UK has not run out of money - but people may!

To read the emissions of the Government or the right-wing Press, one could think that UK was in line for food bank help, being broke. This is far from the case. We are a nation rich in assets, resources, creditworthiness and revenues. How we choose to use these is what policies and politics are about.

Paying interest on debt is something anyone would elect to avoid unless the rates were insignificant. A highly credit-worthy economy borrows at low rates so this reduces the priority for minimisation of debt unless for other, perhaps doctrinaire or political reasons. Such reasons have, however, caused the Government to inflict on consumers an unnecessary squeeze on income [either earned or welfare] and rise in living costs. Unfortunately, consumers are unable to borrow at the same low levels of interest as nations, so their need to borrow in order to sustain well-being through the austerity results in an increase in their debt and interest liability. In other words, people bear the cost of the Government's decisions and act contrary to their instincts.

How a nation uses its resources is also a political issue. This Government has opted to pay off debt, refinance banks and reduce public expenditure, in the name of economic prudence. It could equally have chosen to prioritise the well-being of the people over that of financial targets; or even just raised taxes to ensure the maintenance of effective public services. It did not do so not because it could not but because it chose not to. It has a clear object, indeed, of destroying the very idea of public services, so little insight does it have into the realities of life form any of its voters and so little altruism.

Do we, the people, want to live in a country devoid of the means to help those who for whatever reason are not able to achieve levels of earnings sufficient for independent living? Do we accept it as our role to bear consequences of the gambles made with our money by others? Should we be in debt so that institutions remain able to function largely unchallenged and unaccountable? Should we have lower well-being whilst a few cream off the communal assets of our country? If not, we must elect a Government with a view of economics as concerned with people as well as with balance sheets. By all means let it reduce debt but let this be done at the expense of those who created it.

Dont look back

Tempting as it is to see the Atlee Government as a golden heyday of radical innovation in social politics, to attempt a replay would seem a counterproductive. The world has changed. There may be - are - parallels in today's UK with the post-war austerity but ours is self-imposed by a doctrinaire Government trying to turn the clock back to the feudal centuries rather than one caused by paying for a war we had to fight. Then unions had millions of members working collectively. Today we have a fragmented workforce lacking cohesion and representation. What Labour must surely offer now is new vision - a description of a country to be desired, with social objectives as well as purely economic; with goals for inclusion, community democracy, transparency and accountability - a better place to live in for everybody. This vision needs fleshing out with a road-map of policies which will take us beyond mere slogans and offer concrete examples of what we can expect when we vote for a Labour Government. Lets have that future painted for us and not hanker after what was.

Climate Change at home; a distinctive position for Labour

The environment is the world in which everyone must function. As it changes [and it surely does] unless people adapt, our ability to function will be affected. Efforts across the globe to reduce or reverse climate change have fallen foul of both the enormity of that task and the impossibility of all nations agreeing and acting in concert. Those who advocate mitigation as the political response to climate change are left with Canute’s task. The parties of the Right have now adopted a laissez faire, non-interventionist approach, based on adaptations after the event and motivated by short-term profit opportunities. Labour has been unfortunately silent, failing to define mid- to long-term objectives for energy supply, population density and location or land use. Your Britain barely has a mention of the subject. This is unsatisfactory not least because it leaves Labour bereft of a counter to Tory policies, such as they may be. With values including long-termism, localism and mutuality, Labour must address this vacuum, which fails those whose needs are explicitly omitted from the thinking of the Right – the majority.

Climate change impacts societies in a variety of aspects to variable degree: drought; wind; flooding; temperature; sea level; disease and social conflict resulting from population pressures.  In this country the greatest impact is likely to centre on housing, which coincidentally brings it into greatest relevance to voters. There is already a need for a huge affordable house-building programme which may be exacerbated by inward migration from countries more severely climatically affected. Sea level rise may affect coastal communities including major cities. Housing will become uninsurable in flood plains. Energy and water usage need mitigating in the housing stock as a whole. These are issues which a failed market model cannot decide, driven purely as it is by building what profits private sector developers, currently sitting on land banks on which thousands of homes could have been built.

