Showing posts with label David Cameron. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Cameron. Show all posts

Monday, 13 February 2017

Housing White Paper: Government looks only to patch over the Housing Crisis

Last week the government released its "fixing our broken housing market" white paper, with which it promised reforms that would fight market failures with radical measures.

Radical measures are certainly needed. Britain is in the midst of a housing crisis, were the poor and young are excluded, from both ownership and rental, by housing shortages and by what effectively amounts to a self-enriching cartel.

In terms of the shortage, Shelter have said that the gap between housing need and supply is around 150,000 a year, with some estimates putting the shortfall over the past twenty years at 2.5m (Griffiths & Jefferys, 2013; Halligan, 2017).

In his statement, acknowledging that the house price to average income ratios have gone up from 3.5 to 7.5 in the past twenty years, including under the Coalition, Communities Minister Sajid Javid told the House that the government recognised that the drain on people's income that housing - even rental - had become was a huge barrier to social progress (Javid, 2017).

But the excuses crept in quickly: claims that Labour didn't build enough and councils have ducked decisions and don't plan properly. There were also promises, of transparency, of faster construction, of coordinated public investments, to encourage greater innovation by opening the building market beyond the ten companies that build 60% of homes.

Renters were also paid some attention. Javid promised to promote longer-term tenancies, to tackle unfair terms and to improve safeguards - on top of the previous promises to ban agent's fees.

Now, there are two levels of critique for holding a government white paper to account. The first is the thing it promises. Does it contain a good policy? The second is delivery. Does the government have a record of following through and will it do so this time?

As with the government's prized right-to-buy scheme, the government's white paper does not seem to be offering solutions sufficient to deal with the full scale of the problem, although the government at least seems to recognise that there is a serious problem (Easton, 2017). There are some positive steps - if there is follow through. But it all seems like wallpapering over the cracks.

Meanwhile, the government seems content to continue feeding the beast. As when it chose to drain social housing to make up its for sale housing numbers, now it seems intent to just keep things afloat a little longer - build a few more houses, a bit more quickly, with a bit more market competition - and leave the new ideas to someone else.

All of this just shovels more of the UK's precious resources into an extremely greedy fire - as demonstrated by the government pitching houses costing £250,000, even after discounts, for households with combined incomes under £90,000, as 'affordable homes' (BBC, 2017).

As for delivery? In the past six years in office, the house price to average income ratio has continued to grow and the overall increase in housing costs have been extreme (Full Fact, 2015). Waiting lists for social housing remain long and even rental costs, both private and social, are becoming unsustainable.

During the Labour dominated late 1990s and 2000s, house building was usually between 150,000-200,000, falling to between 100,000-150,000 in the later art of the decade before the Conservatives came to office.

The Conservatives made no promises on housebuilding in 2010 and didn't break that pattern. In 2014 there were 125,000 new homes. By 2016, a corner had perhaps been turned. Javid claimed 190,000 were built last year. However, homelessness has also risen sharply, under the impact of private rents and cut to welfare support (BBC, 2017{2}).

In 2015 the Conservatives promised around 475,000 new homes by 2020 - of which about 55,000 a year were to be affordable homes and 40,000 a year were to be starter homes (CPA, 2015). Yet the number of households, by the government's own statistics, is set to rise by more than double their promised housebuilding targets (Full Fact, 2015). And the promised ban on agent's fees has yet to materialise (Collinson & Elgot, 2017).

Neither David Cameron's ministry nor Theresa May's have acted decisively on housing. Both governments plans patched things over and kept just enough houses in circulation on property markets to keep key property owning voters happy.

The reality is that a Conservative government cannot deal with the essential problem: that a cartel of property owners, developers and investors can only justify obscene investments with ever increasing property values and rents - that are utterly unsustainable.

How can a Conservative say no to these people? Well-to-do home owners, profit-making businesses and financial investors? That is basically a list of the key Conservative supporters. So for now, all there will be is a white paper to patch things up.

Friday, 21 October 2016

Witney by-election suggests Tory support is soft and their majority vulnerable

In hindsight, the Coalition Agreement now almost looks like the first move in a patient five year Conservative strategy to move on the  Liberal Democrats and try to absorb their support. But the gains they made amongst liberals are beginning to look very soft.
By-elections are often tricky to decipher. For instance, sitting governments usually do poorly and lose ground - so that can not necessarily in itself be taken as an indicator of impending defeat at a general election.

However, there are a few things that the Witney by-election, triggered by the resignation of former Prime Minister David Cameron shows us about the state of British politics.

First of all, and of some importance, it is a reminder of just how thin the government majority really is. Cameron & Osborne, and now May, have governed like they have a majority of one hundred and thirty seats, not a narrow thirteen - showing little regard for how divisive their policies actually are.

It takes only a minor disagreement with just a few disgruntled MPs for the path toward Tory goals to be blocked - a clear indicator that, majority or no, the government should be far more respectful of political opinion far broader than the narrow and unrepresentative majority the party holds.

However the second observation is perhaps the most alarming for the Conservatives. Their advantage is not just thin, but also soft. Their majority was attained in 2015 by crushing their former coalition partners the Liberal Democrats, claiming credit for Liberal Democrat policies while specifically targeting their electoral campaign at their seats.

But governing as a majority, unfettered by the Lib Dems, seems to have, perhaps, stripped away the blinkers from those thought that the Conservative & Unionist Party had adopted a gentler, more decent and more liberal way - rather than being restrained by Liberal Democrats in endless policy battles.

And in Witney, it would seem that a significant number of liberals, on the fence between the Tories and the Lib Dems, went over to the Lib Dems - in fact, an entire third of Tory support went over to the Lib Dems, cutting the majority in the seat from twenty five thousand to just five thousand.

What could that mean for British politics more broadly?

David Cameron's former majority, in his recently resigned seat of Witney, has been reduced from 25,000 to just 5000 by his former Coalition partners the Liberal Democrats. Photograph: Prime Minister David Cameron - official photograph by Number 10 (License) (Cropped)
Since 2010, it has been abundantly clear that the easiest way to achieve a progressive government in the near future will be through a coalition. And the only way to make up those numbers would be for whoever is strongest against the Conservatives in a particular area to take the lead.

The strategic position of the Liberal Democrats and their support makes them invaluable to putting progressives over the top and into government. The party is the main opposition to the Conservatives in thirty six constituencies - with a particular concentration in the South West - and that number does not include Witney were the party was third along with at least four others were they also fell below second in 2015.

Local election gains, along with a steady rise in party membership, have been all that the Liberal Democrats have so far had to encourage them that a 'Lib Dem Fightback' is under way. The Witney result might be the strongest signal yet - though, even if an election is just around the corner, it is far too early to read much into whether the Liberal Democrats can recover, not least because turnout at by-elections is often far below a general election turnout.

But their result - even if other progressive parties didn't fair as well (Labour fell to third and the Greens took only four percent) - should give progressives some hope, as voters abandoning the Conservatives for the Liberals is one necessary condition for toppling the Tory majority.

That makes for one front in the coming contest, though with some further assembly still required. Work must now be done to ensure that when an election campaign begins in earnest, progressives have opened up a number of other fronts and are ready to take on the Tories.

Wednesday, 27 July 2016

PMQs in Review: How have the government and opposition fared in Corbyn's first year?

