Michael Meacher - Labour's Future

Some useful proposals – though the devil may lie in the detail, not yet revealed – but disappointing on the vision and no razzmatazz of new ideas for a new leader, largely because Gordon Brown has already been leading on the domestic policy agenda for the past ten years and now has nothing much new to say.

It’s good that after two decades of neglect of social housing amidst the triumphalist ideology of private ownership, the national scandal of housing need is now at least being noticed. Council waiting lists are now above 1 ½ million and there are over 100,000 homeless, yet only 100 Council homes were built last year (down from 13,000 a year at the end of the Thatcher era). The housing stock is only growing by some 185,000 a year at present, yet the number of new households being formed each year is about 220,000. We are still going backwards. Building an extra 40,000 homes a year, as the Government proposes, is clearly nowhere near enough to meet the yawning gap of housing need. And how many of the 40,000 will be social housing anyway? And why are local authorities still not being allowed to build more Council houses themselves if they wish, borrowing against the security of their own existing housing stock?

Changes to the planning system, as is proposed, might seem sensible when some planning decisions have clearly taken far too long. The 8 years spent on the Heathrow Terminal 5 decision is usually quoted here (though much of that was accounted for by the time spent on Ministers’ desks after the planning report was submitted). But today’s proposals are motivated by very different criteria. National Policy Statements will be drawn up which will enable an array of major developments – nuclear power and nuclear waste facilities, coal-fired power stations, airport expansions, major road schemes, and large waste incinerators – to be put through without the public having a say on whether they are needed or safe, or where they are to be located. This rather conflicts with Brown’s stated wish to bring more democracy into public decisions.

A Climate Change Bill is very welcome, but again its contents leave a lot to be desired. It promises a review of progress in cutting carbon emissions every 5 years which is far too lax when the UK is way off track to meet the Government’s objectives. Clearly annual targets, published and enforceable, are urgently needed. Moreover, air travel and shipping emissions are omitted, even though they are the fastest rising sources of emissions. Nor are mere targets sufficient anyway when other Government policies, notably a tripling of airport capacity by 2030, are diametrically opposed.

Democratisation has also been one of Gordon’s ostensible goals, which is also desperately needed. But it has to stretch a great deal further than simply giving Parliament a vote before the country goes to war – a concession which after the Iraq debacle would probably be inevitable anyway. Parliament needs real new power on a much broader front – electing Select Committee members rather than letting the Whips use the patronage to gain a wider acquiescence, ratifying (or not) Cabinet nominations made by the PM, approving (or not) the membership and terms of reference of Committees of Inquiry proposed by the PM, and setting up their own Parliamentary Commissions to investigate controversial issues (e.g. extraordinary rendition) when the Government refuses to do so. Nor can the idea of greater democracy cut much ice when the Government is still intending to pursue the ID cards folly and, even worse, extend the 28-days detention without charge in defiance of the 800 year old habeas corpus.

And what is not in the Queen’s Speech is perhaps even more important than what is. There’s nothing about redressing the centralisation of power which is such an indictment of the current state of Britain. There’s nothing about redressing the grotesque inequality of income and wealth – nor was there is in the Pre-Budget Report a month ago. And there’s nothing about restoring the ethos of public service which has taken such a battering under Blair – indeed it’s taking a further hit currently with the huge cutbacks in BBC funding which threaten public service broadcasting. Et tu, Gordon?

Posted by Michael Meacher at 11:22 AM | Permalink

(Photo: Labour Behind The Label)

The news that three major discount clothing retailers - Asda, Tesco and Primark - import clothes from factories in Bangladesh where workers are forced to work up to 80 hours a week for only 4p an hour in some cases has made the supermarket chains launch an investigation into press reports about conditions in these factories. As though they didn't know!

Bully for the investigative media - what's left of it - but the point is it shouldn't have to depend on such freelance initiatives. The big private companies are major players in the UK and international economy, and the way they operate have huge ramifications - for consumers, suppliers, workers, job opportunities and job losses, labour standards and workplace rights, the environment and climate impacts, resource and energy use, waste generation and pollution, as well as for competitiveness and more generally for the country's social/economic image.

So as in this particular case involving gross exploitation of workers in Bangladesh, the public is entitled to know the facts, the economic realities, and the shameful treatment that lies behind cheap merchandise in our shops. The lesson of this episode is that the scope of the Freedom of Information Act should be extended to, say, the top 1,000 biggest private companies whose influence on our society and way of life equals, if not surpasses, the impact of the public sector. This must be one of our demands on the new Brown Government which has made such a point about strengthening accountability.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 12:40 PM | Permalink

Why is the Government so frightened of the Charter of Fundamental Rights as part of a new constitution or reformed treaty being negotiated today? In 2004 the Government had already secured that any right to collective action or extension of employment rights was, in accordance with Art. 28, "in accordance with national laws and practices". With that proviso formally included (although now in the current further text Art. 88), why the panic about demanding a red line to stop fundamental rights, which every other country in the EU 27 signs up to, being incorporated in EU law and being applied in Britain?

