New Labour's crisis
Blair's defeat over his proposals to detain suspected terrorists for 90 days marks the beginning of his end. The so-called compromise of 28 days pushed through by the Liberal Democrats and Tories is still a significant attack on defendants' rights. The defeat however changes the way that the opposition parties and New Labour's backbenchers perceive their power. From now onwards Blair and his New Labour allies will struggle. Cameron is clever and desperate enough to exploit these weaknesses.
My old friend George Mudie, MP for East Leeds and a former senior government whip, has described Parliamentary Labour Party meetings as been run like a dictatorship. George is still smarting from being defeated over his attempts to end tuition fees and is a man who doesn't like loosing. For MPs like him the government's proposals over schools and ID cards give them the chance to change the direction of the government.
However they present no real alternative to the New Labour project. They look to Gordon Brown who has made it very clear he will be a Blairite, ie he will continue to pursue Thatcher's social reforms with some softening round the edge for the deserving poor. Hoon, the leader of old Labour's pro-US rightwing, has called for Brown to be shooed in without an election.
Blunkett was ruthlessly removed just three days after he had written to Blair saying he was only going to partially clampdown on the disabled. The policy of mean and meanly tested benefits is Brown's ideological contribution to New Labour. This is followed through by similar polices on all benefits, and above all on pensions. The many disgruntled and rebellious MPs have to find a real alternative to Brown.
The Tories have openly admitted that the Blair-Brown axis is following their policies. Howard, the old Tory leader, invited them to join the Conservatives in fighting New Labour's backbenchers. This was made tongue in cheek. But it has happened before under Macdonald. And Cameron has turned this pressure up even higher by appearing to be Blairite with a human face.
It is not enough to criticise Blair; you have to have an alternative economic and social policy to his US-oriented neocon agenda. And this doesn't consist of repeating half-remembered phrases from the past about socialism.
The retreat from Kyoto
One of the sorriest members of the Government is Elliot Morley, the minister responsible for climate change (so to speak). He repeatedly claims that the Government is on target to meeting its Kyoto commitments, while skating over the more ambitious claims Blair originally made. Blair has now begun to backtrack, leaving Morley like a stranded whale.
One example of how Morley (and ourselves) have been cheated is the way that the Treasury has stolen millions of pounds from our electricity bills that was supposed to go towards the development of renewable energy. Out of the £270 million raised only £60 million has gone on research; the rest has gone straight to the Treasury.
The government is now unlikely to meet its targets which were only chosen because it involved the government doing nothing. They relied on the switch from coal-powered electricity generators to gas-powered ones. This switch has not been as big as expected. While not admitting that anything was wrong, right-wing government advisors have been trying to devise some kind of stitch-up to save Emperor Blair's face. Their proposals include an expansion of carbon trading schemes, which enable the Government to avoid regulating big business, and tightening speed restrictions on private motorists, ie more revenue-generating speed cameras. There will be no attempt to restrict the huge four-by-fours cluttering up our town and city centres.
Blair is using climate change to push the nuclear industry's plans for a new generation of nuclear power stations. New Labour has spent the last eight years trying to find an acceptable solution to the storage of dangerous nuclear waste. It now expects to solve this problem over the next six months and start plans for a new generation of nuclear power stations. However in terms of dealing with global warming the plans don't make sense.
The editorial in the latest Green Socialist sums this up as follows:
And it is to the US that Blair looks for salvation on climate change. The US government's position is that it is too bad and few technical fixes will deal with the problem. This view is rejected by the vast majority of scientists working in the area. They point to research that shows that unless drastic cuts in carbon dioxide emissions are made now the situation could spiral out of control within 5 years. This is because the rising temperatures could liberate vast quantities of carbon dioxide currently locked in soil and the ocean depths.
In order to hold on to its domination of the world economy the US is upgrading its nuclear arsenal. Blair follows by allocating an extra £2billion to upgrade facilities at Aldermaston. New Labour's MPs didn't even force a debate within their parliamentary group -- instead they were lectured in groups of six by the Arms Minister.
