Labour must forget ‘austerity’ and offer a vision of a more equal society…

If Labour have designs on representing those who crave a more equal society then they ought to be aware of the huge elephant in the room … Labour support for Osborne’s ‘Austerity Agenda’ .

Let’s begin by pointing people in the direction of the evidence. It quickly becomes apparent, once you examine Britain’s previous levels of debt, that there is no need for austerity, it’s an ideological attempt to shrink the state and in doing so punish the poorest people in our society for the crimes of those in the City of London who gambled, ‘crashed the economy’ and were bailed out by Gordon Brown and the Labour government.

Anyone who has read Naomi Klein’s superb ‘Shock Treatment’ will recognise that the signs were there from the moment Osborne killed a recovery dead in the water by warning that Britain, a sovereign country with its own currency, was in danger of becoming ‘another Greece’. The ‘Sage of Tatton’ warned that if ‘we’ didn’t cut our public service ‘waste’ and make huge cuts to government spending the national debt would ‘overwhelm us’ .It was deceitful, it was calculated and it was ideological and designed to achieve the Tory desire of a state with fewer ‘public services’ and less government. (Watch him on youtube.)

Cameron’s Mansion House speech of November 2013 went further when he revealed ‘austerity’ to be no more than a fig leaf for a ‘smaller state’. He announced that  ‘We have a plan – and we are carefully implementing that plan … It means building a leaner, more efficient state. We need to do more with less. Not just now, but permanently’.

What this amounts to is a subtle way of saying that the Tories will reduce the State’s role in providing public services which will, henceforth, be open for tendering to private companies who are not responsible for the societal effects of running public services but merely there to accrue the profits. This is nothing new. Thatcher espoused these words and views in the late 70s and early 80s when they were new to our ears.Where she differed, however, was in attacking hugely loved public institutions such as the NHS  and for good reason; in a YouGov poll of Oct 2013, 84% of respondents from all political parties believed that the NHS should remain a public service. (Results here)

There is no call nor demand for austerity outside the government but the Tories have embarked down an ideological path which continues to cut public services and offer the most profitable (Royal Mail, NHS, East Coast Mainline) up for privatisation, the beneficiaries of which will be Tory donors in the City of London.It could not be more apparent.

The time has now arrived for Labour to raise the standard and to oppose all that this current Government stands for and to commit the Labour Party to standing up for a better Britain; a country that will work for the majority and not just for the privileged few. The ‘austerity trap’ is a Tory trap as it is not in their interest to have a more equal society for it stands to reason that in a more equal and just society the Tories stand to lose their privilege and entitlement. Instead, many more people in our society will benefit from greater, widespread equality and that’s why Labour’s General Election campaign should revolve around greater equality, ending injustice and putting right the wrongs of this government before embarking upon its own grand vision for a new society that works in the interests of all its citizens and not just the interests of a shrinking minority.

The consequences of not doing so may be fatal for Labour.

 

First priority – Labour have to repeal the 2011 Health Act and save the NHS

Greetings and welcome to my new blog . A companion to the stuff that I usually tweet about and the direction that I want the Labour Party to be heading in.

I have spoken to many people from different parts of the country on twitter, online and on my travels and we are united in our opinion that another five years of Tory rule, enabled by the feeble Lib-Dem’s , will be an unmitigated disaster for progressives in the UK (never mind how Scotland vote in their referendum) and spell the end of public state provision as we know it. Tory donors will be filling their pockets from acquiring valuable outsourcing contracts from freshly privatised public services and public provision will cease to exist in many forms. This society is not what most people want so it is therefore imperative that people come together and organise to ensure that Labour win the next General Election with as big a working majority as possible. Labour will then assume office with the goodwill of millions of voters and an expectation that Britain will begin the long road to a more fairer and prosperous society than it ever would be under the Tories.

The era of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown is over and New Labour must be consigned to the past. The here and now is where the battle is and the first immediate act is for Labour to save the public services beginning, as promised, with the repeal of the 2011 Health Act in its totality. Not a partial but a total repeal and then to implement the plans for a ‘fully integrated health system’ from the minute Labour assume office. In my book Labour will always be the best party to protect the public services and though they’ve not always defended some services as willingly in the past there needs to be a clean break with what’s gone on before and an acceptance that those in the public sector will deliver a better service. If watching the Tories dismantle the public services, freeze staff wages and sack workers these past four years has taught the Labour party nothing then the time is now to hand over to those who really do know their sector and know what needs to be done to fix the Tory mess.

What that means, however, is that we all have to do our bit to ensure that victory. It won’t happen by accident. If people are able then they should become active to ensure the Tories do not win the General Election in May 2015 and that the Lib-Dems are suitably punished for enabling the most right-wing Tory Party Britain has known. I have commissioned a campaign theme  for the LD’s  which I’ve nick-named ‘Oblivion’- press this – they can thank me later.

Priority number one is the NHS. Then Labour needs to start putting its plans into place to get people back to work starting with all those youngsters that have been bullied, ignored or ostracised by Cameron’s mis-government.On those two points I’m sure we can all agree.