Support the Postal Workers!

Many will be aware that a postal strike is due to go ahead tomorrow, relations between the Royal Mail management and the Communication Workers’ Union having broken down over a dispute about the future of the service.

Now, many people have little or no understanding of the background to the dispute and merely complain about the likely inconvenience of the strike. However, the postal workers have an extremely strong case, and we in CULC stand squarely behind our comrades in the Communication Workers’ Union over the dispute.

To understand the strength of the CWU’s case, the dispute has to be put into context. In 2007 the CWU and Royal Mail hammered out a Pay and Modernisation Agreement, in which the CWU agreed to accept many aspects of modernisation, such as more flexible working arrangements and the incorporation of new technology into working practices. It also involved an explicit commitment on the part of Royal Mail to implement changes subject to genuine agreement and negotiation with the CWU.

Since this agreement, Royal Mail has broken its commitments again and again. It has made unrealistic and absurd demands to slash budgets that were never consented to by the union in the 2007. It has closed down Mail Centres without coming to any agreement with the CWU, despite promising not to. They have attempted to avoid national negotiations concerning the implementation of the final phase of modernisation, despite an explicit commitment to. This is on top of Royal Mail’s imposing route revisions and shift changes, driving up workloads and slashing jobs without negotiations, all of which breaks the 2007 agreement.

The postal workers, on the other hand, have successfully implemented the modernisation that they agreed to. Royal Mail HQ itself signed off every single office in the UK as having implemented the agreement via their robust audit process. Only the final phase of modernisation, which Royal Mail agreed would be the subject of future negotiations, has been held up, and this is a case of Royal Mail and not the CWU breaking its commitments.

In the meantime, the Royal Mail has imposed a pay freeze on postal workers, who are not exactly well paid to begin with (they earn less than the average manual wage and rely on overtime), while Crozier, the Chief Executive, earns £3.6m a year and has pocketed millions in bonuses since being appointed. When inflation is taken into account, this is effectively a pay cut. This is in the context of annual profits for Royal Mail of £321m in the past year.

Royal Mail claims that some of its measures are necessary because the volume of mail is down 10%. The figures on this are very much disputed, but even if true this does not mean that posties have fewer properties to deliver to in a round. Furthermore, in the context of 30% job cuts, even a 10% fall in volume means more work for fewer workers.

In reality, postal workers (the ones that still have a job) are being asked to work longer hours for less money under worse conditions, despite having been remarkably co-operative in implementing modernisation. The demands of the CWU are not extreme – they amount more or less to honouring previous agreements.

Posties do unglamorous work which is vital to our economy; they are lions of the Labour movement, who do not deserve to be betrayed by Royal Mail in this way. Unless the CWU triumphs in this dispute, the way will be opened to a new assault on posties’ rights, pay and conditions, not to mention the likely transformation of Royal Mail into a casualised service that provides few decent full-time jobs.

Obviously a postal strike is inconvenient to many of us, but relative to the threat posed to postal workers by Royal Mail it is minimal. Solidarity with those fighting for their jobs and livelihoods should come above an individualistic obsession with short term inconvenience.

As such, I urge all CULC members to join our Facebook group and the national Facebook group supporting the posties (see http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=198747018272&ref=nf#/group.php?gid=198747018272&ref=nf and http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2394038466&ref=ts), and to give generously to a collection that CULC will hold at its next meeting.

Tory HQ gags CUCA?

Yesterday, the Cambridge News published an article on the Tories' Freshers' guide, which I attacked on my last blog post - see here: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_cambridge/displayarticle.asp?id=454595

Notice that Hugh Burling, former CUCA chair, member of the CUCA commitee and editor of the Fresher's Guide, somewhat incautiously says "Cameron's behaviour was foolish". The 'CUCA attacks Tory leader' line writes itself.

However, on a second article about the debacle by the Press Association - see here: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5glImlmaF5rJ5KVom7BqPbq-ej01g - we are told that "The university Conservative association was unavailable for comment". Is it just possible that Tory Central Office have been on the phone telling CUCA to shut the hell up and stop inflaming the story?

On a related note, anyone fancying a laugh should google CUCA and examine the photos of the committee on its website. A bigger collection of stereotypes couldn't be imagined - half of them are wearing white tie or daft hats. Jesus Christ, do they have any self-awareness? To any of them fancying a job in politics, their CUCA past could cost them dear.

Times are Toff for CUCA

Many Cambridge students may have noticed that Cambridge University Conservative Association (CUCA) has been distributing a university-wide ‘Fresher’s Guide’ in the past week or so. Glossy, full-colour and ten pages, it shows just how well-funded the Conservative Association, and indeed the Conservative Party in general, is. Interestingly, on the first page CUCA gives ‘special thanks’ to Jeffrey Archer, presumably for the production of the booklet. Whether the help given was financial or otherwise, it is obviously true that CUCA have been accepting aid from a convicted criminal, perjurer, liar and fantastist, possibly the most discredited and hated man in British politics.

This is nothing to the content of the booklet. It contains articles on the best options for buying champagne in Cambridge, an article giving (extremely pretentious) tips on formal wear, including tips on handkerchiefs as fashion accessories, cummerbunds and bowties, as well as advice on black and white tie, reviews of a range of restaurants including swanky ones most normal students could only dream of attending, and a guide to tying a bow tie. It projects a fantasy image of a gilded, privileged Cambridge that only ever existed, insofar as it did at all, for a small number of extremely wealthy people. It may appear to be tongue in cheek, but given how seriously CUCA members take these absurdities (as I hear from a source I have inside CUCA), it is not.

