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The solution to the current malaise is not more extreme social democracy
There’s an argument from some that more trenchant tax rises, such as VAT or income tax, and ‘getting more from less’, will be enough to see through an incoming Labour government led by Ed Miliband.
Put quite simply, I don’t think this will be nearly enough. It would the best Labour could come to retoxifying its own brand, reestablishing its credentials as a ‘tax and spend’ government. In fact, for the last two decades, the taxation debate has got much more complicated due to an issue nobody wishes to admit. That is: you’re not actually using taxpayers’ money to go into the salaries or wages of employees of the State, you’re increasingly using this tax to subsidise the shareholder dividends of directors of outsourced public functions (such as beneficiaries of health procurement contracts). Whether you like it or hate it, and let’s face it most people are ambivalent to it, resorting to this would ignore all the groundwork the Miliband team has done on “pre-distribution”. Forgetting this actual word for the moment, making the economy work properly for the less well-off members of society should be an explicable aim of government on the doorstep. Putting the brakes on the shock of energy bills, from fatcat companies, is a reasonable self-defence against an overly aggressive market which has swung too far in much favour of the shareholder and director. Paying people a living wage so that they’re not so dependent on State top-ups to survive is as close as you can get to motherhood and apple pie. Even Boris Johnson supports it.
Of course, Ed Miliband’s natural reaction as a social democrat would be try and survive government as a social democrat. But that doesn’t get round the problem experienced by a predecessor of his, Tony Blair. When Tony Blair had his first meeting with Robin Butler (now Lord Butler of Brockwell), Butler asked, “I’ve read your manifesto, but now what?” Ed Miliband has low hanging fruit to go better than Tony Blair on his first day in office if he can come up with clear plans for office and government.
Let’s get something straight. I don’t agree that the scenario which must be proven otherwise is that Ed Miliband will come into Downing Street only enabled by Liberal Democrat voters. There are plenty of former Liberal Democrat voters who feel deeply disgusted by Nick Clegg not acting as the ‘brake’ to this government, but as the ‘accelerator pedal’. They have seen Clegg’s new model army vote for tuition fees, privatisation of the NHS, and welfare reforms, as if there is no tomorrow. And for many of his MPs, there will be no tomorrow. Clegg’s operating model of supplying votes for whichever party happens to be his employer is clearly unsustainable, as within two periods of office, his flexible corpus of MPs would end up repealing legislation that they helped to introduce to the statute books.
In answer to the question, “What do we do now?”, Ed Miliband does not need to reply with a critique of capitalism. Miliband will have to produce a timeline for actions which he has long promised, such as implementation of a national living wage, controlling seemingly inexorable increases in energy bills, as well as other ‘goodies’ such as repealing of the Health and Social Care Act (2012).
Andy Burnham MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Health, has already explained some of the ‘and then what’. Burnham has insisted that he will make existing structures ‘do different things’. But while getting of compulsory competitive tendering, Burnham needs to put ‘meat on the bones’ on how he intends to make the NHS work without it being a quasimarket. Burnham’s challenges are not trivial. Burnham seemingly wishes to maintain a system of commissioning, while intending to abolish the purchaser-provider split. Burnham also seemingly wishes to support local A&E departments in not being shut down, but has as not yet stated clearly what he thinks will work better than the current amendment of the Care Bill going through parliament for NHS reconfigurations. Furthermore, Burnham in advancing ‘whole person care’, in sticking to his stated unified budgets, may have to resist seeing the merging of the non-means tested NHS being merged with the means-tested social care. This might easily lead to ‘mission creep’ with merging with welfare budgets. And this brings up a whole new issue in ‘integrated care’ which Burnham has long denied has been on the agenda: “top up payments” or “copayments”. Reducing health inequalities by tackling inequalities social determinants of health should of course be well within the grasp of a socialist-facing NHS delivered by Labour. With patient safety also, correctly, a top priority for the National Health Service, especially for how frail individuals received medical care in hospitals, Burnham has in fact five timelines to develop fast as top priorities: health inequalities, commissioning, reconfigurations, whole person care, patient safety.
The global financial crash should have given some impetus to the Marxist critique of capitalism, but it didn’t. Tony Benn said famously that, when he asked to think of an example of ‘market forces’, he would think of a homeless person sleeping in a cardboard box underneath Waterloo Bridge. Benn further pointed out that the NHS was borne out of war, where normal rules on spending went out of the window: “have you ever heard of a General saying he can’t bomb Baghdad as he’s overrun as his budget?” However, it was not the global financial crash which caused there to be far too many people who feel disenfranchised from politics. Capitalism always drives towards inequality. It also drives towards economic and political power being rested at the top. The reason why people are well off tell you it’s important to do more with less is that they have a fundamental poverty of aspiration about this country. They don’t particularly care as the most well off are getting even more well off. This is an economic recovery for the few. The economy is not going to grow on the back of a record people with zilch employment rights under “zero hours contracts”. The economy is not going to grow either on the back of a property-boom based in London, even if a sufficiently large number vote Conservative as a result of a bounce in their property prices.