However it is not possible to build a new generation of nuclear weapons without increasing the amount of plutonium available. Hence Blair needs more nuclear reactors. He is therefore not abandoning his Kyoto targets but using them to present the argument to build a new generation of reactors. This is a cover. It took 23 years to develop the Advanced Gas Reactors and it will certainly take at least ten years to have even a single fully functioning power station. This timetable fits in with the nuclear weapons development but does not fit in with the steps that are needed to tackle global warming.
New Labour has been 8 years in power. It has still to announce what it intends to do with all the vast quantities of nuclear waste already existing. It has also failed to make a case for spending any money on nuclear weapons, especially as they can only be launched with Bush's permission.
Menwith Hill
Every Tuesday in rain, snow and occasional sunshine Annie Rainbow and Lindis Percy have led a small bunch of hardy activists protesting against the US spy station at Menwith Hill. The huge secret base now employs 1332 people plus various assorted security staff.
It is undergoing enormous expansion. Construction is going on all over the site. The two main reasons for this expansion are the pursuit of two highly illegal activities: the development of a unilateral missile defense system, and the stationing of weapons in space. Both these activities are banned by international treaties to which Britain is a signatory. And this is not the only illegal activity conducted on the site, which is run by the US military in defiance of UK law. It is also the centre for ECHELON, which the European Union believe is being used to spy on British and European companies to give US companies a business edge.
And what is the response of the North Yorkshire Police to such a massive criminal conspiracy taking place in its area? It is to defend it and prosecute those who try to expose it. They tried to get Harrogate magistrates to impose an ASBO on Lindis Percy that would have removed her from her peaceful protests at the gates of Menwith Hill. Even the magistrates felt this went too far. Lindis was found not guilty on one charge and bound over to keep the peace on the others.
North Yorkshire Police have failed to investigate the criminal activity at Menwith Hill. Their failure reflects on the North Yorkshire Police Authority. Campaigners are now beginning to examine ways of ensuring that the Authority asserts its democratic mandate to ensure that the police begin to prioritise the real criminals in Yorkshire.
Parallel with this, renewed attempts are going to be made to ensure that organisations representing business such as Chambers of Commerce and the CBI pay real interest in the impact of ECHELON on trade.
Pensions
The long-awaited and leaked pensions report has finally been made public. The commission which prepared the report was deliberately rigged by New Labour to exclude anyone from a working class background or who actually lived off a state pension. It was therefore completely predictable that the report ignores any of the suggestions made by the Pensioners Convention.
The TUC has made some bleating noises about extending the pensionable age to 67 but has failed to present an alternative. In Belgium the trade unions organised a general strike last year when their government tried to raise the retirement age from 58 to 60. The male dominated British TUC failed to organise any response when women's retirement was raised from to 60 to 65.
The trade unions' sole focus seems to be on the needs of their existing members, not on future ones. Basically they are turning their back on the young. This is seen in the sell-out of the young by the public sector unions where they struck a deal that protected the existing members' retirement age (60) but would ensure that new entrants would work to 65 to collect their full pension. The left-wing leadership of the main civil servants union rejected criticisms as ultra-leftist. However they failed to take the deal back to the members to discuss with them what was needed. This should have been discussed at a special union conference.
It is fairly clear what most people want. A survey of investors in the giant pension and insurance group AXA Sun Life indicated most of them wanted to retire at 56. However if everyone put money into private pension funds to achieve this, the economy would collapse. This is because there is not the number of shares available for such a large increase in investment and the system would explode and the pensioners would end up with nothing. This collapse would dwarf the private pension shrinkage of the last 5 years. The Turner report develops an alternative that works within the limitations of the market economy. And with all such alternatives it shifts the burden on to the working class and protects the rich. The rich will continue to retire when they want and the poor will have to work on till they drop.
There is of course a simple and workable non-market-based solution. It would start from Turner's individual pension fund. This would be amalgamated with the existing pension component of National Insurance. This new fund would be based on a mixture of direct contributions and investment. The many billions of pounds surplus in the existing National Insurance funds would be transferred into investments so giving the scheme an early boost. Its administration would have to be separate from government to stop the Treasury raiding its funds.
The growth of the fund would be linked to the growth in productivity in the economy, so allowing all to benefit. Over the years such growth would allow the lowering of the retirement age.