In the context of a global recession where ordinary working people are losing their jobs and homes, the Tories are clearly most interested in flaunting their wealth and privilege, and frankly it makes me sick. I’m most worried about my mum losing her livelihood and home if her public sector job gets the axe under the Tories. The Tories live in a cloud-cuckoo land where one can ‘save water’ by ‘drinking champagne’, where the colour of one’s cummerbund or silk handkerchief is more important than making a living, where mummy and daddy can pick up the tab for nights of orgiastic excess.

What kind of image does this project to working class freshers or potential applicants to Cambridge? It re-affirms every stereotype bandied about concerning Oxbridge snobbery, elitism and Brideshead-style excess. CUCA is single-handedly going about the task of setting back access by about 70 years. Cambridge, the Tories imply, is a place for ‘people like us’, people who can afford and enjoy posh restaurants, champagne and white tie. It’s not for the likes of you, people from ordinary working class backgrounds – this is the whole message of CUCA’s sermon. In short, they have squarely positioned themselves as a glorified social club for wannabe toffs, social climbers and minor aristocrats.

The Labour Club is campaigning for the People’s Charter, a manifesto for change that will give ordinary working people a fair chance, a sane economy and a new moral start. We are concerned about bread-and-butter issues because we know that life isn’t one long round of white-tie dinners, champagne receptions and aristocratic indulgence for most people. In the context of a Tory Party led by a small clique of Old Etonians who frequented the Bullingdon Club, that bastion of wealth and privilege in Oxford, CUCA’s cavalier and supercilious attitude is perhaps hardly surprising, but it is shocking and shows just how profoundly alienated from the lives of ordinary working people the Tory Party is.

The History of the Conservative Party

This, Guido Fawkes informs me, is a video that will be shown at the Conservatives conference. It is an attempt to convince the rank and file that they are on the “progressive” side of history. It emphasises every centrist “progressive” piece of legislation Tory leaders have ever done. Its 8 minute length doesn't seem as long now.

It's a rousing creation, lots of clips of broad-jawed aristocrats, waving suits, fading into smiles and so on. I must say I didn't see ALL of it, as I was a teensy bit sick on myself at 4 minute 38 and took about half a minute cleaning myself up (it was the unexpected change of tune, with the floppy waving hand accompaniment, it just knocked me for 6).

The video is evidently propagandising in readiment for the elections, emphasisng its progressive side and hoping to sweeten up core vote. In truth, it is quite well made and fit for purpose.

But I'm hoping some Historians can throw some light on some of their proud achievements. I can do so for a few. In general, I will point out that a lot of the Conservative Party's progressive policy was effectively forced upon them through union activity and parliamentary opposition.

-Disraeli's enabling of slum clearance was in the same vein as New York Mayor Rudy Guiiani's homeless clearance. 'Out of sight, out of mind' This isn't to say clearing the slums was unneccessary - the standard of living there was awful. The problem is that this was involuntary movement for the people and it did not take into account the people it was rehousing. The slum clearance project pushed the overcrowded East Enders into outlying new areas, where the inhabitants, particularly the women, were in isolation. The ill-thought-out, however well-intentioned, slum clearance project dissipated community and this led to depression, suicide and, moreover, a raw deal for women who were expected to stay at home, alone.

-The Factory Acts were worked through by labour activists and social reformers such as Oastler, Fielden and Ashley - for the Conservatives to take pride in their role in the Factory Acts, which the majority of the Conservatives were staunchly against, is akin to the castrated being proud of their celibacy. The early Factory Acts, by the way, consisted of rules such as 10 year olds only being allowed to work half days, women only being allowed to work 56 hours per week and, eventually, the minimum age for working being raised from 10 to 11.

-1944 Education Act (Butler Report) - It might seem odd for a Labour person to argue against the introduction of free education for all. Of course, it's not that I'm arguing against. The Butler Act brought in the tripartite system that became a legitimate tool to divide society up into social classes - no longer just rich/poor, but deserving/undeserving. It is a brilliant source of social mobility for those who got to grammar schools - less so for the 80% who ended up in secondary moderns. In passing, Butler (as in R.A. Butler) was a Cambridge man; incidently a man who dissuaded Prince Charles from fulfilling his wish of joining CULC whilst an undergraduate Trinitrarian.

1957 - Harold McMillan built 300,000 new homes in a year. That he did! The problem was they were shit. Nearly all of those built in Essex and the expanding East of London had been destroyed by the late 70s. The houses were rushed out, using poor architectural planning using a new method of housebuilding that is similar to flatpacked furniture. In the large tower blocks that started to dominate the skylines, the space in the walls between flats were filled not with concrete but with newspaper, meaning every sound passed through the walls. Again, community spirit floundered - the council residents got depressed, nobody had green spaces to enjoy and people started throwing themselves from the towerblocks. After a number of fires, which spread rapidly due to the poor structures of McMillan's buildings, most of the projects were demolished to be replaced by more suitable council housing - both at great cost.

