Labour need more voters but they are the people being turned away!

Labour are shooting themselves in the foot. And probably the face.

Huge numbers of people wanted to join the party or become an affiliated member to have a say in the Labour leadership election. And this appears to be something Labour don't want! Here are some quick points:

• The Labour powers-that-be are only worried about this because they don't want Corbyn as leader. If anyone else was leading the polls, this wouldn't be an issue.
• People signing up to vote will get to vote for a candidate who has been NOMINATED BY THE PARTY to stand as leader. No one will get to vote for a conservative or a communist.
• If people who do not share "Labour Values" had tried to get a vote, they would be more likely to vote for Liz Kendall, who has made it clear she is much more concerned with winning over people who believe what the Tories said before the last election is right.

Jeremy Corbyn's popularity is embarrassing for the other candidates. And Labour don't want that? He's a Labour MP and has been for longer than any of the other candidates and he's both bringing new people to the party and bringing people back to the party. In their THOUSANDS.

My last, huge, glaringly bloody obvious point is this:

Labour need to attract more voters to the party so that they can defeat the tories. But they are asking some people who have signed up as new or affiliate members who they voted for at the last election and presumably rejecting them if they say anyone other than Labour!

It's a complete farce.

Cost of living

This is something of a departure from my usual posts which tend to be directly about politics. This one is indirectly about politics.

The cost of living crisis became a topic of conversation in the media as Labour's polling improved in the build up to the election. Funny how even inaccurate polling can affect what gets published. But it's pretty much vanished since the Tories won their slender majority and recent talk has been mostly about how Jeremy Corbyn is bringing lots of new people towards the Labour party and how unelectable he is (the contradictory nature of those two subjects was intentional). 

I consider myself lucky. Despite being an early victim of the recession (December 2008) and having to find myself a totally new career - which was far from easy and brought some incredibly difficult times (without the emotional support of my now wife, I can't be certain I'd be here to write this) - I now have a good job with a moderately impressive sounding job title (unfortunately it comes with a less impressive salary). My wife has two doctorates and works for the NHS as a Clinical Psychologist. We now have a baby and own a house with a garden. 

All good. But the sacrifices we have made would belie our job titles. First, we had to put off getting married and starting a family as I wasn't in a secure job and then, once I was, my wife was only temporary and part-time. Once we were finally both in more secure jobs, we started looking for a house. We couldn't afford a house in the area we've lived for the last decade, so looked at other areas. Many other locations were unaffordable too until we compromised on an area where we could afford a small house with a garden and with a train station no more than a mile away so I can get to work. It's not close to where our friends live; it lacks nice shops, cafes, bars, restaurants; the streets aren't very well kept; the nearby primary school does not have a good Ofsted report; public transport isn't great. But it seems safe enough and it's just about big enough for us and our baby, and the occasional staying guest. And it's the best we could afford.

Since our son was born and with my wife on maternity pay, we've struggled financially. Fortunately, family have been able to buy nursery furniture, a pushchair, clothes etc and friends with older children have donated things too. I'm ashamed to say I never passed my driving test. I really need to be able to drive so that my wife doesn't bear the burden of long journeys to see family and friends (many of whom live between 150 and 230 miles away) but at over £20 per lesson and about £60 for the practical test, I simply can't afford it. One of my work shoes is split: I put off buying new ones and five weeks later, I'm still wearing them. I bought myself a new shirt at the weekend for the first time in a long time - it was in the sale and cost me £6. My beard trimmer no longer works (and replacement parts no longer exist) so I dug out some razors (still in the cupboard from when I did 'movember') and shaved my beard off. When I run out of razors, I'll grow my beard back and see if I can afford a new beard trimmer then. My wife doesn't complain at all but I know she has been worried about money and probably doesn't want to worry me more by talking about it. Our next challenge is paying for childcare. My wife will be going back four days a week (on 0.8% of her full-time salary) and I'm going to be squashing 35 hours into four days (starting early, finishing later, skipping lunch breaks etc) so I can look after him for one day without losing pay.

If we, a Clinical Psychologist and an Administrative Manager, are having financial difficulties like these, how on earth are other people coping? As I say, I know we're lucky to have houses and full time jobs. I really worry about people on lower incomes, in insecure jobs, possibly with debt (which we don't have, apart from our mortgage and my small old-style student loan). Apparently the economy is growing and pay is rising. I'd like to see the stats on these 'facts'. I would imagine that house price increases are causing slight growth in the economy and I would put money (if I had any) on the vast majority of wage rises going to only the top earners. I certainly don't know anyone getting any kind of rise over the rate of inflation.

