A huge failure for Labour but will they learn anything from it?

I ought to be pleased. The Green Party had a good 2015 general election: a record number of candidates; a much increased majority for Caroline Lucas; four second places, and membership is still growing, having just passed 63,000. I'm also looking forwards to some good results in the local elections. But its hard to celebrate knowing the Tories have a majority that will probably last for five years, which is plenty of time for them to wreak yet more havoc to welfare and public services and destroy more lives in the process.

The big story of election night was the battering of the Labour Party which was hit by a combination of factors producing the perfect storm. So what went wrong? I think these were the main issues:

1. Failure to provide a clear narrative to the electorate: it was never that obvious what Labour were offering and most of the 'offers' such as ending non-dom status came far too late in the day. Crucially they abandoned their real base support in the working class, even to the extent of allowing Ukip, of all people, to steal many thousands of Labour voters.Its not longer certain what Labour stand for except perhaps a watered down version of  what the Tories are giving us - neoliberal austerity-lite.
2. Failure to nail the Tory lies about economic incompetence: Labour never seriously challenged the Tory narrative that they 'overspent' and crashed the economy. They allowed the Tories to assume the mantle of economic competence even though Osborne's record is lamentable.
3. Making a complete hash of the Scottish referendum: the rot set in for Scottish Labour long before the referendum, but the negative Better Together campaign, in which Alastair Darling seemed little more than a front-man for the Tories and the English establishment, did huge damage. Even when the warning lights were flashing after the 55-45 no result, Labour chose to ignore them and took their voters for granted, conceded political territory to the SNP, and got wiped out in the process.
4.  Failure of leadership: Although Ed Miliband had his moments on Syria and Leveson he was too timid by half and failed to set out a strong narrative and strategy for Labour to win.



Keir Hardie - great Scottish Labour politician - no doubt spinning in his grave after the 2015 general election result

So what should Labour do? Firstly they must learn the lessons from this defeat. Under Blair and New Labour the party was hollowed out. Members were reduced to being spectators at stage-managed conferences. They need to regroup and reform the party making it much more accountable to members. They need to ditch the sectarianism and be open to co-operation with other left parties and they must embrace electoral reform. I'm not sure they will do any of these things and are just as likely to end up tearing themselves apart. Every Party has a shelf life - maybe this is the beginning of the end for Labour - something I predicted a couple of years ago.

Why Owen Jones is wrong to urge people to vote for Labour

I've got a confession to make - I'm an Owen Jones fan. I've read Chavs and The Establishment and I think they're both good books, not groundbreaking perhaps, but a timely reminder of the way in which our stitched up sham democracy works and the central importance of class - the issue which dare not speak its name in 21st century Britain. But I do have a problem with Owens Jones's politics because although he's a worthy fighter for social justice, public services and the welfare state, and an enemy of neoliberalism, he has chosen the wrong vehicle to further his political aims in the UK - namely the Labour Party.

As far as this election is concerned he has become a fully paid up member of the Polly Toynbee 'hold your nose and vote for Labour' faction. Polly recently repeated almost exactly the same call to 'hold your nose' in The Guardian as she did in the 2010 election. The problem is if you hold your nose for long enough you are certain to suffocate, and you are going to have to hold it for a very long time if you expect any change from the neoliberal Labour Party of 'red' Ed Miliband and Ed Balls.

So Owen urges us to vote Labour to keep the Tories out, and when a Labour government is in power, we can all put it under pressure to do the nice things instead of the nasty things - like continuing to implement cuts and austerity, applying a token plaster to the semi-privatised NHS and 'balancing the budget' - which is at best an economically illiterate policy. Its a bit like asking someone to vote for Terminator instead of Godzilla on the basis that there will be marginally less collateral damage. 

The problem is that many of us have gone beyond that stage and have no interest in the lesser of two evils. Despite the rotten electoral system we have to contend with with we want to vote for something we can believe in, a Party that is capable of delivering real change, even if that is not at the next election, or the one after that, because we are in it for the long haul. Its clear that the only Party that can deliver that change is the Green Party, the party that espouses the politics of Owen Jones himself, even if he can't yet bring himself to vote for it.