What there is a risk of, however, is socialism being popular, and this of course goes beyond the follower number of a few certain individuals on Twitter. Across a number of decades, particularly in Sweden and Cuba, we’ve been able to learn good lessons about what has happened in the worlds of communism and social democracy, as a counterpoint to capitalism. Tony Benn, when asked to give an example of ‘market forces’, would always cite the person sleeping rough under Waterloo Bridge. The Labour Party, most recently, in large part to Tony Blair being ideologically being ‘of no fixed abode’, has run away from socialism, meaning narratives such as Jacky Ashley’s recent piece are consciously limp and anaemic, a self-fulfilling prophecy of utmost disappointment. There is no sense of equality, cooperation or solidarity, and these ought to be traits which are found to be at the heart of Labour’s policy. If Ed Miliband hasn’t thought of how the answer to ‘Now what?’ fulfils those aims, it’s time he had started thinking about. With this, he can not only build a political party, but build a mass movement. With people choosing to become members of unions, and there is no better time with such a naked onslaught on employment rights, the Labour movement could become highly relevant, not just to very poor working men. Labour has to move with the times too; it needs to move away from reactionary ‘identity politics’, and seek to include people it hasn’t traditionally engaged in a narrative with. This might include the large army of citizens who happen to be disabled or elderly. There is no doubt that a socialist society needs the economy to succeed; if it is really true that the UK sets to be in a dominant position in Europe by 2030, surely the media should be helping the UK perform a positive rôle as a leader. The economy involves real people, their wages, their energy bills, their employment rights, so while it is all very easy to be po-faced about “the cost of living”, or have foodbanks in your line of blindsight, Labour needs to be a fighting force for many more people who otherwise don’t feel ‘part of it’. It should be the case that a vote should buy you influence in shaping society, in as much as the way to buy influence, say in the NHS, is to become a Director of a private health multinational company. This fight against how capitalism has failed can indeed become the alternative to commercial and trade globalisation; a peaceful transition into this type of society is one which the more advanced economies like ours is more than capable of.
Where Labour has thus far been quite successful in trying to make its policies look acceptable to the wider public is courting the opposition. Many would say they have taken this too far. Labour might wish to ‘look tough on welfare’, but Labour can easily advocate employed work being paid for fairly, while being fiercely proud of a social security system which looks after the living and mobility needs of people who are disabled. A radical look at ‘working tax credits’ is possibly long overdue, but Labour will need to get out of its obsession for triangulation to do that. If Labour merely offers a ‘lighter blue’ version of the Conservatives, members of the public will be unimpressed, and boot Labour out asap. Whilst Wilson and Blair both won a number of periods of government, the jury is out especially with what Blair achieved in reality aside from the national minimum wage (which was only achieved with the help of the unions). Many people feel that privatisation was a continuous narrative under Labour as it had been for the Conservatives, and many Labour voters feel intrinsically disgusted at the thought of Tony Blair being Margaret Thatcher’s greatest achievement. People instead of being liberalised by markets have now become enslaved by them. Across a number of sectors, there are only a handful of competitors who are able to rig the prices lawfully between them. The consumer always loses out, and the shareholders with minimal risk receive record profits year-on-year. Of course, rejection of privatisation does not necessarily mean nationalisation, in the same way that decriminalisation of illegal drugs does not necessarily mean legalisation. But it cannot be ignored that some degree of State ownership is a hugely popular idea, such as for the NHS, Royal Mail and banks. Where Ed Miliband might be constructively compared to Fidel Castro (in the days when things were going well for Castro) is that Miliband can set out a vision for a sufficient long period of time for people to become attracted to it (not disenfranchised by it). Thatcher, for all her numerous faults, was very clear about what she intended to achieve. As Tony Benn put it, she was not a “weather vane” but a “Weather cock which is set in a direction… it just happened that I totally disagreed with the direction which she set.”
I think Ed Miliband will surprise people, exactly as he has done so far, in winning the general election on May 8th 2015. I also feel that he will surprise people by having answers to the “And then what?” bit too.
'2011 will be a year of consequences for Britain' by Ed Miliband MP
By Ed Miliband MP / @Ed_Miliband
In 2011, thousands of our bravest men and women will continue to serve far from home in Afghanistan with the highest commitment and dedication. My thoughts are with them and their families at this New Year.
