There has been a spate recently of rich, famous, influential and politically powerful people being shown up as hypocrites and self-aggrandising idiots, by the likes of the undercover reporters of The Daily Telegraph, and Wikileaks.
The Telegraph upset Vince Cable, by pretending to be constituents and encouraging him to make grandstanding comments about being “at war” with Rupert Murdoch, which ultimately cost him a chunk of his job. And now he is bleating about complaining to the Press Complaints Commission. While I have absolutely no desire to see Rupert Murdoch's empire grow and prosper, the trick is, dear Vince, if you don’t want to be caught out saying one thing in private and something different in public, then don’t have a hypocritical two-faced stance where your beliefs and actions differ according to who it is you think you are talking to. Shimples, as any Meerkat would tell you.
Or to put it another way, if you are so embarrassed that your party is propping up the Tories as they continue in their revenge rape of the country, then don’t pretend apologetically to your constituents that you are at war with them – go to war with them, and vote with your feet. Pull out. As Si Kahn says, it’s not the fights you dreamed of, it’s those you really fought.
Wikileaks has done a similar thing to the Daily Telegraph, but on a much bigger scale of course. They have shown up almost every US diplomat as being a lying conniving two-faced shyster. Many of us already suspected this was the case, of course, but it’s good to have it confirmed at source.
This is why the CIA are so keen to lean on Norway – and indeed to lean on our own legal system – to make it difficult for Julian Assange. Whether or not he is guilty of the crimes for which he is currently going through the legal system, you can bet your sweet palookah that the US would dearly love to see him extradited, wearing a hood and orange overalls, and chained to a latrine in Guantanamo. To them, and to the UK politicians who bleat on about the necessity of being able to keep certain things secret from us, the great unwashed, I have really only one thing to say.
It is the same thing that you said to us, every time a piece of anti-libertarian legislation chipped away yet another fragment of our precious civil liberties.
“If you have got nothing to hide, you have got nothing to fear”.
Hello, boot, may I introduce you to the other foot?
Friday, 4 February 2011
Vegan labelling
Last year, my wife became vegan. For animal welfare reasons mainly. I have remained, however, resolutely vegetarian, on the grounds that I like milk, cheese and eggs too much to give them up, and would rather spend my time happily chomping them while campaigning for a better deal for cows and chickens. So it hasn’t really impacted a lot on our lifestyle, apart from having to give up on take-aways where we can’t be sure that the contents are 100% dairy-free. The worst bit is having to cook two versions of the same meal sometimes, one with a cheesy topping and one without.
One thing which it has brought to my notice, however, is the paucity of information and patchy labelling of products as being suitable for vegans. If you are a vegan, these days, the situation regarding food labelling is just as bad for you as it used to be for vegetarians twenty years ago when I went veggie. It’s ridiculous that, in this day and age, when vegetarian labelling is mainstream and you can tell by looking at the label that it’s gluten-free or packaged in an atmosphere that may contain nuts, that you still have to scrutinise the list of ingredients, and in some cases look up the contents of individual e-numbers, to find out if something is vegan or not.
Apart from anything else, the people responsible are missing out, big-style. When I do the online shopping order, and I see something my wife might like, I do actually, most times, take the trouble to find out if it is actually suitable for vegans, sometimes even to the extent of phoning the supermarket in question’s customer care line. My wife never does this. If she is shopping, spots something that she fancies, but can’t find out if it’s suitable for vegans or not, she just puts it back and goes and buys something that she knows is suitable. So the manufacturers of the first product, if it was vegan, have lost a sale. All they needed to have done was to put “suitable for vegans” on the outside somewhere.
In time, obviously, people are going to wise up to this, and I hope that “suitable for vegans” as a labelling convention, will become as widespread and mainstream as “suitable for vegetarians” now is. But listen, Sainsbury’s if you are reading this, you are losing sales, and your marketing department may contain nuts. Nuts who don’t realise the commercial value of accurate food labelling. Still, on your head be it.
One thing which it has brought to my notice, however, is the paucity of information and patchy labelling of products as being suitable for vegans. If you are a vegan, these days, the situation regarding food labelling is just as bad for you as it used to be for vegetarians twenty years ago when I went veggie. It’s ridiculous that, in this day and age, when vegetarian labelling is mainstream and you can tell by looking at the label that it’s gluten-free or packaged in an atmosphere that may contain nuts, that you still have to scrutinise the list of ingredients, and in some cases look up the contents of individual e-numbers, to find out if something is vegan or not.
Apart from anything else, the people responsible are missing out, big-style. When I do the online shopping order, and I see something my wife might like, I do actually, most times, take the trouble to find out if it is actually suitable for vegans, sometimes even to the extent of phoning the supermarket in question’s customer care line. My wife never does this. If she is shopping, spots something that she fancies, but can’t find out if it’s suitable for vegans or not, she just puts it back and goes and buys something that she knows is suitable. So the manufacturers of the first product, if it was vegan, have lost a sale. All they needed to have done was to put “suitable for vegans” on the outside somewhere.
In time, obviously, people are going to wise up to this, and I hope that “suitable for vegans” as a labelling convention, will become as widespread and mainstream as “suitable for vegetarians” now is. But listen, Sainsbury’s if you are reading this, you are losing sales, and your marketing department may contain nuts. Nuts who don’t realise the commercial value of accurate food labelling. Still, on your head be it.
Friday, 10 December 2010
Testing Times
Animal testing on cosmetics was banned completely by the EU last year. Big pharma companies such as Procter and Gamble can get round this law, however, by selling cosmetics in the EU which have been tested on animals elsewhere, eg America or China.
Back in 2003, the EU established a deadline of 2013 for the complete banning from sale of ANY animal tested cosmetics in the EU. This has given the industry more than a decade to prepare – and, of course, since a massive amount of cosmetics, out of the global market, are sold in Europe, this will put massive financial pressure on the animal testing companies to stop the cruel and un-necessary process of causing suffering to animals just to tick a box that says they have tested a new mascara!
But now, of course, under lobbying pressure from the big pharma companies, the EU is trying to move the goalposts and delay the implementation of the 2013 ban. Even though they have had 10 years to prepare.
So, we now have a choice. We can let them continue with the litany of pain, even though in my book we should be banning it NOW, let alone in three years from now. We can let them go on imprisoning animals in solitary confinement in wire cages, causing emotional distress and physical injuries; we can let them go on force-feeding animals chemicals via tubes shoved down their throats, at many times the doses acceptable to humans, toxins that cause cancer and other effects; we can let them go on poisoning and killing thousands of baby animals in toxicity tests; we can let them go on duplicating tests because of commercial confidentiality and disputes over results; we can let them go on giving animals a painful and terrifying death in a gas chamber once their usefulness to the company has expired.
Or we can stop them, by lobbying our democratic representatives and letting them no, in no uncertain terms, how unacceptable we find the process, and raise your voices in defence of the ban, insist on the 2013 deadline, in fact, insist on it being brought forward!
If cosmetics HAVE to be tested somewhere, maybe we should test them on Euro MPs. After all, if they can make that crowd look attractive, then we will KNOW they truly work.
Back in 2003, the EU established a deadline of 2013 for the complete banning from sale of ANY animal tested cosmetics in the EU. This has given the industry more than a decade to prepare – and, of course, since a massive amount of cosmetics, out of the global market, are sold in Europe, this will put massive financial pressure on the animal testing companies to stop the cruel and un-necessary process of causing suffering to animals just to tick a box that says they have tested a new mascara!
