Diplomacy not bombs!

It looks like the British public are being softened up for yet another foreign war (Hammond seeks to win support for widening air strikes against Isis in Syria,22/07/15). We had the political input on Monday from May and Cameron , and now the Foreign Secretary is making the military case for extending the bombimg of Isis into Syria. With "surveillance and reconnaissance" already taking place, Hammond strangely thinks it is "militarily inefficient" because when information is gathered, it has to "task another asset belonging to another coalition partner".  Provided my understanding is not being muddled by the confusing  language, handing over intelligence to another country to do the bombing sounds reasonably efficient to me.

    As Paddy Ashdown rightly says, however, the bombing "will not destroy Isis just by killing more Muslim Arabs with Western bombs" (Diplomacy not bombs will defeat Isis - the West is being sucked into sectarian conflict,22/07/15). Of course, it is obvious diplomacy has to be the first resort, especially as the usual justification given for violent jihadism is the foreign policy of the west, with its repeated invasions, interference and killing. The UK and its government should not only learn from its recent actions in the Middle East, rather than repeat the mistakes, but also remember how peace finally came to Northern Ireland.

   A prime minister hectoring young Muslims about British values does no good whatsoever, but its damage is nothing like that caused by an unnecessary increase in bombing. Parliament must resist this, and listen to Ashdown.

The right are running scared

Despite the Tories` election win and overall majority,which clearly took them by surprise, the right are running scared in this country. Proof? The hysteria being built up over the possibility of Jeremy Corby winning the Labour leadership contest, and the ridiculous details in the government`s anti-trade union bill.

    So frightened are they that Corbyn will win, because he actually promises to deliver policies the people will support, the Torygraph and the rest of the right-wing media have built up a propaganda campaign, which says that a Corbyn-led Labour party is unelectable. This gets support, too, from the Blairite wing of the Labour party itself, based on the spurious evidence that Foot and Kinnock lost elections because of their radical proposals, and Blair won them because of his more moderate manifestos. This is the same group which claims Miliband lost the election because his policies were too left-wing, and ignores the voting in areas like Scotland and the north of England.

     The truth is they all know a Corbyn-led Labour party is extremely electable, capable of uniting the party, excluding the Tory wing, attracting back those lost to the radical nationalist and Green parties, and, perhaps most importantly of all, winning the support of young people and non-voters. He has already outlined how he would finance the ending of student loans, and there will be more announcements, inevitably, on housing and dealing with the extortionate rents young people especially, are having to pay for private accommodation. Osborne did Corbyn a huge favour last week with a budget favouring the wealthy and business interests, whilst attacking the less fortunate, the young and public sector workers. Corbyn can also benefit from the way the Greek crisis was handled, which should finally have convinced the majority of voters that austerity does not work, and that excessive austerity measures are not only unnecessary, but hold back economic growth. With evidence also pointing to the public`s support for re-nationalisation of the railways, and much increased regulation of the energy companies, Corbyn`s left-wing agenda certainly does not make him unelectable.

     Could the right,also, be afraid of the likelihood that his policies, as leader, would almost certainly include increases to the income tax rates for the high earners? With the average earnings hovering around £25,000, is it really likely that the public think taxing those earning over £100K a year a little more, and those over £150K a lot more, is a policy too radical to support at the ballot box? Then there`s the tax on company profits, which Osborne intends to reduce to 18%, which is 22 percentage points below the rate  of corporation tax in the States, and the idea of having a sensible ratio for earnings of CEOs and the average pay of their employees. With inequality increasing even though the UK is already 28th in the OECD`s equality league table out of 34 so-called developed nations, and social mobility decreasing, with 70% of top jobs in politics, law, journalism and such- like going to the 7% of the population who are privately educated, the need for radical change is needed, and this frightens the right. With a sensible propaganda machine, which bans idiotic ideas like pink buses and policies set-in-stone, of course Corbyn can win, and his policies will have appeal north of the border, too.

     Further evidence supporting the fact that the right are running scared, like Cameron was over a televised debate with Miliband, is provided by the government`s anti-Trade Union Bill; they are clearly anticipating calls for more industrial action in response to their cruel cuts and pay freezes, for the Bill`s details are certainly disproportionate to the fact that workers spent 788,000 days on strike last year, way down on the millions in the 1980s. A maximum of six on a picket line, voting thresholds, and even limiting the use of social media by strikers are clear indicators that they are expecting a huge increase in anger and despair from people like public sector and London underground workers, who, it seems are prepared to take industrial action but strangely, not vote for a left-wing Labour leader! Of course they will, and more will vote for a left-wing prime-minister.

    Corbyn faces an uphill struggle; if they are not already, all the other candidates will soon be repeating the right`s mantra about the unelectability of a left-leaning leader. The more it is repeated, the clearer the true message: they "protest too much"! It`s what happens when the facts have to be kept hidden. Repeating a lie over and over, as Labour knows to its cost, happens when the perpetrators are frightened of the truth being told. The right is lying about Corbyn because it is running scared. The Torygraph`s campaign to get Tories to vote for Corbyn is a ruse to frighten Labour supporters into voting for a moderate, but they are the ones who are really frightened! A moderate Labour party would provide little threat in 2020, but one offering real change is the one they fear. History has repeatedly shown that those who have sold their principles at the altar of power especially fear those who refuse to do so!