Here at home, 2011 will be a year of consequences for Britain. Consequences that will be felt by hardworking families across the country. Consequences of the decision taken to reduce the deficit at what I believe to be an irresponsible pace and scale.
Many people feel powerless in the face of these decisions that will affect their lives, families and communities. The political forces in Whitehall which have made these choices appear forbidding and unheeding.
It is the message I get talking to young people about the loss of their educational maintenance allowances and trebling of tuition fees, people in different areas worried about their services and those wondering where the new jobs to replace those lost are going to come from.
In 2011, many people will wonder what they can do. Some will ask whether there really is an alternative to this scale of cuts. Still more will shrug their shoulders at casually broken promises and conclude politicians are indeed all the same.
Labour’s challenge and duty in 2011 is to be people’s voice in tough times and show that these are changes born of political choice by those in power not necessity.
And we will take the next steps on the journey to win people’s trust that we offer a better, more optimistic future for Britain.
To do that will require learning from what we did right and wrong in government, strong opposition where it is required and laying the foundations for an alternative path for Britain.
I began my leadership by admitting that in government, we had lost touch and lost trust and that we needed to change to be the party that Britain needs. I saw it on the doorstep at the 2010 General Election and I know it can’t be put right automatically.
It is why our journey to construct a better future for Britain must start from people’s lives and their hopes and dreams. And we must change our party so that it becomes a genuine community force in every part of the country.
People also need our voice now.
So in 2011, we will be arguing for a proper economic strategy rather than an economic policy reduced only to deficit reduction. We would have made cuts but the scale, pace and targeting of these changes is not just wrong, it holds us back from answering the bigger economic challenges we face: about where the jobs of the future are going to come from and how can we create an economy which works for all.
We will stand up for young people because the promise of progress should be that the next generation does better than the last. That is not what young people feel is being delivered when they face the burden of tens of thousands of pounds of student debt, or are told there will be no more help to stay on at school or college or to find a job.
And we will expose the promise of new politics when it is simply about the breaking of promises in 2011 that were made in 2010.
And as we begin a New Year, I call on all people of other parties and none who share our values and worry about the direction of the country under this government to work with us.
I said in my Labour Party Conference speech that I have never believed that all wisdom resides in one political party. That is why I want to reach out to all other forces of progress in Britain.
To those who feel that politics as it is being practised is high-handed, remote and arbitrary, I also urge them to campaign and work with us. Decisions over school sport and in recent days, bookstart, were reversed because of the power of people arguing and winning their case.
It shows that political change comes because people make it happen.
2011 will be a year where we work to change Labour and seek to rebuild trust in us and in politics as a force for good.
Even in these tough times, we must keep the flame of optimism burning.
I sincerely believe that we can build a better future for Britain. That means closing the gap between people’s aspirations and their chances of fulfilling them, being a society where we look after each other and meeting the promise that the next generation does better than the last.
That is our mission as a party which we will pursue next year and in the years ahead.
This post was originally published in Labour List.
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Shibley Rahman on Ed Miliband's Labour
Ed Miliband’s Labour has to move beyond New Labour and commit to changes in policy and organisation as profound as those introduced by Tony Blair in 1994.
I would like to see 50p tax rate remain for those earning more than £150,000 – I would like to see it permanent, especially in this age of austerity, as a way of creating greater equality in Britain. When I met Ed Miliband for the first time in his primary school at Haverstock Hill, I had a photograph taken with him. During this smile, I said to him, “Did you know that in Tony Blair’s “The Journey”, the words inequality and poverty don’t appear once in the index?” He continued smiling, in a way that reminded me of my first ever supervisor at Cambridge, Prof Simon Baron-Cohen, and grinned, “No, really!” Labour has to be much stronger on issues of inequality and poverty, to regain the moral ground. It needs to win the hearts of England, let alone Middle England, and the legacy of an increasing inequality gap in Britain is one which I am deeply ashamed of as a English Labour member. The people who are described as the ‘wealth creators’ are also the people making money out of speculating on money inter alia, creating nothing of any artistic or scientific merit for this country, and to a large extent created the mess that the poor are now paying for. This is truly obscene. Actually, it was at this point I decided that I would vote for Ed Miliband as leader of my Party.
A policy review will be conducted including commissioned work by independent thinktanks and studies by each shadow cabinet member on the issues in their field. Ed Miliband is starting with new policies, but the same values. This is brilliant news – as it to some extent obviates the inefficient and ineffective policy formation groups of the antiquated Labour machinery. As a member of the Fabian Society, Progress and Compass, I warmly embrace this challenge, as we build our new policies addressing people’s aspirations, but recognizing that their expectations and hopes are threatened by insecurities. These insecurities are across a diverse areas of society issues, including housing, immigration, of course, the public services, the bedrock of Britain, what makes Britain special, and the heart of Britain’s infrastructure.
