30th July 2015

One thing became clear when the financial crisis hit.

And that was exactly who got the pies!

Under Gordon Brown's premiership the losses incurred by the banks during the financial crisis were socialised whilst the bank's profits were privatised thereby allowing bonuses to continue to be paid whilst the necessary borrowing failed to happen.

So the bankers got the pies and businesses, who needed investment, were left with the crusts.

And still no-one has gone to jail, they just passed go and pocketed the money.

I find it amazing that during the life of the last parliament the Tory narrative continued to tell the same story, that Labour overspent, this narrative was so compelling that it featured dramatically in the Question Time debate where it was coupled with another false narrative that a national budget parallels a domestic budget, a false narrative that began with Margaret Thatcher and which continues to this day.

It is as though Keynes never lived.

In 1945 in the face of a financial crisis caused by the war effort, Keynes ensured that Government money was invested in rebuilding the necessary social and commercial infrastructures, from health, to  housing, to education to welfare, to investment in business.

Ensuring thereby that employment was created and that wealth was shared equitably.

The second great legacy of the war effort was that the war was won through the means of a planned effort and this led, through Harold Wilson in The Board of Trade that the peace was too important to be left to capitalism alone but that a planned economy would result in equity and justice.

It is seventy years ago since the Kings Speech introduced the first Labour Programme for Government.

It made news then and it is still pertinent seventy years later.

'My Government will take up with energy the tasks of reconverting industry from the purposes of war to those of peace'.

'... by the extension of of public ownership our industries and services shall make their maximum contribution to the national well-being'.

'... effective planning of investment ... (bringing) the bank of England into public ownership'.

' a bill will be brought before you to nationalise the coal-mining industry as part of a concerted plan for the co-ordination of the fuel and power industries'.

' ... the distribution at fair prices of essential supplies and services'.

'... organise the resources of the building and manufacturing industries ..... to meet the housing requirements .... of the nation'.

'... promote the best use of land in the national interest'.

'... a comprehensive scheme of insurance against industrial injuries, extend the existing scheme of social insurance and establish a national health service'.


This Kings Speech was given on August 15th 1945.

Its impact was to transform and improve the lives of working people, I was three months old at  the time and took a further three years of debate, argument, resistance from GP's and Tory MP's before the National Health Service was introduced.

As the long slow ebbing of the tide continues so the public good is eroded, great inequality is experienced, capital continues to demonstrate that the pursuit of private profit is incompatible with the national interest, nevertheless the present Government remains committed to the power of the market, whether in financial services, manufacturing or healthcare and the effects of privatisation can be seen in the growth of food banks, the dismantling of the welfare state and increases in both child and elder poverty.

This bias towards the privatisation of profit and socialisation of  losses beginning with the Thatcher government and continuing through the new labour years has seen 'an increase in the economic, financial, political power of the financial sector which have created enormous distortions, and that the financial sector has come to control and influence the political decisions in a manner that is alarming'.  

Paulo Nogueira Batista, Executive Director of the IMF for Brazil.

Which leaves us with the answer to the question about who got the pies!

23rd July 2015

So Blair has returned to UK politics.

If your heart tells you to vote left, get a heart transplant. Thanks Tony!

When he invited me to join him for breakfast at No 10 he failed to appear and sent a video instead.

A Hologram of his Right Horrible Cheesiness greeted us as we entered the breakfast room to feast on fruit kebabs.

The first thing I did after the police escorted me from the premises was to stop and buy a bacon sandwich, which I ate more decorously than Red Ed I might say and without getting brown sauce on my tie.

Tie? You ask, who wears a tie nowadays?

Blair didn't wear one on TV last night and neither does JC, well all I can say is we did in those days.

So talking of JC (Jeremy Corbyn) the politician not the prophet, Mr Blair wants us not to vote for Jeremy.

The existential question facing Labour is does it want power or does it want principles.

It held power for thirteen years but the price of power was the loss of principle, tough on the causes of crime? Yes! ending Child Poverty? Yes! introducing Tax Credits? Yes!

But at ease with the filthy rich? Yes!  introducing PFI? Yes! extending the reach of external consultants, Serco, G4S? Yes! joining forces with Bush to wage war on Iraq? Oh Yes! Yes!

Now we are offered the choice to vote for principles over power.

I have never been very clubbable.

I was briefly in the Scouts, I audited the local youth club.

But I have never really been a joiner of clubs, groups, meetings, or political parties.

I am a member of the Co-op Party but I haven't attended many meetings and even though the indoor critic is member of the MS Society we don't attend local meetings.

But last week I joined the Labour Party, and it didn't even cost me £3 because I took advantage of the pensioners special deal.

Why did I join? Obviously in order to vote for Jeremy Corbyn!

So if I vote with my existing heart and don't follow TB's advice and swap it for a heart of stone does it mean that I will have played my part in ensuring that the Labour Party spends long years in the wilderness?