But now, of course, under lobbying pressure from the big pharma companies, the EU is trying to move the goalposts and delay the implementation of the 2013 ban. Even though they have had 10 years to prepare.
So, we now have a choice. We can let them continue with the litany of pain, even though in my book we should be banning it NOW, let alone in three years from now. We can let them go on imprisoning animals in solitary confinement in wire cages, causing emotional distress and physical injuries; we can let them go on force-feeding animals chemicals via tubes shoved down their throats, at many times the doses acceptable to humans, toxins that cause cancer and other effects; we can let them go on poisoning and killing thousands of baby animals in toxicity tests; we can let them go on duplicating tests because of commercial confidentiality and disputes over results; we can let them go on giving animals a painful and terrifying death in a gas chamber once their usefulness to the company has expired.
Or we can stop them, by lobbying our democratic representatives and letting them no, in no uncertain terms, how unacceptable we find the process, and raise your voices in defence of the ban, insist on the 2013 deadline, in fact, insist on it being brought forward!
If cosmetics HAVE to be tested somewhere, maybe we should test them on Euro MPs. After all, if they can make that crowd look attractive, then we will KNOW they truly work.
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
All they will call you will be Deportees
On 12th October, 2010, on board BA Flight 77 from the UK to Luanda, Angola, Jimmy Mubenga, a 46-year-old who had been in Britain for 16 years and had lost a long series of appeals, and who was being forcibly detained by Group 4 Security, working on behalf of the UK Borders Agency, died.
Several witness statements speak of him complaining and undergoing breathing difficulties while under restraint.
What surprises me about this is not so much that Mr Mubenga died. The UK Borders Agency is a singularly uncaring and monolithic entity without a shred of decency, compassion, or mercy; capable, for instance, of ordering the deportation of a terminal cancer patient to certain and painful death. Nor am I surprised at the actions of Group 4 Security. In fact, given the "fine carelessness" and disregard they seem customarily to display in such circumstances, I am surprised that apparently this is the first death which has occurred actually during deportation in 17 years.
But what surprises me most of all, is the total lack of public outcry.
Why isn't this front page news? If it was some vulnerable kid, living in a hovel and neglected by social services, the papers would be full of it. You wouldn't be able to move for waving shrouds, bandwagons, and public enquiries. Politicians would be queueing up at the despatch box to wring their hands and spout sanctimonious claptrap. But someone dies, in suspicious circumstances, during deportation, in front of witnesses, and nothing happens! No-one says a dickey-boo!
In fairness to the UK Borders Agency, they did go so far as issuing a statement, saying that Mr Mubenga was taken ill on board the plane and died later in hospital. But what process of enquiry produced this? Have any of the guards in question been suspended or investigated? Have any lessons been learned in the use of restraints? Will anyone ever be prosecuted?
No doubt, the Borders Agency and Group 4 would like to draw a veil over the proceedings as quickly as possible, to put the stone back in place over the slimy practice of forcible deportation before anything else crawls out.
We, however, those of us who care, can do our part to make sure that the case of Jimmy Mubenga does not get brushed aside without due judicial process. As well as using the normal channels such as letters to the press and to your elected representatives, I would also suggest a total boycott of British Airways and Group 4 and all their subsidiary companies and supply chain, at least until some announcement is made about an enquiry to establish what really happened, since all we can definitely say at the moment is there are suspicious circumstances and a major difference of opinion on the subject. I repeat, that alone is normally enough to excite the attention of the police and the DPP.
It won't bring him back, but perhaps 12 October every year could be remembered as Jimmy Mubenga day, until the UK Borders Agency is no more, disbanded for good, and Group 4 once more recognises that its true level of competence is in losing, or occasionally delivering, overnight parcels (or knocking on the door and leaving a card, even though you were in the house at the time). They were crap at that, but at least they didn't kill anyone.
Several witness statements speak of him complaining and undergoing breathing difficulties while under restraint.
What surprises me about this is not so much that Mr Mubenga died. The UK Borders Agency is a singularly uncaring and monolithic entity without a shred of decency, compassion, or mercy; capable, for instance, of ordering the deportation of a terminal cancer patient to certain and painful death. Nor am I surprised at the actions of Group 4 Security. In fact, given the "fine carelessness" and disregard they seem customarily to display in such circumstances, I am surprised that apparently this is the first death which has occurred actually during deportation in 17 years.
But what surprises me most of all, is the total lack of public outcry.
Why isn't this front page news? If it was some vulnerable kid, living in a hovel and neglected by social services, the papers would be full of it. You wouldn't be able to move for waving shrouds, bandwagons, and public enquiries. Politicians would be queueing up at the despatch box to wring their hands and spout sanctimonious claptrap. But someone dies, in suspicious circumstances, during deportation, in front of witnesses, and nothing happens! No-one says a dickey-boo!
In fairness to the UK Borders Agency, they did go so far as issuing a statement, saying that Mr Mubenga was taken ill on board the plane and died later in hospital. But what process of enquiry produced this? Have any of the guards in question been suspended or investigated? Have any lessons been learned in the use of restraints? Will anyone ever be prosecuted?
No doubt, the Borders Agency and Group 4 would like to draw a veil over the proceedings as quickly as possible, to put the stone back in place over the slimy practice of forcible deportation before anything else crawls out.
We, however, those of us who care, can do our part to make sure that the case of Jimmy Mubenga does not get brushed aside without due judicial process. As well as using the normal channels such as letters to the press and to your elected representatives, I would also suggest a total boycott of British Airways and Group 4 and all their subsidiary companies and supply chain, at least until some announcement is made about an enquiry to establish what really happened, since all we can definitely say at the moment is there are suspicious circumstances and a major difference of opinion on the subject. I repeat, that alone is normally enough to excite the attention of the police and the DPP.
It won't bring him back, but perhaps 12 October every year could be remembered as Jimmy Mubenga day, until the UK Borders Agency is no more, disbanded for good, and Group 4 once more recognises that its true level of competence is in losing, or occasionally delivering, overnight parcels (or knocking on the door and leaving a card, even though you were in the house at the time). They were crap at that, but at least they didn't kill anyone.
Monday, 22 November 2010
Get Down, Shapp!
The Tories didn't really wait so long before showing their true colours.
Since the flawed election, which saw them seize power without a mandate, with the aid of their lackeys and lickspittles in the Liberal Democrats, a slew of hateful policies, proposals and suggestions, mainly aimed at targeting the poor, and demonising the disabled and those on benefits, has poured forth like a sewer from Central Office, or wherever their septic think tank is located these days.
As I have said elsewhere, I suspect that some of these proposals may be not entirely serious, kite-flying by some chosen mouthpiece (other orifices are available, some of them Lord Young) to test public reaction.
Their latest idea is about Social Housing, floated by Grant Shapps, and must surely fall into that category. It achieves the unique distinction of being not only gaga and unworkable, but also running counter to Tory policy as established by their patron saint, the blessed Margaret Thatcher, and her ideology.
In Mrs Thatcher's era, if you lived in a council house and you did well for yourself, and prospered materially, you might get to buy your house, thus denuding the UK's social housing stock, which many thousands did in the 1980s. Nowadays, if you live in a council house, and your material circumstances improve, under this pispotical proposal, you are likely to find yourself being evicted!