The changes proposed by Ed Miliband will indeed be substantial as the world itself has changed massively, and Labour did not change massively. I believe strongly it needs to have a clear idea as to whether it agrees with the commodification and marketisation of British life at all. David Cameron despite enormous backing patently did not win the last general election because he didn’t undertake the profound change he needed. What he has performed is a hatchet salvage operation, which does nothing to paper over the cracks surrounding Europe, for one. I am not even convinced that New Labour was in the right place at the right time even then, apart from being an antedote to Margaret Thatcher. Labour has indeed embarked on an intellectual and practical journey, but every long journey has to start with its smallest initial steps.
Ed Miliband furthermore says he does not want union levy payers disenfranchised from the Labour party elections, but is happy to look at how the relationship could be reformed. He once said publicly in a meeting which I attended that he didn’t want the Union to be seen as Labour’s evil uncle that we needed to lock in the attack whenever visited. The reasoning for this is clear – you don’t have to be a member of Labour to be a member of a Union, Labour was born out of the Unions and we have a proud history together, and the Unions represent the part of the business and industry that is interested in ethical action, not necessarily shareholder profit at all costs.
I will be supporting him all the way. Ed Miliband is full of surprises, and there’s a remarkable combination of focus and unpredictability in him I very much respect.
Dr Shibley Rahman Queen’s Scholar BA MA MB BChir MRCP(UK) PhD FRSA LLB(Hons)
Ed Miliband's speech to the Scottish Labour Party
Can I begin by thanking you for the support and unity you have shown since I became leader.
As we approach Remembrance Sunday let me start by paying tribute to all our troops serving in Afghanistan including those from Scotland.
We owe them and thier families an enormous debt of gratitude for their bravery and commitment.
Let me say how good it is to be working alongside Iain Gray.
Iain has led this party in Scotland with a sense of values and purpose.
He has helped rebuild Labour in Scotland and helped the party regain the trust of the public.
I look forward to working with him and you to make sure he is the next First Minister of Scotland.
And I want to thank yo u all for the tremendous result you achieved in Scotland at the General Election.
Let us pay tribute to the great Scottish wins of 2010.
We won seats where the media had written us off.
Like Edinburgh South – and let us pay tribute to Ian Murray MP for his victory.
We won seats back from the SNP and Liberal Democrats.
Glasgow East – and let us applaud the absolute determination and relentless campaigning of Margaret Curran MP.
And Dunfermline and West Fife – let us congratulate Thomas Docherty MP for taking that seat back.
We increased our majority in once marginal seats.
Like East Renfrewshire which has gone from being the safest Tory seat in Scotland to a seat where Labour wins half the vote because of our brilliant former Scottish Secretary, now the Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy.
And let me also say that I will be supporting the Scottish election campaign with Jim’s excellent successor – a woman with grit and determination, Ann McKechin.
In fact, we have a record number of women in the Shadow Cabinet.
And I can tell this Conference I won’t rest until we have true gender equality in our party.
And let me pay tribute to the best fighter for gender equality and equality in every sense that our party has – our fantastic deputy leader Harriet Harman.
Let me also thank our formidable Scottish General Secretary, Colin Smyth and his team for the work they do and the dedication they show.
And I want to acknowledge the excellent work of our councillors all across this country.
We must make sure that as well as winning the Scottish elections in 2011, we also win back control of councils across Scotland in 2012.
Coming back to Scotland reminds me of the many occasions I have come here with the person I worked with for a number of years – Gordon Brown.
He taught me many things about Scotland and about politics.
It was my privil ege to work with him to help win those first Scottish Parliament elections.
He has an incredible legacy: he improved the lives of millions of people here and around the world.
I am proud to call him my friend. We should pay tribute today to Gordon Brown for his leadership of our party and our country.
I remember visiting Gordon at his home in Fife and looking over the River Forth where my father served in the Royal Navy during the war.
Along with my mum, he came as a refugee from the Nazis and built a life here.
It was his values – it is my mum’s values – that explain why I am standing on this stage today.
They taught me some basic principles: most of all, a sense of optimism that politics, that people can change our society and be a force for good.
Fundamentally this is an optimism about people acting together, and their ability to change the society in which we live.
The belief that injustice, unfairness, inequality are not immovable facts.
Our world can be what we make of it not simply what we inherit.
That is what I was taught as I grew up.
That is my family’s experience; that is their story.
That too is our story as a labour movement.
It is a story that echoes down the ages.
Keir Hardie believed that getting representation for workers in Parliament could make a difference to the lives of working people.
And it did.
