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Owen Jones’ interview reveals Owen Smith MP is dangerous for the nation’s health
I didn’t get round to looking at Owen Jones’ list of questions which every “single Corbyn supporter should answer”. That is because I don’t like on principle like arranging my activities around other people’s narratives. Secondly, medium informed me that it would take me close to half an hour to even read it.
I do feel like reading Paul Mason’s post capitalist reply at some stage. As it happens, I am not a regular viewer of Owen Jones’ material, though I’ve found his stuff quite interesting and entertaining; catch his interview with Clive Lewis MP or the singer called Palomo if you can?
When the Socialist Health Association ‘came out’ in support of Owen Smith MP, I was trolled endlessly. Parking aside that the first poll this year had been done in a hurry and had been beset with shilling for the Smith camp, I spent two years recently actually on the Central Council of the national Socialist Health Association. A stereotypical ‘male, pale and stale’ force of true magnificence, I was utterly underwhelmed by the sheer incompetence and manner of its members. I have no idea why I stuck with it for so long, given they utterly failed to oppose the pivotal clause of the Health and Social Care Act (section 75 which turbo-boosted outsourcing and privatisation). They had previously been utterly pathetic in their opposition to PFI. So people I’d never heard of took exception to my remark that they’re a professional body of Blairite shills. All blocked.
I still quite like Owen Smith MP. I have not had an alcoholic drink since my cardiac arrest in 2007, but Owen is a guy I would enjoy having a non-alcoholic beverage with though probably not in a Pontypridd pub. I ‘got’ his justification of why working for Pfizer might indeed be useful for his political makeup. After I became physically disabled in 2007, I spent a few years working for and successfully graduating in my Master degrees in international corporate law and business administration, which gave me terrific insights into the bullying ethos of multinational corporates as well as the pivotal nature of employment rights. OK, so Owen once called PFI an ‘ideological nuance’, but it is clear that he has subsequently discovered that this represented extremely poor value for money for the taxpayer. He referred to the halyçon era in New Labour right at the very start when New Labour sought to rebuild crumbling buildings and to clear backlogs in waiting lists, and credit where credit is due the New Deal and Alan Milburn MP (before Milburn overreacted himself) were initial successes of a previous Labour government. But the policy went wrong as well know – with the introduction of the purchaser-provider split, costs of the internal market’s introduction, PFI, Mid Staffs and subsequent disasters.
I do take massive exception to Owen’s interpretation for where we now are in NHS policy, as revealed in his interview with the other Owen. I don’t think this is founded in malice, however, but in sheer ignorance. One of his criticisms was allowing the ‘fallacy’ to emerge that Labour had effectively started this policy, and the Conservatives merely continued it. This is by no means a fallacy. The legislation of the late 2000s and government policy meant that Labour put in place the infrastructure for the transfer of assets from the State to the private sector. There was no ‘big bang’ as in an initial public offering. But the atomisation of the NHS into Foundation Trusts, ripe for subsequent privatisation, was a crucial part of the overall game plan which had begun with full gusto following the publication of the Adam Smith document, “The Health of the Nations”. Key statutory instruments giving effect to these policy planks were the National Health Service Act 2006 and the Public Contracts Regulations 2006. At the time, it is an open secret that Lord Warner had put out an advert for international corporates to help with management of the NHS, whilst Tony Blair was seeking the EU presidency. Harmonising the NHS with a competitive internal market of the EU was therefore no accident.
Where Owen happens to be bang on the money, pardon the pun, notwithstanding, is his criticism of the criticism that the NHS is ‘unsustainable’ whereas the deficits merely show that the NHS is grossly underfunded. As Owen alludes to, these are classic instruments of privatisation, as described by Noam Chomsky, where you strip public services of adequate resources meaning that the private sector ‘has to save the day’. But Owen fails on the own standards he sets regarding the failure of the 2015 Miliband general election campaign: that Labour set out a series of problems, but ultimately no sunny uplands, or no vision. Owen doesn’t want to talk about the need for funding the NHS out of general taxation, having identified the problem, in much the same way he skirts around the funding of his “new deal” apart of general ‘borrowing’. One suspects Owen is frightened of putting off floating Conservative voters, even though he has previously produced the cognitively dissonant argument that he would bring back the 50p rate of tax.