The strike of Twelve on Wednesdays heralds the beginning of PMQs, a contest it is hard to say that progressives have been winning over the past six years.
Since Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader last autumn, PMQs has had an extra layer of attention paid to it. After Corbyn offered a new politics, kinder and more reasonable, commentators wondered at how that could be translated to the hostile cauldron of PMQs.

On the whole the answer has been a barrage of criticism of Corbyn's performances opposite David Cameron. At the top of the list has been his apparent lack of aggression and persistence, that has been accused of letting Cameron's ministry off lightly. It has also been said that there has been a simple lack of professional preparedness (Hazarika, 2016).

Part of Corbyn's problem, at least initially, was an unfocussed approach, where each question would press on a different subject. While that approach allowed for the covering of more ground, it also meant that ground was covered more thinly - or occasionally not at all in the face of a persistently aggressive Cameron, who frequently turned the format upside down by firing questions of his own back.

Others who stepped up to lead PMQs received a warmer response from critics. David Cameron is considered almost universally to have PMQs firmly in his grasp and to hold a position of confident control over the proceedings that makes life difficult for any opponent - Ed Miliband just as much as Jeremy Corbyn.

Cameron's and Corbyn's deputies George Osborne and Angela Eagle also had chances to take on PMQs. Osborne comes from the same PMQs school as Cameron, so his confidence comes with little surprise. But Angela Eagle's turn standing in for Corbyn had to be considered within the context of Labour MPs dissatisfaction with Corbyn.

Angela Eagle herself was a competent performer. Yet she also received much better support from her own benches than Corbyn is often afforded, which can only have made life easier. It also clearly suited the Commons that Eagle also went back to the old bantering approach.

While some of Corbyn's difficulties might be put down to his own flaws, there where early innovations. The use of letters from members of the public to add a new dimension to a question, which might force the PM to answer more straightly - something much needed within the format.

And that format itself aught to carry some of the blame. The Prime Minister is under no real obligation to give straight and clear answers to questions and there is no arbiter of the factual accuracy, relevance or suitability of an answer. It is left to the questioner to persist - a privilege that only two MPs are afforded.

Could changes to the format help? First Minister's Questions at Holyrood adopted a new longer format this year, giving more time to press for detail, and all of its opposition party leaders get a chance to ask a couple of questions. But whether adapting to that format or more likely remaining within the current format, co-operation between opposition MPs to coordinate questions alone - to hit a consistent tone and plant follow ups - would at least go some way, in the short term, to forcing the PM to give more specific answers.

September, when the recess ends, will see the new Conservative leader Theresa May return for her second appearance - and presumably further ones - but it isn't yet settled who her opponent will be. Whoever prevails in the Labour leadership election has to look back seriously and methodically at Corbyn's first year as opposition leader.

Regardless of whether it has been the fault of Corbyn or not, the opposition has struggled to get its message out and PMQs is one of the few opportunities for free, unfiltered, media coverage. The next leader of the Labour Party, as effective leader of the opposition to the government, needs to have a clear answer to the question: How can we make best use of those six questions and thirty minutes?

Wednesday, 13 July 2016

Cameron Premiership in Review: In the end, there was no one left to hide behind

After six years as Prime Minister, David Cameron leaves office having lost the EU referendum argument not just in the country but within his own party. Photograph: Prime Minister David Cameron - official photograph by Number 10 (License) (Cropped)
David Cameron came into office at the head of Britain's first coalition government since the wartime National Government. The message, as he stood in the Rose Garden to begin his double act with Nick Clegg, was a promise of a different form of government (BBC, 2010). More open. Less overbearing.

Yet the laughs and relaxed atmosphere of the Rose Garden came to stand for other things over the course of Cameron's six years in office: a tendency to let others take the hits and an appearance of detachment from the painful realities of the recession and austerity programme that followed.

Cameron certainly rebuilt the Conservative Party as an electoral force and he made a stern effort to try and modernise it, often against much resistance (Hennessy, 2010; Grice, 2014). As PM, he clearly wanted to be remembered as a reformer (Hoskin, 2016).

But that ambition is likely to be overridden by the gap that has opened between Scotland and the rest of the UK - which with another referendum may result in a full division - and of course the EU referendum, that Cameron lost, and will have a long lasting and drastic impact on the future of the UK.

There have been positive reforms. The introduction of gay marriage is a stand out achievement, as Jeremy Corbyn stressed in David Cameron's last appearance at Prime Minister's Questions. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition was itself also a landmark moment for UK politics that until that point had been majoritarian and adversarial to a fault.

And yet even as the PM told the public that 'we're all in this together', part of a big society that government would support rather than direct from the centre, the twin impact of recession and austerity saw poverty deepen. The spread of food banks to help the homeless or those unable to afford food (Williams, 2015), the rise of welfare sanctions (Ashmore, 2015), and the continued rise in the cost of housing have made that promise seem hollow.

That attitude has been reinforced by policies like corporation tax being regularly slashed even as the welfare bill has been squeezed. It was also reinforced by his approach: 'flashman' as he was nicknamed, quick to dish out the put downs and ad hominem insults that made him appear arrogant and dismissive.

Cameron's time as PM was not short of scandals, from the appointment of Andy Coulson to his family being caught up in the Panama Papers revelations. But nothing ever seemed to stick to the now former Conservative leader. Not even NHS doctor's going out on dramatic strikes.

That is perhaps most starkly demonstrated by the way in which the Tories where the ones who benefited at the polls from all of the positives of the Coalition while their Liberal Democrat partners where electorally crushed, seemingly with blame for all of the negatives.

And there were always excuses. The previous Labour government received the main brunt of the Prime Minister's criticism, with economic problems usually prefaced with the work Conservatives were doing to make up for the 'mess' that Labour left (Watt, 2010).

Ultimately, Cameron's premiership comes to an end because he picked a fight on the EU referendum that he couldn't win and it is perhaps significant that it was a fight with the right-wing of his own party. As PM, Cameron's biggest challenge has always been wrestling with his own party rather than fending off the leaders of the other parties.

Even with the pain of austerity, the opposition has always been so divided that it is almost unsurprising that Cameron, with the help of his own party, had to be the orchestrator of his own downfall. Progressives will not to be too sad to see the end of his tenure. But the future after Cameron is uncertain.

Trying to moderate his party's position, Cameron rebuilt them as a political force. Without him at the helm, with the opposition divided, a question now hangs over what the new Tory leader will use that platform to pursue next.

Friday, 5 February 2016

Cameron's EU draft deal makes a two speed Europe a fact and gives the European Union a chance to move forward

For progressives, the bright side of Cameron's renegotiation for two speeds of membership is that it keeps Britain at the heart of the EU, where they can continue to campaign for better, more democratic, system.
David Cameron has got, in draft form, his deal on Europe (Sparrow & Smith, 2016). The deal came with an unequivocal statement that the Prime Minister would, if Britain where not part of the EU, join if these were the terms. The Cameron deal, negotiated and Donald Tusk, President of the European Council (chair of the council of EU member states) came to a short list of agreements.

Member states to have the right to use an 'emergency brake' on providing social security to migrants when movement was above ordinary levels, that those outside bodies like the Eurozone should not be expected to fund them, a commitment from the EU to better regulations and more efficient administration, and for national parliaments that make up 55% of seats on the European Council to represent a veto on European legislation (Sparrow, 2016). What these concessions most clearly establish is a two speed Europe (Verhofstadt, 2016).

