by Simon
While the adage, “It’s the economy, stupid!” was popularized by Bill Clinton during his successful bid for the U.S. presidency in 1992, a country’s economic situation is typically a central election issue, even more so during economic crises.
No less a figure than British Prime Minister Winston Churchill learned this lesson following the humiliating defeat of his Conservative Party soon after it led an all-party coalition government that secured victory for Great Britain in World War II.
•Simon is a young Bahamian with things on his mind who wishes to remain anonymous. His column 'Front Porch' is published every Tuesday in the Nassau Guardian. He can be reached at frontporchguardian@gmail.com.
With the speech-making concluded and the decorations packed away following the national party conventions of the PLP and the FNM, voters remain fixated on the state and prospects for the world and national economies.While the adage, “It’s the economy, stupid!” was popularized by Bill Clinton during his successful bid for the U.S. presidency in 1992, a country’s economic situation is typically a central election issue, even more so during economic crises.
No less a figure than British Prime Minister Winston Churchill learned this lesson following the humiliating defeat of his Conservative Party soon after it led an all-party coalition government that secured victory for Great Britain in World War II.
It was Britain’s first general election since 1935, elections having been suspended until there was an Allied victory in the war. Held just months following Victory in Europe Day (VE Day), the 1945 election saw a return to normal party politics.
Months before the election, Churchill’s approval rating stood at 83 percent with the Labour Party given poor odds for victory. After the opinion polls gave way to the election poll, the Conservatives lost nearly half of its members in parliament, dropping from 386 seats to 197, with Labour gaining 239 seats or 49 percent of the vote, winning a plurality for the first time.
A general election is a democratic exercise of comparing and contrasting leaders, parties, policies and performance. In the short period between VE and election day 1945 British voters realized that they were faced with a clear choice moving forward.
During the government of national unity, while the combative Churchill and his Conservatives prosecuted a war against Nazi and Fascist aggression in Europe, Labour and its leaders, including the genteel Clement Attlee, aggressively promoted a progressive economic and social agenda across Britain.
Exhausted by war and with the clear and present danger passed, voters decided that Churchill and the Conservatives had completed their mission, but now lacked the vision and leadership required to rebuild Britain during peacetime.
ABSYMAL
The Conservatives did not help themselves by running an abysmal campaign, convinced that victory on the battlefield would translate into electoral victory. Churchill further helped voters to clarify their choice by claiming that Attlee, poised to become prime minister in a Labour government, would use Gestapo-like tactics to implement what the Conservatives labelled a radical agenda.
Labour, under the battle cry of, “Let us face the future,” offered a manifesto promoting full employment, a broader social welfare agenda and universal health care at home, while recognizing in the area of foreign affairs, that Britain’s colonialist and imperialist ambitions across many continents were set to meet the same fate as the failed ideologies just defeated mainly on European battlefields.
Labour’s landslide victory ushered in one of the greatest transformations in modern British history, launching a social welfare revolution, including the creation of the storied National Health Service. While Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made some critical reforms as regards labour and economic policy, the social welfare model launched back in 1945 remains generally intact some 70 years later.
Incidentally, a number of wealthy tax exiles fled Britain under Attlee as Labour instituted a more progressive tax regime to fund its social policy agenda. Some of the more prominent exiles relocated to The Bahamas, taking advantage of the colony’s tax laws, including Sir Victor Sassoon and Sir Oliver Simmonds.
Post-convention and heading towards the next general election, the PLP and FNM may draw lessons from the 1945 British electoral contest. Though we are not coming through a crisis as dire as World War II, the current economic crisis is the worst in most of our lifetimes, with dire effects in terms of joblessness, declining household incomes and business profits, alongside greater national debt and, in the long term, an unsustainable level of public borrowing to meet recurrent expenses.
No one really knows how long this crisis will last or what twists and turns it will take. Or what the economy will feel and look like at the next general election. Will it take place within the context of a stagnant, improving or worsening economy?
Though the global economic freefall seems to have slowed, in terms of some key indicators conditions continue to worsen, begging the question as to the future prospects for economies such as ours, so linked to the consumer confidence and job numbers in the U.S. This is why the October unemployment numbers out of the U.S. at the end of the party conventions is more bad news for us.
That number is now 10.2 percent and relates to those looking for work during the past four weeks. There is also the underemployment rate, now at 17.5 percent, which measures those who have not looked for work recently as well as part-time workers seeking full-time employment. As disturbing is the long-term employment rate, those unemployed for more than six months: 35.6 percent.