This absence of Owen, albeit not referred to by the other Owen, is remarkable. But the critical mistake of Owen is his airbrushing of social care from the entire scene, compounded further in his lack of mention of social care when referring to the needs of the elderly. It is a flagship Corbyn policy to tackle years of underinvestment in social care; social care funding in England and Wales has been on its knees since not being ringfenced in 2010. The extreme pressures on the social care system has been a major reason, but not the entire reason, why many patients acutely admitted to hospitals are not able to leave hospital in a timely way. There are other reasons of course, such as the gross underfunding of intermediate care. The vision that Owen needs to offer is an integrated health and social care system, a whole system which is able to cater for patients and users being seen in the right place, right way and right time.
At first, it might seem baffling why Owen has been put forward as the ‘competent version of Corbyn’ candidate. I still feel that his election as Labour leader would be disastrous for Labour in the long term, as it would set the foundations for an even worse Conservative government in future. But watching the Owen versus Owen YouTube video in full last night, it is clear to me at last that the parliamentary Labour Party has shafted Eagle to stump up Smith to try to get some morsels of Tory-Labour marginals. This is why many in the grassroots membership of Labour, particularly those attending Corbyn ‘rallies’ in Liverpool or Leeds, will find his talk about employment rights, social housing or privatisation a paler imitation of the Corbyn McDonnell show. But this would explain why for example Bradshaw, Reed, Streeting and Malhotra are frothing at the mouth, launching snide, nasty, vitriolic attacks on a man who was merely elected only nine months ago. People like me who are not Corbyn supporters, but longstanding Labour members (I’m 42 now), like Jeremy Corbyn’s policies as we feel there is where Labour ought to be, on opposing cuts in disability welfare, in strengthening employment rights, in fighting NHS opposition, in resurrecting social care, in getting rid of PFI, in tackling aggressive tax avoidance, and so on. Of course, this won’t please Tory-Labour marginals in a way which will favour those sitting Labour MPs. But if such Labour MPs are simply unable to support official party policy as set by the leadership and membership, it might be better for some more suitable candidates to ‘have a go’. I think the more burning issue is in fact Scotland, and I don’t think Labour has a hope in hell of reversing the 2015 annihilation (for them). But I think if some core Labour voters return, including some #Brexiters, perhaps even in the North of England, Labour-SNP could find itself in coalition without some of the offensive obnoxious current Labour MPs. Caroline Lucas MP has already indicated that she supports some form of NHS reinstatement. And why would this better than Miliband-Sturgeon?
This is because Corbyn unlike Miliband is able to articulate socialist values – unlike Ed Miliband, Jeremy Corbyn is a strong leader.
A triumph of optimism defeats cynicism as the Darlo Mums arrive in Trafalgar Square
The stench of sleaze from the backdoor lobbying culminating in the Health and Social Care Act (2012) was unable to overcome the sheer sense of euphoria and triumph of optimism defeating cynicism yesterday. Yesterday was history in the making, as all political parties were put on notice:
“Whose NHS is it? It’s our NHS”.
Whilst numerous governments have elaborated at length about the politics of ownership of public services, the message from the crowd of five thousand or so, within hearing distance of the Houses of Parliament, was loud and clear.
Many famous Labour members of parliament could be seen watching proceedings as the afternoon progressed, including Diane Abbot, Clive Efford, Jeremy Corbyn, Sadiq Khan, as pictured here.
It was a very sunny day here in Central London. There was a charged sense of energy, optimism and solidarity as about five thousand people attended a pro-NHS rally in Trafalgar Square, the culmination of a 300-mile march organised by a group of mothers from County Durham.
The group from Darlington, the Darlo Mums, are opposingthe privatisation of the NHS. It was very emotional when Rehana Azam announced the names of the Darlo Mums, “the most amazing people I’ve just spent the last three weeks with.”