Romano Prodi, former Italian Prime Minister and former President of the European Commission (Europe's executive branch), had previously foreseen this outcome (CNN, 2004). An attempt had been made to bring together the various European treaties to create a clear Constitution for Europe, only for it to be rejected at referendums in both France and the Netherlands (BBC, 2005; The Guardian; 2005).

Prodi accepted that, with the failure to establish a constitution for Europe, to make progress the European Union must now move at two speeds (EurActiv, 2007) - so that those who do not want to move forward could have their choice respected, without it overriding the choice of others to move ever closer. Without some formal resolution on that direction, however, Europe has seemingly spent the last decade stalled.

Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the liberals in Europe, praised the chance the renegotiations offered for clarity (Verhofstadt, 2015). Verhofstadt stressed that their was common ground in Europe for clearing up the messy boundaries and agreements, so that all countries could align themselves with a sure understanding of where they were headed.

Making the European Union a two speed institution essentially realigns Europe into two groups: some countries pursuing ever closer union, while others stay at arms length. The first group will accept the Eurozone, Schengen, joint border agencies, and the pursuit of better political and economic governance. Those at the edge will continue to have a seat at the table and important relationships and votes on governance, but there will be opt-outs rather than a veto.

For those in the UK who favour European Union membership, this seems to be the best deal on the table for now. What it certainly does offer is a chance to remain close. As Romano Prodi put it (EurActiv, 2007), "a two-speed Europe does not mean that countries that are in the second group cannot move to the first".

To the UK's progressives, this means the chance to renew efforts for a more social Europe (Shaheen, 2015), for the positive impacts that the EU can have in the fight for a greener world (Vidal, 2016), and to engage with continental campaigns for better democracy, like that being launched in Berlin next week on 9th February by Yanis Varoufakis to improve democracy in Europe (Varoufakis, 2016).

Monday, 12 October 2015

Cold, business-like, austerity narrative has a weakness: it leaves no room for compassion

David Cameron has tried hard to take for the Conservatives, from Labour, a reputation for a stern, serious, business-like approach to government. Photograph: Prime Minister David Cameron meets EDF workers, 21 October 2013 - Department of Energy and Climate Change (License)
At the Conservative Party conference On Wednesday, David Cameron gave a keynote speech described as that of a leader at the height of his powers (d'Ancona, 2015). That label suits the supreme confidence Cameron and the Conservatives are showing right now in their dominant austerity narrative (Jones et al, 2015).

So far David Cameron and George Osborne, his heir apparent, have controlled the political debate, making it all about fiscal responsibility. So confident are they in their position within that debate, they're now - apparently - trying to pitch their message to the centre and centre-left (Freedland, 2015).

However, the terms have started to change. The emergence of Jeremy Corbyn, and the popular movement surrounding him, has forced the addition of ethical and moral dimensions to the contest. The simple narrative of responsible versus irresponsible is now being clouded by a contrast being drawn between 'tough love' conservatism and the compassionate anti-austerity Left.

Since 2010 a political consensus has developed in the UK that focusses on Labour's alleged reckless profligacy and the resultant need for responsible management of the national finances - with the Conservatives pitching themselves as just the business-like grown-ups to save the country from the naive and reckless idealists.

But Cameron & Osborne might finally be overreaching with their effort to appeal to the centre and Left. While pushing austerity measures, originally pursued as merely corrective, into an extended and lasting policy, they seem to have forgotten how thin the support for their political 'consensus' is in reality.

In a country divided, where at least 34% chose at least a 'lite' alternative to austerity and 33% didn't participate, the remaining 33% who believed in further austerity, and so voted Conservative or Ukip, do not represent a consensus so much as the most well organised minority - with many of those who voted Conservative likely not to even consider themselves party supporters, let alone loyalists.

Those are shallow foundations from which Cameron is pitching to voters the idea that the Conservatives are the only party of the mainstream - laying claim to morality, nationality and sensibility as things represented solely by them. In itself, the attempt just reveals how far into right-wing territory the political consensus has swung.

Centrism is supposed to be about balance. It is supposed to bring together communities, individuals and traditions - appealing to democrats, liberals and conservatives alike - to create a society balanced between, and accessible by, all.

All Cameron's government has offered are right-wing solutions: restricting or taking away parts of the social security system, taking legislative action against strikes, and pushing market-based solutions wherever they can be forced onto public services. The Conservative brand of 'centrism' is profoundly unbalanced in favour of a meritocratic elitism, based heavily on the role played by wealth and competition.

As much as the Conservatives have made an opportunity for themselves out of the struggles of the Labour Party, they have left a door open for Labour to make a return to relevance. Corbyn's "We don't pass by" speech to the CWU's People's Post gathering, in Manchester last week, conveyed a compassion that is fast becoming the mark of the Left in opposition.

While junior doctors have struggled with their working conditions with an underfunded NHS, the Conservatives have turned a deaf ear. It has taken the threat of strike action, and the disruption it causes to 'efficient' services, to make the Conservatives take notice of their suffering.

Even then, the response has only been the offer of promises and guarantees that there will be proper monitoring, all while plans continue to be pushed ahead (Campbell, 2015). It was hardly a surprise, then, to see junior doctors taking their campaign onto the streets of Manchester alongside anti-austerity protesters.

Similar accusations regarding the lack of response by the political class to suffering have come from those warning of homelessness rising under conditions of increased debts, restricted welfare and a lack of affordable housing ((BBC, 2015; The Telegraph, 2015).

Hackney Council have come in for criticism for its handling of homelessness, after it threatened to criminalise homelessness and introduce fines for sleeping rough (Osborne, 2015). Singer Ellie Goulding has openly campaigned against the maltreatment of homeless people by London councils (Ellis-Petersen, 2015).

It aught to be a matter of concern for Cameron and Osborne that, despite Hackney Council being Labour controlled, in Goulding's campaign for better treatment of homeless people, it is to Jeremy Corbyn and Labour that she has turned, in search of someone to bring "some compassion back into politics".

It is in that contest that the Conservatives' self-assigned 'pragmatism' may finally count against them. A shift in the debate to include compassion will hurt a government that has chosen to bet the house on a cold lack of concern beyond a financial, profit-making, statistical assessment of economic 'success' which does not factor in the impact on individuals or communities.

With an increase in working poverty, linked directly to changes being made by Cameron's government (Wintour & Watt, 2015), the dominant austerity narrative in which Conservatives have shown such confidence is being exposed for its lack of human warmth.

All of a sudden, Corbyn looks to be exactly the opponent, with exactly the right tone, to trouble the Conservatives' thin hold on power. The Conservatives have tried so hard to take from Labour the reputation for serious prudent economic focussed politics. It would be a tremendous irony if, with the party strutting around as if it has finally assumed that mantle, the poisonous flaw in that reputation might just have been discovered.

Monday, 20 July 2015

George Osborne's appeal for progressives to back his 'reforms' cover an attempt to dismantle compassionate social security

An old branch of the Job Centre in London. Photograph: DSC_0107.JPG via photopin (license) (cropped)
In The Guardian on Sunday, George Osborne made an appeal to progressives and Labour Party MPs to get behind his welfare 'reforms' (Osborne, 2015).
"We are saying to working people: our new national living wage will ensure you get a decent day’s pay, but there are going to be fewer taxpayer-funded benefits.... I believe this settlement represents the new centre of British politics, and appeal to progressive MPs on all sides to support us."
Yet even as Osborne attempted this appeal to 'moderates' with his new 'Centre', Conservative ministers were floating policy ideas that made it clear the party is not content to settle for just the latest round of austerity cutbacks.