The stated aim is to end the concept of council house tenancies for life. Why? What possible good can it do, and where are the people supposed to move to? Grant Shapps is part of the Department of Communities. What has this proposal got to do with communities?
What it is about is, because the government doesn't want to build more social housing, it is making the existing stock "go further" by moving on the people who live there into the private sector, and bringing in people who are on the waiting list!
Compared, of course, to the obvious policy, of just building more social housing to start with.
Since the flawed election, which saw them seize power without a mandate, with the aid of their lackeys and lickspittles in the Liberal Democrats, a slew of hateful policies, proposals and suggestions, mainly aimed at targeting the poor, and demonising the disabled and those on benefits, has poured forth like a sewer from Central Office, or wherever their septic think tank is located these days.
As I have said elsewhere, I suspect that some of these proposals may be not entirely serious, kite-flying by some chosen mouthpiece (other orifices are available, some of them Lord Young) to test public reaction.
Their latest idea is about Social Housing, floated by Grant Shapps, and must surely fall into that category. It achieves the unique distinction of being not only gaga and unworkable, but also running counter to Tory policy as established by their patron saint, the blessed Margaret Thatcher, and her ideology.
In Mrs Thatcher's era, if you lived in a council house and you did well for yourself, and prospered materially, you might get to buy your house, thus denuding the UK's social housing stock, which many thousands did in the 1980s. Nowadays, if you live in a council house, and your material circumstances improve, under this pispotical proposal, you are likely to find yourself being evicted!
The stated aim is to end the concept of council house tenancies for life. Why? What possible good can it do, and where are the people supposed to move to? Grant Shapps is part of the Department of Communities. What has this proposal got to do with communities?
What it is about is, because the government doesn't want to build more social housing, it is making the existing stock "go further" by moving on the people who live there into the private sector, and bringing in people who are on the waiting list!
Compared, of course, to the obvious policy, of just building more social housing to start with.
Accentuate the Positive (Part 2)
A VISION FOR BRITAIN
Something fundamental is needed to change our society. We are not in Kansas anymore. Capitalism has broken, in fact, in October 2008, we came within a fag paper’s width of the collapse of global monetary systems, and all which that would have entailed. Socialism, true socialism, has never been allowed to fill the gap. I happen to believe, and would argue We need a completely NEW landscape. Something different.
At the poll in May, I argued for a massive boycott of the election, a low turnout of seismic proportions, combined with a comparative “Everest” of spoilt ballots from those who did turn out, I said, would surely send them the signal, all of them, all of the parties, that their ideas, their policies, their proposals, were limp, shrunken, dead and moribund. They needed to go away, and think again.
Sadly, that did not happen, and the three major parties were allowed to get away with sterile and negative policies, although I did, and still do, question the legitimacy of the result. However, that would take us in the direction of party politics, which we have been asked to eschew in this thread, and therefore I will, instead, try and be positive in suggesting some key points of policy where I think things could be different. My vision for the future, if you like.
In general, I think that there needs to be an alternative to the free market and socialism. Especially as socialism in this country has, in reality, meant The Labour Party. As Orwell put it in “The Lion and the Unicorn”
It has never been able to achieve any major change, because except in purely domestic matters it has never possessed a genuinely independent policy. It was and is primarily a party of trade unions, devoted to raising wages and improving working conditions
Since this is likely to be a very long post I think, rather than risk crashing the software, I will post it in chunks and summarise my main points under each heading.
ECONOMY
I believe that the way out of the debt/deficit jungle is to grow the UK economy and repay what we owe through a fairer taxation system and a growing tax take as the economy grows. Key to this in my manifesto would be the creation of a new sector in the economy: social enterprise. Social enterprise is government capitalism that makes a profit and then uses it for the public good. This is the economic idea which underlies Rooftree, for instance (see under housing). Let us be clear about what social enterprise is not. It is not outsourcing. It is not privatisation, it is the government setting up companies to do things that need doing and to turn a profit out of them, a profit which is then re-invested in the public’s interest.
We should also be conscious, in taking economic decisions, that we govern our own country, it is not government by the markets. Nor is it government by the EU, which takes too much money out of this country for very little return.
DEFENCE
I am in favour of a phased withdrawal from Afghanistan, I think our troops are behaving there with the customary bravery and aplomb which you would expect but in effect all they are doing is being professional targets. My “default” position for the withdrawal would be the White Cliffs of Dover, ideally, but given that we would already be abandoning Afghanistan to the Taleban, we can’t afford for Pakistan to go the same way so we would probably have to retain some sort of presence along the border. Although to be honest, the US should really now shoulder the burden if they want to carry on, along with some of our EU colleagues who have been backwards at coming forwards with men and materiel.
I would keep the aircraft carriers, I think it is an act of criminal folly for a nation such as ours which relies on maritime trade routes to leave itself exposed for a decade with no seaborne air cover capacity. Likewise I would go ahead with the replacement for Trident, reluctantly, with my arm forced up my back, and not really wishing to start from here, but recognising the realpolitik of the situation Blair and Bush landed us in.
Ultimately, I would like to see our army, as indeed I would like to see all the world’s armies, evolve into an international rescue and humanitarian force to deal with natural disasters, coupled with the necessary forces retaimed on British soil for the defence of the realm. These could also double as a civil defence force in time of floods and other disasters.
JUSTICE/PRISONS
I would repeal many of the harsh anti-libertarian measures which have been smuggled through by the government under the pretext of “anti-terrorism” legislation since 2001.
While recognising that things such as CCTV and speed cameras have their virtue in providing evidence, we should not go down the road of over reliance on them, there is no substitute for professionally trained and resourced police officers.
The prisons are full of people who should not be there. I would establish a canon of offences where, if you were found guilty of one of these relatively minor offences you would be eligible for training and eventual release into a civilian civil defence force (see above) but of course if you did anything wrong or illegal while on such a programme you would go straight back to prison and serve the remainder of your full original sentence without the option.
I would consider legalising cannabis (and taxing its sale and supply) below a certain strength, or of certain types. This would free up an enormous amount of police manpower.
EDUCATION
I would like to see a return to the respect for education as a profession. I think that the current situation, the whole system, is posited on the assumption that teachers jerk around when they pull on the purse-strings, whoever they are at the time. Nobody in education seems interested in learning for its own sake any more, only as a passport to money, or a commodity. And if it comes to a choice between pedagogy and pounds sterling, we know which one will win out. I want to see a return to inspirational teaching, a curriculum that allows the teachers some flexibility to tailor the content to bring out the best in each individual pupil and yet still meets recognised national standards, that are not lowered every year.
I would also like to see an end to any special status for schools which is provided by the state. I think faith schools are potentially divisive within society and if people want to found a faith school, then it should be a private educational establishment and not funded by the state. However, I do believe that religion and morality should still be taught in schools, along with other things which kids will actually find useful (how to touch type, and running a bank account, to name but two)
I do not believe that turning schools into academies “levels up” the educational playing field, I believe it actually increases the division between the schools that get all of the resources lavished on them and the bog-standard comprehensive.
I also believe that people do not want “choice”. Choice is the false product of the current inequalities in the education system and what they really want is a good, competent school somewhere near at hand where they can send their children and know they can be educated.