And as for Home Ownership, again, this is hardly something that ought to be the jewel in the Tory crown. It did indeed rise throughout the latter half of the 20th century, but most council tenants could not themselves afford it. In fact, many were given the ultimatum by their conservative councils that they must allow their tenancy to pass from council-ownership to private landlords, or else they will no longer receive any maintenace, upgrades or repairs to their homes or community. This hardly is in the spirit of choice that is bandied around by 'progressives'.

Nonetheless, the video is correct in stating that things were on the up, and living standards did increase up until the Iron Lady's reign. At which point, as we all now know only too well, we reached the tipping point and social inequality has been rising year on year since (New Labour are just as guilty here), social mobility has been declining year on year and so on. 'Margaret Thatcher inspired and led Britain's economic revival' - I hate to sound like a stereotypical Yorkshireman here, but if you entered a working mens club in the 80s in Doncaster, Sheffield, Wakefield, Leeds, Hull, Rotherham and on into Lancashire, County Durham and South Wales and talked about 'economic revival', you'd realise that there must be two very different 'Britains' that the Thatch was referring too. And then you'd get an ashtray to the face. If you were lucky.

Earning the Right to Stay in Britain

A new Home Office paper on tackling immigration is proposing a "points test for citizenship". These points come out of a speech given yesterday by the Immigration Minister, Phil Woolas. There is so much I dislike about how they are going about this, but I'll try and keep it short.

First, potential migrants can increase their chances, and the speed of their application being processed if they canvass for a political party. This is pretty low of Labour. Migrants are quite naturally going to vote for the party in government - it's the 'Do not bite the hand that feeds' principle. Labour are more sympathetic to immigration than are the Tories, so Labour are essentially blackmailing the migrants into canvassing. Who else would the migrants vote for? Most British don't know what the Lib Dems are, so migrants are less likely still. By encouraging this canvassing by aspirational citizens, Labour are getting a few more dark faces on the street, with use a few more languages thus increasing the numbers of people they can contact. Something just doesn't seem right with it.

Next, so-called 'Orientation Days', which the aspirational citizens will have to attend, where they will be taught about British values, norms and customs. I can think of nothing more precise to say here than 'what the fuck'. Who really defines themselves as British? I don't think there really is a Britishness at all. Any geographical identity is much more tightly focused - Yorkshieman, Londoner, Country Bumpkin, Welshman. I wonder what these 'British values' might be - I dare say these will be values that are pretty rare amongst the general population. I'd hazard a guess it will consist of telling them to respect others, queue politely, please and thank you and other such condescending crap that exists only in the mind of the dementia-addled elder generations and in the rhetoric of middle-market journalism. These orientation days will essentially be preaching passivity and compliance. And as for norms and customs... by god. Binge drinking and getting reamed twice weekly in an alleyway? Competitiveness in every sphere? Not knowing your neighbours names? Giving your kids a good smack around the chops if they do something wrong, or more likely, if they just piss you off? These are the real 'norms' we face.

On from this, an 'active disregard' of UK values will lead to penalisation for the applicants. Isn't this just the spirit of multiculturalism? You WILL do things our way, or else we won't let you in. Phil Woolas has said that migrants would be expected to show their allegiance to Britain. Bollocks to this! All I'll say is that I'm lucky I was born here, else I'd never get in.

Essentially then, our Labour government are here saying that unless migrants do as we ask and expect them to do, support our government and indeed canvass for it, unless they support our actions and do not protest, their chances of entering the country and receiving a passport will be hacked down.

And there is more. Upon their arrival, migrants can expect to wait 3 years before they receive citizenship, but this can be cut down to a year if there is proof that they are demonstrating integration into British life. The government proposes 'active citizenship' - getting involved in institutions such as being school governers, joining Unions, doing voluntary work and joining political parties. But oh how quick people would complain if they DID truly integrate into British life! If they integrated with white British life by climbing the career ladder and taking the well-paid jobs. If they integrated into the working-classes by joining the fight for the meagre rations of employment that are occasionally thrown into the estates. How quick people complain, and how quickly then the government will pander to their whims, when communities become as racially ghettoised as they are along class lines.

To bring this to a close, there is also the existing Citizenship test which must be passed (Life in the UK), but there will also be a 'more challenging test on British politics and history'. My knowledge of British history consists of sitting with grubby knees after playtime in Year 4, reciting the names of Henry VIIIs wives. And heaven forbid, a true appreciation of British politics, and few would want to come!

And the price of all this - just seven hundred and twenty of our Queen's (pbuh) own pounds. And of course, it is the migrants themselves who will be paying for the privelege of having their feet walk upon Englands pastures grim - or probably not, since the majority will be turned away for having 'bad character'. Unlike the 90,000 Brits in prisons of course...

The whole thing makes me feel dirty.

The Norwich North By-election: a View From the Frontline

As some comrades may know, I was on the frontline at the Norwich North by-election for three weeks from early July until polling day on Thursday. It was a unique, sometimes surreal, and overall highly enjoyable experience, despite the appalling result.

A by-election is a highly unusual political event. By-election campaigns receive disproportionate amounts of coverage, money and resources, and are incredibly intense experiences. The main parties tend to stampede the constituency with big beasts. The Tories put all MPs on a three-line whip to visit and campaign several times each. Most of the cabinet, including Alastair Darling, David Miliband, and Alan Johnson, visited, as did most of the Tory front bench. On a personal level, it was all rather eventful too. During this campaign I was insulted by Oliver Letwin, had a little verbal sparring with Simon Hughes, ended up on first name terms with Harriet Harman, had lunch with Angela Eagle, and chatted with Ed Balls. At one point I even had a rather interesting late-night karaoke session involving Gordon Brown’s special adviser, some alcohol and our staff. A BNP supporter set his dog on me (I’m pressing charges), and I was chased and shouted out by an entertaining array of headcases.