While it has become abundantly clear that austerity is the long term economic plan that the Conservative leadership has taken pains to remind us of, ad nauseum, the ambitious extent to which that plan would be extended was not.

As far back as 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron was telling guests at the Lord Mayor's dinner that austerity measures would, in the end, produce a 'leaner' state permanently (Watt, 2013). The first Conservative budget, divorced from the Liberal Democrat obstructions, then arrived with a prelude from Cameron, announcing his wish for a 'higher wage, lower welfare, lower tax' society (BBC, 2015).

But even the budget, with its cuts to welfare - which have been variously criticised as driving divisions between the old and the young (McVeigh & Helm, 2015), between men and women (Watt & Perraudin, 2015), and between the rich and poor (May, 2015) - only mask a more fundamental change being pursued.

There is a project under way to comprehensively deconstruct the welfare state and the principles upon which it was founded. From the NHS (Campbell, 2015), to welfare (Mason, 2015), to even the post office (Macalister, 2015) and public broadcasting (Perraudin, 2015), the public sector is faced with being stripped back and undone - with tax funding for services being replaced with fees charged to the 'consuming' individuals.

The big question is why? Looking beyond the temptation to suggest a colourful variety of reasons involving detached selfishness and collusion with vested interests, what ideological and theoretical motivations are there to dismantle the systems of social security?

The word that comes up, again and again, is dependency.

From around the 1970s, modern conservatism began to form itself around the long abandoned ideas of classical liberalism, absorbing its priorities of laissez-faire, that is non-intervention, and meritocracy. Those principles are used as the theoretical underpinning of a low tax, low regulation and low equality modern conservative economic system, that acts as the social framework for advancing certain deeply ideological values.

The stated aim is to encourage self-interest, or greed as Boris Johnson championed it (Watt, 2013{2}), while discouraging dependence. It is in particular dependence which these modern conservatives see as the danger inherent to systems of welfare and social security.

The practical application means divorcing the state, acting on behalf of society and particularly of its richest members, from the responsibility of securing the wellbeing of the individual members of society - passing that duty off onto the individuals themselves. Through this means, neoliberal conservatives aim to drive individuals to self-interested action, where their productive work directly links to their social security and makes them wholly dependent upon themselves.

What they do not seem to grasp is that the idea of paid work, in the form of productive labour - with success and wealth marked as the result individual character, and failure and poverty as likewise the result of a personal fecklessness - is a deeply moralistic and ideological viewpoint of how society should function.

The facts do not bear out these moral and ideological beliefs. If you are born poor, the statistics say you will likely remain poor (Harrison, 2013). Whatever merit based rewards that the market might offer are suppressed or distorted by very real social conditions. Liberties and rights become privileges far out of reach for most individuals, who are reduced to factors of production competing with each other for survival.

So busy are neoliberal modern conservatives in trying to avoid dependency (George & Wilding, 1994) - and an escalating collectivism that they fear it would lead to - they ignore, are blind to, or outright disavow, the necessity of facilitating opportunity, for competition to actually be fair and so produce meaningful outcomes, or facilitating justice, where members of community are fairly supported and rewarded for the competitive exploitation of what ultimately belongs to the community.

Neoliberalism also undermines two important factors in any progressive state: social cohesion and the principle of universality. Through progressive tax contributions that pay for general use public services, society is bound in a common obligation (Peston, 2015). A portion of what is made by the individual through the exploitation of other individuals and of community resources, is used to fund care and support for the whole community.

The public sector, from healthcare to education, represents the individual members of society pooling their funds to provide a universal service. Everyone, who can, pays in and everyone benefits, regardless of their bank account, from freely accessible services. Communities, and society at large, are brought together on the basis of compassion, acknowledging the inherent value of one member of a society to another - with each member benefiting from the education of another and from their wellbeing, healthy and free from poverty.

Neoliberalism is neither post-ideological nor centrist. It carries very definite social aims that are focussed squarely upon the destruction of this consensus. In its place is put a highly moralised version of earning a living, where working for pay - however degrading and insufficient - is no longer a necessary sufferance, which radical reforming governments attempt to alleviate, but the focal point of an individual's life and a  marker of their worth (O'Hagan, 2012).

At a time when people are talking seriously of abolishing poverty (Ban Ki-moon, 2015), are rolling out trials of the basic income (Perry, 2015) and discussing the possibilities of a post-capitalist society based on abundance (Mason, 2015), George Osborne is trying to implement a system designed to entrench the old world - and he wants the help of progressives in rewriting that script.

But whatever iniquities the welfare state may have, including its cost, what is there to consider progressive about coercing people into paid employment, however degrading, with the threat of impoverishment? The classical liberals of old were left behind by the modern liberals (1928), who moved on to say:
"We believe with a passionate faith that the end of all political and economic action is not the perfecting or the perpetuation of this or that piece of mechanism or organisation, but that individual men and women may have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."
Dignity and self-esteem come from autonomy - which is a far throw from a life lived supported by the ever insecure low pay scraped together from working in poor conditions for exploitative employers. The austerity agenda will not achieve them for any but the very few.

Thursday, 2 July 2015

Cameron's plans for English Votes on English Laws represent Conservative determination not to decentralise power

Photograph: Palace of Westminster from across the river via photopin (license) (cropped)
The Conservative government's plans to introduce English Votes for English Laws where announced today by Chris Grayling, Conservative leader of the Commons (Sparrow, 2015). After a Prime Ministers Questions session yesterday which saw the Prime Minister David Cameron face a barrage of questions from SNP MPs on the matter (BBC, 2015), the Conservatives can not have been expecting a warm reception today.

English Votes for English Laws, under its pretty unfortunate acronym Evel, is a proposal to limit Scottish MPs in their ability to vote on matters that would affect England only, due to those areas having been devolved to the Scottish Parliament (Wintour, 2015).

But what it seems to be, above everything else, is an attempt by Conservatives to forestall Britain's shift towards a federal system, where power would be devolved away from the centre at Westminster - and the more proportional voting systems would likely follow.

Late last year, Cameron promised the devolution of further powers to Scotland, including tax raising powers (Wintour, 2014), but at the same time stressed his intention to pursue the idea that legislation affecting only England should only be voted on by English MPs.

Some, particularly within the SNP, have complained that such a stratification of MPs, with different voting powers on different legislation, would create mounting difficulties (Mason & Perraudin, 2015). Furthermore there has been outrage at how the government is attempting to rush the plans through without the scrutiny of the full parliamentary process (Mason, 2015).

At PMQs, Cameron stressed that his plan for Evel did not involve creating a two-tiered system of MPs, but was the equivalent for England of the devolved decision making already in place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (Sparrow, 2015).

That opinion exposes an oddity within the British system. In essence, it labels Westminster as, de facto, the English Parliament, to which the other nations seem to simply be invited to attend when matters affecting them arise.

This determination to maintain this particular political system, forcing answers to constitutional questions to fit within Britain's deeply centralised system, even when they will produce unbalanced ways of handling legislation (The Guardian, 2015) - in this case by handing a veto to English MPs - looks to be a sign of just how uncomfortable the Conservative Party is with the clear changes taking place within the UK's political system.

