A message to all Labour MPs

Since Jeremy Corbyn stood for the Labour leadership, there have been a lot of Labour MPs talking about being "credible" and the likelihood of Corbyn leading Labour to an election victory. I would very much like at least some of those MPs to read this.

Labour have lost the argument. We need to win it.

The other candidates so far have been falling over themselves to talk about "aspiration", being "on the side of the wealth-creators" and are desperate to be seen as pro-business. But why? The answer seems obvious to me: they think Labour lost the election because Labour were not strong enough in these areas. Why do they think that? Maybe their constituents are telling them that but why do their constituents think that? Because it's all over the majority of the media and much of what they see on tv and hear on the radio. And finally, why is that? Because the Tories and the right won the argument with the help of their media backers some time ago. Is the winner of the argument always correct? Absolutely not. It's all talk: the Tories claim to be the party of working people whilst legislating to remove the bargaining power of Unions who speak up for working people. 

It all smacks of desperation: if our business are so great, why do we need to constantly talk about being pro-business? Why do they need so much special treatment if they are truly the wealth creators? It is not true to say that our government needs to be more pro-business. The last few governments have been pro-business enough and now it is time to stand up for the vast majority of the public who don't own businesses but who support them by paying taxes and with their custom. Being excessively pro-business and shrinking the state with ever more outsourcing and privatisation has made this country what it is today: a struggling economy and one of the most unequal societies in the developed world. 

Now is the time to be pro-business and pro-public by investing in better education and better public services to keep our towns in better shape and working people in better health. 

Now is the time to invest in building council homes, which will provide work for thousands of people. The initial outlay will require borrowing but the alternative is to keep the status quo: private landlords making big profits at the expense of the renters and the taxpayer. We will benefit financially in the long run (and it probably wouldn't take long) from a big home building programme.

Now is the time to bring the railways and energy companies back into public ownership. Instead of our taxes paying for infrastructure improvements which currently helps to top up the offshore accounts of shareholders, we will see the benefits of those improvements and the profits they make can be used for further improvement and to pay back the investments we've made. That makes economic sense too. 

Now is the time to enforce a National Living Wage so that people can afford to live without government handouts and that is pro-business too: if people have more disposable income, they will spend it on products and services provided by the private sector.

These are just a few examples of the arguments that Labour needs to make. Polling has shown that the public - even Tory voters - actually want nationalised railways and energy companies so why are so few Labour MPs making this sort of case? Why did these people join Labour if not to argue for an alternative to the Tory ways of a small-state, austerity for the many and low taxes and big subsidies for the few? And tinkering around the edges with small differences that are unclear to the majority of voters will not win votes.

Only 24% of those able to vote voted Tory this year and the vast majority of those will always vote Tory. So why chase a tiny, tiny few who might switch to Labour in 2020? There are millions of disillusioned people sick of the same type of policies from clones in suits who don't seem to care about what they want or need. I think many Labour MPs are concerned about moving too far from the mainstream. But that worry fails to acknowledge how far the mainstream has moved to the right, and how it is the arguments of politicians and media commentators (often driven by the arguments given by politicians) that sets what the mainstream is. As I've already mentioned, polling shows traditionally left-wing policies are very popular with the public, so moving back into that space would do Labour no harm at all.

Jeremy Corbyn is a reluctant leadership candidate. Maybe he won't win and if he does, maybe Labour won't win the next election. But he is standing because he believes in a different way that isn't out-of-date or irrelevant in today's world that no other leadership candidate is making. Labour need to win the argument for a better society, driven by investment (investment that will pay off financially in the not-too-distant future) in public services and policies that benefit everyone in this country.

If Labour MPs are happy with a shrinking state, inequality and privatisation, they should join the Conservatives and be done with it.

The Tories are lying about austerity: it's obvious isn't it?!

The public have been convinced that austerity is necessary to secure the country's economy. Apparently, it's desperately urgent that we need to cut essential support to the poorest and most vulnerable and to cut council budgets down to the marrow. So if that were true, you'd think it would be absolutely crucial that selling off public assets would be a great way of bringing in some funding. Seemingly not.

We already know that the government sold off the Royal Mail on the cheap, with the taxpayer missing out on a huge amount of money. Now RBS is being hurriedly sold off too. With the Royal Mail, George Osborne's best man got quite a few million for himself out of it (maybe he bought George a very nice birthday present with some of his winnings?) and with RBS, the Tory donors and ministers' chums in the City will make a packet too.