But why indeed is the Government still so utterly determined, even to the point of vetoing this whole new treaty, to prevent the right to strike action becoming part of UK law? The Government's answer of course is that labour market "flexibilities" (i.e. Thatcherite labour laws) have to be preserved at all costs as the foundation of the UK's economic success over the last decade. But in fact Norway and Sweden, for example, have performed economically far better than the UK over the last decade, without any of these labour market flexibilities, and with social policy outcomes hugely superior to Britain's on ever count.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 01:47 PM | Permalink

I think there are four key challenges now facing the EU. First, Europe's economic problems cannot be solved with supply side reforms alone. Weak domestic demand in many cases, made worse by the constriction of the Stability and Growth Pact, should be tackled by setting up a counter cyclical European Recovery Fund and by developing ECOFIN as a real political counterpart to the European Central Bank.

Second, the EU's response to the global economy should be smarter than simply posing a choice between liberalisation and protectionism. It should seek to stabilise exchange rates and prevent speculative capital flows from destabilising healthy economies through a Tobin tax. It should press for an international clearing union to smooth trade imbalances by requiring countries to recycle their surpluses to maintain global demand. And it should take the lead in benchmarking social and environmental standards into world trade rules.

Third, the EU should give its social model a more distinctive European form. To deal with collapsing corporate provision, it should set up a European social fund into which companies should contribute a proportion of their profits to meet at least some of the spending needed to guarantee security in retirement as well as providing at least minimum standards for a European childcare guarantee.

Fourth, it must democratise EU politics so as to enable Europeans to feel involved in a common political debate about their future. Maybe a new Preseident of the European Council should lead on Europe-wide elections so that electors voted more as Europeans.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 01:54 PM | Permalink

Posted by Michael Meacher at 09:24 AM | Permalink

(From the Independent)

Labour leadership contender answers your questions, such as 'Why not sell your flats to help fight against poverty?' & 'What's your guilty pleasure?'
Published: 05 March 2007

Are you a socialist? What does that mean today? MIKE WOODBRIDGE, Brighton

Yes, I am. A socialist believes that while the market has its proper place, the fundamental principles underpinning society should be equity, social justice, equality of opportunity, and democratic accountability. Even where the market is a dominant force, socialists believe it should be regulated to ensure high environmental, social and labour standards.

Why, as a socialist, do you own so many houses? GARY BROWNE, Glasgow

As I have regularly stated in the register of Members' interests, I own four flats. I have saved throughout my life, and put my savings into property. I don't think [that] is contrary to socialism.

Given your views on poverty, why not sell some of your houses and give the money to charity? Or are you just another hypocritical politician? V AHMAD, Birmingham

I already give a significant amount to charity . I agree there is an urgent need to build much more social, affordable housing but selling my flats which are already occupied would not contribute one iota to that.

Isn't it delusional of you to challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership? MAURICE BURKE, Birmingham

No. There should be a contest because only an election enables us to debate the real policy issues. I also believe that members of the Labour Party should have the right to choose their own leaders. I believe, too, that as New Labour, of which Gordon Brown is perhaps the main architect, has moved continually ever further to the right, the mainstream majority of the party has been left disenfranchised and without a voice. It is not sensible to assume the results of any election before the electors have had a chance to deliver their opinion which may sometimes come as rather a shock to the chattering classes. Not too many people I guess expected David Cameron to come from behind and win the Tory Party leadership.

Don't you think Gordon offers Labour the best hope of winning the next election? VALERIE EVANS, Cardiff

Have you seen the last two polls? Both put the Tories 11 per cent ahead, and one poll found that if Gordon was leader, the Tories would be 13 per cent ahead.

I am a Labour supporter, but I despair that Gordon Brown has been such a coward over the war, talks nonsense on 'Britishness' and seems so in love with Rupert Murdoch that he will hand the next election to Cameron. Do you agree - and if not, which bits do you disagree with and why? DAVE FISCHER, Sheffield

Cameron has certainly, at this stage at least, improved the Tories' poll ratings, but not, I think, for the reasons you give.

