Labour Uncut

UNCUT: The case for the City

15/05/2013, 01:30:21 PM

by Dan McCurry

I grew up in the east end after the docks had died. We used to go fishing for eels in the place that is now called Canary Wharf, although it wasn’t called anything back then. These days, when I look out of the kitchen window of my ex-council flat in Bow, this is what I see. Beautiful, isn’t it?

So when people say that there is no drip down effect from financial services, I don’t understand what they mean. If there is no drip down, then who is paying for those windows to be cleaned? For those computers to be maintained? For the sandwiches to be made and payroll to be calculated?

Are they honestly saying that behind every window in that glittering 3-dimensional city, is a bonus-earning banker, and no one else? I’d say that only one in a hundred windows has a banker, and the others are ordinary people doing ordinary jobs. Those jobs are derived from the wealth created by financial services?

The City hasn’t ended (wiped out) poverty, and maybe that’s what they mean, but no other industrial sector would do that. They may also be arguing that the City has contributed to inequality, due to the very high pay of the few. That is a legitimate point, but it’s not the same argument as “no drip-down effect”. Regardless of this, the people in the City who occupy the lower rungs are highly unionised and are usually paid well. This is an obvious asset to our country.

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UNCUT: Goodbye, Lord Ahmed. You will not be missed

15/05/2013, 09:43:18 AM

by Rob Marchant

Ah, Nazir Ahmed. There are two sides being put to your story. On the one hand, there is yours. Its claim is that you have been put upon by an unfeeling Labour party, which will not give you a “fair hearing”.

On the other, there is the more obvious, alternative explanation, that you were allegedly caught saying something anti-Semitic, following a long stretch of seemingly unpardonable behaviour from your good self, and then resigned from the party in anticipation of being pushed – via a letter which can only be described as weaselly – in order to hang on to some vestige of personal credibility.

I shall leave the reader to decide which explanation seems the more fitting.

A brief recap from the Mirror:

“The Times reported that he blamed his 2009 prison sentence – for sending text messages shortly before his car was involved in a fatal crash – on pressure placed on the courts by Jews ”who own newspapers and TV channels”.

So, according to the translated interview video, the conviction had not been down to Ahmed’s guilt, as a mere court of law found, it was clearly another Jewish conspiracy.

As we shall see, it seems that Ahmed has perhaps simply always been one of those characters who feels that the law, and the rulebook, does not really apply to them. In fact, in a wonderful example of this, here (24:28) he describes his short prison sentence as “quashed”, just as he says it was “overturned” in the Times video. It wasn’t.

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UNCUT: Labour needs to find a response to communities like the one in Skint

14/05/2013, 03:22:56 PM

by Kevin Meagher

For every minute that Skint was on last night, defending the welfare state became that little bit harder.

Channel Four says its new show tells ‘provocative and revealing documentary stories of how people survive without work’. It does no such thing. We are back in Big Fat Gypsy Wedding territory here: gawping at the mores and behaviours of a part of society many wouldn’t want to live near, definitely wouldn’t mix with, but who we don’t mind sniggering at. This is Little Britain without the canned laughter.

Skint could also have been an extended party political broadcast directed by Lynton Crosby. It was all there on display: the fecklessness, violence, drug-taking, gambling, shoplifting, vandalism and casual thuggery of what at one time we used to call our underclass. The obligatory bull mastiffs, silly caps and tracksuits were on display for good measure.

Dean and Claire were bringing up seven kids on benefits. “All I have to do is spunk on a hanky” he charmlessly explained. He later treated viewers to a full frontal showing of his vasectomy scar. He had previously worked but thought he now deserved a break.

Then there was Conor, a gormless young lad who wouldn’t get out of bed for school and whose only form of communication with his mother was to repeatedly tell her to “fuck off” (I gave up counting after the 20^th time). He hadn’t been to school for “months”. Yet he was depicted as a relative innocent; all his friends had served custodial sentences.

“They say that crime doesn’t pay but it does. It pays a lot fucking better than a job”, reckoned Jay, his friend and habitual shoplifter who had now graduated to burglary.

For both right and left the reasons why communities like the one depicted in Skint have drifted so far from the mainstream are deceptively simple.

The right thinks their condition is simply a question of poor behaviour: bad things happen to bad people. But their ‘tough love’ approach in restricting benefits is all about making a harsh gesture, not addressing a root cause. In contrast, the Left thinks these people are victims and the problem of improving their lot is solely about piling-in sufficient resources.