So it seems that it's really important to wring as much money out of the poor in the name of austerity, but in the name of making the rich richer, publicly-owned assests are absolute bargains.

How on earth can we compete with the right wing's media dominance?

I haven't written anything on here for a month, which is surprising, given how our political foreground has changed in that time. I've been stunned into silence, save for a few short dog-like bursts of noise on twitter. I can't think what to say because there's far too much that needs saying. I think I'll start slowly.

What the hell has happened?

Somehow, the Tories got a majority. Labour were destroyed by the SNP in Scotland. The Lib Dems were destroyed in both England and Scotland. Labour won hardly any of the marginals they needed. Surprisingly, UKIP actually lost a seat to the Tories and ended up with only one.

That's the what. How is a much bigger question. First, Labour lost the economic argument - or rather, they totally surrendered to the lie that they caused the recession. But that on it's own isn't really enough: people still needed to believe that tax cuts for the rich, taking money from disabled people and the poorest in society and decimating public services in the name of 'balancing the economy' was a better option than a Labour government who might, from what we could tell, stick with what had already been done by the coalition government.

The rich clique

It seems that in the UK these days (and in the US too, from what I gather), no matter what your various thoughts are on the nuances of economic or social policy, if you're rich and want a government that acts in your interests, you stick together. Some believe we should stay within the EU; some think we should get out. Some feel the NHS should not be privatised; others want bits of it to make profit from. Some know that we need to spend more on public services than we currently do; others would like to see no state-funded services at all (the less money spent on ordinary people, the more there is for millionaires' tax cuts). Despite these and other big differences of opinion, the richest few in society support the Tories with big donations to the party, printing lies as fact in their newspapers, and have a resolute determination to guffaw and scoff when asked about anything that the conservative party wouldn't (now) do as though it's a ridiculous idea only communists would consider.

How to compete?

That is the main reason why I've been so quiet. I don't think we can. Big money pays for think-tanks to come up with policies that benefit big money. The richest few give fat handshakes to politicians in return for favouritism and perhaps a cushy advisory role or directorship when they leave (or are kicked out of) government. The very wealthiest own newspapers and con the voting public into voting for the Tories with stories about scroungers, Labour's economic ineptitude and rogue union leaders.

The rest of us have a voice but it's so quiet we can't get heard. And some of us, unfortunately, are conned by the right-wing's media dominance.

It's so depressing but I just don't know how to gather the left into a huge group in the way the right have. That would be the only way to get heard.

The UK Economy. Part three: the race to the bottom

Thatcherism and the meteoric rise and total takeover of the free market has resulted in much larger and wider-reaching changes to the economy as a whole than even they could have dreamed.

Free to grow as big as they can by whatever means possible: huge companies have become so powerful they have changed almost everything. Suppliers have no power and are routinely shafted by the big retailers until they can barely afford to exist. Consumers think they have power, and occasionally they do, but they are manipulated and conned by the retailers into spending more and getting less. If you boil down retail to it's basics, it is basically someone selling something that someone else has produced. The producer, in my opinion, should hold the power: they have the skills and the expertise to produce what people want and they should be able to make money out of it. But in most cases, this is just not the case any longer, unless they too are vast and can shaft their own suppliers in the way the retailers shaft them.

Milk is now cheaper than water. Farmers producing all kinds of food are being driven out of business by the supermarkets' never-ending race to be the cheapest and because the supermarkets have all but killed the high-street bakers, butchers, greengrocers etc, if they're not selling to supermarkets, they're not selling to anyone. Quality is suffering and the environment and animal welfare is bottom of the agenda. Slavery is back with workers being paid for far fewer hours than they've worked and being subjected to chemicals which cause lung and skin diseases. All to put cheap produce on UK shelves.

It's ironic that some of the biggest players are now the victims of what they themselves have created. Tesco have announced a £6.4bn loss. They led the way in the big four supermarkets' land-grabbing, high-street-closing, town-takeovers and at their peak, were able to force all suppliers and consumers to make bigger and bigger profits for their shareholders. But once austerity hit the UK after the financial crash, and with the economy flatlining and bills rising, people saw their rising shopping bills and wanted cheaper: after all, that's what Tesco and the other supermarkets had taught them to seek. Step into the fray Aldi and Lidl. What is behind their cheaper prices, I'm not sure: I suspect in some cases, produce is lower quality but their overheads are also smaller (although interestingly, they pay their staff higher wages than their bigger rivals) as they haven't gobbled up prime land and don't have the huge stores whose shelves must always be full. In response, the big guns have lowered their prices. In some cases, this is not entirely true: look more closely and you'll see that many of the products which have been reduced in price have also reduced in size/weight. In other cases, the producers have been shafted even further.