Communities [perhaps defined as counties for this purpose] need to determine their own needs informed by national plans. Local government must have the duty and the wherewithal:

·         to prioritise land use, between flood protection, food production, economic development, infrastructure and housing;

·         to obtain, compulsorily if need be, at current use values, the land needed to build energy-efficient houses for people of all income levels and family sizes;

·         to access the capital required to build the resource-efficient homes the future local population will need to buy or rent; 

·         to decide on infrastructure needs according to population plans;

·         to invest in energy generation and water usage consistent with local natural resources.

Managing these pressures will most effectively stifle risks of civil dissent or unrest, whilst engaging local voters in a global issue which may otherwise appear beyond their influence.

In short, Labour should adopt a policy of predictive adaptation to climate change; delegating implementation of an integrated approach to local needs to re-envigoured, democratically accountable and properly financed County/Unitary Councils. National Government should invest in understanding and advising on population and climatic sciences; in financing the Local Authorities; and mandating standards for design and insurance of homes for all.

Rural and coastal deprivation in affluent South-East

It probably sounds like a sob story to speak of deprivation in the well-heeled and desirable East Sussex. But just as it can be very lonely in a crowd, being surrounded by careless wealth can make it even harder to bear poverty than where everyone is suffering together. The strength of community is not there to sustain those who are unfortunate financially. Indeed as a report recently published by the Sussex Community Foundation has illustrated, being poor in rural places can be extreme in its effects. Housing is far more expensive than in less well-appointed areas; and transport is a requirement not always shared by urban poor. When the school my be several miles away; and the shops; and the doctor; and work (if any), life can be hugely difficult and expensive.

East Sussex is shown to include not only areas of deprivation but deprivation in isolation which may be psychologically even more difficult. We in UckfieldLabour think it very important for Labour to find ways to offer support and engagement with people isolated by circumstances about which they can do little. We have already submitted a policy paper proposing a nationwide online forum to enable people deprived of other political engagement to have a say on matters of importance to them and we are now hoping to work with others in rural constituencies to create a Labour rural/coastal network. Our votes may not carry the weight of those in winnable marginal but our values are just the same and our willingness to contribute to debate and improving the lives of others are as strong.
The full report on deprivation in Sussex can be seen here:
http://www.sussexgiving.org.uk/sussexuncoveredreportlaunch/

Sauce for the Gander

What is it that allows the well-heeled to get away with it so often?
If you or I transcend the traffic code, the tax regulations, or even speak sharply to a Border Agency officer, we will be in trouble faster than you can say "Theresa May". If some overpaid director plunges a million customers into financial mire, do we hear the gaolers keys start to rattle? Do we blazes.

The Companies Act of 2006 made it a duty for all directors of quoted companies to pay heed to the interests of stakeholders such as staff, customers (you and me), suppliers, the community and the environment as well as shareholders. Is the imposition of zero-hours contracting in the interests of staff? Is gambling with deposits in order to swell bonuses in depositors' interests? Is growing the dividend in the interest of communities dependent on energy supplies? Think back over the 5 years since the financial crash and count if you can how many directors of banks, of energy companies, of any FTSE company have had their collars felt for anything, let alone concerning these wider accountabilities. The laws which most people obey exist so that nobody is above them so why is the answer to my question what it is [probably zero]?

Boards have been pathetic but so have Regulators. Look at the Coop/Flowers fiasco - an insider gets the nod from cronies without scrutiny. An employer is obliged these days to give honest references in respect of past employees. Were Fowler's references sought? Were they taken up? Were they honest as to his behaviour? Here too is one rule for the haves and another for the have lesses:  the poor benighted job seeker, having their cv pulled to bits and losing out because they may have some minor misdemeanour on their record from their teens; versus a major directorship with fiduciary responsibilities (let alone customers' money) being nodded through to someone wholly unqualified and unfit.

There is no need to legislate and hold enquiries. All that is needed is for directors to do what they are amply paid to do; for regulators to regulate; and for the laws to be applied as much to the powerful as they do to the rest of us - and a Government with backbone and teeth to ensure that all this is done. If a few directors ended up like Enron's, it might "encourager les autres".

Selling off the nation's assets affects local communities too

There is a "proposal" subject to "consultation" to close a local Post Office, replacing it with some sort of unspecified lesser service at the local W.H. Smith. This may not sound like the end of the world: a sensible reduction in cost of accommodation at least. This is how most outsourcing initiatives are presented: as sensible business options, because to those behind them, business is God and their only yardstick for success is money. So Probation, Royal Mail, NHS services and so much more are redefined as inefficient businesses so that new "owners" can be brought in to run them, with improvement in financial results the goal.