Obviously the truth is more complex. Yes, the problem of poverty, ingrained unemployment and having no tradable skills is a drag-anchor on communities like these; but it’s a problem of dysfunctional families too, with ineffective parents bringing up kids with behavioural problems. This then collides with a complete lack of ambition or respectable role models. Frankly, it’s also a product of the natives having too much guile and time to misuse.

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UNCUT: Staying in carries as much risk as leaving – that’s why we need an EU referendum

14/05/2013, 11:32:10 AM

by Jonathan Roberts

“There is no question of any erosion of essential national sovereignty,” said the white paper of 1971 that began our entry into the European Economic Community.

It was the start of a debate on the future of the UK and its place in the modern world, but one that paid little attention to what part of our sovereignty should be defined as ‘essential’.

“In the modern world, no country can go it alone,” read the government pamphlet issued during the referendum of 1975. Amidst rising unemployment and persistent recession, joining a free trade agreement with our closest trading partners was seen as a welcome opportunity to turn the economy around. We needed jobs and prosperity in a rapidly changing world, and the Common Market was sure to deliver it. This, twinned with assurances on national sovereignty, was the argument that persuaded the electorate to ratify the UK’s entry 2 years earlier.

And in many ways, it worked. When international trade forms such a fundamental part of UK GDP, easy access to a market of 500 million people has immense value. Within a few years of the Common Market coming into force, airlines, as an example, had increased their flights to European destinations by 60%, and new opportunities for trade, business and tourism flourished. The freedom of movement, in many ways a libertarian principle, was matched by new protections for working people that prevented exploitation at home and abroad.

But as an electorate, our agreement to join the Community was on the condition of protection of sovereignty and the preservation of democracy. And it is here that, as the EEC became the European Union, the ‘project’ started its road to democratic illegitimacy.

Our ability to protect British sovereignty was then, and continues to be, on the decline. In 1975 we were told, in the same government pamphlet, that “No important new law can be decided in Brussels without the consent of a British Minister, answerable to a British Government and a British Parliament…the British Minister can veto any proposal for a new law or a new tax.” It provided reassurance to an uneasy electorate. But whilst this claim may have been true at the time, that time was long ago.

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UNCUT: Miliband’s Progress speech was virtually ignored. That’s a worry.

14/05/2013, 07:00:57 AM

by Ben Mitchell

Ed Miliband made a speech over the weekend that literally dozens of people will have read. More were there to see it live. I was one of the former. Opposition leaders make speeches. That’s what they do. That’s what they’re expected to do. Some get labelled as “keynote,” i.e. this is quite important and will probably form the direction of policy X so pay close attention. The leader’s address at conference fills a few column inches for several days. Either we have a Prime Minister in waiting or it’s back to the drawing board. Saturday’s speech falls into the “strictly for diehards” category.

To sum it up: it wasn’t very good. That’s the charitable conclusion. Being brutally frank, it was actually pretty dire. Or maybe that’s the charitable conclusion. Speaking on Saturday, to the Blairite think-tank Progress (not exactly on home territory for Ed), Miliband said….something. To be honest, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what he said.

It was a hotchpotch of his responsible capitalism vision; the usual to be expected attacks on the government; listening to voters; learning lessons from New Labour – where we got things right, where we got them wrong – more listening to voters; with sprinklings of One Nationism added for extra flavour.

One Nation: the slogan that just will not budge. Still being drummed home to death. We may have tired of it but we’re not going to forget it. The mark of a successful slogan? Not really. I still don’t understand what it means. Or more accurately, what we’re meant to do with it. Alone, it’s meaningless: Labour has broad appeal? It will unite the whole of Britain?

But, all parties profess to do this. Besides, One Nation fails the “elevator pitch:” able to be summarised in one elevator ride. Which isn’t 100% accurate as I’ve just summed it up in a sentence. Unfortunately, the summary alone is so vague it requires several more elevator rides. Heck, it might be easier just to get in one, hit the emergency alarm, and hope the rescue takes several hours.

I couldn’t help but feel I’d read/heard this speech several times before. Probably because it’s been delivered several times before. Ed’s conference address last year (rightly hailed a triumph) has been regurgitated more times than should be humanly possible.

“One Nation is about everybody having opportunity and having a responsibility to play their part.”

Sounds very Big Society to me.

“A country that acknowledges the difficulties, accepts the anxieties, knows that times are going to be hard, but that is confident that change can come.

“A country that knows that we work best when we work together.”

See above.

“All the lessons of our history, from the industrial revolution to the post-war reconstruction, are that we need a recovery made by the many.”