On a more serious note, our campaign suffered from numerous problems, any one of which would have been a huge blow to the campaign. In combination, they were fatal.

Firstly, even despite the effort we put into the campaign, the disparity in terms of resources and finances between us and the Tory Party was painfully obvious. They were putting out glossy, full-colour leaflets that had clearly been professionally designed and printed, while we put out leaflets on crap quality paper designed by one of our chaps printed on a risograph, a printing machine that only prints in two colours. For the first week I was there, I stayed in a complete and utter hovel that was infested with bed-bugs, because we couldn’t even afford proper accommodation – only when my ankle was eaten alive by the bugs was I moved out to better accommodation, thanks to our campaign manager Emilie, who did a good job in intolerably difficult circumstances.

Secondly, the Gibson affair hamstrung our operations from the start. Now, I am not going to defend the way the NEC treated Gibson – Gibson was singled out for punishment because he is on the left of the party. However, we should not martyr him too much – after all, what he did was wrong. The real issue was inconsistency of punishment. Whereas he was barred from standing again as the Labour candidate, people who did the same or worse – Blears for example – suffered no such indignity. However, once Gibson resigned, the issue should have been secondary to the question of whether Norwich should have a Labour or a Tory MP. Instead, for many this is not what happened. Much of the Norwich North CLP refused to campaign for Chris, our candidate. I know for a fact that some of them did not even vote Labour. Whatever we think of Gibson’s treatment at the hands of the NEC, this is absurd. These people’s stubborness and lack of pragmatism let in a Tory MP. If I were Chloe Smith, I would write a letter of thanks to each and every member of Norwich North CLP who sat on their arse rather than get out and campaign for Labour. As so often happens in the Labour Party, some of us forgot who the real enemy is. The only beneficary of this tendency is the Tory Party. Not only did the fallout from the Gibson affair attenuate our local activist base, it meant a lot of disgruntled Labour supporters refused to vote at all. All very well, but they now have a Tory MP, which none of them really wanted.

The third big obstacle was the shit state of the CLP even before the Gibson affair blew up in our faces. It was abundantly clear from our Voter ID data that no or little work had been done in the constituency for many years, with a few honourable exceptions. In supposedly safe Labour areas there were whole streets in which no canvassing had been done since 1994. I picked up casework that had been neglected due to complacency on the part of the local councillors. Very few of our councillors helped out in any significant way, and some actively made things difficult. However good a local MP Gibson was, he basically did no campaigning work at all, and this made an already difficult task even more tricky. I wouldn’t want to give the impression that no-one from the CLP did anything – this is not true, some comrades rallied round and were a great help. But they were in a minority.

However, in a more fundamental sense these issues were not the biggest problems. The biggest problem was the continuing unpopularity of the government, an unpopularity that is exacerbated by some government policies (refusing to exercise proper control over the banks despite nationalising them, for example) that we in the Labour movement must continue to make a principled stand against.

However, much nonsense has been spoken about the campaign, especially by David Cameron, who criticised our campaign for being duplicitious and negative. This is an absurd fallacy. I read every leaflet put out by every party, and until the last week our campaign was, almost without exception, positive. We campaigned on issues such as saving and building more Sure Start centres, tackling anti-social behaviour, extending 20 mph speed limit zones, continuing to invest in public services, and many other areas. It is true that in the last week we began to make more direct attacks on the Conservatives and their candidate. However, our attacks were largely substantiated, entirely reasonable, and personal only in the sense that we questioned the other candidate’s political record and judgement. They also constituted only a small proportion of our campaign.

We attacked the Tory candidate on a number of grounds. Firstly, we argued, with some justification, that she is a career politician (she has worked for several Tory MPs in the past). Secondly, we pointed out that Norwich was her second choice (she previously went for the selection in Ipswich, Norwich’s main local footballing rivals). Thirdly, we attacked her for being afraid of debate (she pulled out of several hustings debates during the campaign). Where are the lies here Mr Cameron?

In terms of Tory Party policy, Cameron claimed that it is dishonest for us to claim that the Tory Party would cut things like the Winter Fuel Allowance, free bus passes, Sure Start centres etc. We actually
attacked Tory policy on the grounds that, given their commitment to slash public spending, their refusal to outline exactly what they would cut, their previous record of cutting services for the vulnerable and poor, and their record of voting against Labour policies designed to help pensioners and families, that many vital benefits and services are likely to under risk under a Tory government. This is entirely reasonable. The Tory Party is currently attempting to simultaneously claim that it will cut our national debt, but not cut spending on services and benefits. The Tory Party can’t plausibly claim the political credit arising from its supposed fiscal responsibility without suffering the political fallout of either making unpopular cuts or raising taxes, yet this is exactly what it is trying to do. Our campaign aimed at pointing this out. This is not dishonest Mr Cameron, it is merely subjecting your policies to scrutiny, something which the press is currently not doing.