Instead of embracing positive changes to the British system, for which there is mounting support (Mortimer, 2015), the Conservatives have determined instead to pursue a system that alienates those parts of the country who already have some partial federalism, while trying to rule another 50 million people directly from Westminster.

Embracing federalism, based around the regions and nations of the UK and allowing Westminster to evolve into a federal parliament, would be a much neater approach.

Following a close comparison for Britain, as Canada would be despite its smaller population, federalism would allow power to be devolved neatly to provincial assemblies representing the North, the Midlands, the East, the South and London. These could sit comfortably alongside those of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, much as Ontario or Alberta sit alongside the quite vociferously distinct Quebec. By reforming along such lines, the confusing dual-purposing of Westminster might be avoided in the process.

Britain already has a complex multi-level political system, of regions and county councils between Westminster and local authorities, long in need of reform. Streamlining that system along federal lines would be a huge step forward that would ensure that, above all, people have the right to a government representative of them and their distinct provincial needs, while avoiding constitutional snarls that are only likely to lead to more alienation and division.

Wednesday, 24 June 2015

For Cameron and the Conservatives, austerity is the long term economic plan

Anti-austerity protesters out in large number on Saturday 20th June. Photograph: #EndAusterityNow March in London via photopin (license) (cropped).

If it wasn't already clear, David Cameron made sure of it at Prime Minister's Questions today: the Conservatives have no intention of austerity being just a corrective interim measure (Eaton, 2015).

Last week Cameron laid out that his intention to turn the UK from a "low-wage, high-tax, high-welfare society to a higher wage, lower tax, lower welfare society" (Mason, 2015). For those who feel this deviates from the Conservative message of prioritising debt and deficit reduction as the purpose of austerity, they're missing the bigger picture.

Tackling debt and deficits was only ever the first phase. For the Conservatives, austerity is the long term economic plan. As Cameron stressed at the Lord Mayor's Banquet in 2013:
"We are sticking to the task. But that doesn't just mean making difficult decisions on public spending. It also means something more profound. It means building a leaner, more efficient state. We need to do more with less. Not just now, but permanently."
This reaffirmation of the Conservative agenda comes in advance of the announcement of, what will likely be, enormous cuts to public sector spending by the Chancellor in July. If the Conservatives are likely to get anywhere near their stated 'spending reduction' targets, there are going to be some very painful budget cuts.

While Cameron was being challenged at the dispatch box during PMQs by Harriet Harman, Acting Labour leader, over the impact of cuts to tax credits on the poor, Parliament was invaded by protesters who were campaigning to protect welfare spending on disability allowances (BBC, 2015) - both likely Conservative targets.

Along with the anti-austerity protests of last weekend, these outbursts seem more in tune with what the data tells us. Even as of last year, the UK public stated their willingness to pay higher taxes if that was what it took to have fully funded public services (Campbell, 2015).

So why is the talk of high wages with lower taxes and little welfare, when it could be of high wages with higher taxes to fund better welfare? The answer is that the Conservatives are pursuing a long term, ideologically driven plan, to redraw the UK according to the austerian agenda.

The disparity between the Conservative majority government and the rest of the UK over austerity, with the governments mandate coming from less than a quarter of the UK, presents an opportunity - but only if Progressives can come up with a compelling alternative. At the 2015 UK general election the Liberal Democrats and the Greens both offered Tax rises, while Labour and the SNP both offered to slow cuts to allow economic growth to lessen the burden over time. They now have to find a way to bring their themes - of liberty, sustainability, justice and local self-determination - together into a coherent opposition narrative.

Monday, 8 June 2015

Conservative meritocracy is leaving British society feeling cold and lacking in kindness

The front page of the Conservative Party's 2015 manifesto made some pretty bold statements. It promised, in stark colours, a 'clear economic plan', and a 'brighter, more secure future'. Once David Cameron had secured a majority, he stood outside of Number 10 Downing Street and compounded that message by committing his party to running a 'one nation' government (Stone, 2015).

One month into Cameron's second term as Prime Minister, it is still hard to reconcile those statements with the party's intent to dismantle the UK's social security apparatus (Keegan, 2015). Through the Right-to-Buy scheme, the reserve of social housing looks like being further depleted (Helm & Boffey, 2015) and further cuts are expected to be coming for the welfare support and services depended upon by the most vulnerable (Stewart, 2015).

Whatever the, allegedly existing, plan that is supposed to secure this bright, united future will actually involve, it appears to be very much embedded within the Conservative meritocratic attitude (Watt, 2015) - an attitude that has underwritten their strivers & skivers rhetoric (Williams, 2013). That attitude itself already has questions enough to answer in the name of proper scrutiny: what is considered worthy of merit? On what playing field is merit earned? And, what happens to those considered to be without merit?

However it is the third question in particular that is perhaps the most revealing, exposing a kindness deficit every bit as serious as the fiscal one.

The last five years have proven tough for the most vulnerable, with visits to food banks growing drastically in number (BBC, 2015). That pressure, a crushing weight upon the poorest, has not been alleviated over the past few months with councils behaving unconscionably towards the homeless - by criminalising sleeping rough (Sparkes, 2015) - and earning the disgust of celebrities in the process (The Guardian, 2015).

While the government might feel able to distance itself from the actions of local councils, it is much harder for the Conservatives to separate themselves from how their welfare policies are being implemented. Government delays in the payment of benefits to people with disabilities have been ruled unlawful (The Guardian, 2015{2}). And news for the most vulnerable doesn't get much better with the Prime Minister not ruling out the possibility of more cuts to disability benefits (Watt, 2015{2}).

This coldness all seems to be part of an attempt at reshaping the British state. Policies like selling off state assets, from social housing to the Post Office (Wintour, 2015; Macalister, 2015) - being as they are only one-off and short term ways of raising funds - are not much use in addressing the deficit. But what they do reflect is a determination to shift social responsibilities away from the state - acting on behalf of a society that contributes its fair share to a collective public service - and onto the individual.

That shift, which comes hand in hand with the mean and cold Conservative meritocratic attitude and its policy of austerity, has taken to treating vulnerable people like errant Victorian children - to be disciplined through a Gladstonian frugality while being pontificated to on the values of the ruling elite. That attitude is exemplified by the Tory anti-liberal attitude on security. The Prime Minister has suggested that Britain has for too long had a 'passively tolerant society', standing 'neutral between different values' (Stone, 2015{2}).

In the face of this Tory calculated coldness, in the pursuit of an ideologically redrawn society, it is important for the opposition to make kindness a big part of their approach. The Left opposition needs to do more than just oust a ruling party. It needs to confront and expose an an unkind vision of society, and to develop an open, compassionate and liberal alternative in the name of the common good.

Tuesday, 7 April 2015

Election 2015: Conservative Party

David Cameron has already announced that this will be the last general election into which he leads the Conservative Party (BBC, 2015{1}). With the vultures circling, that announcement may be the only thing that will keep him in office and safe from being toppled by his own party - so long as the Tories win, of course.

Another failure to win a majority would likely mean a premature end not just for Cameron, but also for his attempt at modernising the Conservative Party and for the senior positions held many of his allies. A majority would at least let Cameron see out his leadership in relative peace while his challengers fight amongst themselves for the right to lead the party into 2020.

Achieving that majority will mostly depend upon two things. First, that the public has been convinced that austerity was absolutely necessary. Second, that any future economic upsurge will - even if only in the form of trickle-down - be to some general benefit.