HEALTH
Clearly the NHS cannot be a bottomless pit for ever for everyone. I would like to see the establishment of a series of principles of treatment based on clinical need and decided by the medical professionals in charge of the treatment, not artificially massaged to meet targets or sold between different medical establishments
Other than that it sometimes ties itself in knots doing things that are peripheral to the main causes of illness and death in the UK, and needs to re-focus on its core ideals, I think the NHS is best left alone to do what it does well, curing people. However, one area which does need reform is the provision of affordable dentistry for people who are currently priced out of the market, however that may be achieved.
TRANSPORT
I would re-nationalise the railways over a period of time as the franchises expired and turn them back over to one national network, run by a social enterprise called British Rail.
I would also investigate the economic benefits, as opposed to the ecological demerits, of re opening closed branch lines and/or narrowboat carrying on the canal system.
Ideally, one would want to look at a more local means of production and distribution for materials, to reduce the strain on long-distance motorway freight.
CLIMATE CHANGE
We should be treating this with the same urgency and despatch as Churchill treated the buildng of Spitires and the development of radar in world war two. Action this day! This is a perfect area for the creation of social enterprises to stimulate growth in the economy and potential British exports, too.
IMMIGRATION AND THE EU
I have lumped these together because they are inextricably linked. We need to disengage from the political process of the EU and regain control of our own borders, then – and only then – we can begin to formulate an immigration policy based on who WE want here and what skills they can contribute.
I also believe that instead of locking asylum seekers up and paying them vouchers, we should give them an NI number and let them work and contribute taxes while their cases are heard, but if they put a foot wrong or try to disappear during this process, then they go straight back without the option. In other words, we give them a chance to show their worth to the UK, and hopefully they will be sensible enough to grab it with both hands.
HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS
For the sake of brevity I am just going to link to Rooftree, even though I am taking the site down soon.
http://www.rooftree.org.uk
FARMING AND THE ENVIRONMENT
I would like to see the subsidies paid for set aside paid instead to people who produce organic produce and I would like to see a more humane regime for animals in farming.
I would retain (and indeed, enforce) the ban on fox hunting and I would suspend the badger culling trials and put the effort into finding a vaccine solution for Bovine TB instead.
DEVOLUTION & CONSTITUTION
Abolish the Welsh and Scottish assemblies and bring them back under the control of Westminster, on the grounds that the political identity of the island should be congruent with its geographical identity. Likewise get rid of "mayors" who are another unecessary and costly layer of local buraeucracy.
Put the hereditary Lords back in the Lords, but increase the number of life peers to reflect the makeup of society as a whole
Retain the Royal Family as a bulwark against arriviste politicians with ideas above their station.
Limit MPs' expenses, outside work, second homes etc. and introduce a residence qualification. If you want to represent a constituency, you should have lived there for at least two years first as your primary place of residence.
CONCLUSION
Think of how social enterprises could change the landscape for the people of Britain.
Feed the hungry. House the homeless. Treat the sick. Teach the Children. Cherish the animals. End the Wars. Punish the Guilty. Fulfil the spirit. We need a gentler more tolerant and respectful society like we had in the 1950s, one where people realise there is more to life than a new sofa from DFS
It is not rocket science. All that is lacking is the political will.
And every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill made low. The crooked straight and the rough places plain: the crooked straight, and the rough places plain.
Something fundamental is needed to change our society. We are not in Kansas anymore. Capitalism has broken, in fact, in October 2008, we came within a fag paper’s width of the collapse of global monetary systems, and all which that would have entailed. Socialism, true socialism, has never been allowed to fill the gap. I happen to believe, and would argue We need a completely NEW landscape. Something different.
At the poll in May, I argued for a massive boycott of the election, a low turnout of seismic proportions, combined with a comparative “Everest” of spoilt ballots from those who did turn out, I said, would surely send them the signal, all of them, all of the parties, that their ideas, their policies, their proposals, were limp, shrunken, dead and moribund. They needed to go away, and think again.
Sadly, that did not happen, and the three major parties were allowed to get away with sterile and negative policies, although I did, and still do, question the legitimacy of the result. However, that would take us in the direction of party politics, which we have been asked to eschew in this thread, and therefore I will, instead, try and be positive in suggesting some key points of policy where I think things could be different. My vision for the future, if you like.
In general, I think that there needs to be an alternative to the free market and socialism. Especially as socialism in this country has, in reality, meant The Labour Party. As Orwell put it in “The Lion and the Unicorn”
It has never been able to achieve any major change, because except in purely domestic matters it has never possessed a genuinely independent policy. It was and is primarily a party of trade unions, devoted to raising wages and improving working conditions
Since this is likely to be a very long post I think, rather than risk crashing the software, I will post it in chunks and summarise my main points under each heading.
ECONOMY
I believe that the way out of the debt/deficit jungle is to grow the UK economy and repay what we owe through a fairer taxation system and a growing tax take as the economy grows. Key to this in my manifesto would be the creation of a new sector in the economy: social enterprise. Social enterprise is government capitalism that makes a profit and then uses it for the public good. This is the economic idea which underlies Rooftree, for instance (see under housing). Let us be clear about what social enterprise is not. It is not outsourcing. It is not privatisation, it is the government setting up companies to do things that need doing and to turn a profit out of them, a profit which is then re-invested in the public’s interest.
We should also be conscious, in taking economic decisions, that we govern our own country, it is not government by the markets. Nor is it government by the EU, which takes too much money out of this country for very little return.
DEFENCE
I am in favour of a phased withdrawal from Afghanistan, I think our troops are behaving there with the customary bravery and aplomb which you would expect but in effect all they are doing is being professional targets. My “default” position for the withdrawal would be the White Cliffs of Dover, ideally, but given that we would already be abandoning Afghanistan to the Taleban, we can’t afford for Pakistan to go the same way so we would probably have to retain some sort of presence along the border. Although to be honest, the US should really now shoulder the burden if they want to carry on, along with some of our EU colleagues who have been backwards at coming forwards with men and materiel.
I would keep the aircraft carriers, I think it is an act of criminal folly for a nation such as ours which relies on maritime trade routes to leave itself exposed for a decade with no seaborne air cover capacity. Likewise I would go ahead with the replacement for Trident, reluctantly, with my arm forced up my back, and not really wishing to start from here, but recognising the realpolitik of the situation Blair and Bush landed us in.
Ultimately, I would like to see our army, as indeed I would like to see all the world’s armies, evolve into an international rescue and humanitarian force to deal with natural disasters, coupled with the necessary forces retaimed on British soil for the defence of the realm. These could also double as a civil defence force in time of floods and other disasters.
JUSTICE/PRISONS
I would repeal many of the harsh anti-libertarian measures which have been smuggled through by the government under the pretext of “anti-terrorism” legislation since 2001.
While recognising that things such as CCTV and speed cameras have their virtue in providing evidence, we should not go down the road of over reliance on them, there is no substitute for professionally trained and resourced police officers.
The prisons are full of people who should not be there. I would establish a canon of offences where, if you were found guilty of one of these relatively minor offences you would be eligible for training and eventual release into a civilian civil defence force (see above) but of course if you did anything wrong or illegal while on such a programme you would go straight back to prison and serve the remainder of your full original sentence without the option.
I would consider legalising cannabis (and taxing its sale and supply) below a certain strength, or of certain types. This would free up an enormous amount of police manpower.