This is David Cameron speaking.

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UNCUT: Labour’s policy on the European referendum means death on the doorstep

13/05/2013, 05:04:39 PM

by Kevin Meagher

An in/out referendum on Europe is “not in the national interest” according to shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander on Radio Four’s World at One earlier. Securing recovery and providing stability for investors is more important than political game-playing.

There will be some measure of satisfaction at the top of the party that here is an issue where Labour look serious and resolute, particularly with business audiences. Privately, they will praise Ed Miliband for his fortitude. ‘We don’t want the uncertainty’, they will tell him. ‘You are right to hold out.’

He should not be seduced by their platitudes. What he should tell business leaders is that they will need to get their hands in their pockets and pay for a show-stopping pro-European campaign ahead of any vote in 2017.

He should explain that the ball has been threaded between the legs of pro-Europeans (and I include myself here) and we are left running to catch-up. The referendum is now essential to rebuilding trust with the electorate on an issue where the governed and the governing have become dangerously unstuck.

Ed should also tell them that Labour remains positive about Europe and that the vote that can be won.

The underlying problem is that the cause of closer integration has always been an elite pursuit and there has never been any real attempt to explain and, if not popularise, then normalise our membership of the European Union. For Ed Miliband, it can be a genuine One Nation cause.

As it stands today though, Europe is a proxy for all the antagonisms the public feels towards its governing class. Like immigration, it’s something that has changed a traditional British way of life without the public ever feeling they were offered the choice, let alone gave their consent. That sort of anger doesn’t dissipate, it festers.

For Labour, the party’s refusal to accept any of this means death on the doorstep. All the Tories and UKIP need to do in next year’s European elections is frame Labour as the party that won’t give the electorate a say. It will ensure there is little scrutiny of UKIP and provide the Tories with an attack line that will resonate in all parts of the country with all groups of voters.

A rum state of affairs, then, for a self-proclaimed people’s party to find itself in.

Kevin Meagher is associate editor of Labour Uncut

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UNCUT: Farewell to blogging

13/05/2013, 01:45:47 PM

by Peter Watt

Well it had to happen at some point I guess. After nearly three years and (I think) just under 150 posts I am giving up political blogging. I have in all honesty been treading a fine line for a while now as I have tried to balance the competing pressures of my “day job” and my blogging. It seems a long time ago now but the person who asked me to write for Uncut first was John McTernan; but I said no as I was still unsure as to whether or not I wanted to raise my head above the parapet.

My book had caused a bit of a stir earlier that year and I decided to keep my head down. But then Tom Watson asked me to write a post when he was guest editing the site. My first post was during the leadership contest and was advice for the incoming leader – something of a recurring theme!

Originally I wrote the occasional post and then one every other week before finally agreeing with Sion Simon that I would write a weekly post for Thursday mornings. Sometimes they flowed easily and at others they were a complete nightmare. At times I felt I could’ve written on a whole range of issues and at times I struggled to find any subject at all. But I am pleased to say that I have not missed a post since; and that includes writing posts on holiday and over Christmas. I’m not absolutely sure that my wife Vilma is as pleased about this as I am.

I have enjoyed the variety of people from across the political spectrum that have commented on, tweeted or messaged me about my posts. It’s funny how sometimes I wrote things that I was really pleased with and no one seemed to notice. At other times I would rush off something that I was unsure of and it would seem to hit the mark. Occasionally people seem to feel that they could be rude as opposed to simply disagreeing with me. It bothered me a bit at first but not anymore.

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UNCUT: South Shields, Vincent Hanna and a compelling message

13/05/2013, 09:15:06 AM

by John Braggins

A lot has been written about the South Shields by-election and whether Labour should’ve done better half-way through an unpopular coalition government. And if so who or what was to blame – the lack of organisation, the previous MP, the local party or even the party leader?

First, the facts: Labour’s vote was 50.5% – down 1.5% from the 2010 general election; the Tories’ vote was 11.5% – down 10% and the Lib Dems vote was 1.5% – down 13%. UKIP, of course, picked up 24%.

So in an ultra-safe Labour constituency in the midst of one of the worst recessions in living memory in which many voters still – rightly or wrongly – blame Gordon Brown and the last Labour government, Labour lost less than 2% of its 2010 vote.

Labour should’ve done better, absolutely, but to blame the lack of electoral data collected before the by-election started is to ignore the fact that there was the lack of a compelling message to galvanise South Shields voters.