A majority on the Labour left support John McDonnell and see your campaign as a spoiler which will only split the vote and stop a contest. Will you stand down if John has more nominations when Blair resigns? SUSAN PRESS, Calder Valley

There is no evidence whatever that a majority of people on the Labour Party left and the affiliated trade union movement support John McDonnell for leader. I have a great deal of respect for John, but I don't believe he can get the necessary 45 nominations, whereas I believe I can. I am not splitting the vote, but rather giving the centre-left the chance, to run a candidate who can pass the nominations threshold. But I do agree that whichever of the two of us has the larger number of nominations, the other should stand down when Tony Blair resigns.

Why not use that photo of you on Blackpool beach (very Daniel Craig) for your campaign posters? CONOR MURPHY, Reading

Good try. At least it shows I'm healthy.

Do you think Blair should stand down now?STEVE HARRISON, Bolton

The sooner he stands down, the better.

Why did you vote in favour of the invasion of Iraq?DEAN PALMER, Norwich

I made the biggest mistake of my political life when I supported the war, on the grounds that the Prime Minister repeatedly gave chapter and verse about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and assured us that if only we knew all the intelligence available to him, we would have no doubts about the necessity for this action. I still find it deeply disturbing for democracy that a prime minister can so massage and fabricate the evidence in order to push through a preconceived war plan.

Do you think Blair lied to his MPs and lied to the country over Iraq?JEFF TERRY, Dundee

I think the highly selective manipulation of such evidence as there was, together with the highly prejudicial use to which it was put, was deeply dishonest.

You claim you were misled that Saddam had a WMD programme. Yet you say the West has no right to tell Iran not to develop nuclear weapons. Aren't you being rather inconsistent over Iraq and Iran?JIM ROLAND, London NW11

No, these are two quite separate arguments. Yes, we were certainly misled over Saddam's alleged WMD programme. While we should try to prevent Iranian nuclear weapons by negotiation and UN sanctions, we cannot say that nuclear weapons are indispensable for our own security, and then say Iran does not need them for their own security, especially when Iran (unlike the West) is surrounded by seven states which are nuclear-armed and some very hostile.

Do you truly believe that the US government knew about 9/11 but failed to prevent it?CHRIS QUIGLEY, by email

Clearly the US government did not know the precise time and location of the al-Qa'ida attack, but equally clearly there was a great deal of intelligence beforehand which, for whatever reason, it seems that they did not follow up.

You have suggested that the US government knew about the 9/11 attacks (which is pretty obvious I reckon, but fair play to you nonetheless). How complicit do you believe the UK Government was in 7/7? PAUL HUGHES, by email

Not at all.

Do you also believe that the FBI shot John F Kennedy, that Princess Diana was murdered and the US government has covered up the landing of aliens?BEN TROTTER, Cirencester

No. Such allegations are cheap and rather silly.

What steps will you propose to counter global warming? DR GEORGE BLAIR, by email

We should rapidly increase our use of renewable sources of energy (windpower, solar, and micro-generation in people's homes). We should require the airline industry, like every other industry, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions each year. We should increase vehicle excise duty sharply for gas-guzzling cars and use the proceeds to subsidise bus and rail, and smaller-engine cars. We should give each family a carbon entitlement which then has to be reduced each year.

How often have you flown in the past 12 months? FIONA MILLS, Edinburgh

Not at all.

You criticise the 'Westminster bubble' but said you spent the last two months talking to MPs about your campaign. Does this not show you have the same disrespect for people's views as the rest of the Westminster bubble? MARSHA JANE THOMPSON, by email

I said that when people around the country come to vote, they may well take a quite different view of things from the inward-looking Westminster scene, and should be listened to. But I also extensively canvassed my colleagues in the Parliamentary Labour Party because they alone are the ones who make the nominations.

Why did it take you so long to announce your intention to stand for the Labour leadership when John McDonnell has been campaigning up and down the country for months?MAX MITCHELL, by email

I have been told that John McDonnell announced his candidature without consulting his colleagues. I thought it right first to consult extensively to confirm that my candidature would have the necessary range of support.

What are your guilty pleasures (apart from homeowning)?ALICE SHERWOOD, Tadworth

Wouldn't you like to know! Dropping childish comments in the waste paper basket is one of them.

You always look a bit boring. Are you? ROB JACKSON, by email

No. Why? Are you?

Posted by Michael Meacher at 12:28 PM | Permalink

The public sector pay increase announced yesterday is unduly harsh pay settlement for the million public sector pay workers who are being told they can only have a 1.9% increase when inflation is now running at 4.2% - in other words, they are getting a 2.3% pay cut.

The reasons given are, firstly the state of the public finances, which is of course the Chancellor’s responsibility, but I don’t see why nurses should have to bail him out. If there are to be stringencies I don’t think nurses should only get an increase of less than 10 pounds a week, when junior doctors are getting nearly 20 pounds a week, senior civil servants 40 pounds a week extra and judges 80 pounds a week extra.