EDUCATION
I would like to see a return to the respect for education as a profession. I think that the current situation, the whole system, is posited on the assumption that teachers jerk around when they pull on the purse-strings, whoever they are at the time. Nobody in education seems interested in learning for its own sake any more, only as a passport to money, or a commodity. And if it comes to a choice between pedagogy and pounds sterling, we know which one will win out. I want to see a return to inspirational teaching, a curriculum that allows the teachers some flexibility to tailor the content to bring out the best in each individual pupil and yet still meets recognised national standards, that are not lowered every year.
I would also like to see an end to any special status for schools which is provided by the state. I think faith schools are potentially divisive within society and if people want to found a faith school, then it should be a private educational establishment and not funded by the state. However, I do believe that religion and morality should still be taught in schools, along with other things which kids will actually find useful (how to touch type, and running a bank account, to name but two)
I do not believe that turning schools into academies “levels up” the educational playing field, I believe it actually increases the division between the schools that get all of the resources lavished on them and the bog-standard comprehensive.
I also believe that people do not want “choice”. Choice is the false product of the current inequalities in the education system and what they really want is a good, competent school somewhere near at hand where they can send their children and know they can be educated.
HEALTH
Clearly the NHS cannot be a bottomless pit for ever for everyone. I would like to see the establishment of a series of principles of treatment based on clinical need and decided by the medical professionals in charge of the treatment, not artificially massaged to meet targets or sold between different medical establishments
Other than that it sometimes ties itself in knots doing things that are peripheral to the main causes of illness and death in the UK, and needs to re-focus on its core ideals, I think the NHS is best left alone to do what it does well, curing people. However, one area which does need reform is the provision of affordable dentistry for people who are currently priced out of the market, however that may be achieved.
TRANSPORT
I would re-nationalise the railways over a period of time as the franchises expired and turn them back over to one national network, run by a social enterprise called British Rail.
I would also investigate the economic benefits, as opposed to the ecological demerits, of re opening closed branch lines and/or narrowboat carrying on the canal system.
Ideally, one would want to look at a more local means of production and distribution for materials, to reduce the strain on long-distance motorway freight.
CLIMATE CHANGE
We should be treating this with the same urgency and despatch as Churchill treated the buildng of Spitires and the development of radar in world war two. Action this day! This is a perfect area for the creation of social enterprises to stimulate growth in the economy and potential British exports, too.
IMMIGRATION AND THE EU
I have lumped these together because they are inextricably linked. We need to disengage from the political process of the EU and regain control of our own borders, then – and only then – we can begin to formulate an immigration policy based on who WE want here and what skills they can contribute.
I also believe that instead of locking asylum seekers up and paying them vouchers, we should give them an NI number and let them work and contribute taxes while their cases are heard, but if they put a foot wrong or try to disappear during this process, then they go straight back without the option. In other words, we give them a chance to show their worth to the UK, and hopefully they will be sensible enough to grab it with both hands.
HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS
For the sake of brevity I am just going to link to Rooftree, even though I am taking the site down soon.
http://www.rooftree.org.uk
FARMING AND THE ENVIRONMENT
I would like to see the subsidies paid for set aside paid instead to people who produce organic produce and I would like to see a more humane regime for animals in farming.
I would retain (and indeed, enforce) the ban on fox hunting and I would suspend the badger culling trials and put the effort into finding a vaccine solution for Bovine TB instead.
DEVOLUTION & CONSTITUTION
Abolish the Welsh and Scottish assemblies and bring them back under the control of Westminster, on the grounds that the political identity of the island should be congruent with its geographical identity. Likewise get rid of "mayors" who are another unecessary and costly layer of local buraeucracy.
Put the hereditary Lords back in the Lords, but increase the number of life peers to reflect the makeup of society as a whole
Retain the Royal Family as a bulwark against arriviste politicians with ideas above their station.
Limit MPs' expenses, outside work, second homes etc. and introduce a residence qualification. If you want to represent a constituency, you should have lived there for at least two years first as your primary place of residence.
CONCLUSION
Think of how social enterprises could change the landscape for the people of Britain.
Feed the hungry. House the homeless. Treat the sick. Teach the Children. Cherish the animals. End the Wars. Punish the Guilty. Fulfil the spirit. We need a gentler more tolerant and respectful society like we had in the 1950s, one where people realise there is more to life than a new sofa from DFS
It is not rocket science. All that is lacking is the political will.
And every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill made low. The crooked straight and the rough places plain: the crooked straight, and the rough places plain.
Accentuate the Positive (part 1)
This is the first of two positive posts I will attempt. People have said that my blog is invariably negative and that I don’t have a good word for the Tories or the Literal Dimwits. This is untrue, I have several good words for them, most of which begin with f or c.
It has also been suggested to me that if there was another general election, it would simply result in the re-election of a further Tory government. I wonder, though, are we absolutely sure about this? Because I think if Cameron and Clegg did the honest thing, merged their two parties formally, acknowledging that the LibDims have been swallowed whole by the Orca of the conservative party, instead of riding it like Dolphin Boy or whatever he was called, as they naively hoped, and went to the country on their actual policy, as now revealed, which was not part of their platform last May, they would get decimated. And deservedly so.
I agree with their critics about the Labour party, though. When they were in power they did not do enough to keep the bankers, speculators and rentier capitalists in check, though to Brown’s credit, and this is something you won’t hear me say very often, to Brown’s credit, he was exactly the right person to have in place during the banking crisis of 2008, and he may also have displayed prescience and foresight in keeping us out of the damned Euro.
But yes, I agree, the present Labour party doesn’t have a clue what to do, as it showed recently by electing the wrong leader, a man with the killer instinct of Tim Henman. I did have high hopes that the Labour party would bounce back off the ropes, with Biffo at the helm, and start tearing into the Tory tissues of lies, contradictions and doublespeak.
God alone knows, there is plenty to go at, but it seems that Mr Ed the talking horse was too busy doing to his wife what he is now about to do to the party of the amalgamated wheeltappers and shunters. Very sad. It means that the poor and underprivileged, the ill, and those on benefits will be thrown to the Tory wolves unless someone else comes forward to stop it, and since democracy has failed in this respect, because none of the parties at the last election were willing to engage in the democratic process, then the next step may have to be one of those outbursts of extraparliamentary action which have marked the major advances in British social history from Corn Law Reform to the Peterloo Massacre to the Jarrow Crusade and the march against the Iraq war.
If Labour did win, so the theory goes, then the markets are going to take fright and cause even more unemployment and misery. Ah, well, here I do differ. “There is no alternative” is a mantra which we will hear from the Tories and their stooges again and again, but actually there are quite a lot of alternatives, starting from the doctrinaire Marxist approach of nationalising ALL the banks and financial institutions, down from there to more sensible proposals based on a mixed economy.
It comes down to who you think should run the country, ultimately, the markets or a democratically elected government. Paul Krugman, writing in his NY Times Blog (“The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves”) points out that Argentina told the IMF where to get off, and then was able to negotiate a much better package, with fewer drastic implications for cuts, which they subsequently paid off. So it seems that even WITH Government from the IMF, which is often represented as the consequence of Labour’s “shallower cuts, less quickly” approach, you don’t have to take the first deal you’re given.
It is true that people are still using the banks as a convenient “whipping boy” in non-credible alternatives. It is first worth establishing some things on which we could probably agree.