Britain has become so used to everything getting cheaper and cheaper and being able to buy more, newer, more frequently, that they've become anaesthetised to the consequences: mass deaths in Bangladeshi factories; children being forced to work producing our clothes and technology; animals being kept in terrible conditions for ever cheaper meat; all sorts of unknown additives making our poor-quality food taste better and last longer; piles of last year's unwanted goods being shipped to West Africa where it's not illegal to produce toxic fumes by burning plastics and metals. And there are other consequences of cheaper and cheaper and cheaper, such as low wages. The profits still being made (even Tesco's losses have only been very recent and have followed year after year of massive profits) should be reflected in the staff wages, but they're not. The state has to top up low pay with in-work benefits just so that people can afford to live.

The free market almost ended manufacturing in the UK, with cheaper labour from abroad being used instead. It has made ghost towns of our high streets. It has massively increased inequality. It crashed our economy; it leeches off the state; it holds back environmental and animal welfare issues.

It is bad for society and bad for the planet and we need to reign it in. NOW.

The UK Economy. Part two: the minimum wage and top earners' pay.

Before the last Labour government introduced the national minimum wage, the media and the conservative party were up in arms. Employers wouldn't be able to pay it and people would go out of business, they claimed. It didn't happen. Now, many people are calling for a living wage. That basically means a wage that is enough to live on. Surely that should be the minimum wage? Instead, the benefits system is topping up low wages where they can't afford to keep a roof over their heads or food on the table.

The cost of living keeps rising, despite the best efforts of a few huge supermarkets driving more and more suppliers to bankruptcy in their pursuit of the cheapest price in town (more on this in part three). Housing in particular is so expensive that only a small percentage of people trying to get onto the housing ladder are currently able to. In some areas, even people on significantly higher than the average salary can't afford to. So that leaves renting, and landlords are raking it in, all over the country but especially where homes are in shortest supply. Many Tory MPs are landlords and many of their donors are too. So why would the Tories ever want to build enough affordable homes?

I do think that the way things are for many smaller employers in the UK (and employers generally, although larger ones are much to blame for 'the way things are' - again, more of this in part three) means that some will struggle to pay a living wage. I would suggest a system whereby new employers and very small companies (1-10 employees) wanting to expand could apply for temporary relief which would be paid to them to help them cover the living wage. These applications would be assessed based on the companies' overall pay structure and finances in general. It would be rejected if, for example, management were seen to be taking huge salaries for themselves, or making unnecessary purchases (e.g. overly expensive premises or company cars) to bring their finances down and thus necessitating the state assistance. This way, instead of the state subsidising low pay permanently, they would help companies into a position where they could afford to pay the living wage without help.

Flying in the face of claims that companies can't afford to pay the living wage, is the increases in executive pay over the last decade and more. Senior salaries are now so out of control that even some right-wing economists are calling for companies to be forced to have employees sitting on boards of directors (the idea being that they would be able to veto large salary increases for the top earners if the lowest earners see very small or no increase in their wages). I would add that the amount of money being siphoned out of the UK into shareholders' off shore bank accounts is another piece of evidence that certainly large employers can afford to pay the living wage.

The final point in support of increasing wages, and one that I have made before, is the Henry Ford philosophy. Ford realised that he would make a lot more money if his employees could afford to buy his cars. So he raised his employees' salaries considerably. Not only were they happier and more productive, they bought his cars and Henry Ford made a huge amount of money. What blinds today's big companies from seeing that if more people could afford their products and services, the more money they would make? The answer might be in Part Three.

The UK Economy. Part one: individuals' incomes and the taxes they pay.

It's easy for the right and even many so-called centrists in the UK to reduce tax. Once people have paid income tax, national insurance, council tax, VAT, other duties (e.g. on fuel and alcohol) etc, their pay is significantly lower than the raw sum at the top of their payslip. So tax cuts always go down well and the public don't seem particularly enraged if the highest earners are those benefiting the most.

So what do we pay for?