1983 "suicide note": full version

Many political writers, sadly not all right-wing apologists for continuing austerity and relentless cutbacks, appear to swallow fully the Blairite agenda with the description of the radical Labour manifesto of 1983 as the "longest suicide note in history". This was originally written by the New Labourite, Gerald Kaufman, who blamed the left-wing nature of many of the proposals for the disastrous election defeat for Labour, and the majority of 144 for Margaret Thatcher`s Tories. Ever since then, the term has been dug up by Blairites to remind the Labour party that it can never hope to win an election with principles the party traditionally held dear for over a century. The proof they use is, of course, that when Labour sacrificed its principles in favour of Blair`s neoliberalism, Labour won elections. Now, the same old scare-mongering is being adopted, because Jeremy Corbyn is winning support for his outspoken views against austerity and inequality.

      Obviously, some facts are sorely needed: blaming the `83 defeat on the left-wing manifesto is totally misleading, as it ignores the "hatchet job" done on Labour`s then leader, Michael Foot, by the right-wing media. Who will forget the criticism he received because he wore, at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day in 1981, a short blue-green overcoat, bought for him by his wife, "at  considerable expense" at Harrods according to Foot`s official biographer, Lord Morgan? His enemies, many of whom were in the Labour party, had a field day, saying how he looked like an "out-of-work navvy" in his "donkey-jacket", even though the coat lacked the necessary leather shoulders.

       Simply putting the blame for the defeat on the "note" also ignores the facts that the anti-Tory vote in 1983 was almost evenly split between the SDP/Liberal alliance and Labour, that the Tory vote fell by 700,000, and that Thatcher had to resort to an unnecessary war in the Falklands to bolster her own, and her party`s, support, so badly was she doing in the polls. Corbyn is being blamed for not playing by the usual party political rules, and for sounding different from the other "Stepford" candidates for Labour`s leadership, but look where following such rules has got Labour!

       If such rules, as Blairites insist, forbid Labour to argue against Trident, they presumably also prevent support for any form of re-nationalisation, despite its popularity in the polls, or of wealth tax, or of strict regulation of the banks; anything, in fact, which copies or resembles proposals from the 1983 manifesto. That same "suicide note" included pledges to raise living standards by a minimum wage, and to introduce a National Investment Bank, with a commitment to "attract and channel savings, by agreement, in a way that guarantees these savings and improves the quality of investment in the UK". Also promised was a Keynesian £11bn "programme of action", and  the re-imposition of exchange controls to "counter currency speculation". How our bankers would have loved that!

        Many of the 1983 pledges were enacted, such as the Freedom of Information Act, a ban on foxhunting, and devolution to Scotland and Wales, but, of course, most were not, and the opportunity to prevent the disastrous

neoliberalism taking hold, and with it the inevitable rise in inequality, was lost. Were the months prior to the 1983 election really, as the likes of Toby Young imply, the "days of delusion" for Labour?

     Why should  it be assumed, as the Tories clearly do, that the monstrous £12bn benefit cuts will be forgotten by 2020, especially by the 63% which did not vote Tory last May? A Labour party misled into mimicking the Tories by its own right-wing, because it fails to understand its own history, could well be writing its own "suicide note", but this time, for real!

 

In praise of Maxine Peake

Well done again, Maxine Peake! Not only does she deliver yet another brilliant, "mind-blowing performance" in Caryl Churchil`s play, The Skriker, as she did two years ago in the "Masque of Anarchy" about the  Peterloo massacre, she rightly attacks Labour leadership candidate, Liz Kendall, for her focus on "aspirational middle-class voters" (Morning Stars, 8th and 11th July,2015). The Blairite nonsense about Labour losing the election, because of offering inadequate policies to wavering Tory voters keen on making their first million, needs to be kicked into touch along with the insufficiently "pro-business" rubbish; Labour must never try to out-Tory the Conservatives on winning over the CBI. Unsurprisingly, given Maxine`s socialist principles, like the rest of us she sees Jeremy Corbyn as "a beacon of hope to get the Labour party back on track". Apparently, when asked about her views on the TV series, Game of Thrones, her reply was that she hadn`t seen it, "obviously"; she would never subscribe to a television network owned by Rupert Murdoch! What a change to have such a talent proud of her background and political roots.

       By the way, Morning Star writers may think that Maxine rose to fame "portraying working-class life" in Dinner Ladies and Shameless, but in our house she was already a star for her role in the brilliant "Early Doors"!