Clement Attlee in the economic ruins of the Second World War had the optimism to believe that we could build a National Health Service.
And he did.
And this month, we mark the 10th anniversary of the death of someone who fought long and hard for a Scottish Parliament, for a voice for the people of Scotland within the United Kingdom, and had the vision to believe it was possible.
And it was.
The man to whom the Scottish Parliament is a living memorial – Donald Dewar.
What ties together all of these struggles is a belief in human progress: that the forces of optimism can defeat the forces of pessimism that would say things cannot change.
What is the nature of this optimism?
It is about acting together so that we can change the world.
But it is about more than that.
It is about a view of human nature which says that we do care about ourselves and our families, but we also recognise that the interests of each of us is served by the flourishing of all of us.
And that politics at its best can unlock new possibilities for our world.
And what about those forces of pessimism?
They tell us that a belief that our world can change is a flight of fancy: unfairness, inequality are facts of life.
That people are best left on their own, and that government is normally the problem not the solution.
And the best thing politics can do, they say is get out of the way.
I’m afraid that is today’s Conservative Pa rty. That is David Cameron.
The fundamental difference between the optimists and the pessimists is that they believe that the greatness of a country lies merely in individual acts.
Whereas we understand that greatness lies in what we achieve as individuals and what we achieve together.
Each generation is called to this fight.
And so as we think about how we rebuild as a party after what was a bad general election defeat, let us be true to who we are.
What is the character of the party I intend to lead?
Let it be true to our values of fairness, prosperity, aspiration and justice – the values that brought me into this party – and you.
As Donald Dewar said of John Smith: “He knew politics was the art of the possible, but on the great principles he would not give ground.”
Let us understand the reasons we lost power across the United Kingdom and show humility: because we lost touch and because people lost a sense of what we st ood for and whose side we were on.
Let us always remember that we had great leaders who held power but too many great leaders who never did: there is no role for this party as one of protest; we must be a party of government again.
Let us ensure that the new generation embraces and responds to the new issues that people face in their lives: from aging to immigration to climate change.
And let us be a movement not a fan club: debating issues, reaching out to the community beyond our own party, linked to the trade unions and all of civil society and above all, a party that people want to join because of our ideals.
In this way, let us fight for optimism in our time.
This task starts with our economy and the financial crisis and the lessons we draw from it.
The pessimists want to tell you that the problem of the financial crisis was government.
That somehow a crisis that began with financial markets out of control should be seen as a cris is of government’s making.
That is why they have spent the last five months telling you that all the problems we now face are Labour’s fault.
Conference, we must stand up for the truth.
We know the story and we must tell it like it is.
There was a global financial crisis affecting every country and every country is having to cope with the consequences.
Remember, our government paid down the debt before the crisis hit.
At the same time we were investing in the schools, the hospitals, the infrastructure which had suffered chronic under-investment under the previous Conservative government.
I remember it – I went to school in the 1980s.
Conference, we didn’t just fix the roof, we built the schools.
And we didn’t just cut the waiting lists, we built the hospitals.
And we didn’t just do it when the sun was shining either, we did it all year round.
My partner is due to have our second child… any mi nute now actually.
She will do so in a brand new NHS hospital.
It was us, the optimists, that won the argument for the investment in that hospital and made it possible.
Conference, we should all be proud of this record and we should stand up for it – because it made Britain stronger and fairer.
But why did the deficit go up so much?
Not because of this investment.
But because we lost 6% of our economy due to the global financial crisis.
Because Alistair and Gordon used the power of government to stop recession becoming depression and stopped people losing their jobs, homes and savings.
That’s why the deficit rose and we should fight back against the Tory deceit.
The pessimists are trying to rewrite history.
Why? Because they don’t believe in the role of government.
They’re hoping that if they win the argument about the past, they can win the argument about the future.
What is our responsibili ty as the optimists?
To learn the right lessons of history.
That markets unchecked and unfettered in finance can spiral out of control and must instead be regulated.
That we can’t have an economy based on one type of industry. We need to lead in all of the industries of tomorrow – from bio-tech to creative industries to green manufacturing.
And we must learn the lesson that a more unequal economy is a more unstable economy.
If we don’t properly reward lower and middle-income families, they will rely on ever-increasing personal debt.
And if those at the top feel there are one-way bets worth millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of pounds, they will gamble without responsibility.
We should never let that happen again and have ordinary families paying the price.
The flaw in their plan is this, if we reduce our economic policy simply to deficit reduction, we will not build the strong economy of the future.
Of course we need to reduce the deficit.
Everybody in this room agrees about that and we would have halved it over four years if we had been in government.
We would have made some tough decisions and no doubt some unpopular ones too.
But I have to tell you this: I believe they’ve got it wrong in the pace and scale of deficit reduction.