The massive sovereign debts of the advanced capitalist countries are the result of governments converting private debt into public debt, having bailed out the banks and rescued the system. Worldwide, the cost of this unprecedented bail-out is estimated to be US$10.8 trillion (£7 trillion). Some estimates have been as high as US$14 trillion. So it is not merely a case of Gordon Brown alone being on a one-man mission to wreck the economy, in fact it may turn out in time that it was him who saved us from having to queue in the streets for loaves of bread thrown off the back of an army lorry, however useless he may have been as a politician in many ways (too stubborn, badly advised, and not media savvy) and ill-fitted to be Prime Minister.
In Britain, an eye-watering £1.5 trillion was thrown at the banks, equating to 94.4% of the Gross Domestic Product. Much of this money was for guarantees against banking losses, which have since been recovered. Into the bargain, the government was forced to nationalise Northern Rock and the Royal Bank of Scotland. However, the total cost to the taxpayer is estimated to be £815bn, or £31,000 per household.
Although these banks were formally nationalised, in reality, the bail-out meant the nationalisation of the debts and the privatisation of the profits; in Britain, ordinary people are being attacked in order to reduce a budget deficit of £149bn, while nobody can deny that bankers continue to receive millions in public subsidies and bonuses.
As I said before, if I were a Marxist (biddy biddy biddy biddy biddy biddy biddy boom) I would be calling for the nationalisation of the entire sector. I am not, but I don’t see why they shouldn’t share more of the burden than is presently the case, since they caused the problem in the first place, and it is unfair and unjust to expect poor people to pay for the mistakes of the rich – see below.
Classic Marxist theory holds that sooner or later, the market becomes too narrow for the continuous outpouring of commodities; everybody already has two mobile phones and a new sofa from DFS. The capitalist system faces a crisis of over-production. If you look at what happened in 2008, it is quite a compelling analysis.
The capitalists attempted to delay this crisis, the Marxists say, by creating the greatest credit bubble in history. At bottom, the restricted consumption of the masses prepares the way for crisis under capitalism. The market is therefore restricted by the amount of money that people have in their pockets to spend on goods and services, as well as the excess capacity that has built up throughout the economy. Today, the world is awash with excess capacity. The market is saturated and the capitalists have had to cut back on production. Their attempt to overcome the crisis by credit has reached its limits. The productive forces have outgrown the limits of the capitalist system.
There are figures to illustrate how far credit was used to put off the crisis. A recent report on debt in The Economist stated that, “average total debt (private and public sector combined) in ten mature economies rose from 200% of GDP in 1995 to 300% in 2008. There were even more startling rises in Iceland and Ireland, where debt-to-GDP ratios reached 1,200% and 700% respectively” (26th July 2010).
In relation to consumer credit, The Economist reports that:
“At the end of the Second World War in 1945, consumer credit in America totalled just under $5.7 billion; ten years later it had already grown to nearly $43 billion and the party was just getting started. It reached $100 billion in 1966, $500 billion in 1984 and $1 trillion in 1994, or around $4,000 for every man, woman and child. The peak, so far, was almost $2.6 trillion in July 2008. Household debt approached 100% of GDP in 2007, a level seen only once before, rather ominously in 1929. America was not alone in embarking on a debt spree. In Britain, household debt rose from 105% of disposable income in 2000 to 160% in 2008” (ibid).
This huge expansion of credit was made possible by banks and governments (which is where Brown could be held to be culpable, with lax regulation, though the problem goes back much further, over several administrations) encouraging people to take out cheap loans, mortgages, and credit cards; hence the growth of “sub-prime mortgages”. However, this debt-fuelled party could not last forever. In the United States in 2006, people started to default on their loans. Consumer demand dropped. Producers could no longer find any consumers to sell their commodities to, and capitalism was faced with a classic crisis of over-production.
I have resisted the temptation to precis this analysis because again it shows that, in terms of the credit crunch itself, what Broon claimed was largely true, that it was a global problem and not simply something home-grown coming home to roost in our own back yard. Broon may have done some dumb things (eg selling off the gold reserves) but 2008 wasn’t one of them.
People speak about the current situation as if the ideas behind it were somehow new. The idea of governments running a deficit and accumulating sovereign debt is not unique to the current period. Even at its lowest point in the last 30 years, the UK debt was 26% of GDP, and before the current crisis, in September 2007, the UK debt stood at 36% of GDP. The government regularly borrows money to make up the deficit between public spending and money received from various sources of tax. In fact, the British government has only recorded a budget surplus in six of the last 36 years, generally overspending by between 2% and 5% of GDP.
Governments raise money for their deficit by auctioning government bonds, or “gilts.” The government pays interest on these bonds every six months, up to the “maturity date,” at which time the full value must be paid back. The majority of British debt bonds have a maturity of 15 years, and currently the government pays £42bn per year in interest payments, making interest payments the fourth biggest source of public spending after benefits and pensions, health, and education.
Greece was charged 40% interest on its gilts as the lenders (i.e. speculators) began to get worried about the possibility of sovereign default, as happened in Iceland in late 2008. Demands were made for public spending to be dramatically cut, and the EU and IMF came in, to outline the austerity measures that were to be imposed. Similar demands are being made of Britain. The Con-Dem coalition is now embarking on a merciless austerity package to slash public spending, pre-empting what it thinks the IMF wants to hear - a very different solution to public debt: draconian cuts. The programme of austerity in Britain (following on from Greece and Ireland) is seen by some as a test-bed, internationally. If the coalition can carry out such brutal attacks on the British working class, then governments elsewhere will have no qualms about carrying out equally severe cuts on theirs.
However: the UK Debt Management Office breaks the ownership of UK debt down as follows:
39.8% - Insurance companies and pension funds
35.1% - Overseas investors
17.8% - Other financial institutions
2.9% - Households
2.9% - Banks
1.5% - Others
From this, it is obvious that the overwhelming majority of the public debt in Britain is owned by financial speculators (insurance companies, overseas investors, and “other financial institutions”, e.g. hedge funds, etc.) who are looking to make a profit out of Britain’s debt crisis – a crisis that was created by bailing out the very same bankers and speculators in the first place – another reason why they should shoulder more of the burden.
Keynesian economists, such as Paul Krugman, rightly warn that the effect of such deep cuts will be to reduce demand and usher in a “double-dip” recession. They are correct; the cuts will exacerbate excess capacity and over-production. However, simply increasing government expenditure is also not viable. Continuing government stimulus to maintain the economy would just inflate public debt, driving up interest rates on the debt and would end up pushing national economies further towards default. That is why I am calling for a completely new sector of the economy, the social enterprise section, to sit in between the private and the public sector, to employ people so that they earn money on which they pay tax, increasing the tax take, and some of which they spend, stimulating the economy, and producing a public good for all of us – in my example, increasing the social housing stock, as opposed to paying the brickies, sparkies and joiners to stay at home on the dole.
The Keynesians also point out (again correctly) that governments have had much larger debts in the past. This is true; the UK’s public debt was above 100% of GDP for most of the inter-war period, and peaked at over 250% after WWII. However, the reduction of the national debt after the Second World War was achieved on the basis of economic growth, which in turn was possible owing to the destruction of capital during the war and growing world trade, and investment in the profitable new technologies that had developed as a result of wartime research and development. In some ways we have similar conditions today with the fight against climate change. I think we should be treating that as a “war” and developing new British technologies which we can lead the world in, and export to every corner of the globe (not that a globe has corners, before anyone who has got this far without the mogadon kicking in points this out).