SOPHISTICATED
Though “it’s the economy, stupid,” it’s not as simple as that. No serious-minded Bahamian voter blames the incumbent administration for this unprecedented crisis. They are more sophisticated than that, particularly independent, swing voters. Voters’ questions are not about the genesis of the crisis. Rather their questions compare and contrast the respective party’s response to a crisis not of our making.
How is the FNM handling the crisis? Would the PLP have handled it better? Which party’s policies will help the country to best take advantage of an eventual recovery which may unfold over a period of years, and not as quickly as we may wish? As importantly, who’s the best man to serve as Prime Minister through the crisis and the recovery: Perry Christie or Hubert Ingraham?
Because it is the government, the FNM gave an accounting of its response to the crisis and laid out some of its long-term plans for the economy. As expected, as the party in opposition, the PLP critiqued the FNM’s response and plans. That is fine up to a point. But it will not prove sufficient, especially during a seemingly unrelenting crisis such as we are experiencing.
While Churchill and the Conservatives relentlessly bashed Attlee and Labour’s agenda in the 1945 contest, the latter showcased its record and laid out its future programme, as the former doggedly relied on attacks which proved fruitless.
As a potential government in waiting, the PLP must lay out more precisely an alternative -- and doable, rather than gimmicky and impractical -- response to the crisis and beyond in terms of fiscal responsibility, budgetary matters, broader economic policy, social development and other areas of public policy.
ENGAGED
Whatever one’s perspective on Prime Minister Ingraham’s handling of the current economic situation, no one doubts that he is fully engaged in confronting the crisis. By comparison, Mr. Christie seems to be missing in action as Leader of the Opposition as the country faces one of its more serious crises since independence, only fully asserting himself when his leadership is threatened.
Crises often help individuals and nations to clarify what is essential, testing one’s mettle and priorities. Some Bahamians who have lost their jobs are finding new economic opportunities they may not have pursued were it not for this downturn. Likewise, the Government has been forced to improve its revenue collection and other procedures during these leaner times.
Relatedly, the battle at the next election goes beyond the current crisis. To paraphrase Labour’s 1945 election theme, it is also about how we will face the future, cultivating a new generation of Bahamian ideas, talent and entrepreneurial energy to take advantage of opportunities the current crisis has enabled us to see more clearly.
The next election will also be a contest over which party has the leadership, ideas, and competence to increase Bahamian ownership of our national economy, as more Bahamians take advantage of resources such as solar energy, the sea, natural and built heritage, an emerging University of The Bahamas, the internet, farm and Crown land, our geographic location and strategic international transportation routes and more.
In 1945 Clement Attlee demonstrated that he had the record, policies and skills required to move Britain past the ruin and devastation of World War II. The 2012 victor here at home may likewise be the leader who similarly offers a compelling vision for the future and the means to move The Bahamas in that direction, despite the current crisis.
Months before the election, Churchill’s approval rating stood at 83 percent with the Labour Party given poor odds for victory. After the opinion polls gave way to the election poll, the Conservatives lost nearly half of its members in parliament, dropping from 386 seats to 197, with Labour gaining 239 seats or 49 percent of the vote, winning a plurality for the first time.
A general election is a democratic exercise of comparing and contrasting leaders, parties, policies and performance. In the short period between VE and election day 1945 British voters realized that they were faced with a clear choice moving forward.
During the government of national unity, while the combative Churchill and his Conservatives prosecuted a war against Nazi and Fascist aggression in Europe, Labour and its leaders, including the genteel Clement Attlee, aggressively promoted a progressive economic and social agenda across Britain.
Exhausted by war and with the clear and present danger passed, voters decided that Churchill and the Conservatives had completed their mission, but now lacked the vision and leadership required to rebuild Britain during peacetime.
ABSYMAL
The Conservatives did not help themselves by running an abysmal campaign, convinced that victory on the battlefield would translate into electoral victory. Churchill further helped voters to clarify their choice by claiming that Attlee, poised to become prime minister in a Labour government, would use Gestapo-like tactics to implement what the Conservatives labelled a radical agenda.
Labour, under the battle cry of, “Let us face the future,” offered a manifesto promoting full employment, a broader social welfare agenda and universal health care at home, while recognizing in the area of foreign affairs, that Britain’s colonialist and imperialist ambitions across many continents were set to meet the same fate as the failed ideologies just defeated mainly on European battlefields.
Labour’s landslide victory ushered in one of the greatest transformations in modern British history, launching a social welfare revolution, including the creation of the storied National Health Service. While Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made some critical reforms as regards labour and economic policy, the social welfare model launched back in 1945 remains generally intact some 70 years later.