They’ve got it wrong because they have no plan for jobs and growth.
And they have no plan for fairness either.
Their cuts will mean half a million jobs lost in the public sector over the coming years.
A similar number in the private sector.
One million jobs lost—that’s their plan.
And how will they replace them? By hoping that things turn out OK and that the private sector fills the gap.
The Tories say we want recession or indeed that we are predicting it.
We’re not and it’s nonsense for them to pretend we are.
But there’s no plan to make growth happen and n o plan if things go wrong.
And what do they offer those people who have lost their jobs?
They say wait and see, fingers crossed.
We remember Conference the effects of unemployment which scarred communities for generations here in Scotland and all over the UK.
We have a fundamentally different view about what our economy can achieve for people and how to make it so.
We need to reform our financial system.
We need to invest in the industries of the future. We need to use the power of govt procurement to promote British businesses and we need to provide people with the skills they need.
And we say unemployment is never a price worth paying.
We say never again.
And we have a different view about society as well.
The Tories used to say that there’s no such thing as society
Now they claim they’ve wised up… now they offer something you may have heard of… the big society.
They praise the special cons table, the parent/teacher council, the tenants association, the local charity.
They say they want more of it.
But Conference, what does it really amount to?
They think if government gets out of the way, the big society will miraculously spring up.
They fail to learn the lessons of history.
Today we have more voluntary organisations than ever before in Britain; more people working in the sector than ever before; and the sector’s income is double what it was when we came to office.
Not because government got out of the way but because it supported and encouraged this important part of civil society.
I saw as minister for charities the amazing work that is being done by the voluntary sector but it was based on a vital partnership between the state and citizens.
And what happens now when budgets are being so savagely cut?
When the local day centre closes, it destroys the services on which elderly people depend.
When the local library reduces its hours, it destroys the place at which people come together.
And when people are worried sick about losing the roof over their head and moving their children to another school, how they can be active in the parent/teacher council?
And do you know what has been revealed about this government since the Spending review last week:
It’s not just economically wrong,
It’s not just unfair,
It is grossly incompetent.
And we all know it is families and children who will pay the price.
They announced a child benefit policy which is unfair and now apparently unworkable.
It’s a complete shambles.
Next came a Housing Benefit policy that their own Mayor of London detests.
Why is it fair for someone who has been doing the right thing… who’s been looking for work for a year… to lose 10% of the help with their rent?
Don’t they get it? If you drive up homelessness, families end up in bed and breakfasts, and that costs more.
Why are they showing this incompetence?
Because of ideology – they came into politics to make these cuts;
Because they’re out of touch – they don’t understand the lives and experiences of ordinary people;
And because they’ve made bad decisions in haste and stubbornly refuse to change.
A week from Tuesday we will force a vote in the House of Commons on Housing Benefit.
Our appeal is to all MPs of conscience:
Join us, vote against these unfair and unworkable changes and force the government to think again.
And there will be no better person to lead our attack than my friend of nearly 20 years, someone who really did come into politics to help the poorest in society, our Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Douglas Alexander.
The big society is one big figleaf for an old pessimistic idea: that people do better on their own.
The optimists have a different view of socie ty and the state.
We know – and this is a hard lesson – that government can be overbearing. We know the importance, particularly in the years ahead, of getting more for the money the state spends.
But we also know that the right and the best kind of government can support people to take control of their own lives.
When I visited the Wellhouse project in Easterhouse with Margaret Curran, I saw the difference that it was making to people: improving the health of young and old people, helping tenants have a real say in housing decisions and a fantastic community centre.
We understand that the good children’s centre enables families to go out to work and form bonds with others.
Good neighbourhood policing provides the reassurance and the security that is the foundation for communities to thrive.
And many of the best voluntary organisations have a mix of paid staff and volunteers.
Ours is a view about the good society where we support each other.
Let me tell you also what we understand: the good society depends on the fair economy.
If you are holding down two jobs, working fourteen hour days, worrying about childcare, anxious about elderly relatives, how can you find the time for anything else?
That’s why we need an economy which lifts people out of poverty and supports not just a minimum wage but a decent living wage.
Until we address the conditions that mean that people’s lives are dominated by long hours, then the big society will always remain a fiction.
And I tell you this also: we know the divided society cannot be the good society.
We know that from the 1980s: the last big experiment in the retreat of government.
We know that every major city across the country lost out: economically weakened, socially divided and here in Scotland it took almost twenty years to fully recover.
Two decades on, we know that economic regeneration and social improvem ent have happened together.
And we know the dangers of going backwards.
Mr Cameron by your deeds not your words shall we know you.
There’s no point in saying you believe in the big society, if by your actions you undermine and weaken the very fabric of our communities.
