Michael Meacher MP

What are the big issues in Britain today?   They certainly include the banking crisis, Iraq and Afghanistan, the spending cuts, tuition fees, tax avoidance and evasion, climate change, to name but a few.   Who is taking action on each of these?   Well, the G20 protests against the bankers, Wikileaks’ exposure of abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan plus several demonstrations, a massive TUC demonstration against the cuts next March, the students making their third protest against the tuition fees hike despite being ‘kettled’ for 5 hours a week ago by the police in Whitehall, UKUncut against corporate tax avoidance, Campaign against Climate Change in their march and rally Hyde Park-Westminster this Saturday, and so it goes on.   Where are the political parties? (more…)

After the unctuous smotherings of diplomatic hypocrisy, it is refreshing to find out the unvarnished reality, even if painful and embarrassing for those leaders who’ve been publicly spinning a very different polical line.   The US revealed by this latest Wikileaks spectacular uses its embassies across the world as a global espionage network, regards Russia as a ‘virtual mafia state’, is contemptuous about UK military operations around Sangin in Helmand,   is severely denigratory about many host governments., and plays down and tries to conceal environmental disasters (exactly what they accused BP of doing a few months ago).   What will be the long-term effects of these mammoth exposures, with a quarter of a million confidential cables laid bare? (more…)

There are three good reasons to hate the utility companies.   They raise prices as soon as wholesale markets rise, but when wholesale prices fall they delay a response and then don’t pass on more than a fraction of the wholesale price reduction.   They act like a cartel, and keep their bills so confusing and complicated as to defeat the ostensible aim of competition.   And they have far too cosy a relationship with their regulator, Ofgem, which seems much more concerned about the reputation of the market than about the customers many of whom are now freezing.   This is market failure on a grand scale.   Many people now loathe the gas and electricity providers as much as the banks. (more…)

As the Eurowipe-out roars past Greece towards Portugal and Spain, possibly taking Belgium too in its path, what are the benefits of this currency zone to make it worthwhile enduring the astronomic costs?   The bail-out of Greece cost E110bn, and we’re now being told that in the case of Ireland E85bn may not be enough to satisfy all the creditors.   Of course Ireland enjoyed one hell of a bonanza while the party lasted, even achieving (for a short time) higher per capita incomes than the UK.   But the downturn is colossal: with a population one-twelfth that of the UK, Ireland faces tax rises of E5bn plus spending cuts of E10bn on top of the cuts of E15bn already announced.   After nearly 20% has already been drained out of the Irish economy in just 3 years, this latest s0-called national plan will probably extend the slump for another 6 years or so – a truly biblical 7 fat years followed by 7 exceedingly thin years.   Is a roller-coaster on this scale of volatility in the interests of the Eurozone, let alone Ireland? (more…)

It’s not just rising unemployment, nor higher inflation, nor deepening cuts, nor falling pay; it’s all four.   And who are the main victims?   It’s the low-to-middle earners around the average wage.   Contrary to Daily Mail delusions of grandeur that Middle Britain nestles round doctors, managers, accountants and lawyers on £50-100,000, Middle Britain are actually those grouped around the median income at £12-30,000 a year.   There are some 11 million of them, and a new report ‘Squeezed Britain’ shows just how hard they are now being hit. (more…)

Before the election Cameron was anxious to convince environmentalists and a sceptical public that he hed a different Tory party with good green credentials.   He did this in two ways.   He caught the plane to Svalbard in the Arctic Circle to appear in a photo-shoot on a dog-sleigh.   He also issued a dramatic and compelling promise: he would compel new power stations to be as clean as a modern gas plant, which would significantly decarbonise energy generation in Britain.   Now, 6 months into government, it’s not just Clegg who plays fast and loose with election pledges; Cameron is reneging on the whole commitment and allowing the coal industry (the dirtiest of the power generators) to emit carbon at almost double the limit he first set. (more…)

Grant Shapps, the Housing Minister, a cocky self-made businessman who many already protest is not up to the job, is giving power to local authorities and housing associations to evict tenants after a tenure of 2 years if their circumstances have changed (e.g. if they have a better-paid job).    It’s difficult to think of a more outlandish disincentive to anyone to improve their income for the benefit of their family.   But this blinkered ideological approach has a nasty class angle to it as well.   Why should someone who cannot afford a mortgage, or for whom renting is more appropriate, or who prefers to rent rather than own for whatever reason, be put at risk thereby of having their home taken away from them?  (more…)

The writing is really on the wall this time.   When a E90bn (£77bn) bail-0ut on top of a £50bn bail-out not that many weeks ago failos to steady the bond markets beyond half a day, we ared reaching the end point of the current EU financial architecture.   There are very few options indeed left.   Muddling through is not one of them when everyone, and particularly Germany, recognises that the next victims will be Portugal and (the big one) Spain.   Bond yields (i.e. the interest that countries have to pay to borrow from the financial markets) are now 8.1% for Ireland, but as high as 6.7% for Portugal and 4.75% for Spain.   There are really just 3 options left in this desperate financial turmoil, quite apart from the party political implications. (more…)