Some of the Tories, such as Theresa May, claimed that one particular leaflet we put out, an attack on the Tory candidate’s support for repealing the fox-hunting ban that ran with the somewhat ill-advised ‘Vote Labour or the Fox gets it’ tag, was a reversion to the ‘class war’ tactics of the Crewe and Nantwich by-election. I do not understand this at all. I didn’t like the leaflet - I thought it concentrated on an issue that is really trivial given the problems currently facing the country - but cannot for the life of me understand how this was a class war tactic. It is an issue to do with animal cruelty. I personally hate the aristocracy and all it stands for and took a great deal of pleasure in attacking one of their pursuits, but our leaflet made no reference to class, and I would have supported the hunting ban, as most Labour MPs would have, whatever social class participated in this cruel practice. Cock-fighting was a more working class pursuit, but when it was banned in the 19th century was it seen as a class issue? Of course not. Bloodsports are just cruel and wrong, whoever participates in them.

The reality of the by-election was that the villains of the piece were, as ever, the Liberal Democrats, whose hideous candidate April Pond ran a scurrilous, nasty, unrelentingly negative campaign filled with lies and distortions. Almost every Lib Dem leaflet was filled with borderline personal attacks on the Green, the Tory and our candidate. The Lib Dems attacked our candidate for being a ‘career politician’, even though he’s never had a job in politics, and only ever stood once before for political office. They suggested that that he was a ‘Westminster insider’ on the basis that he lives ‘near’ Westminster, by which logic presumably a single mum working a minimum wage job in Washington D.C. is a ‘Washington insider’.

Worst of all, they lied and lied about the nature of the election, constantly trying to argue that it was a ‘2 horse race’ between them and the Tory, despite the fact that they were third last election, they’ve been losing ground in Norwich for years now, and the previous MP was Labour. On polling day and just before they put out leaflets containing a ‘poll’ that put them second behind the Tories in Norwich North. Look at the details of the ‘poll’ and it’s clear that it wasn’t an independent poll – in fact, it’s not really clear what data it was based on. This is because it was obviously a completely made up poll, or one produced by the Lib Dems by highly selective interpretation of some of their own data, which doesn’t really differ from being made up at all – I could take some Labour voter ID, ignore all the people from the sample who said that they’d vote Tory, and claim that it’s a two horse race between us and the Lib Dem. It would be a made up poll by any other name. The only independent poll in Norwich North, done by ICM, showed that it was a clear fight between us and the Tory. Unfortunately, some people believed Lib Dem lies, and voted Lib Dem believing that it would keep out the Tory. This merely split the real, Labour anti-Tory vote and made it easier for the Tories. Shame on you April Pond and the Lib Dems.

If we had wanted to (and we didn’t because we didn’t fight a negative, Lib Dem style campaign), we could have pointed out a few things about April Pond. Firstly, contrary to her own assertions on her leaflets, April Pond is not a successful businesswoman. In fact, most of her previous businesses have gone bankrupt. Secondly, the kids she festooned over her leaflets were the children not of her current husband, as she claims, but of a previous husband that she divorced and did not mention. Thirdly, she owns a moat (!). Fourthly, Norwich North was her second choice – she was previously the candidate for another Norfolk seat. Fifthly, she is widely despised even among local Lib Dems – she has had vicious spats with local Lib Dem councillors, and several Lib Dem activists whom we spoke to admitted that their campaign was too negative and that April Pond is horrible. Although I disagree with the Tories more ideologically, at least the Tories ran a largely positive and largely clean campaign. April Pond refused to sign the clean campaign pledges agreed to by the other candidates. I hope that we never see her rear her ugly head again.

Overall, this campaign showed the real danger in the next election. That danger is not from a huge spurt of enthusiasm for the Tory Party. The Tory vote in real terms went slightly down. The only reason that the Tory vote increased as a percentage of the total was because turn-out plummeted. The story of the by-election was that the Tory vote pretty much held firm at its 2005 levels, whereas our vote collapsed. This collapse can partially be explained by an increased UKIP and Green vote, but the bulk of it can be explained by Labour voters disgruntled about Gibson and the government in general merely staying at home. The fall in the Labour vote can largely be accounted for by the fall in turn-out. This implies that the next election will be won and lost on turn-out. If Labour supporters or anti-Tory voters stay at home or turn to fringe parties, then the Tories will get in comfortably, not due to any enthusiasm for them, but due to disillusion about the Labour government. Our job from now until May 2010 is to persuade people that, whatever doubts may linger, the election is a straight choice between us and a Conservative Party that is as heartless, right-wing and insensitive as ever, and that we provide a more just and hopeful alternative.

A Curate’s Egg: the Linguistic Obfuscation, Timidity and Mixed Messages at the Heart of the ‘National Plan’

‘Building Britain’s Future’ is a literarily abysmal, near-unreadable jumble largely consisting of self-justification and vague-to-the-point-of-meaninglessness platitudes. In other words, it is a typical New Labour planning document, redolent stylistically of this government in the way that the obscene, surreally inappropriate communistic jargon of ‘The Little Red Book’ was of Mao’s China. This is symptomatic of the impoverishment of political language under New Labour. Everything is reduced to a technocratic jargon unintelligible to 95% of the population; principles are reduced to homogenised, inoffensive lists of ‘core values’ and the like. Anything distinctive or reminiscent of the meaty language of moral responsibility that characterised our Labour forefathers’ rhetoric is sterilised, sanitised, lanced like a juicy ideological boil. The hatred of injustice and crusading zeal that should be at the heart of the Labour Movement is neutralised by the technocratic, dead language of bureaucratic stupor. One wonders what Nye Bevan would have made of its unbelievable banality.

