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!