First Class Conference

"Class" is a think-tank for the Left to bring ideas which can form a manifesto for a future Labour Government. It is the first think-tank backed by the Union movement but is open to all left-minded contributors, such as UckfieldLabour. Its first conference was marked by the openness of Union leaders to academic input as well as party, journalistic and activist. Some strands of the content were:

Union strength is less than it used to be but it remains a powerful asset in countering the power wielded so unfairly by the financial elite. The latter may own the assets of the country but it does not own nor serve the people. This ownership has to be challenged, through repatriation of land and social ownership of the strategic utilities: energy; transport; water, healthcare. This will stop the propping up of inefficient private sector corporates which milk the dividends from windfall assets. It will reverse the erosion of services which the State should provide but which cannot be provided once capacity declines below a critical point, as outsourcing cherry picks the most profitable services.

This can be achieved and the neoliberal hegemony challenged. To do so, economics needs redefinition, to include the wellbeing of society and the environment, ie the collective good. We live in a community, where the strong protect the weak and not a market of self-serving individualists. To do so efficiency needs redescription, to show how individual services interact with each other to form an effective organism to achieve a strong society. It has to be shown how the closure of one plant in the name of efficiency may cause inefficiency on a far wider scale by its impact on other functions.This renewed understanding has to be broadcast throughout society to equip people to challenge the "GDP" mentality and enable argument on our own terms.  This will attract brickbats and derision from the bullying Right but this has to be borne because it is right.

How can the collective strength of Unions be brought to bear for sectors which lack Union representation? Unions need to do more to win members and recognition in call centres, food production, the care sector etc but this will not be effective quickly. A new Ministry of Labour with responsibility for the welfare of working people should be established, mandating Joint Industrial Councils to set and maintain fair terms for each sector, with representation of employers and workers in national rather than enterprise-based collective bargaining, as laid down by human rights law.

Lastly, democracy must be reinvigorated. The Coalition has ridden roughshod over its mandate in its selling off of NHS assets, dismissal of decades of understanding of teaching and privatisation of efficient national services such as Royal Mail and East Coast Rail. No wonder voters stay away when their will is totally ignored. A renewed respect for the voice of stakeholders is needed in work, education and local communities to restore the motivation to vote and ensure that decision-making takes account of all interests, not merely that of the fastest buck.

The means of production

Funny how some words can be red rags to bulls. The phrase "the means of production" sometimes prefaced by "Common or "State or "Collective ownership" - can conjour red mist before the eyes of capitalists of any political party. But this stems more from fear of loss of earnings potential for them and their mates than from concern that it may not work. Capitalists know full well that ownership of land, of minerals, of fixed assets is the high ground of their battlefield.

It is time now surely, with the manifestly ideological decision of the Coalition to privatise thoroughly effective public enterprises like Royal Mail and East Coast rail, to revisit the notion of at least State ownership of strategically vital assets. The privatisation of rail was a clear cock-up from the outset, which has delivered nothing for its public stakeholders and everything for its shareholders. Water likewise; energy likewise. Is the private sector so brilliant that its performance shines like a beacon beckoning more assets? Surely not, when the bailing out of banks, the exemplars of private enterprise, via a begging bowl to the State is concerned.

Why wait for the inevitable demand for bail-out when disaster strikes in private hands? Why not put those vital assets which constitute the defence of the realm against cold, illness, starvation and worklessness into the hands of those who most concern themselves with these issues, the people of the country, the people who work in or are served by these industries and their representatives? This has nothing to do with dogma and everything to do with strategic sense.

Politicians seem to have little appreciation of history other than to parrot the failures of the past as reasons not to do things. Better by far to learn from why things failed in the past to get them right in future, if the prize is the right one. Making the management of public enterprises professional but accountable would be a step forward, for example.

Making UK safe from speculator/investors' misuse of the means of production and sure of fairly priced continuity of supply of essential utilities would be the greatest legacy a future government could offer in its manifesto.