The second reason given is the need to keep inflation under control. But the Treasury itself said the inflation increase has been a blip and inflation will fall this year anyway. I don’t see why a temporary blip should be used as an excuse to impose a real terms pay cut on some of the poorest and most needed workers in our society.

This is bound to play badly on the chancellors standing with the unions. They expect him to be fair and equitable in the way he settles public sector pay and I don’t think this increase meets that criterion. This pretty miserable settlement should be reconsidered.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 05:10 PM | Permalink

I really wanted to attend tonight's rallies in support of the Trade Union Freedom Bill to be published by John McDonnell tomorrow and the Agency Workers Bill that Paul Farrelly is presenting tomorrow, but I have a speaking engagement outside London about opposing Trident renewal that makes it impossible.

Britain in the 21st century is a country where the rights of workers to fair and equal treatment - and for those workers to organise themselves to fight for fair and equal treatment - are under severe attack. It is absurd to the point of farce that we should have to demand equal rights for agency staff who doing the same or similar job for the same employer as their permanent co-workers. And it is indefensible to place multiple obstacles in the way of trades unions organising to win those rights.

So the playing field is at present tilted grossly against workers and unions and the Trade Union Freedom Bill must be supported to balance things out. It is right that workers on strike should not face the threat of sacking, right that employers should not be able to use injunctions to prevent industrial action, right that employers should have to provide relevant information to unions, just as unions go through a - currently – over complicated notification procedure when industrial action is expected.

The Trade Union Freedom Bill if enacted, as I hope it will be, simply provides for a level playing field on which workers can organise in unions to protect their jobs, their employment rights and those of their fellow union members. The government opposes restoration of trade union rights and the Agency Workers Bill too. That just underlines the importance of a change of policy direction so that workers cannot not be treated as employment fodder any longer.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 06:08 PM | Permalink

From

There are three reasons why there should be an election for a new leader when Tony Blair finally goes. Only an election confers democratic legitimacy on the succession. Second, party members expect to have a choice about who should lead them. They have hardly been listened to for most of the last 13 years, and have every right to demand that their voice be listened to now. And third, there are major differences of view about the government's direction of travel which need to be understood, debated and voted on within the party. There are other, better alternatives.

New Labour has over-centralised power at the top, which has undermined democratic accountability at all levels. Its economy, driven exclusively by market forces, has played down intervention to secure a stronger manufacturing industry, a more balanced regional policy, and a lift out of its low pay, low skill, low productivity base. Its authoritarian civil society has eroded civil liberties across the board. Its deregulatory philosophy plays down environmental standards and labour rights.

Its indifference to, indeed embrace of, inequality -- "New Labour is relaxed about people getting filthy rich", as Peter Mandelson told us so charmingly -- has presided over a sharp increase in the gap between rich and poor. And its obsession with privatisation is leaching away the public service ideals which lie at the heart of a caring and committed society.

Because Labour and Tory policies are now so similar, politics has increasingly focused on personalities. But that is a fundamental misapprehension. A large part of the electorate on the centre-left, perhaps even a majority, has effectively been disenfranchised for the last three decades. Old-style Toryism was discarded by the voters in 1997, and now New Labour -- the continuing moving right show -- has clearly run its course. It's time, not for old Labour , but for a new implementation of core Labour values in a modern progressive politics addressing today's profound problems.

We need a new foreign policy which is based on fundamental British interests, not subservience to the US, particularly over the middle east. If our political status is to rise across the world, it is not sustainable to continue as America's glove puppet. We need a new social policy if the growing divisions within our society are to be healed. It is not sustainable for £9 billion of city bonuses to be doled out last year while 12.5 million people, a fifth of the population, remain in poverty.

We need a new penal policy if we are going to be genuinely as tough on the causes of crime as on crime itself. It is not sustainable to go on banging people up even faster than we can build prisons without trying to deal with the underlying causes of criminality and doing more to reduce recidivism. We need a new climate change and energy policy if we are not to become over-dependent on imported fossil fuels. It is not sustainable, let alone not legal, to go on fighting wars to grab control of the remaining reserves of Middle East oil when anyway the oil will soon run out.

So what should be done? To end the continuing horrendous carnage in Iraq, to complete our troop withdrawal and break the impasse over Palestine, we should use our political clout to initiate a wider international peace conference bringing together all the relevant actors for a joint settlement of the related middle east issues of contention which from experience cannot be resolved singly. That must include not only Iraq and Palestine within such a grand bargain, but above all a negotiated, not a military, settlement over Iran. If the US were to attack Iran, I would not put at risk a single British soldier or a single RAF pilot in support of such a crazed venture.

