Tories stealing Labour's clothes

Michael Portillo read William Hague's words

By BBC News Online's political correspondent Nick Assinder.

If the Tories have learned one thing from the last general election it is how to steal the government's clothes.

In 1997 Tony Blair stole, amongst other things, the Tories' spending plans and it helped him to his landslide victory.

Now William Hague is stealing Labour's pledge on full employment.

In a keynote speech - which had to be delivered by shadow chancellor Michael Portillo because of Mr Hague's flu - he declared the Tories were now in favour of full employment.

Until Gordon Brown broke the cross-party omerta on the issue last year, full employment was the policy that no one dared mention.

It had been part of the old post-war consensus which was so dramatically destroyed by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

All parties had, until then, agreed that full employment was an honourable aim and a key responsibility for any government.

That notion was ditched by Lady Thatcher who insisted the government had no responsibility for employment beyond creating the right economic conditions for employers to flourish.

Old Labour clothes

So, for the past 15 years or more it was off the political agenda. Only former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown ever dared suggest it should be revived.

The chancellor, wearing his best Old Labour clothes, became the first minister to put it back on the agenda during last year's party conference.

Now, in what many will see as a significant policy move, Mr Hague has also made it a policy "goal."

It is a clear attempt by the Tories to narrow down the areas for dispute between themselves and Labour in the general election campaign.

But critics claim that declarations about full employment are meaningless. All that Mr Brown and Mr Hague have done is state that, like universal peace, they are in favour of it.

Empty promise

And they point to the Conservatives' words that: "When I talk about the goal of full employment, I mean the right of the people to expect their government to create the economic conditions in which enterprise can flourish."

The speech went on to say that full employment meant that everyone who could work did work, and that it would not be put above other more important goals such as creating low inflation.

It was a speech that could have been made by Gordon Brown and which immediately led to claims that Mr Hague, like the chancellor, had promised nothing.

Full employment has a strict meaning for economists - that only 3% of the available workforce should be jobless at any one time - but politicians are far more ambiguous and have tended to define it to fit their own purposes.

And what the critics claim is that, while full employment is an honourable aim, by declaring it as a political "goal" is about as meaningful as saying there is a goal to eradicate ill health.