Grassroots « Labour Uncut

In defence of trade unions and Labour’s union link

06/04/2012, 03:42:17 PM

by Amanda Ramsay

When Ed Miliband published his list of meetings with party funders, unsurprisingly several were with Unite’s general secretary Len McCluskey. This was widely reported in the press but in the articles there was scant mention of the myriad of sectors a huge union like Unite represents: millions of individuals, working people, 20 sectors at the last count including agricultural, health as well as industrial.

As if one meeting every year or so would be enough time to discuss the huge swathe of complex issues that unions like Unite, the GMB and Unison are dealing with on a daily basis.

The contrast with the elite vested interests of the Tory party, as personified by the likes of Lord Ashcroft and former Conservative Party Treasurer Peter Cruddas, could not be more stark.

But it’s not just the so-called right-wing press who are complicit in the misrepresentation in the media. Last Saturday, the Independent referred to Len McCluskey donating £5million, as if it were a personal donation, like he just wrote a cheque out of his own money!

“The Labour Party has benefitted from the publicly known link to working people and their views and needs,” Esther Pickup-Keller, president of the Aspect group of the major professionals’ and managers’ union Prospect tells me. “This type of democratic channel is a long, long way from secretive private dinners and meetings with senior politicians by capital corporate interests and donors.”

It’s offensive to hard-working people that the very small amounts of money paid by individual trade union members to the political funds of our unions are portrayed as somehow wrong by certain right-wing commentators and MPs. Where’s the balance?

I’m no militant, but let’s remember what this is all really about. One of the most poignant stories to learn as a teenager, to spark my imagination and social conscience, was that of the Tolpuddle Martyrs; their story speaks about something universal, way beyond party politics – shock and awe that these men could be shipped-off to be imprisoned on the other side of the world, for standing-up for their rights in the workplace, civil rights, human rights, call it what you will.

This is still the case today, for those of us who believe in trades unionism, the relevance of trade union membership is as relevant now as it’s ever been.

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Last night’s mayoral debate was a train wreck, today’s tax developments make things worse

05/04/2012, 12:54:16 PM

by Helen Godwin Tiege

Wasn’t last night’s mayoral debate depressing?

A quick look through my twitter feed during and after the debate confirmed my view that it was disorganised, poorly chaired, petty and wholly uninspiring.

Brian Paddick and Jenny Jones were largely ignored, or at best drowned out by the two front runners and the chair, Jeremy Paxman, and when there was opportunity for them to speak their points were interrupted or left unanswered.

Where was the real discussion on social housing, irresponsible landlords, youth unemployment, Olympic legacy? These are the issues that I want to hear about, but there was no time amongst the petty sniping about anti-semitism and tax avoidance and general airing of personal slurs.

I’m Labour so Ken Livingstone will be getting my vote on May 3rd and I will be out campaigning for him this weekend. I am in agreement with his core policies of fare cuts, more police and reintroduction of the EMA. London needs a Labour mayor at a time when there is so much poverty and inequality in this, one of the worlds richest and greatest cities.

But I can’t help but think that Labour made a crucial error in nominating Ken for Mayor. I know I am not alone. He was a terrific mayor and I would defend his record to anyone but this election should not have been about personalities, it should not have been an excuse for people to air 30 year grudges against ‘Red Ken’.

And with this morning’s furore over disclosure of taxes, and Ken’s less than helpful statement on why he won’t release his tax returns, the whole campaign is dragged ever further from the real issues. For the next few days the news will be dominated by this one issue, to the exclusion of all else.

London in 2012 is in a challenging place and we needed, and deserved, a serious, issues led campaign which should have given Labour an opportunity to reveal its post-New Labour agenda with a serious, fresh and passionate candidate who could lead the debate away from blustering Boris.

We could have mobilised our army of incredible grassroots activists to send a message to the coalition by turning not only Lib Dem votes to Labour, but Tory ones too.

That just won’t happen now.

Instead I fear that this tit for tat approach from both front runners and running distractions like tax returns will continue until polling opens, and we reds might end up feeling blue on May 4th.

