What Labour favours
FAILING THE ERM, Labour is in favour of training. Who isn't? It has a fiscal policy. It is in favour of stopping up loopholes — this was its contribution to the budget debate. It has a policy on Europe, too. It is in favour. That makes a change from fear- ing Europe as an obstacle to socialism. The turning-point came when the Trades Union Congress struck up an alliance with the President of the Commission, and sealed it with a hideous chorus of `Frere Jacques'. All these are attitudes rather than argu- ments. Most of the arguing has been going on within the governing party, and some of it within the government. On pensions, for instance: who, or what is going to pay for them in the next century? All that is certain is that stopping loopholes won't do it. On monetary union: the prevailing view in gov- ernment appears to be that this idea is a Euro-dud which will with any luck collapse under its own weight, but that it would be unhelpful (the Foreign Office's favourite word) to say so. From that point of view, Michael Portillo is no help at all. I can see why the opposition might be happy to leave them all to it, but its share of the debate is missing. That carries risks of its own. Noth- ing is more dangerous than the policy that goes untested because all parties are in favour of it. The ERM, of course, was one. How much better to have made it undergo the rancour and asperity of party politics. I hope they are on their way back.
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