Both Labour and the Tories increasingly resemble zombie parties in a hollowed out democracy. Both have abandoned their traditional base for the corporations and super rich and both have been complicit in the drastic decline in our democracy in the past 30 years or so. No wonder fewer and fewer people can be bothered to vote for either of them. But more and more people are seeking out a progressive alternative to Labour and that is why the Green vote is growing and why Green Party membership passed 61,000 today, and will continue to grow. After neoliberal Labour have failed to win a majority I hope that Owen will fight to move a Labour-led government to the left - as a member of the Green Party.

The Emperor's clothes

It's been happening slowly but surely for quite some time but I think we have finally arrived. A combination of twenty four hour rolling news, and all pervading social media, have brought us to the point where the frailties of our politicians are regularly and painfully exposed. There is nowhere to hide. The idols have all been shown to have feet of clay. Any and every error, no matter how small, is seized upon by the rapacious media machine. One of the most recent examples of this was Ed Miliband's failure to mention the deficit in his recent conference speech.

As recently as the noughties politicians were still relatively remote figures, people with private lives, who could expect some time away from the glare of the cameras, but no longer. We know now that they are all just mere humans like the rest of us. And its not just Ed who's been the subject of media attention focusing on errors. In the summer Cameron was criticised for his many holidays, and followed up recently with a gaffe when he was overhead saying the the Queen was 'purring' about the Scottish independence result. And the Scottish referendum itself brutally exposed the shameful weakness and and mendacity of all three party leaders as they rushed up to Scotland at the eleventh hour vowing to give the Scots more power, in order to save the Union.

Ed Miliband forgot to mention the deficit in his conference speech

Social media has also been a great leveller. Party leaders use it to communicate with millions of followers and have used it to signal policy changes. But the use of media such as Twitter is fraught with risk. If you are going to use it, or have someone do so on your behalf make sure they are social media savvy. Make a mistake, put something across in a cack-handed fashion, and you can be sure you'll be the butt of a million sarcastic tweets and retweets.

There is a genuine problem here though. Who would want to be a politician under such circumstances? Is there a danger that good candidates would be deterred from standing? Being in the spotlight would certainly put me off, but then I think its time that politicians stopped trying to be popular and started trying to be more effective, and that means spending more time behind closed doors, stopping courting the media and social media, and telling it like it really is - because that is what people really want.

Rejoice! Cameron has found the 'magic money tree'!

Just in case you hadn't noticed we are still in the grip of austerity with Conservative Chancellor George Osborne and Ed Milliband both promising yet more cuts in government spending. In fact, there is no end in sight to austerity, with years of cuts to come. But what Ed and George don't appear to understand, and what I and many others have been arguing is that austerity cuts don't help our economy or make our finances stronger. If we hadn't had Osborne's cuts over the past 4 years our economy would be in a much better position now. Osborne has complained about the fact that we are borrowing too much money but his cuts have lead to greater borrowing. He has now borrowed as much in 3 years as the last government did in 13 years. He has failed.

Of course Cameron has staunchly supported his Chancellor through the years of austerity and he one famously said "there is no magic money tree". What he said was:

"It’s as if they think there’s some magic money tree.  Well let me tell you a plain truth: there isn’t.”

Of course he was talking about borrowing, something which Osborne has been doing rather a lot of, but let me tell you the real truth - there is a magic money tree. In fact, there are at least two magic money trees. One is called quantitative easing and the government used that to produce £375 billion worth of cash from thin air. Another is the way in which governments can suddenly find more money when they come under political pressure. 
 

