Michael Meacher MP

Speaking to the CBI, Tony Blair has finally made his long suspected support for civil nuclear power explicit , ahead of the government’s own Energy Review. Previously, it was widely believed that the purpose of this review was to enable the Prime Minister to reverse the decisions of the 2003 Energy White Paper. This proposed a major expansion in renewable energy combined with enhanced conservation efforts to compensate for decommissioning ageing nuclear plants, whose contribution to UK energy generation will fall from 19% to 7% by 2020.

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Although the price for July deliveries of Brent crude is over $70 a barrel, Lord Browne, BP’s chief executive, thinks prices will halve in the medium term. According to a recent interview, he believes large oilfields are still being found and Canada’s oil sands could be exploited.

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Even before the recent rally in manufacturing has taken root, the prospect of the Bank of England raising interest rates this autumn threatens to choke it off. This is ominous when the manufacturing base, the lifeblood of the country, has still not reversed its long-term decline.

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This government is more interested in appeasing business and attracting foreign investment than it is in workplace justice.

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A socialist or social democratic society is one that exercises moral principles, social justice and democratic accountability of power in meeting individual and social needs. A capitalist society is one where the economy is driven by unfettered market forces and power is amassed through the accumulation of capital. In the West, the political struggle largely centres round exactly where the line is drawn between these opposing tensions in the regulation of both economies and societies.

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“EMBRACING globalisation,” according to Gordon Brown in his CBI speech on Monday night, “is the best way to growth, jobs and prosperity.” Looking at the facts, however, might prompt a rather different response: is globalisation, once thought unstoppable, actually now in decline?

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