Many within the trade unions and the Labour Party, support Keynesian “alternatives” to the programme of Coalition austerity. They argue that the working class did not cause the crisis, therefore they should not pay for it. This is what I have said all along. They argue however that the £149bn deficit can be plugged by taxing the rich and cutting spending elsewhere.
• £25bn is lost through tax avoidance, in which the rich find legal loopholes in order to avoid taxes.
• £70bn is lost through tax evasion, where the rich just don’t declare certain income.
• Replacing Trident (nuclear missile submarines) will cost between £15bn-20bn.
• The UK budget for defence spending is currently £37bn per year.
Their proposals, therefore, are to eliminate tax evasion and avoidance, scrap Trident, and reduce “defence” spending. Adding up the money from these measures results in a potential £152bn that could be raised. Personally, I do not agree with the latter two premises, but -along with a higher rate of income tax for those on high incomes, a tax on financial transactions (also known as the “Tobin tax” or “Robin Hood tax”) and greater corporation tax, it seems that we should have no problem in finding ways to plug at least £95bn of the deficit.
The government has a choice – it can either cut spending, and/or raise taxes, and, for ideological reasons, Cameron has decided that it shall be by cutting, and by targeting those cuts largely on those least able to bear them, that the deficit shall be reduced. I would be more convinced that it wasn’t purely evil ideological spite if they had announced some plans for restoring levels of public spending once the deficit has been tackled, but they haven’t!
So: as I said elsewhere, SOMEBODY has got to challenge the spurious “mandate” of this shower, and I am not happy with the concept of them going unchallenged and people dying as a result. Normally, one would look to the Labour Party for this, but they are feeble, useless, supine, and leaderless. I leave the last word, therefore, to my hon. friends, the Marxists.
A mass movement must not only challenge the Con-Dem government but must challenge the system itself. Open the books! Let ordinary people see how much of their money is wasted on outsourcing services to private companies and on fees for management consultants! Let workers see how much profit the giant monopolies make! Let us see how many millions are spent on bankers’ bonuses! If the books are opened, then we can really see the rottenness of capitalism. Drastic times call for drastic solutions.
Under the current conditions, the demand should be for the trade unions to call for a public sector strike, followed by a 24-hour general strike. After the long period of low activity in the class struggle in Britain, a day-long general strike would act as a demonstration of strength and could help to give the working class a sense of their power, thus raising consciousness.
It has also been suggested to me that if there was another general election, it would simply result in the re-election of a further Tory government. I wonder, though, are we absolutely sure about this? Because I think if Cameron and Clegg did the honest thing, merged their two parties formally, acknowledging that the LibDims have been swallowed whole by the Orca of the conservative party, instead of riding it like Dolphin Boy or whatever he was called, as they naively hoped, and went to the country on their actual policy, as now revealed, which was not part of their platform last May, they would get decimated. And deservedly so.
I agree with their critics about the Labour party, though. When they were in power they did not do enough to keep the bankers, speculators and rentier capitalists in check, though to Brown’s credit, and this is something you won’t hear me say very often, to Brown’s credit, he was exactly the right person to have in place during the banking crisis of 2008, and he may also have displayed prescience and foresight in keeping us out of the damned Euro.
But yes, I agree, the present Labour party doesn’t have a clue what to do, as it showed recently by electing the wrong leader, a man with the killer instinct of Tim Henman. I did have high hopes that the Labour party would bounce back off the ropes, with Biffo at the helm, and start tearing into the Tory tissues of lies, contradictions and doublespeak.
God alone knows, there is plenty to go at, but it seems that Mr Ed the talking horse was too busy doing to his wife what he is now about to do to the party of the amalgamated wheeltappers and shunters. Very sad. It means that the poor and underprivileged, the ill, and those on benefits will be thrown to the Tory wolves unless someone else comes forward to stop it, and since democracy has failed in this respect, because none of the parties at the last election were willing to engage in the democratic process, then the next step may have to be one of those outbursts of extraparliamentary action which have marked the major advances in British social history from Corn Law Reform to the Peterloo Massacre to the Jarrow Crusade and the march against the Iraq war.
If Labour did win, so the theory goes, then the markets are going to take fright and cause even more unemployment and misery. Ah, well, here I do differ. “There is no alternative” is a mantra which we will hear from the Tories and their stooges again and again, but actually there are quite a lot of alternatives, starting from the doctrinaire Marxist approach of nationalising ALL the banks and financial institutions, down from there to more sensible proposals based on a mixed economy.
It comes down to who you think should run the country, ultimately, the markets or a democratically elected government. Paul Krugman, writing in his NY Times Blog (“The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves”) points out that Argentina told the IMF where to get off, and then was able to negotiate a much better package, with fewer drastic implications for cuts, which they subsequently paid off. So it seems that even WITH Government from the IMF, which is often represented as the consequence of Labour’s “shallower cuts, less quickly” approach, you don’t have to take the first deal you’re given.
It is true that people are still using the banks as a convenient “whipping boy” in non-credible alternatives. It is first worth establishing some things on which we could probably agree.
The massive sovereign debts of the advanced capitalist countries are the result of governments converting private debt into public debt, having bailed out the banks and rescued the system. Worldwide, the cost of this unprecedented bail-out is estimated to be US$10.8 trillion (£7 trillion). Some estimates have been as high as US$14 trillion. So it is not merely a case of Gordon Brown alone being on a one-man mission to wreck the economy, in fact it may turn out in time that it was him who saved us from having to queue in the streets for loaves of bread thrown off the back of an army lorry, however useless he may have been as a politician in many ways (too stubborn, badly advised, and not media savvy) and ill-fitted to be Prime Minister.
In Britain, an eye-watering £1.5 trillion was thrown at the banks, equating to 94.4% of the Gross Domestic Product. Much of this money was for guarantees against banking losses, which have since been recovered. Into the bargain, the government was forced to nationalise Northern Rock and the Royal Bank of Scotland. However, the total cost to the taxpayer is estimated to be £815bn, or £31,000 per household.
Although these banks were formally nationalised, in reality, the bail-out meant the nationalisation of the debts and the privatisation of the profits; in Britain, ordinary people are being attacked in order to reduce a budget deficit of £149bn, while nobody can deny that bankers continue to receive millions in public subsidies and bonuses.
As I said before, if I were a Marxist (biddy biddy biddy biddy biddy biddy biddy boom) I would be calling for the nationalisation of the entire sector. I am not, but I don’t see why they shouldn’t share more of the burden than is presently the case, since they caused the problem in the first place, and it is unfair and unjust to expect poor people to pay for the mistakes of the rich – see below.
Classic Marxist theory holds that sooner or later, the market becomes too narrow for the continuous outpouring of commodities; everybody already has two mobile phones and a new sofa from DFS. The capitalist system faces a crisis of over-production. If you look at what happened in 2008, it is quite a compelling analysis.
The capitalists attempted to delay this crisis, the Marxists say, by creating the greatest credit bubble in history. At bottom, the restricted consumption of the masses prepares the way for crisis under capitalism. The market is therefore restricted by the amount of money that people have in their pockets to spend on goods and services, as well as the excess capacity that has built up throughout the economy. Today, the world is awash with excess capacity. The market is saturated and the capitalists have had to cut back on production. Their attempt to overcome the crisis by credit has reached its limits. The productive forces have outgrown the limits of the capitalist system.
