Jeremy Corbyn is a tribute act to a failed era

Jeremy Corbyn supporters pretend he is the candidate of a successful future but nearly all his policies hark back to the failed past.

During the leadership he has put forward many policies as though they are fresh ideas but they have long been discredited. 
He mimics Ukip in that he looks back to the past with rose-tinted spectacles and tries to recreate his distorted view in today's world. It is wrong when Ukip do it and it is wrong when Corbyn does it.

Firstly, renationalising the railways, utilities and other major industries is reversing polices enacted in the 1980s and 90s.

It is nothing new but a return to the 1970s when Britain was the sick man of Europe, on constant strike and taxpayers were on the hook for billions. Services were not better or cheaper, just public-owned. Nationalisation focuses purely on the means and not on outcomes.

Secondly, he wants to reopen coal mines. Set aside that this is a policy that would significantly increase Britain’s carbon emissions, it is hankering for a bygone age.

The terrible conditions and poverty associated with coal mining is not an era we should want to move back to. Just because you disagreed with the handling of miner's strike does not mean you have to charge headlong into madcap policies.

Thirdly, he wants to bring back Clause Four. Corbyn says he prefers the old clause four with its priority on managing industry for the common good.

The new one focused on the “many not the few” rather than the means of achieving social justice it is outcomes-based.

Corbyn says he would prefer to revert to the old one but with some added reference to equality and diversity. This is pure nostalgia.

Fourthly, he is flirting with EU exit. Corbyn is considering voting to leave the EU and reverse the 1975 referendum result, potentially aligning himself with Ukip and right-wing Tories.

Fifthly, Corbyn wants to end Bank of England independence. This is “People’s QE” or printing money to pay for infrastructure projects such as roads and houses.

Quantitative easing was an emergency measure between 2009 and 2012 when £375bn was electronically created by the Bank of England to buy Government bonds. The idea was that inflation was not a concern so printing money – which has to be repaid – was the best way to boost the economy.

The Bank of England was made independent in 1997 so Corbyn wants to hark back to the days when Governments had political control of monetary policy. 

It would take us back to when interest rates were rigged for political expediency rather than to maintain economic stability, growth and low inflation.

Sixthly, Corbyn wants to quit Nato and unilaterally scrap nuclear weapons. Unbelievably Corbyn wants to reverse the policies of Clement Attlee’s Government by quitting Nato.

It was Attlee who was so desperate to build the bomb in the 1940s and Nye Bevan who took on those supporting unilateral disarmament within Labour in the 1950s.

Jeremy Corbyn likes to pose as 21^st century with a big youth following but the policies he is promoting are old. Very old and very failed.

The ideas are nothing fresh or exciting but the tired old policies that have back into fashion in the Labour party like retro Adidas trainers.

In the last 50 years UK employment patterns, health, wealth, savings, culture, technology and education have changed beyond recognition. 

Labour needs policies that have similarly evolved to meet different conditions rather than getting sentimental about old solutions.