I learnt this most graphically at the 1987 Greenwich by-election. The by-election was caused by the death of the popular Labour MP, Guy Barnett and Labour was expected to romp home with an increased majority and indeed the first published poll gave Labour 60% of the vote. The campaign lasted seven weeks, canvassed virtually every household and provided enough data to run an excellent polling day system.

Around 11am on polling day, Vincent Hanna who had pioneered exit polls in by-elections and developed the BBC’s by-election coverage into an art form, came into the party HQ with the news of the first exit poll. “If you want to maximise your effort” he told the assembled campaign team, “pack up and go home”. He continued “from the 11am figures I can tell you that for every two Labour doors you knock on today, one will go out and vote SDP, so if want my advice don’t knock on any doors.”

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UNCUT: We need to make better use of Quantitative Easing

10/05/2013, 07:30:48 AM

by Dan McCurry

George Osborne’s nanny state policy responses are failing our banks and perverting our markets. In the midst of the political rhetoric on welfare and debt, there is one economic policy that the chancellor has implemented which has a genuinely significant impact: Quantitative Easing (QE).

This has had a profound impact on the economy.

The normal way for the money to be supplied into the economy is for banks to provide loans. If ten £1k loans are made for every deposit of £1k, then £9k of new money has been put into circulation. The banks are liable for it if it isn’t paid back, so they have become expert at judging risk. The supply of money makes a good demonstration of the private sector achieving a public good, normally.

The problem is that lending is too slow. As a result there is a lack of new money going into the economy but people are continuing to repay the loans they previously took out. The net effect is less and less money in the economy. If money is the oil on the cogs, then without it, the machinery will grind to a halt.

As a policy response, we’ve had QE. The Bank of England is creating money on a grand scale. Under Quantitative Easing they have so far produced an extra £375billion. In this respect it is the largest nationalisation of private sector service since the 1945 Labour government. I wonder if George Osborne realises that.

For a long time the banks have been receiving contradictory instructions from government. They must lend more, but they must increase their capital reserves. It’s like telling a schoolboy to spend his pocket money then scolding him for not saving it.

As a result, innovative policies are not only proving expensive but also potentially counter-productive. The government driven Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) aims to subsidise bank lending for small businesses.

It is bad economics. It has lowered the interest paid to savers, but achieved little increase to the loans given to small businesses. With the state competing with savers, the banks no longer need to attract deposits as they have cheaper source with government cash.

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UNCUT: What is One Nation Labour?

09/05/2013, 07:00:14 AM

by Peter Watt

One Nation Labour, what exactly is it? Well according to Ed Miliband on the Labour party website:

“Today, our country risks becoming two nations, with a million young people out of work, the gap between the richest and everyone else getting worse, and hard work not rewarded. My core belief is in leaving this country a better place than I found it, and that when people join together, we can overcome any odds. We did it during the second world war and we did it when rebuilding the country afterwards. That is the spirit Britain needs today.”

I have quite a bit of sympathy for this. We certainly needed to refresh our thinking and move on from new Labour which for much of the public had become tainted by ‘spin’. With the Tories appearing to lack any sort of central purpose or vision other than deficit reduction, it was good to see the Labour Party trying to develop a fresh single organising thought. The Party wanted a new sense of purpose and Ed’s espousal of One Nation Labour seemed really promising.

Over the last few months there has been some welcome associated rhetoric around challenging vested interests that threaten the living conditions of hardworking families. So energy companies are challenged to reduce their prices. Payday lenders are rightly targeted and there is talk of giving local people a bigger say in shaping their high-streets (I’m not quite sure what this means but I think if I did that I would support it!). Certainly banks and some bankers had become greedy and there is a tiny percentage of the population that has got very rich and who seem very good at avoiding paying tax. So far so good for ONL.

But then I get a little sceptical. Firstly there is the fact that the One Nation rhetoric actually seems to divide the nation into three nations. Of course there is the really rich ‘nation’ that Labour has a lot to say about; and it generally seems to be about taxing them and their bonuses more and then spending the receipts several times. Then there is the really poor ‘nation’ who need support that Labour has a lot to say about; and it generally seems to involve opposing any reform of the welfare system. And finally there is the everyone else ‘nation’ – the hard working lot that, as Ed points out, are not being rewarded very well and who feel a bit let down and put-upon. And One Nation Labour doesn’t actually seem to say much about them at all.

And then there is this whole issue of challenging vested interests; of stepping in ‘when capitalism clearly isn’t working’ for families already struggling. So banks, energy companies, pay day lenders and so on are all in the firing line.

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