David 'money no object' Cameron

This brings us to the recent terrible flooding events in the Somerset Levels, and on the Thames and Severn. The Somerset floods went on for weeks before the government showed some concern but the Thames flooding was a different matter. The latter is a Tory heartland and Cameron realised he had to be seen to be doing something - and fast. So he did an about-face reached for the 'magic money tree' and stated that "money is no object". According to the Telegraph Cameron 'promises to spend whatever is necessary as flooding worsens across southern England'


If the government hadn't been so busy cutting public spending including on flood defence, the Environment Agency, and fire services we might have be in a better position to cope with the current crisis. The message is clear, the austerity cuts were always political and a false economy. The reality is that a cut in one area often increases spending in another, and that is what is happening now.  Add to that the government's climate change denial credentials, Cameron's 'green crap', and the promotion of fossil fuel fracking and you have a government which is not only class-war driven but short-sighted and incompetent. More and more people will suffer from the multiple failings of the stupidest government ever but don't expect Cameron to be fazed by any of this, he has one of the biggest brass necks in political history.

There is a simple green route to lower energy bills

As winter approaches more and more people are beginning to worry about paying energy bills, the recent row about the 'big six' energy companies has highlighted the real nature of the cosy cartel that controls the UK's energy. While Cameron and Milliband squabble about the solutions the obvious answers are being studiously avoided. Cameron is claiming that we need 'more competition' and trying to blame green energy tariffs for high energy bills , and Milliband has promised a 20 month price freeze if Labour win power. The first reposnse from the energy companies was to say the proposed price freeze would lead to blackouts, and their second was to raise energy prices which will mean bills going up from between 8.2% (SSE) and 10.4% (npower). As far as I can see both responses make a very good case for taking energy generation and supply out of the hands of the private sector.

The truth is that neither Cameron or Milliband have any solutions to our energy problems, either in terms of generation or supply. They are ideologically committed to privatisation and furthermore many MPs and government ministers have links with the energy companies. A recent report by the World Development Movement states:

"Research by the World Development Movement has revealed that one third of ministers in the UK government are linked to the finance and energy companies driving climate change. This energy-finance complex at the heart of government is allowing fossil fuel companies to push the planet to the brink of climate catastrophe, risking millions of lives, especially in the world’s poorest countries"

There are clearly powerful vested interests not only supporting our currently energy supply arrangements but also the further extraction and burning of fossil fuels, including through extreme energy such as tar sands and shale gas.

There is a simple and effective way we can keep warmer and save energy. By insulating our homes, which are notoriously energy inefficient, we can save money, keep warm, and reduce the amount of carbon we put into the atmosphere. Furthermore, we can build houses that are much more energy efficient and which require little more than the heat we generate from our bodies to maintain a comfortable temperature. So hats off to the Guardian for doing a well-timed feature on a passivhaus in Oldham which has an energy bill of £20 per annum. But instead of following this common sense approach the government is set to do away with  legislation which could provide more energy efficient homes.

We can't make our homes more energy efficient and build thousands of passivhaus overnight, but we can set up and implement a programme which will do this kind of work and create hundreds of thousands of much needed jobs in the process - its called the Green New Deal and I've posted about it on this blog many times before. A Green New Deal would help us fight climate change, provide jobs for many of our 2.5 million unemployed, and help people who would otherwise suffer and fall ill because they can't afford to heat their homes. It's really a no-brainer but one that is obviously well beyond the wit and imagination of the so-called 'leaders' of our nation.

The Tories have shown us that for them - its class war as usual

The greenest government ever; cuddling a Husky at the North Pole; and hug a hoodie? This is what we got from Cameron before the 2010 general election. Now, in government we can see what the Tories are really like, and we can see that nothing has changed - they are still very much the nasty party. At the Tory party conference this week, obviously rattled by both UKIP, and Milliband's pledge to freeze energy prices, David Cameron and the Tories retreated to their comfort zone, on the far right of politics. Cameron even had the audacity to claim that all people under 25 should either be in a job or education, and they should not get benefits, when it is his government which has failed young people, and failed to provide them with the jobs and education they desperately need.