Helen Godwin Tiege is a Labour party campaigner

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How Ed can fight back after Bradford West

30/03/2012, 01:43:02 PM

by Samuel Dale

If ever there was a wake-up call, this is it. Not since 1987 when Labour lost the Greenwich by-election to the SDP has the party faced such a devastating loss.

Last week there were some positive signs, Miliband’s good performance in response to the budget or harrying of the Tories over donorgate and pastygate shouldn’t just be forgotten. But now more than ever this needs to be harnessed and turned into something tangible and lasting. A narrative that can run until the next election.

He is capable of doing it but there is one problem. It’s the economy, idiots. Labour still lacks credibility and until it regains it, sporadic good polling and Tory slip ups will remain shallow and electoral success a far off dream.

In all of the soul-searching that is to ensue next week Ed Miliband has a chance to address this core problem. The biggest issue is the impression that Labour was profligate with the public purse and that caused the crisis. It’s not true but it’s the impression.

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Time to learn from the union link in funding politics

29/03/2012, 07:18:41 PM

by Ian Stewart

Every time there is a donor scandal in British politics, Whether its Ecclestone or an oligarch’s yacht, the same old arguments for state funding rise, Lazarus-like from their tomb. No doubt since Sunday, Lib Dems have been muttering to their dwindling band of friends that all this will go away if we had a system like Germany.

It is a tempting argument, well made by Mary Ann Sieghart earlier this week in the Independent. Many inside progressive politics are no doubt swayed by its siren call. Yet like so many centrist arguments favoured by political nerds, this one has some gapng holes:

Hole 1: Germany has had state funding since the 1950s, yet corruption and bribery still happen. The massive “Lockheed scandal” of the 1970s forced politicians and Luftwaffe Generals to resign over the purchase of the starfighter warplane. Germany now apparently requires companies to state what they have spent on buying political influence, so that they can levy a “bribes tax” (hmm… thinking about this one…)

Hole 2: The old Soviet Bloc had state funding for its token “Opposition” parties in the GDR, Poland et al. Anyone see any good that came of that? No? Lets move on…

Hole 3: Politicians are about as popular as leprosy. Do we want more of our taxes spent on them?

Hole 4: The state is not always neutral. State funding of political parties could take away some of our independence and ability to propose radical new policies.

Hole 5: Why should a Labour supporter help fund the LibDems/Tories/UKIP/BNP/Respect… or indeed anybody else? Why should a Scottish Labour supporter fund the SNP? That’s what Brian Souter is for.

Hole 6: For Labour, it further weakens the trades union link, and Progress are in favour of it.

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Sunday review on Tuesday: Pragmatic Radicalism’s defence “top of the policies”

27/03/2012, 05:48:12 PM

by Amanda Ramsay

Affecting party policy should be more about ideas and innovation than shabby promises to open-up the Downing street policy unit for £250,000. This is what Pragmatic Radicalism offers Labour members and last night it hosted the first event of Labour’s defence policy review with Labour Friends of the Forces.

Chairing was shadow secretary of state for defence, Jim Murphy MP, with speakers having just two minutes to present ideas as complex as the reform of NATO and UN Security Council to the complete overhaul of the territorial army. Two minutes of questions from the floor for each person was then followed by a vote at the end.

Security and resilience issues in a globalised and highly networked world were tackled by the winner, Dan Fox, UCL honorary research associate at the Institute for Security & Resilience Studies, with “cyber reserves: strength through expertise.”

Fox, a serving JNCO in the Territorial Army, outlined the need to have a dedicated cyber Reserve supported by cyber apprenticeships, co-ordinated by the ministry of defence and with greater collaboration between FE colleges and ICT practitioners. Fox presented the common sense but intriguing notion of “white hatting” hackers, to turn their expertise and skills to do good.

Speaking to Labour Uncut last night, Fox said: “No party has a monopoly on caring about and promoting the best policies for our armed forces. Pragmatic Radicalism’s defence ‘top of the policies’ evening showed that we in Labour have the ideas, experience and commitment to ensure our national security, and support our servicemen and women.”