The warmth of the #999CallfortheNHS campaign was evident throughout the whole afternoon. The event was immaculately organised, and was a thoroughly enjoyable event for all.
About 30 people had taken three weeks to march the full 300 miles from Jarrow in South Tyneside, organisers said.
Darlo Mums founder Joanna Adams said: “It’s been magic really. You only have to look over there [at the protesters gathered] to see people are behind the NHS and support what we’re saying. Joanna Adams described the mums as “ordinary”, but I beg to differ – they are entirely extraordinary in my opinion.
Andy Burnham MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Health, broke off all prior arrangements to attend, emphasising the indecency that would have occurred had he not come to represent the political party which had legislated for the birth of the NHS in 1945. Burnham’s speech was equally positive and optimistic about the future, speaking of the need to remedy public over privatisation, integration over fragmentation, people before profit, and collaboration over competition. Again, as is usual for Burnham who has great political gravitas, there was a sense of the current Government simply treading water in office until a person with substantial experience resumes office once again.
Burnham emphasised yet again that an incoming Labour government will repeal the Health and Social Care Act (2012) in its first Queen Speech, and said that it would then negotiate the UK out of TTIP, the transatlantic US-EU free trade treaty. Currently discussions are held in secret.
Sadiq Khan MP said the #Darlomums were the best England have had since 1966. As the MP for Tooting, Khan has been an ideal position to witness the effect the NHS changes have had on the nation’s capital.
Clive Efford MP described his Private Member’s Bill to repeal the damaging competition rules that the Tory-led Government inflicted on the NHS in its Health and Social Care Act 2012. The speech was very well received.
Even Dr Clive Peedell, Co-Chair of the NHS Action Party, called Andy Burnham’s speech “great”, having run 66 km himself to be there. It was announced that Dr Louise Irvine, an inner city GP and BMA council member, would be standing against Jeremy Hunt MP in the South West Surrey seat. Dr Peedell has of course seen at first hand the impact his specialty (oncology) has had on national politics, in the case of Aysha King.
And in the court of public opinion, according to the Daily Mirror last night, Dr Irvine was significantly more popular than Jeremy Hunt. We do know, of course, that the Daily Mirror do not comprise natural friends of Jeremy Hunt.
‘We keep on being told the NHS is unaffordable. THAT IS A LIE.”, said Rufus Hound. This lie has of course been one of the most powerful tools of the media who have called the consistent underfunding of services “unsustainable”.
Billy Bragg warned against blaming all cynicism on what one read in the media, saying that much cynicism was in people’s hearts – and this remained an obstacle for change.
Rehana Azam, as one of the marchers, NHS campaigner and leading light in GMB, and working mum, was one of the stars of yesterday’s event, explaining the necessary steps to get the NHS back on track.
Andy Slaughter, MP for Hammersmith and Fulham, recounted the demolition of his local NHS services, whilst Grahame Morris gave his account, as MP for Easington, of the fight against the Tories to protect the NHS. Andy Slaughter of course has a huge following in West London, and one of the key organisers of yesterday’s event Jos Bell was obviously pleased with the success of the event together with Andy Slaughter.
And finally, Question Musiq explained how he owes his life to the fast action of the Lewisham Hospital A&E in diagnosing his burst appendix, and performed his catchy rap song. Proceeds go to the Lewisham campaign.
A huge well done to everyone! A truly inspiring and memorable event.
Photos from the event
Spoonies: the demonization of the disabled class
A ‘spoonie’ is possibly as well known a term as ‘chav’. A spoonie is someone living with a chronic illness. The word is apparently derived from The Spoon Theory written by Christine Miserandino. And why demonisation? Well, whilst not in the terms of reference of the Leveson Report published tomorrow, we can all think of examples of how parts of the media have embraced the ‘scrounger’ rhetoric when referring to any disabled citizen, and the tragic spike in hate crimes in the UK. Owen Jones’ ‘Chavs: the demonization of the working class’, most agree, is a remarkable piece of work, and the treatment of people with chronic illnesses in UK society is for me an interesting one. I only became physically disabled in my adult life, due to acute bacterial meningitis, having spent six weeks in a coma on the ITU of a London Foundation Trust. I have therefore witnessed simple changes in attitudes to me as a person, having been both physically able and physically disabled in my early adult life. I was aghast last Friday that, despite satisfying the legal definition of disability in the UK, I was denied disability living allowance, having in fact received the highest rate for my visible mobility difficulties. I was more aghast, however, that the DWP summary of my disability bore absolutely no relation to my account of it, nor the independent account provided by my own General Practitioner.