But let us be the party who always stand for giving our citizens greater control over their own lives
And what greater example is there of us giving people more control than devolution.
The Scottish Parliament is one of our proudest achievements.
When Scottish Labour led the government, it pioneered historic firsts:
Free bus travel for the elderly;
Land reform;
The smoking ban.
And again at these elections ahead of us in May, as Iain will set out tomorrow, it will be Scottish Labour leading the way.
Let me say something about Iain’s leadership.
He learnt the lessons of why we lost power in Scotland.
He’s shown h ow to reconnect with people’s lives and hopes.
He has shown that values must drive everything we do.
That is why his campaigns on school standards, safer streets and apprenticeships speak to who we are and who we represent.
And what is the alternative?
If there is one lesson that the economic crisis teaches us, it is that we are stronger together and weaker apart.
The collective resources of Britain, the tens of billions of pounds that we invested to protect people’s savings and homes was only possible because we are one United Kingdom.
Where would each of us have been on our own? Scotland, Wales, England, Northern Ireland.
Let’s face it: across the world, the debate has changed since the financial crisis.
And who is left behind? The Scottish National Party.
As problems become more global, the solutions need to be global too.
As the climate change secretary, I saw the impact that Britain could have when we worked together.
We may be 2% of global emissions but we punch above our weight.
Does anyone really think any one of us would have more influence on the climate change debate if we went our separate ways?
Narrow nationalism has nothing to offer the challenges of the 21st century.
While we’re fighting for jobs and hope, they are fighting to break up Britain.
They claim that an independence referendum is a referendum on jobs.
Let us make next May’s election a referendum on the job they have done for the people of Scotland.
Never has a party promised so much and delivered so little…
Like their broken promises on class sizes, student debt and support for first time buyers.
They have let down the people of Scotland. And Scotland deserves better.
And what about the Lib Dems?
What did they used to say?
The progressive alternative to Labour.
It has taken Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander just five short months to undermine 150 years of the Liberal tradition.
Remember what they said: Vote for us to keep the Tories out.
Have they no shame?
Now they have become the cheerleaders for the worst things the Tory government does.
The VAT rise? Send out a Lib Dem.
Child benefit cut? Put up a Lib Dem.
Housing benefit slashed? Get me a Lib Dem.
No wonder Nick Clegg is choosing his desert island discs.
And let’s make sure that coming soon to an election near you is a new hit series:
I’m a Liberal Democrat, get me out of here.
And as they face the prospect of electoral meltdown, what do they do?
They try to rig our electoral boundaries.
Get this, the government that claims to care about localism is now saying local identity doesn’t matter when it comes to boundaries – unless you happen to be Charles Kennedy whose constituency gets a special opt-out.
We all care about endangered species in the Highlands and Islands, but we draw the line at Lib Dems.
Talking about endangered species, what about the Scottish Tories. What about them?
So we are the optimists, we are the only credible alternative to the pessimists who would damage our economy and divide our society.
But this election won’t be won simply by Iain, myself and other MP and MSP colleagues.
Everything we know from our history tells us that it is people that change the world.
This will be a doorstep election, won or lost by us.
It is the hard graft, the dedication, the hours we put in that will decide this election.
It is our chance to show we are back on people’s side – optimists with the right values to change our country.
This election is critical to the people of Scotland.
Four more years of broken SNP promises or a new start under Iain Gray.
And it is a vital moment in Labour’s rebuilding across the United Kingdom.
Britain cannot afford this to be anything other than a one-term coalition.
So let the message go out.
We are ready to take our case to the people of Scotland.
We are ready to take on the pessimists.
There is an alternative.
Based on our values – an optimistic future for Scotland.
Labour’s fight back has begun.
We are ready for the fight.
Let’s fight for the people we came into politics to serve
Let’s stand up for Scotland.
Let’s fight to win.
Thank you.
Plus ça change (plus c'est la même chose)
@DAaronovitch directly challenged me as to what I felt was good at Ed’s first ever PMQs. Aaronovitch made the faultless remark that it was the same format; it was business as usual, and just an exchange of quotations and facts, and there had been indeed plus ça change (plus c’est la même chose). I can only only bow to David’s authoritative commentary on this, which, on further reflection, has always been very perceptive to me.
I was struck by the measured unpredictability of Ed Miliband. Firstly, he wrong-footed most of the punters with his choice of shadow cabinet, then he went with child benefit, when most political spectators thought he’d run with the graduate tax, which was left up to the lack-lustre Esther McVey to ask about later in the proceedings. However, the overwhelming verdict from my Labour tweeps that Ed floored David in this first exchange. Ed started with a very straight-forward question.
“How many families where 1 parent stays at home will be affected?