And that is going to be a hard sell.

Indications are that the attempt at modernising the Conservative Party - at least on the surface - has failed to rebrand the party in the eyes of the public. The party is still seen as the friend of the super-rich tax-dodger and uncaring about the public services upon which ordinary people rely (Tall, 2015).

It is not without good reason that this is the party's image.

Taking away the Liberal Democrat influence that brought about policies like the increase in the Personal Tax Allowance and the Pupil Premium, and restrained the worst Tory excesses, the Conservative government record has been dominated by two main themes: attacks upon welfare for the poorest and tax cuts benefiting the wealthiest (Eaton, 2014).

On welfare the party has been on the receiving end of stinging criticism. The Conservative cuts agenda has been criticised for having state support networks for the poorest and most vulnerable as its main target (Ryan, 2015). Its workfare programme was challenged in the courts (Malik, 2015). Its attempt to make cuts to housing benefit has been roundly condemned as a bedroom tax on the poorest (Butler, 2014).

The impact of these policies on the party's image has not been helped by the occasional public outburst of 'conservative values'. Boris Johnson - Mayor of London, prospective MP and most likely successor to Cameron - used a speech as an opportunity to praise inequality, for fostering the 'valuable spur' that is the 'spirit of envy' (Watt, 2013).

As unhelpful as that statement may be to David Cameron and George Osborne in attempting to modernise their party, it does go a long way to explaining the philosophy underlying even their Tory-lite approach. That there are strivers and skivers, deserving hard workers and undeserving shirkers; that disparities in wealth are reflective of merit, so justifying pro-wealthy, anti-poor, attitudes (Coote & Lyall, 2013).

Not only is Cameron trying to sell to the country the idea that the austerity process has worked, but that it aught to be both continued and extended, in line with that narrative.

In 2015 and after, under the Conservatives, there are expected to be more terrifyingly vague and vast cuts to come (Syal, 2015). There are some vague promises about NHS funding to be covered by inspecific 'efficiency savings' (Wright & Moodley, 2015), yet that will be checked by fears at the British Medical Association (BMA) that NHS funding shortfalls will lead to the introduction of charges for medical treatment (Campbell, 2015).

The party has been wallpapering over the cracks by mimicking Lib Dem policies - like a rise in the Personal Income Tax Allowance - and committing to no rise in VAT, although that promise has been broken before (Worrall, 2015). There have even been intimations of a commitment to match the funding increase called for by the NHS (The Huffington Post UK, 2015).

But with a planned tax cut for higher-earners currently on the 40p tax rate; along with a tax cut likely on inheritance, an authoritarian turn on civil rights with requirements for companies to store certain types of data and the repeal of the Human Rights Act, while further rolling back public spending; their policies are unlikely to endear the party to anyone outside of its most hardcore supporters (BBC, 2015{2}).

Furthermore, the party has also been outflanked on its right by UKIP on Europe and immigration, with its own record tarnished by broken promises that will make any future commitments difficult to sell - even with the pledge to hold an in/out referendum on EU membership by 2017 (Grice, 2015).

With a supporter base shrinking due to defections to the Tories Far-Right cousin UKIP, and with policies unlikely to attract any but those already initiated, the most that the Conservatives have to hope for is a consolidation of their present position. The one thing that could break through the barriers, constructed out of ideology and policy, that bar their way to a majority, would be the success of their austerity narrative. If they can convince people that it has worked, and that there are long term benefits, they may just sneak into office.


Prospects: 34% for 273 seats (a loss of 30).*

Possible Coalition Partners: Liberal Democrats (28 Seats), Democratic Unionist Party (9), UKIP (4).

Verdict: Neither progressive, nor alternative. Progressives could only even consider them if they're convinced by the need for cuts, specifically because they don't think a portion of their earnings should be taxed and redistributed to support a range of public services - from the NHS to Welfare & Pensions.


Thursday, 2 April 2015

Election 2015: Seven-way debate sees the Left outnumber the Right to talk about ideals, fairness and being open to the world

Before tonight's ITV leader's debate began, the focus had been steadily upon David Cameron and Ed Miliband (Battersby, 2015; Hawkins, 2015). There are obvious reasons why. Polling continues to suggest either the Conservatives or Labour will be the biggest party come May - and that it will be close however the ballot papers eventually stack.

But the debate itself reflected the other thing that the polls have been saying: British politics has fragmented. There are now five parties that compete across the whole of Britain and are polling over 5%, and two regional parties with a large and growing presence within two of Britain's countries. For those smaller parties it was always going to be a major boost just to be invited to the show (Robinson, 2015).

Yet they did so much more. Natalie Bennett of the Green Party and Leanne Wood of Plaid Cymru talked about ideals like freedom of movement. Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP spoke of ending austerity. Nick Clegg joined in, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, to challenge Farage over the need to be open hearted and fair.

Despite Farage's best obsessive anti-European efforts, he was repeatedly overshadowed by the three female leaders of the SNP, Plaid and the Greens. Their anti-austerity message and language of hope frequently stole his thunder and ensured that the Left outnumbered the Right in every round of the debate. Whenever he tried to push the anti-immigration and anti-EU agenda, there was a voice - as there has been far too infrequently in recent years - to speak of being Pro-European as being open to the world, positive and fair in how we treat other people.

The reality is that TV debates have been shown not to play a particularly useful role in analysing the ideas of the different parties (Cooper, 2015). But what this debate has done is to provide people with reassurance that there are other alternatives out there. There are different narratives to the mainstream idea of fiscal austerity. There is a will to be open and co-operate, rather just compete and alienate. As Natalie Bennett put it:
"If you want change, you have to vote for it. You don't have to vote for the lesser of two evils.

Monday, 30 March 2015

Election 2015: The campaign has started on Labour's terms, but beneath the surface there are negative undertones

After the first not-debate of the 2015 UK election campaign, the Labour Party is probably feeling like it has had the best of the opening exchanges. But not everything smells of roses just yet.

During the not-debate Labour's leader, Ed Miliband, showed himself to be at least credible. Now the party has staked out its territory on the NHS by committing to restricting private company profits taken from NHS contracts and to the repeal of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (Wintour, 2015{1}).

Furthermore, the Conservatives were forced to be defensive over leaks purporting to be their proposed welfare cuts for the next parliament (Wintour, 2015{2}) - which would involve the end of industrial injuries benefit (for £1bn), restrictions on child benefit (for £1bn), taxes on disability benefits (for £1.5bn), and reducing eligibility for carer's allowance (with 40% to lose out for £1bn).

The coverage of the leak largely overshadowed David Cameron's own announcement - accompanied by insults aimed at Labour, describing them as ''hypocritical holier-than-thou, hopeless, sneering socialists" (The Guardian, 2015) - to expand the NHS to a full-time 24/7 service (BBC, 2015{1}). He was hardly helped by a British Medical Association warning that an expansion of services would require extra funding (BBC, 2015{2}).

This will all have been precisely the start Labour will have wanted. Labour looking credible on the NHS, and the Tories looking nasty with their cuts agenda.

And yet. While everything may look rosy for Labour and progressives, there is a negative undertone bubbling away just beneath the surface.

Nowhere is that negativity shown best than in the debate on immigration. The latest outrage has come courtesy of the Labour Party itself. Diane Abbott, Labour MP, has expressed her anger at the party's merchandising of a 'Controls on Immigration' mug. The party is using it to promote one of its key election commitments, itself a platitude to cover themselves with voters for whom immigration is a concern (Perraudin, 2015).