Germany`s mistake over Greece

The Guardian`s editorial listed four "essential facts" about the Greek agreement, but there can be little to substantiate the dubious point that  the Germans "believe that it could" work (This agreement takes Europe into dangerous waters,14/07/15). Economically, the deal provides no opportunity whatsoever for economic growth, debt repayment, or even for hope that the eurozone will be a more viable unit as a result. The reason for a settlement, which is not "even remotely reasonable or fair", and which humiliates the Greek government and its people, has to be based on politics; the conservative government of Germany, backed by a few like-minded administrations like Finland, wants to demonstrate to the rest of Europe, above all else, that  debt and the accompanying "severe package" of austerity measures cannot be avoided by electing a left-wing government. In fact, countries who choose anti-austerity parties, no matter how democratic the process, have to realise the economic consequences.

    By adopting this tactic, Germany has made a fateful error; she has forgotten how her treatment after the war by a generous Europe, terrified of the spread of communism, enabled her economy to recover and flourish. German economic predominance, now being used as an excuse for political supremacy, is already, as the editorial states, creating "rancour" within the EU, which can only increase as long as her intransigence persists. There is clearly an alternative view growing in Europe that, when debt crises occur, the borrowers must share some of the blame. Dividing Europe in this way is particularly mistaken not just because "Putin`s embrace" awaits defaulters, but because it plays into the hands of nationalist eurosceptics.

 

Labour`s "rich pickings" from the budget

With one brief sentence, your editorial summed up George Osborne and his budget perfectly, and sent the clearest of messages to the Labour party, pointing it in the direction needed to be taken over the next five years (Observer view of the Budget,12/07/15). Whether it will be understood by all of the candidates for the party`s leadership is debatable, and certainly Tristram Hunt`s desire for "a new progressive patriotism" seems to suggest that he doesn`t grasp the real significance of Osborne`s budget (The speed and rapidity with which Labour is starting to be seen as irrelevant and out of the debate is terrifying,12/07/15).  The statement,"The data doesn`t lie", is, perhaps, too implicit for many on the Labour front-bench to grasp its meaning and significance, but Will Hutton certainly does, seeing the "rich pickings" available for Labour as long as they understand "the possibilities", and "challenge Osborne`s narrative" (Welcome to Osbornia, an Orwellian land of false hope and dashed dreams,12/07/15).

      Labour lost the election on the basis of a myth which the Tory propaganda machine developed and perpetuated, that overspending by the Labour government caused the economic crash. That same machine is now attempting to create the belief that, because the Conservatives are supposedly the party of the working people, Labour is no longer necessary.

On the contrary, their opposition to this most duplicitous of governments is needed more than ever, to stress the shortcomings of the Budget, using accurate figures to emphasise the one economy "Osborne is the master of", that of  with the truth, and the fact that the so-called "northern powerhouse" was an election pledge never expected to see the light of day in a coalition government Far from being "irrelevant" as the shadow education secretary supposes, the Labour party can return to former levels of support by exposing the Tory government`s duplicity, but it must start now; the budget was only an "emergency" one because there needed to be a summer break immediately after it to let the dust settle. Labour must not allow that to happen; the country will be in a much worse state after five years of Tory rule turn the "one nation dream" into a "nightmare". Labour can win the 2020 election, provided  its campaign starts now!

Guardian letter on CBI and unions

With total predictability, the CBI is giving its backing to the government`s proposals to reduce the power of trade unions (Strike law plans: unions will have to explain tweets,16/07/15). It takes every opportunity

to divert attention from the obvious facts that its members are paying wages which are far too low, employing too many staff on zero-hours contracts, and avoiding paying the taxes due to the Treasury. Already this month it has objected to Cameron`s aim to force companies with more than 250 employees to publish pay differentials between male and female workers, preferring the proven failed policy for data to be published on a voluntary basis.Then there was the blame for low productivity being put on the "skills shortage", whilst simultaneously objecting  to the budget`s "measures to boost apprenticeship numbers", a proposal which could lead to businesses themselves teaching the exact skills needed (Skills shortages hindering growth in critical sectors, CBI poll reveals,12/07/15). The CBI presumably thinks the taxpayer should fund thousands of new teachers being trained to deliver advanced courses in schools, in subjects like construction, manufacturing and engineering, even though it constantly lobbies for lowering corporate tax levels, and does nothing about reducing the £40bn tax gap., 

       The common practice amongst FTSE100 companies of paying CEOs around 140 times the amount paid to the average worker in the company has to be a huge hindrance to improving productivity, especially when workers are denied a share of the profits their efforts bring to the firms. Decreasing the huge gaps in pay, both between bosses and workers, and males and females, is critical in reducing the problem of low productivity, itself  the result of  lack of foresight shown all too often by our politicians and the CBI.

    Your article quoted the CBI`s deputy director-general`s comment supporting the "introduction of thresholds as an important but fair step", but omitted the section which stressed how the CBI "has long called for the modernisation of our outdated industrial relations". If they are so outdated, shouldn`t the CBI be supporting the introduction of "electronic balloting" for unions, as Frances O`Grady sensibly argues (Partisan politics is no basis for proper policy-making,16/07/15)?