Douglas Carswell

Crony corporatism makes Corbyn more credible

Corbynism is a reaction to Osbrown economics.  We must not let it be seen as the alternative.

Jeremy Corbyn, we are told, wants something called "People's QE".   Instead of using QE – or Quantitative Easing – to give hand outs to the big banks, Mr Corbyn wants to use this magic money tree to build things. People's QE, it is suggested, would be used to build better transport links and hospitals.

And why not, many might say?   If money can be conjured out of nowhere to give large City institutions massive subsidies, why not do the same for road and rail links?  If monetary policy is to be used as a form of stimulus, why not do it by building things the public actually needs?

The arguments against "People's QE" are perfectly sound. The trouble is that they are going to be rather hard to make given that the people who will be making them will have spent much of the past decade cheerfully advocating QE for the banks.

For those on the centre right, this is part of a bigger strategic problem. You cannot achieve small state, free market ends through big government, interventionist means.

This has not stopped successive Tory administrations from trying. A generation ago, Conservative ministers created the national curriculum in order to ensure teachers taught the way that they wanted. I would argue it had the precise opposite effect, allowing leftist dogma from teacher training colleges into every class room in the country.

Conservative ministers justified QE on the basis that it would "save the banks" and "rescue capitalism" blah blah blah. What it has actually done is make banks dependent on state hand outs and give capitalism a bad name.

Worse, it has created a mechanism that will allow a future leftist government to conjure out of nothingness a balance sheet that it can spend. If you have "People's QE", why even bother asking those that we elect to approve what Treasury officials wish to spend?

Again and again, Conservative party leaders make concessions to big state intervention and corporatism. All they do is enable their opponents to push the agenda to the left.

Despite being governed by those that talk right, successive administrations have taken us to the left.  George Osborne is no exception.  

If Corbyn does ever start to sound credible on Question Time, its because corporatism makes him seem that way.  

The alternative to Gordon Brown and George Osborne's "print more money and pray" economics is not Corbynism.  It is time for an unapologetically free market, small state alternative. UKIP.  Here are some ideas on what that free market alternative might look like.

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