Tag Archives: Ed Miliband

Britain, Economic, Government, Politics, Society

How is it ‘socialism’ to say that market failure beckons on a grand scale?

CONSERVATIVE PARTY ETHOS?

Thatcher’s revolution of the 1980s led to politicians of all persuasions putting their faith in a new economic paradigm – a guarantee of prosperity for the majority, which has lasted decades. Today, however, following the ‘Great Contraction’ of 2008-2009, political parties can no longer offer that guarantee with the same level of confidence. Whilst economic growth in Britain has returned following three years of stagnation it is forecast that real wages will not increase until 2015 and will not return to their pre-crash levels until 2023. A fractious and defective energy market, in which just six companies control 98 per cent of supply, has left more than 4.5 million in ‘fuel poverty’. Extortionate rents within the inner cities have forced millions to rely on housing benefit. By any measure, this must amount to market failure on a grand scale.

The crisis in living standards is a challenge for all political parties but no more so than for the Conservatives, the natural defenders of capitalism. After Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, pledged to freeze energy prices until 2017 – and to build 200,000 homes a year by 2020 – the Conservative Party had a chance to offer its own solutions. Alas, as we witnessed from the conference in Manchester, it retreated to its comfort zone. Aided by an ever more right-wing press, speaker after speaker derided Mr Miliband as a ‘socialist’ and ‘Marxist’, as if concern at deteriorating wages were comparable to a belief in world revolution.

The Conservative Party conference failed to recognise that when Margaret Thatcher assailed her left-wing opponents in the 1980s, she did so in the confidence that her free-market policies retained popular support. David Cameron does not enjoy that luxury: polls show that some two-thirds of voters support a 50p top rate of income tax, a mansion tax, stronger workers’ rights, a living wage that is more consummate with actual day living, and the renationalisation of the railways and the privatised utilities. If Mr Miliband is a socialist, so must the public be if these polls are anything to go by.

George Osborne rebuked the Labour leader for suggesting that ‘the cost of living was somehow detached from the performance of the economy’. But this was a remark that betrayed Mr Osborne’s failure to appreciate that the crisis is not merely cyclical (a problem most certainly exasperated through his austerity programme), but structural. It was in 2003, way before the crash, that wages for 11 million earners started to stagnate.

Other than a pledge to freeze fuel duty until 2015, what else did the Tories have to say on the question of living standards? The most important announcements were the earlier than intended introduction of the Help to Buy scheme and Mr Osborne’s commitment to achieve a Budget Surplus by the end of the next parliament, both of which risk further depressing incomes. By inflating demand without addressing the fundamental problem of supply, Help to Buy will make housing less affordable, while the Chancellor’s promise of a balanced Budget is likely to be met by imposing even greater cuts to benefits and services for the poorest in our society. Osborne’s ideological fixation with the public finances, particularly in relation to interest payments on the government’s debt, ignores the greater crisis in people’s finances.

On the fringes of the party, though, there was some positive thinking. The Conservative campaign group Renewal, which aims to broaden the party’s appeal among northern, working-class and ethnic minority voters, published a strategy for the building of a million new homes over the course of the next parliament, a significant increase in the minimum wage, a ‘cost of living test’ for all Acts of Parliament, and for action to be taken against ‘rip-off companies’. Yet, there is little sign that the Conservative leadership is prepared to embrace the kind of reformist, centrist agenda that secured the re-election of Angela Merkel in Germany.

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Britain, Politics

Labour’s struggle with Unite…

EXPOSING MILIBAND’S WEAKNESS

For Ed Miliband, the Labour Party’s leader in the UK, the last ten days or so have been wretched. Mr Miliband who has been so desperately unimpressive in the past few months, particularly in response to the spending review delivered by George Osborne, now finds himself at the centre of a scandal that exposes his weakness even further.

Mr Miliband would never have guessed that a Westminster barroom brawl involving Falkirk MP Eric Joyce would have had such seismic repercussions.

Mr Joyce decided to stand down and subsequently this has triggered a poisonous battle in who should become the next Labour candidate in this safe Labour seat. The issue is now threatening to engulf the Labour leader, who has never looked so weak, rattled and indecisive.

The first allegations to emerge were that the union Unite – whose block vote was crucial in winning Mr Miliband his job following the departure of Gordon Brown – had swamped the local party constituency with new and unfettered members, so they could vote for the union’s preferred Left-wing candidate.

Worse still, it was then discovered that Unite, led by Len McCluskey, was itself paying the new members’ subscription fees, and in some cases had even signed up people as members without their knowledge. This could lead to a potential criminal act of identity theft.