The Labour Party's attitude on the matter of immigration shouldn't really be a surprise at this point. Their language during the European elections, at the possibility of a UKIP threat to its working class base, made clear their turn towards appeasement of anti-immigration rhetoric (Watt & Wintour, 2014; Cooper, 2014).

In many ways, Labour and the Conservatives have become mirrors of one another. Both have tried to court the voters of Britain's broad Centre-ground, and in doing so forsook some of their native territory - and they have both underestimated the level of resistance that they would face from their old, alienated, supporters who would refuse to move with them.

When the Conservatives couldn't keep their house in order while trying to modernise and claim centre voters it spawned an ugly offshoot. Those Right-wing voices have since been allowed to dictate the terms of the debate, and to tie together, in people's minds, their agendas with the insecurities people fear. The sad thing is that the solutions to insecurities of work, or to the lack of homes, are not to be reached by the Right's favoured response of shutting themselves in. There are far more open and progressive solutions.

A strong minimum wage and a citizen's income. House building and social housing. More money made available to the less well-off to create their own start-ups. More support and funding for workers to take over their workplaces as co-operatives when big companies pull the plug and reek havoc in communities. The publicly funded public healthcare system supported by health professionals and service users alike.

There is also support for these ideas. Labour, and the Greens and Lib Dems, are all on board with a rising minimum wage, with house building and with co-operatives. The three main parties of the left and centre are all half way there. All that tends to stand in the way is a commitment to an effective public sector, around which there might be an equitable redistribution of income for health & welfare, and for housing and public investment like co-operatives - whether centralised at Westminster or decentralised to regions and localities.

And yet. Once again Labour has found itself against a wall of public opinion and has not found a voice with which to cut through the propaganda. Instead, feeling weak and set upon, it has paid lip service.

Labour's health proposals are part of a similar theme. They have offered a check on privatisation which, by definition, precludes an end to PFIs (Private Finance Initiatives) in the NHS - which expanded first of all under Labour's stewardship (Dathan, 2015). While it would certainly raise more funds for the NHS, it is still only an attempt at making capitalism work for socialism - or at least democratic socialism - rather than a means of addressing or responding to the fundamental mistrust of private business becoming involved with public services.

Labour's attitude to healthcare and immigration are problems with a common root. On healthcare they have their same old idea - of using private investment to raise public funds - and are just looking for a new way to sell it to people redressed in new packaging. On immigration the party has a fairly positive core - one focussed on a minimum wage increase and working conditions - which it has now encased within a language and policies of anti-immigration scapegoating.

In each case, Labour has come to its own position but has not tried to win the debate over the fundamental ideas underlying them. They have merely looked for how they might sell the idea. That has produced the inconsistent result where the party has resisted public pressure to end NHS privatisation, and yet has caved to it on immigration.

Labour's mix of aloof policy-making and aggressive populism alienates them from the people they should be debating with, trying to convince them of the benefits of progressive alternatives. While the political Right scraps for dominance, Labour needs to wake up to the fact that the Left doesn't have to play the game the same way.

There is so much hunger on the Left for more engagement and less half measures. There is so much room for more co-operation, more optimism and more positivity. Diane Abbott speaking out against Labour's immigration policy is a positive constructive step. People are crying out for a radically positive vision and Labour, as the biggest party on the Left, have the responsibility to facilitate it.

Thursday, 26 March 2015

The Battle for Number 10 between just two leaders and the Bercow Saga show just how desperately British politics needs reform

The first sort-of-not-a-debate was never likely to be all that exciting, but it suffers in comparison to the political machinations that preceded it earlier today. The Conservatives chose the day that their leader was making a very public appearance to try and oust the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow.

In an effort described as 'grubby', and condemned on all sides of parliament, the Conservatives attempted to pass a motion to change the rules by which MPs vote for the position of Speaker - seen specifically as an effort to remove Bercow (BBC, 2015). Considering Bercow's efforts to clean up Parliamentary politics and modernise Westminster (Dathan, 2015), it wasn't exactly the backdrop that David Cameron would have wanted for facing an interrogation by Jeremy Paxman.

The not-a-debate itself was predictably frustrating and tense - though there were some cracks. Cameron couldn't live on a zero-hours contract and Miliband claimed that his Labour predecessors were wrong on immigration and the deregulation of the banks.

The pretty odd absence of the Liberal Democrats from the debate was at least softened when their policies showed up. The Mansion Tax, and a Referendum on Europe if there is a treaty change, seem to have made it into Labour's repertoire.

However much their absence may leave them a bit isolated, the Lib Dems may be pleased not to have been on the same stage as the other leaders after all. Whatever they might have gained in terms of increased profile, that profile would have come with the great deal of frustration people will feel with the persistence of Cameron and Miliband in refusing to answer questions directly.

Early polling seems to have suggested a 'win' for Cameron (Clark, 2015), but it has been suggested that Miliband will likely be the one who gains in the long term - being seen to possibly be a capable leader will not hurt his party's election chances (Sparrow, 2015).

And yet, despite all of that, the main thing to be taken from the not-debate tonight will be the narrow focus on just two party leaders at a time when British politics has never been more open. The reality of British politics in 2015 is that there is unlikely to be a majority after the election in May, and there will be many smaller parties vying for attention.

Keeping the focus on these two - Miliband and Cameron, Labour and Conservatives - is about as bad for politics as the underhanded attempt to dislodge Speaker Bercow, a committed reformer, from office while everyone else is away or not paying attention.

The focus now switches to the debate between seven party leaders on 2nd April. That should be livelier, if for no other reason than the Clegg effect from 2010 - lots of parties and politicians entirely new to many viewers. That at least will hopefully mark a reforming step, more in line with reality.

Thursday, 12 February 2015

HSBC scandal shows the disturbing connection between wealth and political influence in the UK

Over the last week there have emerged allegations of massive tax evasion amongst wealthy individuals, facilitated by the international banking concern HSBC (Tran, 2015). The most disturbing elements of the story have been the connections drawn between the bank, those evading tax, and the UK government.

There has been an alleged failure on the part of the treasury to pursue and prosecute, while authorities elsewhere across Europe have co-operated to secure prosecutions and recovery of moneys (Syal & Garside, 2015). There have been extravagant donations from those dodging tax to political parties here in the UK - £5m to the Conservatives, and as much as £2.5m has been connected to Labour (Leigh et al, 2015). The former chair of HSBC, Stephen Green, is even a government minister (Garside et al, 2015).

Prime Minister Cameron has thus far issued the same kinds of denial that he made in relation to the scandal surrounding his former director of communications Andy Coulson, even as Labour have tried to press home the connections between the Conservative Party and the perpetrators of this latest scandal (Watt & Wintour, 2015). Other political figures have even been quick to suggest that light avoidance, though not necessarily outright evasion, is normal in British society (Wintour, 2015).

As with the hacking scandal that brought Rupert Murdoch before a parliamentary inquiry, the extensive connections between wealth and political influence are disturbing. Money-making capitalist enterprises have been allegedly helping the wealthy break the law for a profit, all while both groups are closely connected to UK government ministers and political parties.

We are reminded once again of the need for vigilance. But sometimes even that isn't enough. When powerful institutions are shrouded in secrecy, hidden by their wealth and influence, we need something more. We need greater transparency, in both the public and private sectors, along with comprehensive political reform to ensure that justice and democracy can't undermined for a price.