Why? Because it's this government's fault that there are a million people under 25 who are unemployed, even taking into account the government's fiddled unemployment figures, which claim that people on 'workfare' are not on the dole. It's the gross failure of this government, in its mismanagement of the economy, which is the cause of hardship for many millions of Britain's people. This is a government which has imposed class war austerity on the poorest and most vulnerable in order to get it's chums in finance and banking off the hook for the greatest economic crisis since the depression. 

The perpetrators of the crisis and their supporters have no shame, no guilt and no remorse. As long as they continue to be 'all right Jack' everything is fine as far as they are concerned. This really must be the worst government in British history, given the times we are in. No government in my living memory has shown so much contempt for the people it governs, and such naked regard for the exploiters who make up its natural allies. No government has set out so brazenly to destroy the institutions which its people love and upon which they depend.

Make no mistake about it this is an ideologically extremist  government. The forced labour, the openly racist attacks on immigrants, the destruction of collective provision, the attacks on trade unions, the worship of corporations and warmongering - this is a form of twenty first century fascism, fascism-lite maybe but fascist nonetheless. What the people who govern us have demonstrated is that you don't need jackboots to be a fascist. In the twenty first century fascists wear suits not boots. If you think I'm over-egging this take a look at this post by Henry Giroux about the rise of a new fascism in the USA. Here is a quote:

"The American political, cultural, and economic landscape is inhabited by the renewed return of authoritarianism evident in the ideologies of religious and secular certainty that legitimate the reign of economic Darwinism, the unchecked power of capital, the culture of fear and the expanding national security state. The ghosts of fascism also are evident in what Charles Derber and Yale Magress call elements of "the Weimer Syndrome," which include a severe and seemingly unresolvable economic crisis, liberals and moderate parties too weak to address the intensifying political and economic crises, the rise of far-right populist groups such as the Tea Party and white militia, and the emergence of the Christian Right, with its racist, anti-intellectual and fundamentalist ideology."

Ed Milliband is playing a dangerous game with the trade union link

One of the reasons the Tories find it so easy to kick Ed Milliband is that  he wanders around with a "please kick me" sign pinned to the seat of his trousers. The latest revelations that Unite had no case to answer in the 'Falkirkgate' election-rigging debacle, and Labour's refusal to apologise for getting it wrong, and for its ridiculous decision to refer Unite to the police, is a spectacular own-goal. Following an investigation into alleged election-rigging by Unite in Falkirk, according to the Independent, :

The [Labour] report is said to have cleared Unite of claims it tried to rig the selection of a candidate to replace the current MP, Eric Joyce, by signing up new members without their knowledge. The fall-out from an internal party investigation led to Mr Miliband announcing sweeping reforms of Labour's links with the trade unions.

Milliband was pretty much suckered into wrongly attacking Unite and promising to change Labour Party's relationship with the unions, because of Tory howls of outrage when the alleged election-rigging incident came to light in the summer. What Milliband ought to have have done is call for an investigation and reserved judgement until the full facts were know, but he doesn't appear to have that kind of nous. What he also ought to have done is to robustly defend the link that Labour has with the trade unions, and the funding that comes with it. Whilst there may be issues with whether union members should 'opt-in' rather than 'opt-out' of funding Labour, the fact is that trade union money is just about the cleanest money in politics. It comes from what are small donations by millions of members of democratic organisations, and it is fully auditable - just compare that with the filthy lucre political parties receive from corporate donors and wealthy individuals.

Lets look at the funding of the Tory Party for instance. Would it surprise you to know that one family, yes one family, is responsible for a huge amount of Tory Party funding. You should take time to read this excellent post by Aditya Chakrabotty in the Guardian, but here is a telling quote:

"Take the JCB billionaire Sir Anthony Bamford, one of Cameron's favourite businessmen and a regular guest on the PM's trade missions abroad. Between 2001 and summer 2010, Wilks-Heeg and Crone found donations from Anthony Bamford, Mark Bamford, George Bamford, JCB Bamford Excavators, JCB Research, and JCB World Brands. Tot that up and you get a contribution to the Conservative party from the Bamford family of £3,898,900. But you'd need to be an expert sleuth with plenty of time and resources to tot it up.

