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Prospective parliamentary candidate selection statements: Amanda Ramsay, Bristol South

19/05/2013, 03:42:28 PM

As Labour’s selection timetable for prospective parliamentary candidates accelerates, Uncut will publishing candidate statements for short-listed candidates. Today, Amanda Ramsay who is running for Bristol South. The final hustings is on the 8th of June.

As a local and national campaigner, living and working in south Bristol, I know the charities I help – and the people they support – do best with Labour. That’s one of the reasons I’m standing to be a Labour candidate and why I want to devote my working life to making a real difference in Bristol South.

An active trade unionist, I believe we achieve more when we work together; representing workers from across the South West on the regional and national sector committee for Unite, I’m an equalities officer for my branch of Community, Youth Workers and Not for Profit sectors, rep and member of the Bristol District Area Activist Committee.

I’ve had a wide range of jobs, from cleaning and shop work to many years in the travel industry, working mainly between the voluntary and private sectors for many years; for huge companies like Granada, for example, but also loved being a part-time teacher and tutor, to supplement my income and share my love of politics and working with young people, teaching advanced level government and politics. Getting a student through her A-levels and into university, someone everyone else had written off, is still one of my biggest achievements to date.

What matters to me most is using my experience on the local and national stage to lessen the disadvantages of poverty and inequality in our society, by negotiating the best deal for Bristol South, securing investment for jobs and regeneration, fighting for fair pay and a Living Wage, employment rights and defending the welfare state.

Educational opportunities changed my life and I want to see such chances for everyone, regardless of where they are born or grow-up. School children from all social backgrounds excel at Knowle Park Primary, where I am a governor. I want to take the fight to the coalition, who seem to have created a lost generation, with little on offer for young people leaving school this summer.

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We need an NEC inquiry into the democracy deficit in our MEP selections

16/05/2013, 01:38:56 PM

by Anita Pollack

The protests about fine candidates being left off European selection lists are not confined to London. Stories of injustice have surfaced from a number of regions.

After three European elections when Labour’s fate was to lose seats, the elections to the European Parliament in 2014 offer a chance of winning some seats and adding much needed new blood to the European Parliamentary Labour Party.

Consequently, it is not surprising that there have been a high number of candidates, particularly since those elected this time will be there for at least five years and maybe a decade or more. What is unpleasant, however, is that the results appear to have been rigged.

Personally, I can only speak about London, where friends of the worthy no-longer-candidate Anne Fairweather took the protests to a new level, the front page of the Times. But this is not a case of only one good candidate being blocked.

Carole Tongue, who was a dynamic London MEP between 1984 – 99 and a deputy Leader of Labour’s European team, and who has been working closely with unions on a number of hot European issues since then has also been cast aside without even an interview.

Ilford South constituency has passed a motion in her favour, as has, I believe, Streatham for Anne Fairweather. Clearly had these women been granted an interview their qualities would have been manifestly obvious and it would have been more difficult to keep them off the final list. So the word had to be to block them from the start to pave the way for the favoured union candidates.

I wrote to Iain McNichol with a copy to Alan Olive expressing astonishment at Carole Tongue being barred, but no reply has been forthcoming. As a former MEP myself of ten years and a stalwart Labour loyalist, I find this disrespectful to say the least.

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Immigration: facts not fiction, please

08/05/2013, 07:48:31 AM

by Matthew Whittley

Looking at reports of today’s Queen’s speech, where the government is set to announce plans to restrict migrants’ access to benefits, social housing and the NHS, one could be forgiven for thinking that most migrants are living the life in five bedroom social homes, staffed with their own personal GP.

But the measures mooted will have no impact on levels of immigration, because people don’t come here to claim benefits, they come to work. Of the 850,000 migrants to have arrived from Eastern Europe since 2004, only 13,000 were claiming Jobseekers Allowance in Febuary 2011. Those same migrants are about 60% less likely than natives to claim benefits or live in social housing.

And even if they were “benefit tourists” migrating in search of an “attractive benefits system”, the UK wouldn’t have been high on their list of potential destinations. The UK spends less on benefits than many other European nations including Germany, France and Italy. It would appear that we are not a “soft touch” after all.

Already this morning we’ve heard from Jeremy Hunt touring the broadcast studios about migrants “clogging up” the NHS and claims from government ministers that migrants “expect something for nothing”. This choice of language paints the picture of immigrants as a burden on resources, when in fact they are net contributors to the public finances; we would be worse off without them.

In the four years from 2004, Eastern Europeans contributed over 35% more in taxes than they received in benefits. This language also fosters a climate of suspicion and division that can easily turn to discrimination and xenophobia. We only have to look at Greece, where violent attacks against immigrants have become commonplace, to see where this can lead.

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There is no reason why Labour should fear EU renegotiation

30/04/2013, 07:24:45 AM

by John Mills

As a committed Labour supporter who has been immersed in the political and economic arguments over Britain’s place in the European integration project for some forty years - from my role in overseeing JML expand its business beyond Britain to acting as Secretary of Labour Euro-Safeguards Campaign since 1975 – my views have evolved as the European Union has radically changed form.