• Hospitals
• Ambulance Services
• GPs
• Community Nurses and Care Workers
• Police
• Defence
• Education
• Roads
• Transport*
• Energy and Water*
• Child Protection
• Street Cleaners, Environmental Health and Waste and Recycling Services
• Benefits such as the state pension, job seekers' allowance, child benefit, incapacity benefit etc.
• Ministers who decide on how to manage the above

*These services have been privatised but infrastructure and upkeep always requires more public money.

The above list is not exhaustive: it costs a lot to run a country. In the UK we pay lower taxes than the majority of developed countries and as a result, we often have good reason to complain about the services we receive. But still, people just see the bottom line of their pay slips and the added on taxes elsewhere and feel ripped off.

But we need council workers making sure shops and takeaways are selling us food that won't make us ill. We need people to clear up after unscrupulous companies who fly-tip their waste to save a few quid. We need benefits to help anyone out of work (I've been there; it's not all shirkers despite what the media try to tell you) to eat and continue paying their bills until they find a job. We need the police to prevent crime and Schools to teach us skills to give us a good chance of a decent life. We need to fork out for improvements to railway lines and power networks because the companies making huge profits providing these services can't reach into their pockets (because their pockets are in far-flung tax havens). We need care workers to look after us if we need help with everyday tasks. And what is so important is that we need to pay good money for all of these things, otherwise standards will fall.

Too often, councils can't afford to clear up the mess left by lazy, cheap people (I walk through woods every morning past tonnes of dumped rubbish). And Schools are too often falling into disrepair. Right now, waiting times in A&E are as bad as they've ever been. Care workers are paid so little, it's really difficult to get good people to stay in the job. Pay generally is too low in the public sector and perversely, in-work benefits top up their wages to they can afford to live in the area they work. Where's the sense in that?!

So we need to pay taxes and the government's overall tax revenue needs to be higher than it currently is. But this government has cut tax for the lowest earners and the highest earners. Why? The highest earners have a great deal of influence over government policy. And the highest earners often employ the lowest earners so if the government reduces the tax the lowest paid earn, the influential employers needn't worry about increasing the poverty wages. Simple. So, in this way as in so many others, the state is effectively subsidising the big profit-making companies and individuals who often help to fund the 'think-tanks' who tell us the state is bloated and needs to be reduced!

If only people knew more about why some parties are so anti-tax and who really benefits, they might be happier to pay it and be more critical of their employers than they are of the 'tax man'.

Either way you look at it, more Thatcherism can't fix our economy.

Some people will insist on believing that the last Labour government are to blame for the UK's current economic climate. It's no wonder: the Tories and most of the media claim this too. Let's look at the conditions that created economic collapse.

What happened

• Thatcher's Tories were responsible for deregulation of the UK financial industry. 
• This was very popular with wealthy and influential businesses, lobbyists, much of the media and right-wing and centrist politicians and was successful in bringing a great deal of wealth to the capital (albeit mostly in just a few hands).
• New Labour continued financial deregulation in the late 90s and early 2000s.
• They had to. It was seen as the driving force behind the boom in the City of London which is still considered to be (although figures don't actually support this: the service industries and manufacturing are both larger) the basis of the entire UK economy. And even if they wanted to re-regulate the industry, the power and influence behind big trading would have proven too much.
• The Tories, in opposition, approved of Labour's continuation of financial deregulation but also said further regulation was necessary.
• Deregulation allowed very risky and highly dubious practices to go unchecked and after a period of unbridled success, the pressure of unstable international markets (notably the US which was using the UK system for its own dodgy practices) brought it all crashing down.

So the Tories began and championed deregulation of the financial markets that caused the crash and meant that the government had to bail out the banks, spending around £1.5 trillion pounds doing so. Had the Tories been in power, this still would have happened and they would have also bailed out the banks and the UK's budget deficit would be in the same position it is now (in 2007/8 before the crash, the Tories promised to match Labour's public spending plans).

A much more simple argument

If you still can't accept that the above facts mean the crash would still have happened if the Tories were in power then how about this:

Margaret Thatcher herself said that her greatest achievement was Tony Blair and New Labour. "We forced our opponents to change their minds." New Labour continued Thatcherism and virtually all of its free-market policies. This being the case, how is what New Labour did any different to what the Tories would have done?

And more urgently: if New Labour's Thatcherite economic policies did nothing to prevent the crash, how would yet more Thatcherism from the current Tories ever be able to fix the problem?!