One family: nearly £4m. Wilks-Heeg and Crone found that 15 of these families or "donor groups" account for almost a third of all Tory funding [my italics]. They enjoy trips to Chequers, dinners in Downing Street and a friendly prime ministerial ear. Lord Irvine Laidlaw stuffed over £6m into Conservative pockets over a decade and, one of his former staffers told the Mail, liked to boast about his influence over party leaders: "William's [Hague] in my pocket"."

There is no doubt that Milliband's plan to change the relations with the unions is a big risk. They have already lost £1 million in funding from the GMB as a result. No doubt Milliband is counting on the fact that union funding now only accounts for one third of Labour's total, but the consequences of the unions abandoning Labour are far more serious than just a loss of funding. Without the bedrock of support from the labour movement what long-term future would Labour have? There is only room in British politics for one party of the right, and the Tories have had position that sown up for a very long time. Since the advent of New Labour, the  Labour Party has become a party of the centre-right, not centre-left as it used to be. Can Labour survive in the long term as such a party only funded by corporations and individuals? I don't think so. I have no doubt would it gradually wither and lose its base of support. That opens up an opportunity for a social democratic party of the left, with trade union support.

The likelihood is that nothing dramatic will happen until after the next election. If Labour win, as I expect them to, and continue on their present course, expect unrest to grow, with more widespread protests against welfare cuts and strike action to defend living standards and pensions. Millband is playing a dangerous game, and one that could change British politics forever.

Cameron's Syria debacle and the growing influence of social media

It was Harold Wilson who said "A week is a long time in politics", and its surely been a very long week indeed for David Cameron. On Thursday he recalled Parliament to vote on, and endorse his plan to support the USA in attacking Syria for the use of chemical weapons in Damascus. He was clearly confident of success and had obviously already promised Barak Obama that Britain would join the USA in a military strike. But as the debate in the House of Commons progressed it became clear that he might not win. I watched some of the debate on TV and also followed it on Twitter. By the time Clegg closed off the debate for the Government, it was obvious that, he, if not the government itself, was in trouble. He twice avoided answering a straight question on whether Britain would allow its bases to be used by the USA even if Britain did not participate in the military strike, to the obvious annoyance of MPs. The promise had clearly already been given. It was a poor performance which can't have helped his already diminished credibility as a politician. I don't think it was crucial in the outcome of the debate but it can't have helped. The Government lost the vote by 272 votes to 285 with 30 Tory MPs and 9 Lib Dem MPs voting against.

Cameron has obviously been severely damaged by this debacle, which is clearly of his own making, but the other party leaders came out of it with little credit. Despite this, Labour supporters tried to spin the whole thing as a victory for Ed Milliband, but Milliband apparently had to be pressed by his colleagues to argue for delay while the UN weapons inspectors delivered their report, and the UN Security Council debated military action. Clegg stuffed up, and failed to keep all his party onside. Furthermore, Cameron's obvious rage, and No. 10s attempt to blame Milliband with ludicrous accusations, have made Cameron look even smaller than he already did.

So what happened? The shadow of Tony Blair and the Iraq War was cast over the debate from the start, but I think the explanation lies in the fact that many Tory MPs had their inboxes full of emails from constituents urging them not to support action. They already have their eyes on the next election. So was this a victory for people power and parliamentary democracy as many have hoped it was? I think it was a combination of that, because some MPs were voting for what they believed rather than following the party line, the anger over Iraq, and the fact that Cameron and co. cocked up the whole affair, arrogantly rushing into war and assuming that they could take their party with them, and that Labour would simply acquiesce. However, we shouldn't assume that this vote is the harbinger of real change. For that to happen we will need democratic reform.

