There is an extraordinary silence about the really big issues now facing Britain.   We are arguably on the cusp of the biggest downturn for a generation as all the sources of growth dry up.   The expansionary momentum from ultra-low interest rates and £200bn quantitative easing is clearly wearing off, export markets are flat or falling, and now Cameron warns us we face the most drastic spending cuts which will change the way of life of the entire population and lead (according to the CIPD) to 750,000 public sector jobs destroyed and unemployment pushed up to 3 million for 5 years.   So where’s the anguished debate about this fast-approaching Armageddon and the search for alternative policies to avoid it (which there are)? 

Then there’s the question, now that neoliberalism is almost universally seen to have collapsed, what should replace it?   If the idea that markets should run everything unhindered has failed, where should we redraw the boundaries between markets and the State?   Where are the engines of growth under this alternative system which will avoid artificial and unsustainable bubbles foillowed by a crash?   If the umbilical bond between the City of London and the Treasury, which lies at the heart of finance capitalism, has led to unprecedented greed, abuse and quasi-national bankruptcy, what radical banking refom is needed to avert any recurrence?   And how can democracy be reclaimed over money?

Who is doing anything about ballooning inequality apart from ogling over its daily excesses?   How can it be that, according to the Sunday Times 2010 Rich List issued a few weeks ago, a mere 1,000 multi-millionaires have in this last year of belt-tightening for everyone else increased their wealth by a cool £77bn (including Lord Ashcroft by £150m), yet are not called upon to make any sacrifice at the time of the nation’s need, whilst at the same time hundreds of thousands of public sector workers are victimised by losing their jobs and their incomes and are forced on to JSA benefits of just £65 a week?   Where is the debate on this parody of injustice?

And who in the political class is talking about Afghanistan and how our continued troop presence there can still be justified, if it ever was?   The mantra still trotted out (by Cameron again today on his current trip) that our forces are there to keep the streets of Britain secure is absurd, widely recognised to be so, and in fact the opposite of the truth – we are more more likely to suffer retaliatory attack if our military occupy another country.   Yet the subject is taboo.

The Labour leadership race provides the obvious forum for policy renewal.   It cannot come too soon.

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