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References:
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+ Mark Tran's 'The HSBC files: what we know so far'; in The Guardian; 11 February 2015.

+ Rajeev Syal & Juliette Garside's 'HSBC files: tax chief 'confident' civil servants told ministers about data'; in The Guardian; 11 February 2015.

+  David Leigh, James Ball, Juliette Garside & David Pegg's 'HSBC files show Tories raised over £5m from HSBC Swiss account holders'; in The Guardian; 11 February 2015.

+ Juliette Garside, David Leigh, James Ball & David Pegg's 'Ex-HSBC boss Stephen Green: the ethical banker with questions to answer'; in The Guardian; 9 February 2015.

+ Nicholas Watt & Patrick Wintour's 'Ed Miliband attacks 'dodgy' PM for failure to answer HSBC tax questions'; in The Guardian; 11 February 2015.

+ Patrick Wintour's 'Lord Fink: tax avoidance is normal in British society'; in The Guardian; 12 February 2015.

Monday, 13 October 2014

The party conferences reveal different visions for our economic future

With the next UK general election now only months away, this round of political party conferences is all about building towards polling day. That means each party is beginning to mark out its territory, and to lay out the policies that voters will be asked to choose between.

With the economic crisis refusing to abate, and a series of deep cuts to public sector funding likely to be followed by more in the next parliament - certainly if the current government survives the election - the economy is going to be a major factor for consideration.

On the matter of economics, political parties seem to adhere to a set of rules that ensure that things don't change too much. But the main parties all have their own visions, even if there are some common themes. Each of those visions reveals to us a little bit about the differences between the parties.

Amongst the most telling are the policies of the right-wing conservatives, who will have the novelty of being represented by two parties at the next general election. The Conservative Party and UKIP represent the same fundamental political positions, though in UKIP's case it has been taken to some extremes.

Savage cuts to public services appear to be on the Conservative Party agenda for the next parliament, with the wealthiest looking likely to be the main benefactors (Ball, 2014). UKIP's offer looks astoundingly similar, if anything even more weighted towards the upper middle class and upwards - to be paid for, they say, by leaving Europe, and so ending Britain's contributions to things like the Regional Development Fund and support for Agriculture and Fisheries, and by cutting foreign aid (BBC, 26/9/2014).

Both conservative parties are also offering to copy the Liberal Democrats and their stated commitment to take the poorest out of income tax. Along with that, go commitments to give tax cuts to those earning up to £50-£55,000 a year, along with making fairly tenuous promises to 'protect the NHS' (Wright, 2014).

The question is, with all of the tax cuts, how exactly is the NHS going to be protected? Unless by more cuts to other public services or more privatisation? It has been suggested that the cuts will only really benefit the wealthier. Those concerns will become a reality if keeping public healthcare afloat means even more cuts to basic services that the poorest depend on.

With those kinds of attitudes towards the role of government, and to the running of public services, along with the belief of both conservative groups in dismantling Europe's Human Rights framework, the way ahead does not look rosy for the poorest should one of the conservative parties get their way.

Labour Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls has focussed his economic pitch on standing out from the other main parties. Rather than raising many of the lowest paid out of tax, Labour want to increase the minimum wage. They want to combine that with a freeze on energy prices (BBC, 22/9/2014).

The issue comes with Labour's unwillingness to commit to whether or not they will continue with the Conservative Party's cuts to public spending (Peston, 2014). This has happened before. Throughout the last four years Labour haven't ruled out continuing the cuts, and Ed Balls' conference speech has done nothing to offer reassurance on the matter.

The Labour Party's determination to set itself apart from the opposition is so far obvious only in words. On the surface, the difference between conservative and Labour positions appears as if it will be a contest over who can better administer the status quo, and subtle shifts in tax taken either from the wealthy, or from the poor.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats have also set their stall out in an effort to distance themselves from the others. They want to give a tax cut to 29 million, increasing the pre-tax allowance to £11,000, a policy that has been copied across the board. However the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has stressed that this will be paid for by focussing tax increases on the richest, as part of an effort to 'rebalance' tax increases and cuts (Lansdale, 2014) - highlighting the need to find new ways to rebalance state finances without more cuts.

Their pitch is that the Lib Dems would borrow less than Labour and cut less than the right-wing parties. They are trying to set out their own position, and get back to the basics of liberal policy. But that comes with an attachment to the free market that ultimately chains them, and has led them to sacrifice other policies, like the abolition of tuition fees, that were more important to voters (Wheeler, 2014). It also prevents them from being a complete alternative to the Conservatives, UKIP and Labour.

A group that has not been afraid to criticise the market orthodoxies are the Green Party. The Greens present voters with a progressive alternative that sets them very much apart from the other parties.

They want levies on wealth and large rises in the minimum wage, along with the introduction of a basic income - also known as a citizen's income - and to renationalise the railways (Mason, 2014). Further, they aim to do this within a new framework, a new political settlement, to be drawn up with the participation of the whole country.

The Greens represent a quietly growing progressive movement, with organised political parties across Europe, who are beginning to find support for a renewal of trust and engagement in politics, one coupled to a new approach to economics.

Yet that quiet movement is struggling to make the catchy headlines needed to get public attention away from stunts and controversy, like the Conservative Party tearing itself in two over the European Union, and splitting apart into new factions like UKIP.

Those controversies will ultimately prove the making or breaking of this next UK general election. With so much populist and hyped-up focus on extreme factions, and the main parties squabbling over who to trust on certain issues, it will be hard to see the real information through the cloud of noise.

And that is a problem, because to make the right decisions, when election time comes around, all of the best information is needed. The noise and popularity contests will mean people having to remain vigilant to find it, and see through the propaganda to what each party is really trying to achieve.

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References:
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+ James Ball's 'Cameron’s tax cuts benefit middle and higher earners, not the poorest'; in The Guardian; 2 October 2014.

+ BBC's 'UKIP conference: Income tax cuts plan unveiled'; 26 September 2014.

+ Ben Wright's 'Cameron frames election choice with tax cuts pledge'; on the BBC; 1 October 2014.

+ BBC's 'David Cameron pledges tax cuts 'for 30m people''; 1 October 2014.

+ Nick Robinson's 'Cameron: Talk of 'better times' rather than austerity'; on the BBC; 1 October 2014.

+ BBC's 'Ed Balls sets out priorities for 'first Labour Budget''; 22 September 2014.

+ Robert Peston's 'Can Balls be just austere enough?'; on the BBC; 22 September 2014.

+ James Lansdale's 'Lib Dems seek centre 'gap' as Tories and Labour shift'; on the BBC; 5 October 2014.

+ Brian Wheeler's 'Lib Dems should have died in a ditch over tuition fees - Farron'; on the BBC; 6 October 2014.

+ BBC's 'Nick Clegg pledges 'tax cut for 29 million people' in 2016'; 7 October 2014.

+ Chris Mason's 'Can the Greens' economic ideas grab the attention of voters?'; on the BBC; 5 September 2014.

+ BBC's 'Green Party calls for £10 hourly minimum wage by 2020'; 5 September 2014.

+ BBC's 'Green Party says membership up to 26,000 across Britain'; 6 October 2014.

+ BBC's 'Green Party seeks 'radical' new political settlement'; 19 September 2014.