But I do also think politics is beginning to change, and the Westminster bubble is starting to burst. What's bringing about that change is that social media is opening up politics and informed debate. We have seen how it has made a huge difference in countries around the world like Egypt and Turkey, where large movements and demonstrations have been organised through Facebook and Twitter. Is it beginning to make a difference here in the UK, with millions more people being opened up to ideas and that they didn't have access to in the past, and the rapid dissemination of information?

Most importantly, we are no longer dependent on the capitalist media for news, and the influence of the press is waning. Twitter is often one step ahead of the press and 24 hour rolling news. Events are frequently reported there first, with eye witness reports and photos. Even Cameron announced his intentions for Syria on Twitter first, and referred to footage of the chemical attack in Syria on YouTube. Will these changes lead to a more open debate and a stronger democracy? Its too early to tell, but its well worth reading Paul Mason's excellent book 'Why its kicking off everywhere' if you haven't already, because it captures the influence of social media and the web on politics very well. 

Unless social media is suppressed, I believe it, and the wider web, can bring about change by offering a national and global platform for those whose opinions are often ignored by the media consensus, and by facilitating campaigns and organised protest. When Cameron tweets on Twitter, his tweets don't carry any more weight than anyone else's. You may not like Twitter, but its a global conversation that should not be underestimated.

The strange slow death of the Labour Party

Do all political parties have a lifespan? I think so. Its hard to imagine the Tory Party coming to an end, because it represents the interests of a particular class very effectively, and has done for 200 years or more. But even the Tories are vulnerable, not so much because of UKIP, but because they now really only represent a very narrow sectional interest consisting of the corporations and the very wealthy. The 'free' market and globalisation is set to grind down their middle class support, narrowing their political base still further. The latest manifestation of this is the sacrifice of the legal profession on the altar of the market to promote the interests of big business who are eying up what's left of the funding for legal aid. The fact is that the Tory vote has been in decline since 1931, and there is no sign of this changing.

But this post is meant to be about Labour, why is Labour heading into irreversible decline? The answer is simple - the party has abandoned its base, just like the Tories. The only reason so many people still vote for it is that it is seen as the only viable alternative to the Tories, and it is still funded by the trade unions. Of course its true that Labour's base has changed anyway in the past 30 years or so. The bedrock of working class support that could once rely upon has diminished, but Labour still ought to be able to rely on the support of the progressive majority in the UK, but now, it no longer can.

I believe Labour will win the next election and that it will probably win outright, but it will win by default, because enough people want to see the end of the Coalition, not because of any great enthusiasm for its leader or policies. Labour will win purely because it is the lesser of two evils and represents a little hope where now there is none. Labour ought to storm back into power on a positive anti-austerity platform. But it seems the Party has been so rotted by its embrace of the market that despite the mistakes of the Blair/Brown era it has really learnt nothing. Its leadership is incapable of making the break with neoliberalism.

The latest manifestation of this came only recently when shadow chancellor Ed Balls made yet another break with universal benefits by means testing the pensioners' winter fuel allowance. This is pretty poor stuff, which can only serve to weaken the whole welfare state further, and follows on from Labour's embrace of workfare, amongst other things. But it gets even worse because Labour are now likely to adopt the Coalition's spending plans after 2015 and yet further deep cuts are in the pipeline. The acid test will come if Labour forms the next government. Expect protests to grow not diminish. More people will drift away from the party and the decisive point will come if unions decide to make the break. If the Labour leadership continue on their current course they will be leading the party to oblivion. The question is not when, but how long it will take for the crunch to come?

If you get a Labour government in 2015 you will probably be sorely disappointed

Remember Neoliberal Labour? The bad old New Labour of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown? Well, if you are planning to vote Labour in 2015, and you are hoping for a Labour government, you are likely to be very disappointed, because Ed Milliband's  Labour is unlikely to reverse any of the Tory cuts, which is exactly what most Labour supporters want. Just imagine celebrating a Labour win and then having to face up to the reality that very little is going to change.