Honestly I don't believe that will be the inevitable consequence of electing a leader from the left of the Party.

I watched the politics show on TV, admittedly with one eye closed because I have a detached retina, but it seemed to me that the only candidate who came across as possessing gravitas, who debated with courtesy, whose contributions were principled was Jeremy Corbyn.

My mind ran forward to the image of his appearing on PM's Question Time debating with David Cameron and I had the sense that Jeremy Corbyn, in that context, would have the effect of  Barium Meal in the body politic exposing the Tories sense of entitlement as falsely based.

Sadly the outcome of the last election was not the fiasco of Ed eating a bacon sandwich or the politics of envy or indeed the Ed Stone.

It was I believe a lack of gravitas, a failure to debate principles and some sense that the electorate believed Cameron and Osborne rather than Milliband and Balls.

The four candidates for the Labour leadership are all good people, I have no doubt about that, but in politics simply winning is not enough it is essential that the principles of the Labour Movement are seen to differentiate it from the Tories, otherwise the electorate will inevitably choose the devil they know.

The political programme for the next five years will constantly seek to expose the Labour Party and its response must be to challenge again and again the transparently threadbare rhetoric employed by Osborne and Cameron.

If the country wants to see a genuine Living Wage rather than a falsely described minimum wage it will not get it from Osborne, if the country wants a low tax economy then it will not get it from a policy of raising tax thresholds which always benefit higher tax payers rather than those who are not paying tax now, and if the country wants a low welfare economy then it will ultimately only come at the cost of education, health and support in old age, which are the essential pillars of the welfare economy as part of the post war settlement under the 1945 Labour Government.

So yes, I will vote for Jeremy Corbyn and will defer the heart transplant for another day!

8th July 2015

Some things never change.

I'm almost glad about that.

Over the years I have been told that when I grew older I would become more conservative, more right wing, that I might even vote Tory.

Well I'm pleased to report that hasn't happened.

And today as we prepare ourselves for a Tory budget I found myself dreaming of what might have been .....

What might have been if the two Ed's were about to announce the first Labour budget in five years.

What might be, if five years from now, Jeremy Corbyn is introducing the first Labour budget in Ten years.

The  broad theme of the Chancellor's budget speech will, I am sure, reinforce the privatisation of public goods to ensure that money continues to run uphill into the pockets of the already wealthy.

Two 'public goods' that are in the firing line in today's budget are the BBC and social housing.

Compare the broadcasters, Sky TV costs around £60 a month, £720 a year, ITV is funded via advertising revenue so it is free to air if not actually free the BBC costs £145 a year, £12 a month and is committed to ensuring that what it broadcasts is independent, fair and entertaining.

It is a 'public good' in the best sense of the concept and it is under threat from both its competitors who complain that the playing field is not even and from the Government which argues that its news coverage is biased.

So it will be trimmed, the licence fee reviewed and for now well if granny wants free telly then the telly can pay for it because treasury won't.

I have been involved in Social Housing since the early seventies. I ran a hostel for young homeless people in Bolton from 1972 to 1974, I was invited to become a staff Member of Salford Family Housing, I joined the Board of Church Army Housing in the early 1980's as it changed its name to English Churches, I was also a regional and national board member of Hanover Housing.

Housing Associations took much of the strain of social housing provision as Local Authority housing was sold under right to buy legislation and not replaced.

Now the Government intends to extend right to buy to housing association tenants even though the ownership of the housing stock resides with the associations and houses sold will be replaced by Local Authorities selling their residual stock so for every house sold two houses will be lost.

The attack on welfare has already been well trailed, a two tier benefit cap, further reductions in housing benefit, the introduction of universal credit, a reduction in Tax Credits and as yet unspecified changes to support for the disabled. The aim is to reduce the welfare bill by £12 Billion by the end of this parliament.

It may be that Tax Credits have become over complex and it may appear that welfare support is simply recycled as people pay tax on low incomes and then have the money repaid as a benefit. So the Tory line is why not just take the low paid out of tax? Which is fine in principle but not fine if you are earning so little as to not pay tax at all in which case raising the tax threshold is of no benefit at all.

Two former advisers to the Prime Minister are arguing publicly for the living wage to become the norm and that employers should be required to pay the higher wage because it is a conservative principle first articulated by that great Conservative Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.

Mmm ...

An independent broadcaster is an essential asset to ensure that the public conversation is well informed and unbiased otherwise the left/right confrontation will simply continue to drown out the voice of reason.

Building new homes is a more efficient and effective way of encouraging home ownership, whilst creating skilled jobs and reducing waiting lists, than simply selling off social housing in a mis-conceived rummage sale.

The living wage simply makes sense because it effectively enriches the whole of society, businesses benefit because their customers can afford their goods and the treasury benefits as more people become tax payers.

Sadly some things never change and I am sure that on the news tonight and on Question Time tomorrow we will hear that the long term economic plan is the same tired old rehearsal of the need for continued austerity.