Bozo Is Not Franklin Roosevelt

Reinvention of history: something that seems so easy to do, given that those intimately involved lived a long way away, and are now dead. Sadly, that history was more than adequately enough recorded to defeat those attempting to reinvent it. Thus the Tories’ latest confidence trick: back to the 1930s, bringing us FDR’s New Deal all over again.

FDR: the greatest of Presidents

So it is that the Murdoch Times has told readers “‘New Deal’ spending spree to boost Britain’s recovery … Johnson echoes Roosevelt with pledge of cash for hospitals, roads, rail and schools”. The Guardian has also led on this “news”, telling “First Churchill, then Roosevelt: Johnson promises ‘UK New Deal’ … PM to lay claim to vision on par with US President during Great Depression”. It sounds magnificent. But it is mere PR hokum.

Leaving aside the inconvenient fact that the administration on whose watch the Great Crash of 1929 occurred, and the Great Depression took hold, was not that of FDR, but of Herbert Hoover, who was dispatched in a landslide in the 1932 Presidential election, there are three very obvious shortcomings in the proposals reported today.

One, the amount to be committed to this “spending spree” is £5 billion. That’s for the whole country, to cover improvements in “hospitals, roads, rail and schools”. The impression that this is mere spin is inescapable. Two, the sudden reinvention of the Tories as modern-day New Dealers has come as a result of one of their number misreading history.

To no surprise at all, that individual is Michael “Oiky” Gove, who has been waxing lyrical about the “Forgotten Man”, and reshaping the machinery of Government in order to deal with the post-pandemic challenge. His problem is that chief Downing Street polecat Dominic Cummings is not reshaping Government in order to face new challenges, but because, in his delusional state, he thinks he knows more about it than all others.

And Three, the Tories and their media hangers-on fail totally to understand that FDR, for all his good intentions, did not cure the ills of the Great Depression overnight; indeed, he made little impact on the crippling levels of unemployment in his first term, hampered as he was by his advisors, who were instilled with the orthodox economics of the day.

At the height of the Depression, US unemployment was 25%. By 1939, this had only declined to 17%. Keynes urged action as early as 1933, telling FDR “I lay overwhelming emphasis on the increase of national purchasing power resulting from Government expenditure which is financed by loans”. But their meeting did not convince FDR to change tack. Kenyes “supposed the President was more literate, economically speaking”.

Beware the deception of a false prophet

What finally brought recovery from the Depression was World War 2. And of that route out of mass unemployment we need say no more. Why, then, was FDR reelected as President? Simples. His opponents had nothing convincing to offer the electorate. He was, at least, trying to alleviate the effects of the Depression.

But today’s Labour Party is, increasingly, convincing the voters, and hence this PR initiative, for that is all it is. Gove read a book on FDR, reinvented it to fit the mayhem being wreaked by his pal Dom, briefed Johnson, then span it to the press.

But Johnson was not Churchill, and he is not FDR. This is more wicked deception.

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