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George Osborne’s ugly society

25/03/2012, 08:30:04 AM

by Helen Godwin Tiege

The news is full of the budget, and it seems George Osborne is getting himself into a pickle after breaking the “don’t mess the with pensioners” rule. Even the Daily Mail has turned on the Tories, along with almost every other newspaper.

We have also heard how great this budget is for business, with the scrapping of the 50p tax rate and further reduction in corporation tax. The CEO of Glaxo, Sir Andrew Whitty, was quite happy for the chancellor to claim their announcement today, that they will create over 1000 new roles, was a result of new measures announced in the budget, as well as the Labour-led changes to patenting laws.

We heard from several “business-leaders” who felt that the scrapping of the 50p rate would mean that Britain was once again “open for business”. And this is all great news, only a twisted cynic would want to see the economy fail or go into stagnation after what has been a troubling and difficult 4 years. If these measure really will bring investment and job creation to Britain then I would not want to oppose them.

However, I cannot see how such changes which ultimately benefit individuals can be introduced at a time when there is still rising unemployment, a very real threat of a “lost generation” and millions of people around the country about to face their darkest times as a result of local authority cuts that come into effect from April.

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After this budget, the Lib Dems are all over the place

21/03/2012, 02:49:31 PM

by Amanda Ramsay

The focus today has been on George Osborne. Understandably so. But one of the stories in the days to come will be how this budget has exacerbated the cracks that were already spreading through the Liberal Democrats and the instability this will bring to the government.

Like them or loathe them, the Conservatives have made their position known. As NEC candidate Peter Wheeler puts it: “Tories make it clear what their priorities are – Tax cuts for the rich and pay cuts for the north.”

But they are burdened by a partner who lacks their self-assurance and discipline.

Long-suffering Tories, already struggling with David Cameron’s leadership, are tiring of having to put-up with on-the-hoof Liberal Democrat solo policy announcements such as Vince Cable’s off-piste mooting of a mansion tax that was never going to happen.

This may have been political point scoring on Cable’s part, but even whispers of such a tax will have wrought terror in Tory heartlands, particularly in London where such talk could cost Boris Johnson’s political life.

It’s part of a pattern of ill-disciplined behaviour that has increasingly dismayed Tory MPs. For example, there was the failure to support their own leadership line from Nick Clegg over the health bill, not to mention February’s leaked letter from Vince Cable, when the business secretary told the prime minister and the deputy prime minister that the government lacks a “compelling vision” for Britain.

For restive Tory backbenchers and political advisers, all of this will have steeled Tory determination to make this their budget.

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Labour’s identity problems go much deeper than all women shortlists

13/03/2012, 12:20:04 PM

by Ben Cobley

In Life and Fate, his epic novel of family, Stalingrad and totalitarianism, the Soviet-era journalist Vasily Grossman wrote:

“Human groupings have one main purpose: to assert everyone’s right to be different, to be special, to think, feel and live in his or her own way. People join together in order to win or defend this right. But this is where a terrible, fateful error is born: the belief that these groupings in the name of a race, a God, a party or a State are the very purpose of life and not simply a means to an end. No! The only true and lasting meaning of the struggle for life lies in the individual, in his modest peculiarities and in his right to these peculiarities.”

Grossman maybe stretches his point a little too far. Nevertheless his polemic makes a powerful and important point: that groups can become forces of oppression, not just against other groups but against individuality and humanity itself.

This happens when they becomes ends in themselves, when they take on a life of their own and become self-sustaining. In Grossman’s Soviet Union this is what happened to the Communist identity – once it became a pre-requisite for career advancement and entry to nomenklatura, it lost its idealistic elements and became a malign force.

On 2^nd March, Uncut published an article of mine about contemporary liberal-left identity politics, in which I questioned the continuing existence of All Women Shortlists (AWS) and other forms of positive discrimination in Labour Party processes. The article provoked a (generally) considered response on LabourList from Luke Akehurst of the NEC, plus plenty of other lively responses on comment threads and elsewhere.