There are, apparently, over 6.9 million disabled people of working age which represents 19% of the working population. There are over 10 million disabled people in Britain, of whom 5 million are over state pension age, and there are two million people with sight problems in the UK. The work capability assessment (WCA) tests for the DWP are not cheap – they cost more than £100m of public money each year. However, after several years with the test in place, it is clear that the experience of some of those tested is yet another example of an omnishambles. Most people agree that we need to focus not on what disabled people can’t do but what they can do. That’s why the idea of a WCA is one most people support, and it’s why Labour introduced it in Government. It is undoubtedly important that sickness benefit claimants be assessed to demonstrate whether or not they can work, and the benefits of work are clear too, not just to the individual’s health, social and family life, but for wider society as well.
Sue Marsh – a well known disability campaigner who has severe Crohn’s disease – once received a letter confirming she was no longer eligible for Disability Living Allowance(DLA), a payment which enables her to meet the considerable costs of care and of getting around. The whole benefits system is not fit for purpose any more. Well documented storeies include one man who suffered from heart failure and died 39 days after being declared fit for work. Stephen Hill was sent to his first Work Capability Assessment in 2010 when he gave up his job as a sandwich delivery man after being referred for tests on his heart. His wife Denise, who was with him at the assessment, said: “She checked him out. She did his blood pressure and his heart and said to see a doctor as soon as possible.” Despite the assessor telling Mr Hill to seek urgent medical advice, he was still found fit for work. In the meantime doctors had diagnosed him with heart failure. He won his appeal but he was ordered to attend another assessment. “He got a letter for another medical and I couldn’t believe it,” said Mrs Hill. “He’d got to go for a medical when he was waiting for a heart operation.” Yet he was again declared fit for work, with the assessor declaring: “Significant disability due to cardiovascular problems seems unlikely.” Mr Hill died of a heart attack five weeks later.
So what has gone wrong in the UK? Whereas the narrative for ‘Chavs’ can turn to the sequelae of the Thatcher administration, it is hard to identify a Miners’ Strike (or Oregreave) moment in the 80s for the disabled community. Britain and America are actually two countries that, in recent years, have led the world in attempting to give disabled people rights and equality. During his presidency, George Bush Senior was proud to sign the Americans with Disabilities Act while the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act has gradually transformed the lives of disabled people in the UK. It may appear on the surface that the UK and USA have nothing in common with Nazi Germany, a regime that is estimated to have killed 200,000 disabled people and forcibly sterilised twice that number. And yet something has clearly gone very wrong indeed. Liam Byrne, Shadow for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, indeed, after most concede has been a slow start for Labour, recently erupted to say:
“The nasty party is well and truly back. Lord Freud is a former investment banker and now a minister of the crown. For him of all people to compare people on benefits to corpses and likening their lives to a funeral is quite frankly disgusting. Before the summer his boss Iain Duncan Smith had the temerity to call Remploy workers idlers who did nothing better than sit around drinking coffee. He sacked over 1,000 of them and only 35 have managed to find work again. He is quite clearly a man in total denial about the pain his policies are about to cause. Shelter have begged the government to consider the ‘terrifying reality’ of the damage they are doing. Scope talk of disabled people facing a tipping point, risking poverty, debt and isolation. This government is next year about to take out billions from disability help and housing. All to pay for their catastrophic failure to get Britain back to work, and a 3 billion tax giveaway to Britain’s richest citizens. This government’s so-called welfare revolution is collapsing around its ears. The work programme isn’t working. Universal Credit has become universal chaos. Yet Lord Freud’s response is to kick people when they are down and not even pretend to offer a helping hand.