Compulsory pension contributions are taxation and they would be graduated according to income. This would provide a much needed increase in taxation of the vast numbers of millionaires who have grown up during the Thatcher-Blair years. One example: the £136 million which was given to the management and mainly senior staff on the sale of the Drax Power station. Very little of this will find its way to shareholders many of whom hold money for pension funds.
Strict laws on age discrimination would also increase the amount of money available for pensions. Such laws would allow people to work as long they wanted and were able to. The effect would be that a significant number of people would work on or return to work after a suitable break. This would increase the length of contributions and shorten the time some pensions are taken.
The Alliance for Green Socialism along with its colleagues in the Socialist Party, the Alliance for Workers Liberty and others have, through the Socialist Green Unity Coalition, provisionally adopted the following statement on pensions:
The Socialist Green Unity Coalition -- an alliance including the Alliance for Green Socialism, the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, the Socialist Alliance, and the Socialist Party -- has decided on a joint campaign about pensions, with leafleting, street stalls, petitioning, and public meetings.
This is the text of the basic leaflet for the campaign:
The Turner report says that pensions are too costly, and in the future you'll have to work longer and pay more to get less.
The real "pensions gap" is between rich and poor. The rich monopolise more and more of the wealthy of society. They get better pensions, and live longer to enjoy them.
Over the last 20 years, employer contributions to occupational pension schemes have fallen from about 15% of salary to only 5% today. And governments have let the basic state pension erode so as to ease the tax burden on the well-off and big business.
The Labour Government, Tories, and Liberal-Democrats all agree on making the majority pay more for pensions, work longer, and get less. They differ only on details here - just as they all support privatisation in education and health.
The Socialist Green Unity Coalition brings together organisations and individuals determined to develop independent working-class political representation. When Blair and Brown are more committed to the market than Turner, former leader of Britain's bosses' federation, the Labour Party can no longer be seen as providing that representation.
We say:
- Increase the basic state pension so that it provides a decent level of income for all, free of means-testing, and rises annually in line with average earnings.
- Make the bosses pay, through increased tax on the highest incomes and a collective tax on business, restoring the employers' contribution to pensions.
- Bring high finance and the pension funds under public ownership and democratic control, so that their huge assets can be used to provide a decent life for all instead of privileges for the few.
The Socialist Green Unity Coalition includes the Alliance for Green Socialism, the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, the Socialist Alliance, the Socialist Party, and the Socialist Unity Network. It stood thirty candidates in the May 2005 general election and will contest council seats in many areas in 2006.
Snippets
I have been away for some six months and have not been able to put together an Umbrella. Hopefully the column will now come out more regularly. This present one is a bit too worthy and I would welcome contributions, comments and suggestions via the website.
Below are items I would have covered in more detail:
- Karl Marx topping a BBC radio poll as the most popular philosopher
- Government plans to float Urenco and is also engaged in secret talks on rationalisation of the defense industry aimed at eliminating competition.
- The government transport Minister Darling deliberately insulting the citizens of Leeds and Liverpool in his response to a request for help in borrowing money for a tram system. He constantly delayed and missed deadlines before turning them down. He claimed it was too expensive even though it cost about the same as Kings Cross underground ticket office. The real reason was that Darling needs every penny for the cross-London rail link for the Olympic Games -- the direct costs of which look like doubling to £6 billion. It has been estimated that the Olympic Games has now cost Leeds nearly a billion pounds in lost investment.
- The majority of the government's flagship City Academies have been exposed as excluding poorer pupils. This is why Blair intends to build 400 more and to expand the ability of all schools to chose their pupils. This is social exclusion on a grand scale.
- Meyer's account of his American Ambassadorship shows Blair's chronic inability to stand up for any kind of principle against stronger bullies
- Blunkett's second resignation. So much like the first.
- The attacks on Galloway's former wife's alleged connections to the Iraq Oil for Food. This has led to vicious attacks on Galloway and calls for his resignation. And yet strangely no such similar attacks on Tessa Jowell over her husband's links with the Berlusconi bribes scandal.
- Ken Livingstone arguing for not flushing toilets rather than tackle Thames water huge leakage problem
- New Labour continuing its softly-softly attempts to privatise the National Health Service. Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has continued with her plans to privatise district nursing, family planning and other community health services out to contract. This will affect 250,000 workers.
- Blair's failure to investigate BP bribery allegations
-- Half-Celestial Khan