How do I know? I've been reading John Harris in the Guardian, and its clear that Harris has been talking to John Cruddas, the alleged lefty whose been leading Labour's policy review, and it makes pretty depressing reading. The upshot is that Labour appears to have accepted that the cuts can't be reversed and the priority is the eliminate the deficit;

"The essentials go something like this. Though there will be no reversal of existing cuts, in the context of George Osborne's howling failure that loud debate about whether to stick to his post-2015 spending plans is completely misplaced. But at the same time, if Labour is to win the next election, it will have to commit to a set of iron, independently enforced fiscal commitments, perhaps to be met over a 10-year cycle, focused not just on the elimination of the deficit, but the ratio of public debt to national income – many of the consequences of which, to quote one Labour insider, could be "brutal."

Ed Milliband: little hope for the future

The problem with this is that it is utter nonsense from beginning to end, and it shows that Labour have learnt nothing in the past three years. One is tempted to scream "Its the austerity stupid!", but even this is unlikely to penetrate the density of Labour's neoliberal skull. The reality is that it has never been easier or cheaper to borrow, never been easier to have our own national(ised) investment bank, and never been easier to invest in the jobs and houses that the UK so desperately needs. What we do not need is more of the same. Austerity must end.

I'll let you into a secret. Well its not really a secret but for all the attention it got in the 2010 election it might as well have been. The Green Party had an economic plan in its manifesto to halve the structural deficit in the lifetime of a parliament, and at the same time invest £44 billion in creating one million green jobs. And guess what? No austerity either. No cuts - just let me repeat that - no cuts, except in Trident and one or two other places where cuts were needed. No tuition fees either. Just think how strong our economy would be now if that had happened. But make no mistake, it can still happen, but only if people vote for real change. If they don't we will end up with more of the same, more misery and little hope for the future.

The' living wage' is nowhere near enough

Its been an eventful weekend, with the final stages of the battle for the American Presidency, between Obama and Romney, and yet another child abuse scandal and 'cover-up' erupting in North Wales. What caught my interest though was Ed and Dave Milliband's plan to deliver the living wage in the UK. When you hear that the Labour Party plans to do something for working class these days you take it with a hefty dose of salt. In fact, its fair to say that Labour has been responsible, in recent times, for kicking the working class just as hard as the Tories, which is why, electorally, some of those people have defected to the BNP, as a protest vote. The infamous 'squeezed middle' may be a priority for Labour, but the working class, low paid, and unemployed have dropped completely off the radar, abandoned to the cheap labour market of neoliberal globalisation.

But if you read the Guardian article by Dave Milliband and Dave Prentis it gets much, much worse. Firstly, we get: 

"But progress depends on keeping up the pressure and keeping up the campaigning. And it means finding incentives to persuade reluctant employers that it's in their interests as well."

 Er......so its only a campaign you are talking about then? I thought for a second a you meant a Labour government was going to legislate. Next:

"Public tendering is one area where this could work, particularly with growing privatisation. For example, could government reward local authorities that get employers to sign up to the living wage, with some of the savings from tax credits to go into a local skills fund, controlled by those authorities?"

Right, so first, we fully accept the asset stripping of privatisation, then local authorities have to beg employers to sign up? Huh? So we ask the corporations nicely to cough up - please. Its enough to make any self respecting trade unionist choke on his/her beer - if they can still afford any these days.

What I would expect any self-respecting politician who believes in social justice to do is to make employers pay a living wage through legislation. For years now the capitalists and corporations have had an orgy of excess, grabbing an ever greater slice of the economic cake at the direct expense of the rest of us. They have brought about the biggest economic crash in world history, causing economic chaos and misery to millions. Does it matter to them? -  no, not a bit. They have been completley insuated from the crisis they created. Now it is time for democratic governments to make them pay for their excesses and bring them to account. We need to reverse the neoliberal 'heist' that has been going on for the last 30 years. 