“15% of families are higher-rate tax-payers“. This was a total answer, and then David asked a question.
Ed reasonably replies: “I may be new to this game, but I’m afraid I ask the questions and he answers them” Ed then asks why the formulation of the system is not fair, and again David did not give an answer to it.
“I’m afraid it’s 0 out of 2 on straight answers. We must change the tone of these exchanges, but we must provide straight questions to straight answers“.
The Speaker then asked for calm in the house, but it seems that many people watching the spectacle do in fact enjoy the exchanges; they seem particularly like the new passive aggressive stance by Ed Miliband, while David Cameron was shouting and ranting his head off.
David then came up with his beleaguered, “It’s Labour’s Fault”. Only Nick Clegg seemed to find that convincing. Then he moved onto an antiquated quotation from Alan Milburn, and said, “I love this”, like a third-rate imitation of Margaret Thatcher. The problem is that not many on the Coalition’s side ‘loved it'; they just saw a leader of thee Tory party sinking without trace. Ed Miliband then returned to the point that he simply did not believe his budget reduction plan was at all fair, and again David Cameron gave a really poor performance.
It’s no surprise that all the commentators thought that David Cameron was easily beaten in this first performance, including @TimMontgomerie.
Dr Shibley Rahman
Queen’s Scholar, BA (1st.), MA, MB, BChir, PhD, MRCP(UK), LLB(Hons.), FRSA
Director of Law and Medicine Limited
Member of the Fabian Society and Associate of the Institute of Directors
Ed Miliband's New Model Army
The shadow cabinet selections certainly wrong-footed the experts. I suspect they wrong-footed most non-experts too, like me. However, I like very much Ed’s new model army, as a surprising but very astute decisive outcome. But yes – like Jack Straw – we all know the system is ‘barking mad’.
The appointment of the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer? as Alan Johnson is a very revealing one. Alan is a man of enormous political calibre, who has dealt with a diverse range of political departments in the past (including the Treasury where he indeed worked very briefly). He has come face-to-face to a large number of budgets, so handling the country’s budget will be no problem. Of course, Alan Johnson can’t pretend to know as much about economics as Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls, who were the favourites to get the Shadow Chancellor job, but I am very much hoping as a member of the Labour Party (and Fabians and Progress) that they work closely with Alan and Ed. Our most important imminent challenge is of course the comprehensive spending review on 21st October 2010. Some commentators, such as Kevin Maguire, Deputy Editor of the Mirror and contributor to the New Statesman, have queried whether this is because Ed Miliband has temerity in challenging the cuts. The overwhelming evidence, from Ireland and Japan inter alia, appears to support the notion that such drastic cuts could be very damaging to the health of the economy. However, the argument to control the budget deficit (and interest payments thereof) cannot be underestimated. The risk of depression is still very much a real one, and Alan Johnson will need to use his immense political skills to win the political and social arguments that lives are affected. As the Labour think-tanks, and the Liberal Democrats (strange bed fellows?) have warned, there is a possibility that the cuts agenda could work, and therefore Labour should consider very carefully its stance on this, especially bearing in mind an apparent stalemate of acceptance of socialism in the rest of Europe, as Claire French has recently reported on for Progress.
I am certain, notwithstanding, that Ed Balls will make a pugnacious Shadow Secretary of State for the Home Department?, and that Sadiq Khan will make a superb Shadow Lord Chancellor, Secretary of State for Justice (with responsibility for political and constitutional reform)?. I personally have been a huge fan of Sadiq, despite the massage chair debacle, and I think that, as a Muslim MP, he is somebody that people can genuinely aspire to being. He has an incredibly formidable intellect, which I must admit to having underestimated, but which I witnessed with my own eyes in Manchester last month. Likewise, John Denham will be a tour de force as the Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, as he combines intense political knowledge with hard pragmatism of politics, which appears to have resulted, from what I can see, from having taken his constituency work extremely seriously.? He also has been very helpful in advancing debate in the Fabian Society.
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There are relative unknowns such as John Healey??, the Shadow Secretary of State for Health?. I understand that he has business and economics experience, which is going to be highly relevant as Andrew Lansley brings his complicated (and emotive) arguments concerning NHS restructuring to the table. I sincerely hope that he will be more high-profile than he was in housing, but I trust the views of my senior colleagues. Finally, I am a huge fan of Andy Burnham MP. I think he was a superb Health Secretary, but as Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Election Coordinator?, he will outshine. Clearly, he was the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time for this particular contest, but he is a future Labour I feel, whilst we do have an election-winning candidate presently, and pigeon-holing him in Health was never going to be a good idea for his own political experience and credibility.
Dr Shibley Rahman (Labour/Compass/Fabian/Progress member)