Change is driven from inside the tent

I was struck the other day by several tweets about members leaving the Labour Party because they were unhappy at the initial pronouncements of some of Ed M's new cabinet. Friends have taken similar positions too: either saying they would not re-join Labour because they were unsure that Ed had what it takes to be PM; or they would leave because everything was not as they would like it.
I have considerable sympathy for those who left the Party over the Iraq war but this was surely an issue of principle, far greater in magnitude than the party leader's presidential qualifications or Rachel Reeves' pragmatism. Those who want the Party to lean further Left or Right are equally sincere but neither group can help steer the ship if they have jumped overboard. The other day at a seminar of non-Labour, far left interests, despite considerable criticism and even dislike of Labour's policies, there was consensus that come the General Election the priority is to rid the country of this vicious Government and that this can only be achieved by voting Labour, no matter what longer-term aspirations there may have been in the room. If revolutionary socialists, communists and others of the left can take this position, surely Labour supporters should think twice about absenting themselves from the opportunities the Party does offer to influence its direction of travel. Standing outside the tent grumbling about what is going on inside has no impact. Indeed it could be argued that Labour should seek ways of bringing more progressive people into the tent to enrich the debate, one of which we have previously advocated: the creation of a Big Tent online social forum.
Tom Serpell

Accountability - a thing of the past?

It is time we looked more closely at accountability and how it applies [or not] to matters of strategic concern. Energy companies seem to be allowed to create inflation without redress, basing their case on the wholesale prices they control themselves and without reference to any evidence of generating cost inflation. The Government has failed to require transparency, with the result that nobody can argue against the retail pricing. Looking at the rise in Big 6 share values plus dividends may be the best clue as to the destination of the higher prices charged - in other words, the consumer's loss is the investor's gain. This is why Labour's policy is right: we must take time to reset the market, with effective regulation, putting the consumer interest at the top of the priorities. If the energy companies do not like it or comply, then they or generation must be taken into social ownership.

Even more concerning is the accountability in education. Free schools are said to be accountable to their communities. Are they, though? In effect, when they start to fail, they answer to the Secretary of State, who has an  ideological agenda preventing him from being critical but without the capacity to do anything anyway; and all this in the name of decentralisation. Governors who set up free schools may (but probably do not) start with competence in governance but what happens when the initial cohort move on as their children grow up? Where do amateur governors get their expertise in running a school, recruiting teachers, understanding learning? If there are no rules for this, there is no accountability. If governors fail, how can the community have redress when the next level of responsibility is in Whitehall? Local Education Authorities were just the seat of expertise which is now so desperately needed and should be rebuilt as a priority by the next Labour government.

Then there are the probation service, the justice system, the care services - accountability is simply being accepted by Government only for their destruction.

Overcoming disenfranchisement

Throughout the country there are individuals or categories of people whom the current political system fail to engage. Many of these would like to be so engaged but lack the means, whether physical (though infirmity), emotional (through lack of confidence) or geographical (because they live in rural areas, without transport or funds to link them to where things happen. Others, such as the next generation of voters announced by Ed Miliband, 16-17-year-olds-to-be, simply do not find the ways of politics disengaging. Their preferred media even for chatting with friends involve smart-phones, text and online networks.

As the Obama campaigns demonstrated, engagement between voters, rather than merely to voters, can be highly effective, if not essential - http://mprcenter.org/blog/2013/01/25/how-obama-won-the-social-media-battle-in-the-2012-presidential-campaign/ . Yet in UK this approach is still dogged by the attitudes of a generation of leaders and managers who simply do not "get" Twitter, FaceBook, SMS etc. Whichever party really grasps this nettle first and effectively will gain huge advantage over others.

We argue that Labour should urgently invest (yes, I know it cost money we do not have - but if it is more cost-effective than what else we may choose to spend on, this is no argument) in social media.