Stylistic issues aside, this ‘National Plan’, which reads like a manifesto draft stripped of overtly partisan sentiment, is a real mixture in substance. It leans partly in the right direction towards an agenda of social democracy, although too timidly, partly in the wrong direction, towards a populist chauvinism that should be challenged.

Let me outline where I think the document goes wrong first of all. The tone of timidity is set early, with the apparently mandatory regurgitation of the government’s record containing, as an ‘achievement’, the fact that “inequality has levelled off”. Is this really such an achievement, given the high base of inequality inherited from 18 years of Tory rule? Why is there so little emphasis on economic equality, which should be the scarlet thread running throughout our policy? The government reheats platitudes about wanting to tackle inequality and ensure a level playing field regardless of social background, but it hedges around the issue, putting forward small adjustments in lieu of bold steps. The Equality Bill, with its “new Equality Duty requiring a range of public bodies to consider the needs of different groups in the community when designing and delivering public services”, is not unwelcome, and may do some good. But will it focus enough on addressing the most important type of inequality in our society, namely class inequality? More importantly, we cannot legislate our way to economic equality, except through finance bills. All of the evidence shows that more equal societies are healthier and happier, with lower crime rates, higher levels of social cohesion (and indeed mobility), but the government shuns the real action needed – a huge redistribution of wealth facilitated by increasing taxation on the wealthy dramatically accompanied by dramatic action to increase welfare entitlements, especially those targeted to help us achieve our goal of eliminating child poverty. We hear stories of a quick re-establishment of the old bonus culture in the City already, while the government’s child poverty targets are projected to be missed. This is obscene, and this document papers over the government’s questionable commitment to a social-democratic agenda of equality. Yes, the document re-affirms the commitment to a ‘Child Poverty Bill’ – but without resources this will be meaningless. We may as well pass legislation making it illegal to be poor.

Furthermore, commitment to the tired old privatization agenda is restated: “we will step up our efforts to sell off assets that would be better run in the private sector”, we are told. The idea that some things are better run in the public sector in the interests of the common good, rather than in the narrow self-interest of profiteering private companies is eschewed as ever. We cannot keep privatizing and outsourcing public sector jobs, with the inevitable race to the bottom in pay and conditions, without further antagonizing public sector unions who should be among our foremost supporters. New Labour orthodoxy rules, alas.

The document argues that the government should be at the forefront of global efforts to secure, in its own words, “our ultimate goal of a world free of nuclear weapons” – a laudable goal indeed. However, any reconsideration of the calamitous decision to renew Trident, or even provide proper parliamentary oversight for the renewal, is studiously avoided.

The government declares its intention to “change the current rules for allocating council and other social housing, enabling local authorities to give more priority to local people and those who have spent a long time on a waiting list”. This is dangerous, borderline racist demagoguery. Council and social housing should be allocated on the basis of need. Nobody seriously argues that in an NHS hospital someone who has waited with a nosebleed for 3 hours should be given priority over someone dying from a heart attack who has only waited three minutes – but apparently need is not the relevant criterion for a basic social right such as housing. This move may provide us with ammunition on the doorstep against the BNP – but only by making us more like them, not by challenging the racist presumptions behind their thinking. It is chauvinist and immoral.

However, it is unfair to suggest that this document is without merit. Its major benefit is that it moves towards enshrining universal personal entitlements to public services; as the document puts it, “new entitlements in the public services will make sure that it is not just those with the sharpest elbows or the loudest voices who receive good quality services – by empowering individuals, we will guarantee clear universal rights for all, regardless of where they live or what their background is”. This new approach will be manifested in commitments to ensure all state school pupils are guaranteed a personal tutor and will get one-to-one catch up tuition where needed, and to guarantee that nobody needing to see an NHS cancer specialist will have to wait more than two weeks and no-one needing hospital treatment will have to wait more than 18 weeks. These measures are welcome, although the shift in approach kind of admits that the previous choice agenda was an unfair failure that benefited the public-service savvy middle classes, those with the ‘sharpest elbows’, to the detriment of the working class. Better that this is recognized late than never, I suppose.

Although I am skeptical as to its teeth without the commitment of resources, the Equality Bill is definitely a step in the right direction. Requiring private employers to report on the gender pay gap is a welcome step forward, as are measures to combat ageism. The acid test for me, however, will be if the Bill is given the real teeth to ensure that the “new duty on Ministers, departments
and key public bodies such as local authorities and NHS bodies to consider what action they could take to reduce the socio-economic inequalities people face” will actually work. However, the commitment to make sure that there is a Sure Start centre in ‘every community’ (whatever the nebulous word ‘community’ is taken to mean) is one concrete commitment that will actually help drive forward an equality agenda, and the investments in early years represented by the commitments to ensure free entitlement to 15 hours of high-quality early education a week for every three and four year old and expansion of free childcare to the most disadvantaged two year olds are likewise welcome.