Byrne in fact mounted a passionate response to the demonisation of the disabled citizen community in the UK with Andrew Neil on ‘The Sunday Politics’, in a recent ‘Sunday interview’. When a country’s economy is not performing well, due to abject failures of that country’s economic policies, a right-wing government will tend to blame those people whom they perceive not to contribute to the wealth of this country. The fallacy of this argument is of course that bankers in the City of London are more to blame for the economic woes of the UK than working disabled citizens. (There is, of course, a minority of impressive citizens, who are disabled, working in the City in the finance and law sectors, for example.) There are currently 1.3 million disabled people in the UK who are available for and want to work. However, only half of disabled people of working age are in work (50%), compared with 80% of non disabled people, and 23% of disabled people have no qualifications compared to 9% of non disabled people. Nearly one in five people of working age (7 million, or 18.6%) in Great Britain have a disability.
Whatever the precise arguments are about the ‘economic power’ of spoonies are (and I am a spoonie), there is no doubt, strengthened in principle by the Equalities Act (2010), one of the last statutory instruments to be enacted by Labour, disabled citizens have a powerful role to play in society, even if they remain somewhat under-represented. For example, how many disabled GPs, doctors or lawyers do you know? The bitter pill which the Coalition has to swallow is, that despite all their efforts into espousing ‘happiness’, many disabled citizens are distinctly unhappy with their demonisation in recent yesars. They do have enormous political power, and even polling evidence suggests that while most individuals do not support welfare payments for people patently ‘freeloading’ off the State, they do simultaneously believe that disabled citizens should be supported for their mobility and living in a fair society. That is the problem David Cameron and Nick Clegg have to face in the short term. Iain Duncan-Smith is not a well liked person by many disabled citizens, and, if he is insistent on producing what is a complicated change in culture and functions of the benefits system, the project is definitely doomed to outright failure, due to the weakness in follower support. Whether the Coalition listen to this in the short term is a political choice, of course, but they will have absolutely no choice but to listen in June 2015. Labour has a powerful opportunity to reframe and rearticulate the debate concerning the Welfare State, and it is extremely likely that Beveridge would have been vehemently opposed to any demonisation of the disabled class.
Spoonies: the demonization of the disabled class
A ‘spoonie’ is possibly as well known a term as ‘chav’. A spoonie is someone living with a chronic illness. The word is apparently derived from The Spoon Theory written by Christine Miserandino. And why demonisation? Well, whilst not in the terms of reference of the Leveson Report published tomorrow, we can all think of examples of how parts of the media have embraced the ‘scrounger’ rhetoric when referring to any disabled citizen, and the tragic spike in hate crimes in the UK. Owen Jones’ ‘Chavs: the demonization of the working class’, most agree, is a remarkable piece of work, and the treatment of people with chronic illnesses in UK society is for me an interesting one. I only became physically disabled in my adult life, due to acute bacterial meningitis, having spent six weeks in a coma on the ITU of a London Foundation Trust. I have therefore witnessed simple changes in attitudes to me as a person, having been both physically able and physically disabled in my early adult life. I was aghast last Friday that, despite satisfying the legal definition of disability in the UK, I was denied disability living allowance, having in fact received the highest rate for my visible mobility difficulties. I was more aghast, however, that the DWP summary of my disability bore absolutely no relation to my account of it, nor the independent account provided by my own General Practitioner.
There are, apparently, over 6.9 million disabled people of working age which represents 19% of the working population. There are over 10 million disabled people in Britain, of whom 5 million are over state pension age, and there are two million people with sight problems in the UK. The work capability assessment (WCA) tests for the DWP are not cheap – they cost more than £100m of public money each year. However, after several years with the test in place, it is clear that the experience of some of those tested is yet another example of an omnishambles. Most people agree that we need to focus not on what disabled people can’t do but what they can do. That’s why the idea of a WCA is one most people support, and it’s why Labour introduced it in Government. It is undoubtedly important that sickness benefit claimants be assessed to demonstrate whether or not they can work, and the benefits of work are clear too, not just to the individual’s health, social and family life, but for wider society as well.