There are figures to illustrate how far credit was used to put off the crisis. A recent report on debt in The Economist stated that, “average total debt (private and public sector combined) in ten mature economies rose from 200% of GDP in 1995 to 300% in 2008. There were even more startling rises in Iceland and Ireland, where debt-to-GDP ratios reached 1,200% and 700% respectively” (26th July 2010).
In relation to consumer credit, The Economist reports that:
“At the end of the Second World War in 1945, consumer credit in America totalled just under $5.7 billion; ten years later it had already grown to nearly $43 billion and the party was just getting started. It reached $100 billion in 1966, $500 billion in 1984 and $1 trillion in 1994, or around $4,000 for every man, woman and child. The peak, so far, was almost $2.6 trillion in July 2008. Household debt approached 100% of GDP in 2007, a level seen only once before, rather ominously in 1929. America was not alone in embarking on a debt spree. In Britain, household debt rose from 105% of disposable income in 2000 to 160% in 2008” (ibid).
This huge expansion of credit was made possible by banks and governments (which is where Brown could be held to be culpable, with lax regulation, though the problem goes back much further, over several administrations) encouraging people to take out cheap loans, mortgages, and credit cards; hence the growth of “sub-prime mortgages”. However, this debt-fuelled party could not last forever. In the United States in 2006, people started to default on their loans. Consumer demand dropped. Producers could no longer find any consumers to sell their commodities to, and capitalism was faced with a classic crisis of over-production.
I have resisted the temptation to precis this analysis because again it shows that, in terms of the credit crunch itself, what Broon claimed was largely true, that it was a global problem and not simply something home-grown coming home to roost in our own back yard. Broon may have done some dumb things (eg selling off the gold reserves) but 2008 wasn’t one of them.
People speak about the current situation as if the ideas behind it were somehow new. The idea of governments running a deficit and accumulating sovereign debt is not unique to the current period. Even at its lowest point in the last 30 years, the UK debt was 26% of GDP, and before the current crisis, in September 2007, the UK debt stood at 36% of GDP. The government regularly borrows money to make up the deficit between public spending and money received from various sources of tax. In fact, the British government has only recorded a budget surplus in six of the last 36 years, generally overspending by between 2% and 5% of GDP.
Governments raise money for their deficit by auctioning government bonds, or “gilts.” The government pays interest on these bonds every six months, up to the “maturity date,” at which time the full value must be paid back. The majority of British debt bonds have a maturity of 15 years, and currently the government pays £42bn per year in interest payments, making interest payments the fourth biggest source of public spending after benefits and pensions, health, and education.
Greece was charged 40% interest on its gilts as the lenders (i.e. speculators) began to get worried about the possibility of sovereign default, as happened in Iceland in late 2008. Demands were made for public spending to be dramatically cut, and the EU and IMF came in, to outline the austerity measures that were to be imposed. Similar demands are being made of Britain. The Con-Dem coalition is now embarking on a merciless austerity package to slash public spending, pre-empting what it thinks the IMF wants to hear - a very different solution to public debt: draconian cuts. The programme of austerity in Britain (following on from Greece and Ireland) is seen by some as a test-bed, internationally. If the coalition can carry out such brutal attacks on the British working class, then governments elsewhere will have no qualms about carrying out equally severe cuts on theirs.
However: the UK Debt Management Office breaks the ownership of UK debt down as follows:
39.8% - Insurance companies and pension funds
35.1% - Overseas investors
17.8% - Other financial institutions
2.9% - Households
2.9% - Banks
1.5% - Others
From this, it is obvious that the overwhelming majority of the public debt in Britain is owned by financial speculators (insurance companies, overseas investors, and “other financial institutions”, e.g. hedge funds, etc.) who are looking to make a profit out of Britain’s debt crisis – a crisis that was created by bailing out the very same bankers and speculators in the first place – another reason why they should shoulder more of the burden.
Keynesian economists, such as Paul Krugman, rightly warn that the effect of such deep cuts will be to reduce demand and usher in a “double-dip” recession. They are correct; the cuts will exacerbate excess capacity and over-production. However, simply increasing government expenditure is also not viable. Continuing government stimulus to maintain the economy would just inflate public debt, driving up interest rates on the debt and would end up pushing national economies further towards default. That is why I am calling for a completely new sector of the economy, the social enterprise section, to sit in between the private and the public sector, to employ people so that they earn money on which they pay tax, increasing the tax take, and some of which they spend, stimulating the economy, and producing a public good for all of us – in my example, increasing the social housing stock, as opposed to paying the brickies, sparkies and joiners to stay at home on the dole.
The Keynesians also point out (again correctly) that governments have had much larger debts in the past. This is true; the UK’s public debt was above 100% of GDP for most of the inter-war period, and peaked at over 250% after WWII. However, the reduction of the national debt after the Second World War was achieved on the basis of economic growth, which in turn was possible owing to the destruction of capital during the war and growing world trade, and investment in the profitable new technologies that had developed as a result of wartime research and development. In some ways we have similar conditions today with the fight against climate change. I think we should be treating that as a “war” and developing new British technologies which we can lead the world in, and export to every corner of the globe (not that a globe has corners, before anyone who has got this far without the mogadon kicking in points this out).
Many within the trade unions and the Labour Party, support Keynesian “alternatives” to the programme of Coalition austerity. They argue that the working class did not cause the crisis, therefore they should not pay for it. This is what I have said all along. They argue however that the £149bn deficit can be plugged by taxing the rich and cutting spending elsewhere.
• £25bn is lost through tax avoidance, in which the rich find legal loopholes in order to avoid taxes.
• £70bn is lost through tax evasion, where the rich just don’t declare certain income.
• Replacing Trident (nuclear missile submarines) will cost between £15bn-20bn.
• The UK budget for defence spending is currently £37bn per year.
Their proposals, therefore, are to eliminate tax evasion and avoidance, scrap Trident, and reduce “defence” spending. Adding up the money from these measures results in a potential £152bn that could be raised. Personally, I do not agree with the latter two premises, but -along with a higher rate of income tax for those on high incomes, a tax on financial transactions (also known as the “Tobin tax” or “Robin Hood tax”) and greater corporation tax, it seems that we should have no problem in finding ways to plug at least £95bn of the deficit.
The government has a choice – it can either cut spending, and/or raise taxes, and, for ideological reasons, Cameron has decided that it shall be by cutting, and by targeting those cuts largely on those least able to bear them, that the deficit shall be reduced. I would be more convinced that it wasn’t purely evil ideological spite if they had announced some plans for restoring levels of public spending once the deficit has been tackled, but they haven’t!
So: as I said elsewhere, SOMEBODY has got to challenge the spurious “mandate” of this shower, and I am not happy with the concept of them going unchallenged and people dying as a result. Normally, one would look to the Labour Party for this, but they are feeble, useless, supine, and leaderless. I leave the last word, therefore, to my hon. friends, the Marxists.
A mass movement must not only challenge the Con-Dem government but must challenge the system itself. Open the books! Let ordinary people see how much of their money is wasted on outsourcing services to private companies and on fees for management consultants! Let workers see how much profit the giant monopolies make! Let us see how many millions are spent on bankers’ bonuses! If the books are opened, then we can really see the rottenness of capitalism. Drastic times call for drastic solutions.
Under the current conditions, the demand should be for the trade unions to call for a public sector strike, followed by a 24-hour general strike. After the long period of low activity in the class struggle in Britain, a day-long general strike would act as a demonstration of strength and could help to give the working class a sense of their power, thus raising consciousness.
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