Welfare not Warfare
Tom Sibley (ISLIP) looks at the options
for advance
As was entirely predictable Gordon Brown’s tenth budget did
little to address either the fundamental problems of the British economy
or the obscene levels of income and wealth inequality.
After nearly nine years of Labour Government this is a serious disappointment
to the Party’s supporters and a damming indictment of the New
Labour project. If current policies continue unemployment and poverty
will rise., manufacturing industry will further decline, and the public
services will do well simply to maintain their inadequate level of
provision. At the same time the biggest single disbursement in the
budget for 2006-2007 is the allocation for a further £800 million
to the cost of occupying Iraq. Under New Labour it really is guns
before butter.
So Brown has missed yet another opportunity to signal a new and more
progressive direction for Labour Government policy. He appears to
be so in the pocket of the Treasury mandarins that at a time of steadily
rising unemployment he brings forward a budget which fails to stimulate
economic growth and public spending projections which will actually
result in cuts or nil development after this coming tax year. And
while this happens PFI projects will increase mortgaging more and
more of our schools and hospitals to private sector interests and
the family silver in the form of public assets from the Tote to MoD
land will be sold off to private speculators.
The budget followed a period of acute political embarrassment for
Labour as Tessa Jowell’s problems with multiple mortgages and
dodgy investments, financed partly at least by Berlusconi’s
ill gotten fortune, tie New Labour even closer to Mr Blair’s
chosen holiday chum the Italian proto-fascist Prime Minister. Then
came the scandal of undisclosed six figure loans to the Labour Party
which the Prime Minister knew about but of which the Treasurer of
the Labour Party was totally unaware. And it is strongly rumoured
that some of these loans, which are in fact mainly undisclosed donations,
were negotiated in exchange for future honours or life peerages. I
wonder if Lloyd George knew Tony Blair’s father?
Not surprisingly these revelations have badly shaken Labour activists
and brought the whole political process into further disrepute with
an already jaundiced public opinion. As I write these events, apparently
so damaging to Blair and the New Labour project, have yet to be reflected
in the opinion polls. This is partly because the Parliamentary opposition
remains abject. The Tories have recovered some ground since their
historic defeat in 1997, but everyone knows that their financial dealings
(selling life peerages or business preferments in exchange for donations
and loans) are almost certainly more egregious that New Labour’s.
And anyone who saw Cameron’s shrill speech in the budget debate
where every sound bite was linked to a cliché will know that
as far as ideas, policies and leadership skill are concerned the Tory
cupboard is bare. And while the Liberal Democrats may continue to
pick up protest votes they show no likelihood of being able to present
any sort of political alternative to Labour as the ageing Ming tacks
gently to the right.
Some complacent souls argue that there is in fact an objective basis
to Labour’s continuing lead in the polls. They say “its
the economy stupid.” Overall living standards continue to rise,
mortgages repayments and interest rates remain at modest levels (by
post 1980 standards) and unemployment is less that 50% than it was
under the Major Government. What’s more well over a million
low paid workers plus their families have benefited from the minimum
wage which has increased year on year at a rate somewhat higher than
has the average wage. If we have not as yet reached Eldorado then
at least some progress has been made and an economic crisis of the
sort that used to overwhelm Labour Governments has been avoided. My
guess is that most Islip readers would reject such an analysis both
for its lack of ambition and its failure to face facts. The Iraq invasion
with its brutal and criminal disregard for lives, international law
and human rights continues to discredit New Labour and Blair in particular
- far from distance and time changing the political atmosphere, the
longer the occupation goes on and as Iraq degenerates into sectarian
violence the more people understand the culpability of Blair’s
government. At home thousands of job cuts are announced in the NHS
despite record levels of investment while government Ministers apparently
stand shoulder to shoulder with the Tory leadership of the Local Government
Association to rubber stamp the latter’s dishonest and dishonourable
attempt to reduce the contractually agreed pension rights of a million
or so local government workers. Lets hope that the magnificent support
for the union called day of industrial action will have persuaded
those few remaining Ministers with a semblance of political nous that
Labour cannot simply go on alienating wide sections of the working
class without paying a crushing price at the polling booths. Its time
for the government to fund a negotiated agreement which treats Local
Authority workers with the same respect as civil servants, teachers,
the police and firefighters. While a million Local Government workers
protest at being undervalued and cheated of their rights, millions
of pensioners worry about the soaring cost of heating their homes
and thousands of workers in the private sector see that their pension
schemes have either defaulted or are the process of severely cutting
benefits and entitlements. In short economic insecurity is growing
and millions of public sector workers are being treated without respect.
The Left’s Alternative
As yet neither the Parliamentary or the extra-Parliamentary left has
been able to capture the people’s disillusionment with New Labour
policies and to turn this into a mass movement for progressive change.
The main arena for debate and action remains the labour movement -
whatever else is achieved there will be no significant progressive
change in British politics in the short to medium term (in the long
run we are all dead) until Labour is moved to the left which in return
requires a revitalisation of the trade union movement. It is of course
interesting to see the attempts to build alternatives to Labour and
to acknowledge that New Labour could literally destroy the labour
movement at least as a national force capable of influencing Government
policy let alone taking state power. But the stark reality is that
the extra-Parliamentary left has failed to grow either in membership
or in electoral support despite the iniquities of New Labour in office.
The best prospects for left advance remain in building an alliance
of social forces led by a united labour movement, informed by a programme
based on social justice, peace and the international rule of law,
which finds its Parliamentary expression in a Labour Government. If
at some stage the Labour Party as a whole makes it clear that it wants
no part of such a process then it will be time for the Left to think
again.. |
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