A strong leader of the Labour Party would have recognised the huge political danger in allowing a militant trade union (which wants Labour to wreck the economy all over again with more spending and more debt) to tighten its already vice-like grip on the party.

It is alleged that, for weeks, Mr Miliband knew about the Falkirk allegations and did nothing. It has taken the deeply suspicious resignation of his election chief Tom Watson, and the revelation that Unite had tried to influence the outcome in a further 40 selection contests elsewhere in the country, to wake him up from this pathetic dithering.

And yet Ed Miliband’s response has been feeble and inadequate.

On Friday, Mr Miliband made much of the fact that he has referred Labour’s internal report into Falkirk to the police. But, in reality, was this not an act of weakness given that 24 hours earlier the Conservative MP Henry Smith had written a public letter to the Chief Constable of Police Scotland calling for a full fraud inquiry?

Mr Miliband who champions the cause of openness and transparency is steadfast in his refusal to make the report public. A string of senior figures, however, has demanded that he do so.

Mr Miliband, who wants to shackle Britain’s free Press with statutory regulation, is a position that is at odds with the openness he calls for. For how would the murky dealings and vote-rigging within his party have surfaced if such a framework had existed? It is likely the shenanigans and underhand dealings of Unite would never have been exposed.

Calling on Mr McCluskey to turn his back on ‘machine politics’, the Labour Party has to answer as to why it has quietly changed the rules by making it a condition that any candidate in a council or Parliamentary election must be a union member (as opposed to should be, which was formerly the case). This was done shortly after Mr Miliband become leader.

Many people will question whether Mr Miliband is in any position to confront Unite and its leadership over its bid to drag Labour back to the bad old days of 1980s militancy. It is certain that if Unite withdrew its financial support of the Labour Party, the party would quickly become inoperable, if not by going bust. Over the past three years alone Unite has given Labour a staggering £8 million.

No wonder then that Labour are unable to commit properly to spending cuts, in fear that Mr McCluskey and his union cronies might not like it.

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Britain, Economic, Government, Politics

Labour’s vision for welfare reform…

Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, has outlined his vision for the future of welfare reform and aims to give councils a role to play in getting people back into work.

He also pledged to give councils power to negotiate rents for housing benefit tenants – giving them cash back on the savings to put into house building.

Other proposals included scraping winter fuel allowance for pensioners, maintaining the current Government’s cap on child benefit for families on more than £50,000, and a three-year structural pay cap on social security spending to keep the welfare bill in check.

Mr Miliband made his welfare reform speech in Newham, where he paid tribute to the local Mayor, Sir Robin Wales, for his plans to tackle worklessness locally. Mr Miliband acknowledged the current system would need to be reformed in a bid to cut costs.

He said:

… We must change our economy, so that welfare is not a substitute for good employment and decent jobs.

He outlined four key cornerstones of Labour plans for reform including:

  •  overcoming worklessness
  • rewarding work and tackling low pay
  • investing in the future
  • recognising contribution

Outlining his plans for the future of welfare reform under Labour, Mr Miliband said: ‘For every young man and woman who has been out of work for more than a year, we would say to every business in the country, we will pay the wages for 25 hours a week, on at least the minimum wage.

‘Fully funded by a tax on bankers’ bonuses. The business would provide the training of at least 10 hours a week. And because it is a compulsory jobs guarantee, young people will have an obligation to take a job after a year or lose their benefits.

’And we will do the same for everyone over 25 unemployed for more than two years.’

The Labour leader also outlined his plans to make this happen through ‘local action’, with the kind of work he had seen in Newham.

‘Devolving power and resources to local communities so there can be advice and support suitable for the individual who is looking for work and tailored to the particular needs of businesses in the area.’

He added:

… And we will do everything in our power to promote the living wage. If local councils can say if you want a contract with the council then you need to pay the living wage, then central government should look at doing that too.

He also outlined plans to tackle the housing benefit bill which continues to rise because ‘we have built too few homes in this country’.

Mr Miliband said: ‘Any attempt to control housing benefit costs which fails to build more homes is destined to fail.’ He pledged to put house building as a key priority for the next labour government and added: ‘We will need every local authority in Britain to be part of this effort.’

Under Labour plans, local authorities would be given the ability to negotiate rents on behalf of tenants on housing benefit to get a better deal for taxpayers in a ‘radical devolution’ of power.

In return, they would be able to keep some of the savings to invest in building new homes. ‘This is the way we can start to bring about the shift from benefits to building. Bringing the housing benefit bill down for the long-term too.’

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