Domestically, the Unicef report marking Britain bottom of the table for children's experience shows how urgent it is to reverse the growing rich-poor divide. Less inequality leads to less violence, stronger community life, better health, longer life expectancy, lower teenage birth rates, as well as more social mobility and higher educational attainment. We should start by raising the national minimum wage (one of Labour's best achievements) quickly to £6 an hour, and then soon to £7 an hour. And recognising that wealth creation is not an individual but a team effort, we should move towards a system where there is no more than an acceptable ratio between top pay and bottom pay, so that pay rises at the top draw up the lower paid behind them too.

Globally we are at war against climate change. Business as usual, while relying on improved technology as a get-out card, is a fool's game. We need a profound change in every aspect of government and our way of life -- not just energy, but transport, industry, building, agriculture, public expenditure and taxation, and foreign policy, in order in every area to give absolute priority to combating climaten change. We need a crash programme, as we have done before in wartime, to develop renewable sources of energy, in which we are very well endowed, plus a massive programme to improve energy efficiency and energy conservation.

Peace, social justice, climate survival - those should be our top priorities. That is why the future lies with a centre-left agenda, and clearly there must be a centre-left candidate to lead this agenda forward who has the necessary nominations in the Parliamentary Labour Party to stand. I am fully confident I do have that necessary level of support, and that is why I am standing.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 03:39 PM | Permalink

Two current stories throw a searchlight on contemporary Britain. Farepak collapses, taking with it the £41m that 150,000 customers had saved towards their Christmas hampers. The customers have no rights because Farepak is technically not a deposit-taking bank. Three Natwest bankers are extradited to the US accused of conspiring with senior executives of the now-collapsed Enron to defraud their employers of £20m. There is a row about why they were sent to the US, but that misses the point. Why were no charges brought in this country when their alleged crimes were committed in Britain against a British firm?

It is now typical for the government to turn a blind eye to mega-scale crime or cheating of customers while relentlessly pursuing the pettiest of offenders with Asbos. Corporate crime in particular now almost always goes unpunished, indicating just how far corporate power, allied with a pro-big business government, insulates its holders against redress.

Continue reading "With great power ... (from Comment is Free)" »

Posted by Michael Meacher at 05:53 PM | Permalink

I welcome the Corporate Manslaughter Bill which has just had its 2nd reading in the Commons. About time, since it's been 10 years in the pipeline, but it is still seriously flawed.

Continue reading "Ten years in the pipeline (revised)" »

Posted by Michael Meacher at 01:33 PM | Permalink

Clinton's speech at Labour Party conference made the point that New Labour, unlike Bush in the US, had cut inequality. That is the opposite of the truth. The Guardian's latest survey of boardroom pay - http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1886010,00.html - shows average earnings in the UK rose 3.4% last year, while the average pay of chief executives of the top FTSE 100 rose 28% - following 16% and 23% rises in previous years. What this means is that the average worker today gets about £400 a week, a worker on the National Minimum Wage gets £185 a week, while chief executives in top companies get on average £46,154 per week - 160 times more than their lowest paid workers. These colossal and growing inequalities are obscene.

We should raise the NMW from £5 to at least £7 an hour. We should tax bonuses, so called fringe benefits, share options and other tax avoiding remunerations of the super rich at the marginal rate. And we should require meetings, in all medium and large companies, where representatives of each main grade in the company, including from the boardroom, present their pay claims for the next year, and have to justify them to all other employees in the company.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 01:57 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

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

Continue reading "Gordon Brown is telling us only half the story" »

Posted by Michael Meacher at 06:44 AM | Permalink

From The Guardian.

Inequality in Britain is escalating towards American dimensions. The government can and should take action now

Two stories of Britain 2003. Mrs Taylor (not her real name) is 36 and the mother of two teenage sons. She suffers from systemic lupus with lung intolerance, Renaud's syndrome, progressive fibrosis of both lungs and polymyositis (muscle-wasting). She is mostly bedridden. Her husband has had to give up work to care for her.

The Taylors have a weekly income of £228, made up of income support, child benefit, family premium and disability living allowance. Part of their roof is leaking, but they cannot get a renovation grant from the council because the roof is not bad enough for the "serious disrepair" category.

Jean-Pierre Garnier (his real name), chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, recently received a pay package that the company said was worth about £11m. The small print, however, indicates that it is worth more like £16m.

Continue reading "Worse than under Thatcher" »

Posted by Michael Meacher at 07:57 PM | Permalink