There is a perception that the question of Europe is a settled one within the Labour party. But as the EU hurtles down the path towards federalism, I am convinced more than ever that this question still has to be subject to much soul-searching and internal review.

As the poll on the in last week’s Guardian demonstrates, trust in the European project is falling across the continent and is now at an all-time low. With the Euro tanking and southern Europe in its current malaise, it’s easy to understand why some people would prefer to be out than in, and many businesses are wondering how life could look outside the EU. Yet, with the prime minister’s speech in January, a clear process has now been put in place to get a better deal for Britain in the EU. Most people in the business world now see the UK’s best interests being served by engaging in substantial renegotiation to turn the EU into the flexible, adaptive structure it needs to become if it is to survive and thrive. To that end, I am delighted to be co-chairing the new Business for Britain campaign aimed at mobilising and better reflecting the interests and opinions of the business community in the great EU debate to secure a better deal for Britain in Europe.

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Osborne’s reputation for economic competence is fatally damaged. Labour must now start restoring theirs

23/04/2013, 12:13:09 PM

by Matthew Whittley

Perceptions of economic competence will largely determine who takes power in 2015. It is well-known that Labour has its work cut out to regain trust with the nation’s purse strings, but if anyone needed further proof that the economy isn’t safe in George Osborne’s hands, the need look no further than today’s economic news.

The latest figures tell us that there has been no improvement in underlying borrowing, which is has been running at almost the same level for the past two years. According to OBR forecasts, it will be around the same this year. As a result of the failure to stimulate any growth in the economy, the government is now set to borrow £245 billion more than planned

George Osborne’s main opportunity to do something about the hole he’s dug for the nation, was in March with the budget. But he blew it: the budget amounted to no more than a “do nothing” series of holding measures.

With household budgets squeezed and business lacking confidence to invest, Osborne should have prioritised growth by borrowing to invest in capital projects, rather than borrowing to finance failure as is currently happening. One doesn’t need a PhD in macroeconomics to know that capital spending has a huge multiplier effect on growth.

However, the derisory £2.5bn of capital investment promised in the budget falls way short of what is required to kick-start the economy. To put this figure in context, the Economist, hardly a bastion of Keynesianism, recommended an extra £28bn of infrastructure investment.

It should have become clear by now to him that the debt can’t be reduced in the absence of growth. The UK has grown only 0.7% since the third quarter of 2010. During that time, Japan and Italy are the only major G20 economies to have performed worse than the UK.

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We should have the courage to legislate for a Living Wage, not just campaign for it

18/04/2013, 05:08:34 PM

by Prem Goyal

It has become a bit of an easy game for cynical journalists to say that Labour’s leadership talks about abstract ideas like pre-distribution and responsible capitalism that are somehow too hard for people to follow. What nonsense. I don’t much like either of the phrases, but I think the ideas themselves are both simple and compelling.

Ed’s offer to the country is rooted in good old fashioned common sense: instead of taking action ‘after the fact’ to try to fix inequality, let’s build social justice into the economy at every level. It might be easy to caricature as the language of the seminar room, but it is basically just another way of saying that prevention is better than cure.

The most effective form of prevention against the most extreme forms of inequality is full employment – and the best vaccination against in-work poverty is the living wage. That’s why Ed Miliband made it such a feature of his leadership bid and did significant follow up on the details late last year.

Right-wing ideologues, of course, claim that any intervention in the market distorts it and, in the end, hurts the economy. This argument, that the market finds its own perfect equilibrium between pay, the number of jobs and the demand for goods, ignores today’s reality: low pay employers are effectively getting a public subsidy for bad practice, in the form of tax-payer top ups to their workers’ wages through the benefit system.

The IPPR and the Resolution Foundation have estimated that a universal living wage would save the Treasury £3.6 billon from the bill it currently foots to help those on poverty pay to make ends meet. Over fifteen years in business I’ve worked in New York, Tokyo, London and Zurich for some of the biggest companies in the world and I can honestly say I’ve never met a business person who would think, when looked at like that, that they could reasonably ask the public to subsidise their profit margins while their staff struggle to survive.

The truth is, the living wage works for everybody: employee, tax-payer and employer alike. Independent research for the Living Wage Foundation has found that 80% of employers giving the wage and 75% of the staff receiving it feel it improves their work. As the Tories continually fail to understand when they attack ‘lazy Britain’ and endorse erosions of employee rights, better pay and conditions improve morale and productivity. Further, plenty of living wage employers felt it strengthens their brand by encouraging consumers to see them as an ethical firm.

My own company, GMC, pays all its staff a living wage and is applying to be on the official list of Living Wage firms. Financial companies, retail outlets and legal firms are joining a long list of councils, including my own Southwark borough council, and a growing number of universities.

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We do not need to divide the country to get through difficult times

15/04/2013, 06:49:16 PM

by Helen Godwin Teige

Ed Miliband came to Bristol on Saturday, so I, my husband. our two toddlers and my sister went along to see Ed and listen to what he had to say. He did an ‘on the stump’ speech and answered questions from members and non-members who had gathered in the busy St Nicholas Market in Bristol.

