Local elections
When the local election campaign starts each of the major parties starts with a mantra of how they believe in local politics. However none of their launches features any local councillors. The big parties are conducting the campaign like a low-key general election, leaving their depleted workforce to struggle on alone.
In Leeds, the second biggest city in Britain, only the Alliance for Green Socialism have produced a detailed manifesto for the city under the slogan "A better Leeds is possible". Leeds is run by a peculiar coalition of the Liberal Democrats, Tories and the Green Party. In practice they are no different to the previous New Labour administration. In other words they wait for instructions from Westminster and just ask how far they have to jump. There have been no green initiatives that challenge London. They have not opposed academy schools, the semi-privatisation of housing or the increased imbalance between the South East and the North resulting from the Olympics. The list goes on.
There is practically no difference between the four major parties on the Council. Any unbiased outside observer would have thought that the leader of the Liberal Democrats was the most right-wing of the party leaders, followed by the Green Party; the most left-wing being the leader of the Tories. It is this running away from politics into managerialism that leads to disillusionment among the electorate.
If you examine the Liberal Democrat leaflets you will find it hard to find out they actually running the city. In the case of New Labour, they attack the Liberal Democrats for carrying out New Labour national policies, except that they dress them up by correctly calling them Tory. However they offer no positive alternative.
For example, New Labour's Chapel Allerton election address praises the Sure Start scheme in Chapeltown. However this was achieved by closing down Leopold School nursery and Frankland Place nursery, resulting in no net increase in nursery places.
The Liberal Democrats slogan is "we are winning here" which the majority of the electorate are interpreting as "we have nothing positive to offer the electorate". The Lib Dems issued a pre-election newsletter that featured a picture of Charles Kennedy as party leader long after the man that lost his job. As for New Labour, they have such a grasp of the local area that they managed to distribute the wrong election leaflet over a wide area of Chapel Allerton!
The stench of corruption
During the last General Election both the Tories and New Labour found a way round the public declaration of large donations by using loans. These millions of pounds were used to distort the whole electoral process. The money was targeted at marginal seats but carefully spent in such a way as to avoid being an individual election expense. For instance it was publicly rumoured that New Labour spent over £250,000 in each constituency to try to keep out George Galloway in London and Peter Law in Gwent.
The recent revelations on election expenses have focussed on political advisors, Prescott's battle bus and fancy groundhog suits. There has even been a mention of Cherie Blair's £7,000+ expenditure on hairdressing although none of the commentators managed to mention that this was nearly twice the average NHS manual worker's pension. However the millionaires' money does real damage to the electoral process. It enables the three main political parties to have paid telephone canvassing and to place full-time workers into the targeted seats. In return the millionaires have bought influence. The biggest donor to New Labour has been Lord Sainsbury. No wonder Blair has remained committed to GM food.
Being found out about the loans Blair has tried to brazen it out. He has followed a classic spin strategy.
First take the political heat out by holding talks with the Tories so it appears that everyone is in it together.
Secondly, don't mention the Liberal Democrats so that any protest votes will go to them, so making them easy to win back at the General Election. The Liberal Democrats received £850,000 in three loans in the General Election (two from members of the House of Lords) plus over two million pounds from a businessman who lives abroad and who has just been arrested for suspected fraud.
Thirdly, muddy the waters by floating the unpopular idea that the taxpayer should finance political parties.
And finally, to try to brazen it out by claiming that millionaires were good for the House of Lords and that it was not out of place to reward millionaires who gave money towards the government's academies. In order to prevent an independent House of Lords Blair has tried to find ways of filling the body with rich people whose views of Britain he shares. In 2001 he put forward the notion of People's Peers, building on a previous idea by the left-winger John Major. However, after the first fifteen, those nominated through this new process became indistinguishable from those he had solely appointed before.
Pensions
In a wonderful meeting on pensions held by the Socialist Green Unity Coalition in Leeds John McDermott of the UNISON NEC explained how the West Yorkshire Pension fund for local authority workers had enough money to pay them until they were 105. In fact the fund is running a £150 million a year surplus, more than enough to cope with workers retiring under the 85 year rule. However, the government is determined to get rid of the rule. It wants every poor person to retire later. Organisations like the West Yorkshire Pension Fund, which has carefully invested the money from its local authorities and workforce, are an embarrassment to government policy.
The government has a different policy for the rich. Brown's recent tax changes have put £60 billion into the pensions of the rich. If this is taken with the £40 billion surplus in the National Insurance fund there is enough money to give everyone who wants to retire at 60 a decent pension.
-- Half-Celestial Khan
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