We hear much from workforce, Unions, Opposition and the public objecting to these sell-offs of services which have been in public sector hands for decades; so much so that perhaps the partisan arguments have become almost too well-known to retain their real import. Return if you will to Uckfield High Street and the Crown Post Office. Here work several experienced and skilled people, part of the community, known to and liked by their customers, providing the full service of the Post Office. If the building is closed and the "service" is contracted (note the double entendre) to WHS, what will be the consequences? First, staff will lose jobs with all that can mean to them, their families and the community. Second, the services will be curtailed, as the new "service" will be delivered by less expert and worse remunerated staff and exclude some elements for which WHS is not licensed, such as passport and driving licence applications, meaning that customers will have to go to a main Post Office in another town completely, involving cost and inconvenience. Third, the trust and relationships between customers and staff will be lost as the agenda of the new owner will clearly be different from that of a public service. And I am sure there will be more such deficits of a human kind, all in the name of money.

Money seems to be the only criterion for decision-making understood by this inhuman Coalition, whereas Labour has among its values mutuality, altruism and community. There is nothing wrong with defining performance using wider parameters than just cost and returns. Social cohesion; the needs of people of all means; doing things which may not be efficient; what is wrong with these?

Accepting the closure of Uckfield Crown Post Office is not the small thing it may at first sight appear, for it typifies how the country has been forced to accept the wholesale decimation of public assets and services in the names of money and the ideology of smaller government. I have become ashamed of my initial response to the threat of this closure - that it was not all that important - because it is a local illustration of what is happening all over the country and because I can see the real impact it will have on people in my community. It typifies too how rural needs are disproportionately subject to the models assumed to be effective in urban environments. Shame on those behind it.

Markets vs Planning

Free market capitalism works in silos. Someone sees an opportunity in a particular sector; identifies resources to apply profitably and tries to grow a business in that sector. The enterprise relies on the pre-existence of infrastructure, skills and media which enable their success. The business thrives or fails. The infrastructure remains. Simple.

But the world is more complex than this. Those pre-existing conditions on which the entrepreneur relies; and those resources which may be brought to bear for the enterprise do not just happen. The free market did not create them.

The Industrial Revolution brought people together into conurbations which became the markets of the last 2 centuries. The movers and shakers of those communities invested heavily in roads, rail, schools and communications infrastructures to serve their cities. Those great Town Halls of Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and many other cities are metaphors for that community investment. Trade demanded that these be linked too, so energy, railways, canals and roads were a part of their plans for prosperity. For 200 years or so, these investments, updated and complemented by the welfare state, formed the basis for enterprise to flourish, especially around making things, using the combination of new technologies and mass labour.

But the post-Thatcher, post-manufacturing era saw not only the demise of the great employing businesses but a doctrinaire departure from the idea of planning which had created the means on which enterprises were built. Thousands of businesses failed and their skilled workers were cast aside as industrial waste. Without planning in place to re-use them, whole communities have never been able to recover fully. Yes, today there are more people in work than there were then; but this work is different, as desperate people have been forced to apply themselves to work which may be less skilled and less financially rewarding. The important sectors of the future may be different and not need to be in the conurbations with their ready infrastructure, Care for the growing seniors population; ICT and web-based supply; leisure and retailing are the 21st century equivalents of ship-building, textiles and widgets; and have different needs and locations.

We argue that instead of looking at enterprise as the starting point for recovery, planning is required which prepares the way. Local authorities need to understand how their local economy can thrive in future: what resources they uniquely have or can develop; what skills are inherent in their workforce; what opportunities may exist, This local plan (and local can mean regional) can then lead to a clearer understanding of what skills may be needed and where in order to make for a thriving economy. The mapping of people to training to jobs to housing and transport can then drive that investment that no entrepreneur will make, no matter how clever they may be, for it is beyond their silo. Instead of planning being seen as a dirty word, representing the dead hand of bureaucracy, as portrayed by the Right, let it be embraced as the facilitator of work, community and prosperity, so that the right infrastructure is in the right places for the people of the country; and for the future's entrepreneurs to make us of.