A "Big Tent" forum for progressively minded people, initially populated by inviting all Members to join, free, could at a stroke start to break down the barriers to inclusion referred to above. The ability of like-minded people in Cumbria to share ideas and experience with others in Camber, no matter that both are surrounded by Tories, can strengthen both their commitment to Labour and offer insights based on critical mass to inform Party thinking. The ability of individual members to identify each other (for all I know I may live near another Labour member; but how could I know?) and to collaborate; the ability of all to find out what is going on and where; these are the sort of things which will engage; and which an online forum can facilitate. The current top-down or even bottom-up communications systems are one-way, hierarchical and off-putting. We have submitted policy ideas on Your Britain with no feedback. We have gone to the extent of printing and sending a book of ideas to Ed M without acknowledgement. If we continue to feel that our thoughtful and serious inputs are ignored, even political anoraks like us will lose our will to engage. Where will Labour then be? Instead, it should use modern media to reach out, to allow peer-to-peer engagement and to gain some of the benefits Obama did from putting people of all kinds and anywhere at the heart of politics.

Rural labour

It is a privilege to live in deepest East Sussex. At least it is for some. But just because it is leafily beautiful and peaceful does not make it a privilege for all. Yes, there are landed estates which have been in the same families for generations [why?] but yes too there are unemployed and disadvantaged residents. No doubt on the privileged estates workers have only this year seen the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board, offering employers "more flexibility" in the Terms and Conditions they may apply. Read this from the other viewpoint and it equals the removal of rights to paid holidays and sick pay.
Housing is expensive in the affluent South-East, where "commuting" may be by helicopter for some, but cannot even be by public transport for others in hamlets remote from main routes. Jobs are few anyway, so the hunt for them requires travel too.
An enquiry last week of a County Councillor elicited no plans - perhaps no awareness of the Living Wage. Surely this at least is a policy which even his Party could espouse? All over the country, councils are becoming Living Wage employers, to ensure that their staff have decent lives. More than this, Living Wage Councils are ensuring that their procurement requires contractors to adopt this principle too, as a prerequisite for the contract award, even for freelances. This is a start. Can we not put this principle to all Councils; all employers? Its about human decency rather than party politics. For this reason it should be mandatory, nationally; but until it is, lets pressurise our democratic representatives regardless of allegiance to demand payment of decent wages - the Living Wage.
Tom Serpell

The true purpose of austerity

So let us look at the strange bedfellows of Quantitative Easing - an esoteric macro financial tool which used to be called "printing money" - and austerity - a way of depriving millions of individuals of relatively small but life-saving sums. What do they have in common? There is surely a parallel here with the Thatcher era, where QE's equivalent was North Sea oil revenue; and austerity's was the Poll Tax. In each case, the Government had huge sums it could devote to propping up institutions whilst they forced revolutionary changes on society, which it kept in place, hungry and obedient by empoverishment. QE has fed £375bn into supposedly shoring up the Balance Sheets of irresponsible banks, which are still claimed not to be sound enough. Sound enough for what? The only answer which makes sense must be that they want to revert to risk-taking; otherwise they would not need beefed up Balance Sheets. If they were traditionally risk-averse, they would not require an enlarged asset cushion. We the people are to be kept empoverished whilst this strengthening of the 1% proceeds unchallenged - desperate so that we are forced into low-pay, so that the employers can pay greater dividends and plough more donations into the Tory Party coffers, to guarantee continuity. As if a period of austerity claimed to be necessary to deal with deficits were not enough - lie that it is - Osborne now plans to extend it into a period of surplus, while even greater profits in better times are reaped by the 1%. And still at the expense of the 99%. At the end of Tory rule, there will be no State or the infrastructure to support the needs of unemployed, ill, disabled or elderly people, just a Feudal Society built on near slavery and patronage. Melodramatic? Yes, but this is what will happen if they are elected in 2015 and continue to boost the banks and deprive the people.