Incidentally, a number of wealthy tax exiles fled Britain under Attlee as Labour instituted a more progressive tax regime to fund its social policy agenda. Some of the more prominent exiles relocated to The Bahamas, taking advantage of the colony’s tax laws, including Sir Victor Sassoon and Sir Oliver Simmonds.
Post-convention and heading towards the next general election, the PLP and FNM may draw lessons from the 1945 British electoral contest. Though we are not coming through a crisis as dire as World War II, the current economic crisis is the worst in most of our lifetimes, with dire effects in terms of joblessness, declining household incomes and business profits, alongside greater national debt and, in the long term, an unsustainable level of public borrowing to meet recurrent expenses.
No one really knows how long this crisis will last or what twists and turns it will take. Or what the economy will feel and look like at the next general election. Will it take place within the context of a stagnant, improving or worsening economy?
Though the global economic freefall seems to have slowed, in terms of some key indicators conditions continue to worsen, begging the question as to the future prospects for economies such as ours, so linked to the consumer confidence and job numbers in the U.S. This is why the October unemployment numbers out of the U.S. at the end of the party conventions is more bad news for us.
That number is now 10.2 percent and relates to those looking for work during the past four weeks. There is also the underemployment rate, now at 17.5 percent, which measures those who have not looked for work recently as well as part-time workers seeking full-time employment. As disturbing is the long-term employment rate, those unemployed for more than six months: 35.6 percent.
SOPHISTICATED
Though “it’s the economy, stupid,” it’s not as simple as that. No serious-minded Bahamian voter blames the incumbent administration for this unprecedented crisis. They are more sophisticated than that, particularly independent, swing voters. Voters’ questions are not about the genesis of the crisis. Rather their questions compare and contrast the respective party’s response to a crisis not of our making.
How is the FNM handling the crisis? Would the PLP have handled it better? Which party’s policies will help the country to best take advantage of an eventual recovery which may unfold over a period of years, and not as quickly as we may wish? As importantly, who’s the best man to serve as Prime Minister through the crisis and the recovery: Perry Christie or Hubert Ingraham?
Because it is the government, the FNM gave an accounting of its response to the crisis and laid out some of its long-term plans for the economy. As expected, as the party in opposition, the PLP critiqued the FNM’s response and plans. That is fine up to a point. But it will not prove sufficient, especially during a seemingly unrelenting crisis such as we are experiencing.
While Churchill and the Conservatives relentlessly bashed Attlee and Labour’s agenda in the 1945 contest, the latter showcased its record and laid out its future programme, as the former doggedly relied on attacks which proved fruitless.
As a potential government in waiting, the PLP must lay out more precisely an alternative -- and doable, rather than gimmicky and impractical -- response to the crisis and beyond in terms of fiscal responsibility, budgetary matters, broader economic policy, social development and other areas of public policy.
ENGAGED
Whatever one’s perspective on Prime Minister Ingraham’s handling of the current economic situation, no one doubts that he is fully engaged in confronting the crisis. By comparison, Mr. Christie seems to be missing in action as Leader of the Opposition as the country faces one of its more serious crises since independence, only fully asserting himself when his leadership is threatened.
Crises often help individuals and nations to clarify what is essential, testing one’s mettle and priorities. Some Bahamians who have lost their jobs are finding new economic opportunities they may not have pursued were it not for this downturn. Likewise, the Government has been forced to improve its revenue collection and other procedures during these leaner times.
Relatedly, the battle at the next election goes beyond the current crisis. To paraphrase Labour’s 1945 election theme, it is also about how we will face the future, cultivating a new generation of Bahamian ideas, talent and entrepreneurial energy to take advantage of opportunities the current crisis has enabled us to see more clearly.
The next election will also be a contest over which party has the leadership, ideas, and competence to increase Bahamian ownership of our national economy, as more Bahamians take advantage of resources such as solar energy, the sea, natural and built heritage, an emerging University of The Bahamas, the internet, farm and Crown land, our geographic location and strategic international transportation routes and more.
In 1945 Clement Attlee demonstrated that he had the record, policies and skills required to move Britain past the ruin and devastation of World War II. The 2012 victor here at home may likewise be the leader who similarly offers a compelling vision for the future and the means to move The Bahamas in that direction, despite the current crisis.
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Posted by: Reno | November 17, 2009 at 07:40 PM
I don't know what you heard in the Prime Minister's speach at the close of the FNM convention but I think the national consesus is that he offered abslutely no plan for the long term. In fact the public seems baffled on exactly what the government proposes on a number of major issues from traffic lights to crime. bragging about how much oney you spent on equipment for the police force dosn't save the life of a stdent stabbed in school or a young man shot as he walks down the street...in broad day light!
Posted by: Ken | November 18, 2009 at 05:27 AM