The background to what I was arguing in the piece was summed up in this sentence: “Institutionalising separate identities as we do is a road to nowhere and nothingness.”

So what does this really mean? After all, when we talk about identity problems we normally mean lack of identity: for example that Ed Miliband lacks identity, or that the Labour Party could do with more identity.

My own interpretation is that identity itself is often the problem.

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This government is driven by venal self-interest

12/03/2012, 04:03:25 PM

by Amanda Ramsay

It’s a very strange time in parliament at the moment. Having changed the legislative calendar, with the Queen’s Speech now in May rather than the traditional November, parliament has run-out of business. The Commons is becalmed while the battles over health, welfare and legal aid being fought-out in the Lords.

With welfare reform cuts about to hit home and housing benefit caps forcing displacement and homelessness, the character of the laws due royal assent over the next few weeks show an old school Tory, right-wing, ideological intent to take government back to laissez-faire sink-or-swim economics; where the state sits back and does the very bare minimum to assist its citizens in trouble.

Whilst Labour souls worry about the Tory-led government’s woeful destruction of aspiration and hope, it is difficult to detect any noticeable or natural empathy from the likes of independently wealthy Cameron and Clegg and the many other millionaires in the cabinet.

Those with private wealth don’t usually know the fear of facing homelessness or joblessness. They can pay for private health insurance and secure their futures through top-class public schooling; can afford private care if disabled, frail or ill and enjoy their own pensions and investments, so have no need for the welfare state. As Tory grandee Alan Clarke once memorably explained, they live off the interest on the interest. Put simply, they can cut with impunity because they don’t feel the pain.

No clearer is this ambivalence evident than with the Health and Social Care Bill. The ramifications of allowing foundation hospitals to use up to 49% of their resources for private, non-NHS work, may not worry certain individuals that can afford US-style private health care insurance, however, NHS waiting lists will surely soar while paving the way for a two-tier health care system.

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Why the government is PIG ignorant on economics

06/03/2012, 02:12:07 PM

by Stuart Rodger

The world is transfixed by the Greek Tragedy unfolding before our eyes. It is increasingly clear for those on the left that what is being foisted upon the Greek people by the IMF, EU, and ECB as we speak is nothing less than a form of economic ‘shock therapy’: the labour markets must be ‘liberalised’, large public assets are to be sold off (at rock bottom prices), and banks are to be re-capitalised but maintain their “managerial independence”.

The Golden Dawn – Greece’s equivalent of the BNP – is on the verge of winning representation. In a recent Newsnight report, one unemployed, professional Greek citizen spoke of “civil war”. The place where democracy was born is turning out to be the place where democracy goes to die.

But far from being an irrelevant calamity at the other end of Europe, the economic crisis unfolding may have some important lessons for us – David Cameron et al, after all, routinely bring up the examples of Portugal, Ireland, and Greece as warning signals for what could happen to Britain should it not cut its way out of its deficit, with the price of debt spiralling up and growth stalling.

But a cursory reading of the news made me wonder if austerity is in fact exacerbating their problems, and is in fact the root cause of their problems in the first place.

So I decided to dig into the statistics to see if my theory was true. So, is David Cameron’s government PIG-ignorant? (see what I did there?). The following fiscal and growth statistics are all from the Eurostat and World Bank websites respectively, unless otherwise stated (measures of inflation have also been taken from the World Bank).

P is for Portugal. This country is important because it has been held up by David Cameron as his response to the Labour Party’s proposals to halve the deficit over the course of this parliament, rather than try to eliminate it entirely.

What policy did they follow? Initially, they increased spending moderately and the result was a moderate recovery. But in May 2011 they announced cuts to public spending and then, six months later, Portugal was reduced to “junk” status, with Eurostat estimating moderate contraction in 2011.

The lesson from Portugal is that spending brought recovery, and cuts promptly killed it off, worsening their debt problems. Crucially – punishment by the bond-markets came post-austerity. By citing Portugal, Cameron cites an economic experiment which proves him wrong.

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