I am pretty sure Ed won some votes for both himself and the Labour party on Saturday. He took questions on everything from mental health, vocational qualifications, and the bedroom tax to legalisation of drugs and Trident. Bristolians are an understated bunch but they know what they are interested in and we felt Ed answered each question well; he listened, gave real and honest answers and didn’t sound as policy light as the press are desperate for him to be.

He was here on the back of the local elections but there were key things that he mentioned that I think Labour need to drill down into and build deeper policies

1. Mental Health

The stigma of mental health needs to end. The increase in dementia cases means this is on the agenda in a big way but mental health affects all ages and is a vast subject requiring more research, treatment and occupational health. We need to take the lead in accepting people with mental health problems and ensuring their place in society is understood and valued.

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Austerity isn’t inevitable. Labour needs to be bolder on the alternative

08/04/2013, 01:07:55 PM

by Matthew Whittley

We have grown familiar with Tory backbencher’s frustration at the reality of coalition government that prevents them from delivering the yet deeper cuts to social security that a Conservative manifesto would likely call for. So much so that it’s easy to forget just how radical this government has been on welfare. The austerity driven assault on the poor has started to gather pace, with the first raft of welfare reforms already implemented.

This month, the vital link between benefits and inflation will be broken. With inflation remaining at close to 3%, the 1% cap on the uprating of benefits will make it even harder for those families already struggling to keep pace with the rising cost of living. Furthermore, the ending of full council tax rebate is forcing two million low-income households to contribute hundreds of pounds to their council tax – a tax that, until now, they have been considered too poor to pay.

This appears to have gone largely under the radar. One cut that has attracted substantial media attention is the introduction of under-occupancy charges for 660,000 social housing tenants – what’s been dubbed the ‘bedroom tax’. Those with a spare bedroom are having to deal with cuts to their housing benefit of, on average, £56 a month. As well as reducing the housing benefit bill, the government argues that this policy has been designed to make the best use of housing stock. Unfortunately, there aren’t anywhere near enough small properties to move people into.

This is especially the case in the North. Teeside based housing association Coast and Country Housing, for example, has 1,800 tenants classed as under-occupying, but they have only two one-bed properties available to let. People are being sanctioned for not moving into smaller houses that don’t exist.

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Erosion of universal benefits is destroying public support for the welfare state

05/04/2013, 07:00:15 AM

by Robin Thorpe

Earlier this week George Osborne stated that “this month, around nine out of 10 working households will be better off as a result of the changes we are making”.

The BBC report on this speech (before it happened, which frankly annoys me, why can’t politicians just give a speech and have it reported after the event? Why must it be released beforehand?) states that;

“This month saw the start of sweeping changes across public services including reform of the benefits system.

Mr Osborne argues that the government has had to take difficult decisions to cut the deficit and the current benefits system is fundamentally “broken”.

Changes include:

The introduction of a £26,000 cap on the amount of benefits a household can receive

A cut to housing benefit for working-age social housing tenants whose property is deemed to be larger than they need

Disability living allowance replaced by personal independence payment

Working-age benefits and tax credits uprated by 1% – a below-inflation cap

The chancellor believes the changes to benefits and tax will be fairer and help ensure that the country can live within its means and compete globally”

For all the rhetoric both in favour and against these cuts I would agree with Osborne on the limited claim that the vast majority of the public are in favour of these changes to the benefit system and do not agree with Labour or other critics of the changes. The very fact that 9 out of 10 people will purportedly be better off underlines the reason why most people agree with the changes. This, however, does not make it the right thing to do.

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David Miliband has gone. We now need more “star strikers” in our top team

01/04/2013, 05:58:50 PM

by Renie Anjeh

As Chuka Ummuna put it on twitter “one of Labour’s strikers has left the field”. Many Tory MPs were jubilant at David Miliband’s departure from British politics to run the IRC. They tried to spin this as evidence of Labour lurching to the left, but I could not help thinking that it their joy was really about Labour losing a big beast who Ed Miliband could bring back before 2015.

Last week’s mini-reshuffle showed that Cameron is in constant fear of his backbenchers as they move his party further to the right, but to contrast that Ed needs his own reshuffle to show that he is in command of his ship.

Firstly, he must promote the big beasts of the future. Top of that list should be Stella Creasy and Tristram Hunt as shadow cabinet office minister and shadow universities minister. Caroline Flint could be promoted to another domestic policy brief to allow the entry of Luciana Berger and perhaps Gregg McClymont could join as shadow Scotland secretary with Margaret Curran becoming the new chief whip – as she did a similar job in the Scottish Parliament.

Secondly, Ed needs some good former ministers. David Lammy is a prime candidate. He is a great thinker especially on social policy, his book “Out Of Ashes” is testament to that and he is full of refreshing ideas especially on social policy. He could be a reforming Justice Secretary in a future Labour government.

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