It is incredibly refreshing that Ed Miliband is aiming at a transformation of Britain as radical and profound (though in a wholly different direction) as Thatcher in the 1980s and Blair after 1997.   It will be the first time since the post-war Attlee government that we will have a leadership seriously committed to the restoration of socialist values in Britain.   And there could hardly be a more opportune moment than now when the market fundamentalist neoliberalism of the Thatcher-Reagan era has broken down, the collapse in the banking sector has nearly brought down the global economy, inequality has ballooned to levels last seen in the Edwardian aga a century ago, and a brutally aggressive policy of massive spending cuts threatens to tear apart the social fabric of the country. (more…)

Giving credit where credit is due, the Government was quite right to start the process of publishing the Government’s accounts in full – even if not  just for the Tories’ motives, but certainly for other reasons.   The Tories are keen to ensure greater efficiency for their contracts, though competitive tendering ought already to be achieving this.   But the real reason why this is a good innovation is that it increases transparency of Government expenditure (the public’s right to know how their taxed money is spent) and it enhances Parliament’s capacity to hold the Government more effectively to account.   Already it’s showing  in the last 5 months some embarrassing trends for the Government. (more…)

You have to hand it to the Tories, they really do have infernal brass neck (No, I’m not referring to Lord Young helpfully reminding us that the Tory upper classes don’t do recessions, only their commoner subjects who they may not notice below their ken).   I’m referring to the Cabinet Office Minhister, Francis Maude, announcing that he wants to “liberate public sector workers” by setting up mutuals to replace public services.   Shades of Lansley, Health Minister, earlier issuing a White Paper cheekily entitled ‘Liberating the NHS’ by setting up 500 (mandatory) GP consortia.   Leave aside that in both cases this verbal sleight-of-hand represents a prelude to full-scale privatisation.   Leave aside that people don’t want to be ‘liberated’ when it means greater insecurity, loss of State-supported pension rights, and possible buy-outs.   The real point is that neither public sector workers nor the doctors want to be liberated from profoundly important services they deeply believe in. (more…)

Alan Johnson’s interview in the Times yesterday proposing that Labour break the trade union link could perhaps be dismissed as the last throw of a Blairite politician now that the Blairite interregnum is fast fading from memory, were it not that two other members of the Blairite hard Right immediately endorsed it.   Margaret Hodge is not a member of the Labour Front Bench and Peter Mandelson is now no more than a bad memory from the past.   However, it does strongly suggest that the Blairite rump is still active, still seeking to cause trouble, still disloyal to the new Leadership, and still unwilling to accept the principles and aspirations of the overwhelming majority of Labour Party members. (more…)

In a classic case of smothering the evidence and sweeping a multiple torture case under the carpet, Ken Clarke, supposedly the Justice Secretary, is bringing forward a Green Paper next summer which will prevent in any trial any disclosure of evidence which might be relevant about the nefarious activities of MI5 and MI6.   Ostensibly the justification for this is to prevent a repeat of the million-pound payouts announced this week for the Guantanamo detainees.   The real reason is to prevent disclosure of the brutal and arguably illegal methods used by the security services against their prisoners.   In particular the motive is also to block the revelation of the even more high-handed and brutalising treatment (including water-boarding) meted out by the American military and the CIA since the latter have otherwise threatened to withdraw information-sharing with MI5 and MI6.   But this is a major breach of the rule of law for three important reasons, and it should be strongly opposed. (more…)

The endlessly repeated mantra of the Coalition that ‘everyone who can should work’ seems reasonable on the surface, other things being equal.   But of course in actual practice they’re not.   Most obviously the work isn’t there to do: there are less than 0.5 million vacancies, but 2.5 million unemployed, so a nationwide average of 5 people chasing each vacancy and in many urban areas it’s 20 or 50 or in some cases even more.   So the question we should be asking is why do the Tories persist with what they know is impossible?  (more…)

The price of justice should never be too high.   But in the Commons yesterday for the pugnacious Ken Clarke, Secretary of State for Justice, a legal aid system costing £2bn a year is far too high.   Apart from the fact that that is only 0.3% of annual Government expenditure, which does not seem excessive, the real point is what is the cost of ensuring that everyone in society irrespective of income has due assistance in serious cases of civil and criminal litigation in order to ensure that justice is done.   Like health, education and housing, these are public rights of fundamental importance.   To argue, as Clarke did, that his Department’s budget is being cut by 23% over 4 years, so he’s justified in cutting £350m off legal aid, is to approach the issue the wrong way round. (more…)