more unwelcome and join the rush to alien domiciles; while the millions of extra unemployed become a charge on the state [adding to the cost of the benefits and allowances they already receive while notionally in zero-hours employment]. After a short time it will be impossible for the government to borrow the increased mass of money they will need to keep paying benefits. The meltdown of society would only be a step away.
To appeal, as the appalling Blair used to do, to the innate good qualities of the British people is nonsense in a country that has been made a patchwork of 'communities', some of whom are already 65+% 'economically inactive'. There will be no fall-back for the government: even if we remain in the EU our standoff from the eurozone severely limits the help the members would be able or willing to provide to assist the UK. The USA is in no mood to re-run Marshall Aid for a feckless island near Europe that has no contemporary strategic significance.
Ed is asking the British electorate to behave like lemmings.
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