A generally more interventionist approach to bread-and-butter issues such as housing (previous reservations notwithstanding) and jobs, represented by such policies as the trebling of funding of new social housing to £2.1bn, the funding of extra apprentice places, the guarantee of a job or training place for those under the age of 25, the Future Jobs Fund, and subsidisation of jobs and training for adults unemployed for more than six months , is generally welcome, although whether it is radical enough to make an sufficient impact to seriously impinge on the electorate’s consciousness and convince them that Labour is on their side remains to seen. It all smacks of tinkering here and there at the edges, but so long as the government refuses to slash public spending and values maintaining real demand over cutting the deficit in the short-to-medium term, maybe it will protect people from the recession enough to give us some electoral hopes. Time will tell.

This plan is neither the boldly reformist social democratic agenda we need, nor a complete failure. Its timidity shows where we should be bold, its successes where we should stay our course, and its failures where we should retreat.

NUS Proposes Funding Reform

A report published today by the National Union of Students (NUS), chaired by Labour member and activist Wes Streeting, has set out an alternate model of higher education funding to replace variable top up fees.

Having argued on this blog previously for a progressive graduate tax I was very pleased with solution reached, which is a progressive grad tax linked to an independent 'People's Trust'. This latter qualification is of particular importance because it means that the grad tax would not be subject to the whim of governments.

The basics of the NUS's proposals are as follows:

• Higher education students will pay a proportion of their earnings for a period of 20 years from the age of 22, or following graduation if this occurs after that age.
• The tax is progressive, ranging from 0.3% p.a for those with bottom quartile earnings (£5 per month) to 2.5% for those in the top quartile (£125 per month)
• The tax is paid into a People's Trust, independent of government, which will release the funds each year according to current formulas of Higher Education distribution.
• The fund will accumulate a reserve and will eventually provide around £8.5 billion per year in allocatable funding, as compared to the current system which provides £6 billion.

I think that the model set out provides a fairer, more progressive and more sustainable system of higher education funding and should be seriously considered by the government. The current system of top up fees is a poor compromise between the necessity of broadening fair access and the need to adequately fund higher education. Top up fees are also a policy that has alienated some students from Labour and been seized upon by the opportunistic Lib Dems who argue for the abolishment of fees without consideration of how this will be sustainably funded. We have a chance now to face up to these critics and seize the progressive alternative.

The full report can be read here:

http://resource.nusonline.co.uk/media/resource/NUS_Blueprint_Summary_report_final.pdf

Reflections on the elections

Firstly, I would like to thank all those CULC comrades who were out with me and the Cambridge Labour Party last week to help fight the good fight: of those whom I know were out, thanks go to Pete Jefferys, Tom Lloyd, Victoria Woolley, Michael Smidman, James Ransome, although others may have helped without my knowledge.

It was a tough day. Getting normally Labour people out to vote was made all the more difficult by the expenses controversy, but most of all by the selfish careerists in Westminster who made us look like a disorganised shambles by resigning at times deliberately timed to have maximum impact on our chances. Hazel Blears, whom I have never liked because she appears to have no independent mind and never questions anything the government does, deserves particular scorn. She resigned on the day before polling day purely to damage Gordon Brown, and indirectly the rest of the party. She saw kicking us party activists as a way of hurting the Prime Minister and had no compunctions about betraying us all. How she can claim to represent the rank and file god only knows. I hope she is deselected, though I doubt it will happen given her Salford power base. James Purnell also deserves special mention for being a traitor. He isn't interested in the Labour Party's chances; he is so right-wing that I wonder why he doesn't just cross the House to the Tory Party, where he belongs. When I got into the pub at close of polls on Thursday with blisters on my feet from walking so much, I could cheerfully have strung him up from a lamp-post by his bollocks. Why was he plotting in Westminster on polling day? Why wasn't he knocking up our voters or running a committee room or doing something to try and save the necks of decent Labour councillors?

However, in Cambridge things did not go as badly as they could have. We lost Kings Hedges and Abbey. I worked in Abbey, and we lost to the Greens. Now, I know some of us may have some sympathy with the Greens - they are generally left of centre people, not so far away from us. In fact, many Greens are former Labour people. However, Thursday seriously demonstrated how disconnected the Greens are from ordinary working people. The Labour councillor who lost, Paul Sales, is a decent socialist who has been a councillor for many years. He worked tirelessly for the working class in Abbey, knows the area really well, and had real plans to improve things for ordinary people in the area. His Green opponent was interested not in improving the lives of ordinary working class people, but in using the council seat as a soapbox for his national agenda that has little to do with the people of Abbey and their rather more workaday concerns. He is a former councillor notorious for doing little in the way of helping his constituents and being more interested in promoting himself and his own political career. The Greens were not interested in the fact that the people of Abbey would suffer from losing Paul; they see the county seat purely as a means to the end of doing well in the General Election. This shouldn't be what local politics is about. Sure, councillors are a useful electoral base, but that is secondary to the business of working hard to represent the interests of constituents and dealing with their more every day concerns.

However, there was some good news. We convincingly held Cherry Hinton, and sensationally won Coleridge in a close race against the Tories, despite having lost in that seat last year. The Tories, who expected to romp home, were singularly unimpressed, and seeing their bitter, disappointed faces made up for the pain of losing Abbey and Kings Hedges. We also (just) managed to hold onto Richard Howitt, our MEP for the East of England. Richard is a thoroughly sound socialist who will advance an agenda of delivering on workers' rights, human rights and equality in the European Parliament.