The best way to revive the global economy is to put money into pockets of the workers and the poor, and that means more than the 'living wage', because its not just enough.They will spend that money and they will create new jobs. They are the real wealth creators and job creators. For far too long we have put up with self-serving 'free' market bullshit about tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, and labour market flexibility. What we need is democratic control of the economy and asset redistribution to build a fairer, more equal, and more effective economy which can fight climate change and provide prosperity for all.

The dregs of democracy

Its conference season. Its also election time in the USA. Last Wednesday there was a Presidential debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, and earlier in the week Ed Milliband's conference speech.  What did we learn from these two events? The main outcome for me was that we learned how impoverished our democracy is in the west, how hollowed out it has become. We used to have a choice. In the UK it was a clear-cut choice between Labour and Conservative. Not any more. Politics has become homogenous. The very people who claim that they want us to have more choice, by which they really mean more privatisation, want us to have less and less choice when it comes to politics, and who we can vote for.

What was scary about to Obama-Romney debate wasn't the fact that , by all accounts, Romney won. It was the lack if difference between the two candidates. So dominant has the neoliberal consensus become amongst the political class that the debate is nuanced between minor differences in policy, whether to cut taxes a bit more or a bit less, whether to have a bit more private sector. Politics is now about personality. Is Ed a strong leader? Is he a geek? Who do you prefer Cameron or Milliband, Romney or Obama? Politicians have to market themselves to the electorate as Ed Milliband did on Tuesday. This is pure and utter bullshit, and a complete distraction from the things that matter - like policies for instance. But its a distraction which suits the neoliberal right. Let people argue about whether Cameron is better than Milliband, while we get on with asset stripping the NHS and the Public sector. Glenn Greenwald, writing in the Guardian, hit the nail on the head:

"Wednesday night's debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney underscored a core truth about America's presidential election season: the vast majority of the most consequential policy questions are completely excluded from the process. This fact is squarely at odds with a primary claim made about the two parties – that they represent radically different political philosophies – and illustrates how narrow the range of acceptable mainstream political debate is in the country."

The first Kennedy and Nixon debate in 1960

Out in the real world however, as we have seen all over the world, in Mexico, Spain, and the USA, millions of people want real choice and real change. Here in the UK our politicians have the democratic system with a Parliament and first-past-the-post voting system that is more fitted to the 17th century than the 21st century. That is why people are increasingly disillusioned with the democratic process. But that, in itself, suits politicians. However few people vote, they still get to be in power. What we have now, is a sham democracy instead of a proper democracy.  This is a sort of corporate-neoliberal totalitarianism maintained and stitched-up between corporations, politicians and the media, and before things can be changed for the better they look set to get much worse.

What is a 'strong leader'?

Now that the Labour party conference is underway we keep hearing about Ed Milliband's leadership qualities - as if this was all that mattered as far as Labour is concerned. Is Ed a strong leader? We hear that question repeatedly asked by the media. It seems that it has now become axiomatic that 'leadership' is the most important thing about any political party. After all, if you don't like the leader of a party how could you possibly vote for that party? And nobody could like a leader who isn't 'strong' could they?

Of course in a media age its important that party leaders are media savvy. They are bound to be in the spotlight. But isn't there something else going on here? What matters about a party is its policies and what it intends to do in government - that is the bottom line. So why the media obsession with 'strong' leaders which, over the past 30 years or so, has created a presidential style of government in the UK? Could it be that what the capitalist media really want is 'strong' leaders who are actually weak, who they can exert pressure on to act against the wishes of other ministers, MPs and the party membership, thus making it easier for the media to set the political agenda in their owners interests?

I don't want 'strong' leadership. Hitler and Stalin were 'strong' leaders. I believe the benefits of 'strong' leadership, and leadership in general, are greatly exaggerated. I would question whether we need leadership at all. But given the current set up, what I want is leaders who are team players, and listen, and respond to the party membership. I want a good party team elected into government. A team who work together and are are going to do their damnedest to implement policies which have been democratically decided upon at a party conference, whether the Daily Mail likes it or not.