Sue Marsh – a well known disability campaigner who has severe Crohn’s disease – once received a letter confirming she was no longer eligible for Disability Living Allowance(DLA), a payment which enables her to meet the considerable costs of care and of getting around. The whole benefits system is not fit for purpose any more. Well documented storeies include one man who suffered from heart failure and died 39 days after being declared fit for work. Stephen Hill was sent to his first Work Capability Assessment in 2010 when he gave up his job as a sandwich delivery man after being referred for tests on his heart. His wife Denise, who was with him at the assessment, said: “She checked him out. She did his blood pressure and his heart and said to see a doctor as soon as possible.” Despite the assessor telling Mr Hill to seek urgent medical advice, he was still found fit for work. In the meantime doctors had diagnosed him with heart failure. He won his appeal but he was ordered to attend another assessment. “He got a letter for another medical and I couldn’t believe it,” said Mrs Hill. “He’d got to go for a medical when he was waiting for a heart operation.” Yet he was again declared fit for work, with the assessor declaring: “Significant disability due to cardiovascular problems seems unlikely.” Mr Hill died of a heart attack five weeks later.
So what has gone wrong in the UK? Whereas the narrative for ‘Chavs’ can turn to the sequelae of the Thatcher administration, it is hard to identify a Miners’ Strike (or Oregreave) moment in the 80s for the disabled community. Britain and America are actually two countries that, in recent years, have led the world in attempting to give disabled people rights and equality. During his presidency, George Bush Senior was proud to sign the Americans with Disabilities Act while the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act has gradually transformed the lives of disabled people in the UK. It may appear on the surface that the UK and USA have nothing in common with Nazi Germany, a regime that is estimated to have killed 200,000 disabled people and forcibly sterilised twice that number. And yet something has clearly gone very wrong indeed. Liam Byrne, Shadow for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, indeed, after most concede has been a slow start for Labour, recently erupted to say:
“The nasty party is well and truly back. Lord Freud is a former investment banker and now a minister of the crown. For him of all people to compare people on benefits to corpses and likening their lives to a funeral is quite frankly disgusting. Before the summer his boss Iain Duncan Smith had the temerity to call Remploy workers idlers who did nothing better than sit around drinking coffee. He sacked over 1,000 of them and only 35 have managed to find work again. He is quite clearly a man in total denial about the pain his policies are about to cause. Shelter have begged the government to consider the ‘terrifying reality’ of the damage they are doing. Scope talk of disabled people facing a tipping point, risking poverty, debt and isolation. This government is next year about to take out billions from disability help and housing. All to pay for their catastrophic failure to get Britain back to work, and a 3 billion tax giveaway to Britain’s richest citizens. This government’s so-called welfare revolution is collapsing around its ears. The work programme isn’t working. Universal Credit has become universal chaos. Yet Lord Freud’s response is to kick people when they are down and not even pretend to offer a helping hand.
Byrne in fact mounted a passionate response to the demonisation of the disabled citizen community in the UK with Andrew Neil on ‘The Sunday Politics’, in a recent ‘Sunday interview’. When a country’s economy is not performing well, due to abject failures of that country’s economic policies, a right-wing government will tend to blame those people whom they perceive not to contribute to the wealth of this country. The fallacy of this argument is of course that bankers in the City of London are more to blame for the economic woes of the UK than working disabled citizens. (There is, of course, a minority of impressive citizens, who are disabled, working in the City in the finance and law sectors, for example.) There are currently 1.3 million disabled people in the UK who are available for and want to work. However, only half of disabled people of working age are in work (50%), compared with 80% of non disabled people, and 23% of disabled people have no qualifications compared to 9% of non disabled people. Nearly one in five people of working age (7 million, or 18.6%) in Great Britain have a disability.
