Huhne

Guido notices the launch of the Chris Huhne for leader website, and wonders how they managed to put it together so quickly after the departure of the Minger.

It's not entirely clear what he means by the the two sentences in his byline, but I can probably guess. By "A fairer society" he means "take money from people who have earned it and give it to people who vote for me". I think it's reasonable to assume that he doesn't adhere to the Walter Williams school of social justice:

I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you – and why?"

In other words, Huhne is making a direct appeal to the socialist side of his party. Let's have more government intervention, chaps. Viva la revolucion!

Sentence two is an appeal to the liberals. "People in charge" tickles the tummies of all the small government types without actually promising anything. It's presumably meant to conjure up visions of devolved power, with perhaps a frisson of individualism, but at the end of the day it's vague enough to mean just about anything between anarcho-capitalism and a Lib-Dem junta.

Assuming though that this second bit is meant to convey a small government message, do you think the contradiction with the first, statist sentence has occurred to anyone in the party or do you think it was planned?

Comments

[Jock]

Chris is also president of ALTER, the land tax and economic reform campaign. "Fairer society" need not mean bigger state at all. Georgists promise a more equitable society through the fairer distribution of the publicly created value in the "common wealth" without impacting on what people really earn or make from good economic processes.

[Bishop Hill]

Jock

Yes, it's vague, but I guess that's the point isn't it? We are left to wonder what he really means by it.