However, nationally the picture was, of course, grim. Losing Derbyshire and Lancashire is shocking. However, what seems obvious to me is that the punishment we took in this election was not the result of having the wrong personalities at the top. Changing Brown for Johnson or whoever will, at best, make a very shallow and temporary difference. What these defeats demonstrate is that our policies are going in the wrong direction. We are alienating our traditonal supporters in their droves, and we cannot take their votes for granted anymore. I knocked up a Postie on polling day, and felt very sheepish indeed at the prospect of asking him to get out and vote Labour, because of the government's insane plans to privatise the Royal Mail. Brown will apparently 'compromise' on this, but frankly we don't want 'compromises' - we should not be selling our comrades in the CWU down the river. I believe in a publicly owned postal service ran in the common interest, not for private profit, and so do most Labour Party members and supporters. We need to make sure that our bank-bail outs entail real control over the policies of banks. Why are we giving them billions, and then tolerating them not lending to get the economy going again? If they get public money, they should have to do as we damn well tell them to. We are giving them taxpayers' money with no representation on their boards. This is insane, and Labour supporters aren't going to support us until we reverse these stupid policies.

Furthermore, we need bold policies to sell to the British public that we can positively agree with and campaign for. At the moment, we are bereft of policy-direction, drifting in a see of personality driven strife and pointless bickering. The Labour Party is still the best vehicle for progressive politics, and it is the last defence against a Tory government that will mount a concerted attack on the welath and power of working people and their families. Indeed, the government's response to the economic downturn has at least accepted the logic of an interventionist policy, and will not merely revert to absurd Tory budget-balancing orthodoxy in a time of falling real demand. The government is relatively better on pretty much anything - we have a record with some real positives, as well as some negatives too. However, until we change direction and build a progressive narrative that will bolster traditional Labour people, it won't matter whether Tweedledee or Tweedledum are leader. We can only beat the Tories if we get the agenda back onto policy, and show that we are willing to lead and be radical on economic policy and constitutional reform. After all, after polling 15% at the Euro elections, what do we have to lose?

Should Brown Go?

In this brief post I sketch what Mandelson might think in answer to this question, based on what he wrote about Mr Brown around eighteen months before joining his Cabinet and doing such a fantastic job in Government.

Here is an extract of an email from Lord Mandelson to Derek Draper, editor of LabourList.org (to which Lord Mandelson has contributed), sent around eighteen months ago. The media, in which this email and other exchanges between the two men were printed, obtained the email from someone who had hacked into Mr Draper’s email account. In the email extract below Lord Mandelson is replying to an email from Mr Draper in which Gordon Brown as Prime Minister is the topic of discussion.

"The thing you need to understand is just how complex Gordon is. We are all complex, of course. But Gordon has developed fewer ways of masking and managing his insecurities. So of course what you say is right. The public personality of a politician is crucial (don't I know) but you guys have to be careful that you don't make it worse/more difficult for him to change his public personality by telling him he has got to do so and inundating him with opinions as to how he does it. He is a self-conscious person, physically and emotionally. He is not as comfortable with his own skin as, say, Tony was (is). A new public persona cannot be glued on to him. It cannot be found, it has to emerge. It will do so from self-confidence. When things go right for him. When he is being successful and receiving approval. Then he will visibly relax. He will be enjoying himself. Not so angry. And then he will start talking about himself. Finding his voice. Talking about X Factor, or whatever. The trouble with his first few months is that he was told (by Deborah Mattinson ? Bob Shrum?) that he was seen as courageous, turning back floods, wrestling terrorists to the ground, curing ill cows etc. So everyone went around saying and briefing how courageous he was. It's fine to make the point but after a while these things should have been allowed to speak for themselves. Not keep saying so on every occasion as his people did on every interview. It became self-congratulatory and slightly absurd. Then the election debacle came along and the rest is history. He has had no one to say this sort of thing to him, so hopefully the new man will eventually start doing so. Don't worry about the past."

This email extract reaffirms my respect for Lord Mandelson as a political operator, and one the Labour Party is blessed to have. He seems to understand the psychological dimension to people so much more than most people in politics. How many MP types that you see on the tube would think about the potential causes of Mr Brown’s behavior rather than focusing on their manifestations? Sure, focusing on Mr Brown's indecision and caution can be important, but how can we make a really good decision about his worthiness as a national leader unless we look at the reasons for his behavior.

This email extract helps to flesh out the substance of the concern in some quarters that modern British politics is personality-driven rather than substance-driven. People want Mr Brown to leave No. 10 because his personality appears to suggest he is unsuited to the job and its burdens. Lord Mandelson shows that this might be a fair criticism because Mr Brown’s effectiveness as a political leader is highly contingent on his public image. With the party ranged against him and his self-esteem presumably wrecked, how can Mr Brown function as a leader who will develop the necessary policies to respond to the recession? I don’t know that I want a Prime Minister whose happiness can be so adversely affected by what others say, and whose effectiveness (as a result) can be brought so low. This isn’t to say that there are any senior politicians who would not be so affected psychologically: I also like that Lord Mandelson says Tony Blair was not fully secure in his identity either. I am making the point that I don’t want politicians whose sensitiveness to criticism so affects their happiness that they cannot function in their jobs. Interestingly there is no suggestion from Lord Mandelson that any insecurities affected Mr Blair’s decisionmaking.