Whatever the precise arguments are about the ‘economic power’ of spoonies are (and I am a spoonie), there is no doubt, strengthened in principle by the Equalities Act (2010), one of the last statutory instruments to be enacted by Labour, disabled citizens have a powerful role to play in society, even if they remain somewhat under-represented. For example, how many disabled GPs, doctors or lawyers do you know? The bitter pill which the Coalition has to swallow is, that despite all their efforts into espousing ‘happiness’, many disabled citizens are distinctly unhappy with their demonisation in recent yesars. They do have enormous political power, and even polling evidence suggests that while most individuals do not support welfare payments for people patently ‘freeloading’ off the State, they do simultaneously believe that disabled citizens should be supported for their mobility and living in a fair society. That is the problem David Cameron and Nick Clegg have to face in the short term. Iain Duncan-Smith is not a well liked person by many disabled citizens, and, if he is insistent on producing what is a complicated change in culture and functions of the benefits system, the project is definitely doomed to outright failure, due to the weakness in follower support. Whether the Coalition listen to this in the short term is a political choice, of course, but they will have absolutely no choice but to listen in June 2015. Labour has a powerful opportunity to reframe and rearticulate the debate concerning the Welfare State, and it is extremely likely that Beveridge would have been vehemently opposed to any demonisation of the disabled class.
Owen Jones and the case for engagement at #NetrootsUK
Pervasive in yesterday’s successful #NetrootsUK day at Congress House here in London was how people could feel part of Society. Not a Big Society, just Society. Nick Clegg and David Cameron have given ‘divide-and-rule’ a whole new dimension instead, by pitting the public sector workers against the private sector, by pitting indigenous people against immigrants, by pitting younger people against older people, and by pitting the disabled population against the non-disabled population; they have not supported the unemployment and disabled, but actively sought to stigmatise them through their policies.
For Nick Clegg and David Cameron, this is particularly deceitful as they have senior experience in public relations. As Nick Cohen writes this morning in the Guardian, any Keynesian policy to reverse now the shocking decline of Britain would take years to implement, and indeed Lord Skidelsky, who is the official biographer of John Maynard Keynes, feels that Vince Cable is not a Keynesian (George Osborne is clearly not).
The case for engagement is even more compelling, when many people feel utterly disenfranchised by the Tory-led BBC. The routine news coverage of the BBC borders on a Pravda-esque approach to journalism (an image I thank James Macintyre for). Without the social media, it would have been impossible for disabled campaigners Sue Marsh (@suey2y) and Kaliya Franklin (@bendygirl) to get their messages across about the lies which the government, with the assistance of the BBC, have been spreading about disabled people, as evidenced in the Spartacus Report.
That is what made Owen Jones’ speech at the #Netroots conference so special, in my view. But it was very special for another reason. Ed Miliband, in his final hustings at Haverstock Hill Comprehensive School, poignantly warned us that we must not view the Unions as the evil uncle of Labour. What truly appalled me was to see an army of young ‘activists’ in their 20s, armed with their iPhones and Blackberries, saying that the Unions are ‘irrelevant’ to them. The Unions are in fact the largest democratic movement in the UK with over 3.5 million members. Union membership is not closed to Labour. Crucially, the Unions campaign very actively for the enforcement of rights of citizens, particularly in employment. The fact that Thompsons Solicitors, an eminent law firm, is on the ground floor of the building #Netroots was hosted in for the second year-in-a-row is a testament to that. John, who helped to organise yesterday’s event superbly in my mind, took time to explain his ‘Stop employment wrongs‘ project which he had been working on. This is incredibly relevant to members of the Society I wish to live in.
That Society, symbolised by allegations of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and a fine to banks for the #LIBOR scandal, at worst is a society driven by shareholders with only thing in mind – their shareholder dividend – is utterly galling. Yes, maybe I’d like a stop to the ‘something for nothing society’ – maybe the Tory-led BBC would like to launch a campaign on millionaires in the cabinet paying more tax on their dividends, as strictly speaking that is income rather than wealth for the economic moral-purists.
Owen’s talk in full which I recorded from the front row yesterday afternoon
