Pur avendo vinto le scorse elezioni, il Partito laburista è abbastanza in difficoltà, criticato da più parti per un’azione di governo poco incisiva e incalzato da sondaggi ed esiti elettorali poco favorevoli.

Jeevun Sandher è un economista e un neo-parlamentare Labour, che ha sintetizzato in un breve articolo la sua idea su quale sia il problema

The voters we are losing are those who cannot afford a good life and see no prospect of being able to do so. That is why they are leaving us to vote for radical outsiders in the form of both Reform and the Greens. Non-graduates who can’t get good jobs with good wages are going to Reform while young graduate renters who can’t afford a home are going to the Greens.

quale sia il contesto

Both these groups share the same fundamental problem: they can’t afford a decent life and see no prospect of being able to do so. That is why they want a radical solution and are willing to support radical outsiders to get there.

e quali possano essere le soluzioni

If we want to win the next election, we need to make life affordable for our voters. Investing to get energy and housing costs down while creating good non-graduate jobs for Reform-curious voters will put more money in these voters’ pockets.

we can directly lower costs for all voters through investment. As energy and housing costs are fixed costs, which are higher as a proportion of poorer households’ incomes, this is a progressive policy measure that helps the hard-up the most.

Clean energy is 50 to 75% cheaper than natural gas. So, to get energy costs down, we need more clean energy (and less natural gas). Investing in home insulation also gets costs down, so each unit of power goes further. We should also think about energy tariffs that provide a lower unit price for low energy usage. This would get the costs down everyone, and especially households that are struggling with their bills.

To get both rents and house prices down, we need to build more (affordable) homes.

Mass-employment manufacturing is not coming back, so we need to make active investments that create good jobs.

Investment in childcare, social care, home retrofitting, and rebuilding crumbling infrastructure create lots of good non-graduate jobs

Pur essendo il larga parte «Labour-specific», gli spunti nell’articolo sono interessanti: per vincere le elezioni bisogna convincere gli elettori che il progetto è di migliorare le loro condizioni materiali di vita.

Non si parla di dover trovare i soldi, però, per fare la montagna di investimenti nel settore dell’energia, delle infrastrutture, dell’edilizia abitativa e dei servizi alla persona richiesti.