The biggest challenge in our economy is getting wages and tax revenue up. Anything else is tinkering around the edges, and I have a little flow chart that shows how low-pay is holding back growth and increasing the need for benefits which in turn, causes our economy to stagnate.

I'd like to make one final point: many people rely on hand outs from their parents for deposits on houses, buying furniture and appliances, repairs to homes and cars etc. Some people still rely on this even into their 40s and beyond. Those people are very unlikely to be able to do the same for their children. So who will help them? Wages must start to rise, urgently. 

Labour cutting off its nose

I'll try not to go over ground well-covered by journalists and commenters from the left but some of their points seem so bloody obvious it's insane to think that so few people realise what a catastrophic error Labour are making.

This leadership election is supposed to be a democratic process. Members and affiliates - all who have paid in some way to have a vote (either via a regular membership fee, small fee direct to the party, or via their Union fees which also helps to fund the party) - will decide who they want as the next Labour leader. Some will agree that their choice might not be the best to win the next election but will choose that person based on how closely the candidate shares their own political views. Others will firmly believe that the candidate they have chosen is the best person to lead Labour to victory at the next general election. Whatever their reasons, they have a right to vote and the winner will have won fair and square.

Some in the party suggested that there should be a discussion about Labour's direction before any leadership election but the powers that be decided to go straight into deciding the next leader. So if those who have been running the party for the last 20 years don't like the direction the most popular candidate might take the party, then that is just tough shit. Get behind them or get out. Instead of discussing sensibly why each candidate is more or less popular, certain dinosaurs (and their feathered, Tory-lite offspring) are already causing the very rifts they claim will happen if they don't get their way.

What is even more disturbing and worrying for Labour's future is the way they are handling new memberships and affiliate registrations. Mark Steel who, like me is a life long Labour supporter, has been barred from voting in the leadership election and hasn't been given a reason why. I can understand the party wanting to make sure that right-wing party supporters don't get a vote but Mark Steel campaigned with the Labour party before the election in May! He's not a member of any other political party or organisation, so the only reason he could possibly be excluded is because his articles have been critical of the direction of the party, and he has written about his support for Jeremy Corbyn. Many many people have left the Labour party in recent times and may have joined other parties such as the Greens, or Left Unity. But those people did not leave Labour, Labour left them when they began to tear up their history: backing austerity which makes the poor poorer and the rich richer; distancing themselves from people who can't find work and agreeing with benefit caps; blaming immigration; cutting ties with unions who built and support the party. I could go on.

Many of these people are former Labour members, or family members of former Labour members who want to come back to the Labour party if they will once again support the many against the powerful few. If this is how Labour treat people who want to get involved with the party and engage with politics, then people will give up on them again and this time, they will not return.

If Labour want to permanently reduce their membership numbers and never again be the party of working people in Britain, they are going the right way about it.

I continue to be baffled

I'm continually astonished and baffled by the ideas of people who claim to support the Labour party and yet who seem aggressively negative about Jeremy Corbyn. They have been brainwashed by the right and just can't see that other ideas about how to run our country are valid.

There are all sorts of claims being thrown about, that Labour would spend decades in the doldrums if he is elected; that the Lib Dems would take so much of Labour's vote that Labour would end up the third party; that he is "wrong, on many, many things" (with no explanation of what) etc. And yes, these are coming from people who claim to support the Labour party.

Corbyn's politics would not have been considered particularly radical 20 years ago. And 40 years ago, even many Tory MPs also believed in some principles such as nationalised industries, welfare, building social housing etc. It was only when the strikes and mismanagement of certain industries in the 1970s gave the free-market zealots writing policies in thinktanks a window of opportunity to hand over public assets to the private sector and found a willing underlay of Tory MPs that any of these ideas came under attack. Now the majority of the UK population seems to accept that we can never again afford to control our rail network without private profiteers creaming millions in profit whilst leaving us with shit public transport, or that we will only ever have smaller councils without sufficient resources to repair the roads, provide decent local authority housing or expand crowded schools.

However, there is another side to this: despite this general resignation, most people want nationalised rail and energy, even a national bank, and they want the NHS to go back to being state-owned and operated. A number of studies by a range of different groups have found these things - even amongst Tory voters. Socialism dragged the UK out of the post-war slump and rebuilt Britain for the many, but we have been conned into believing that even though it's what we want now, it is somehow no longer possible.

We have had our hope taken from us by three decades of rampant capitalism and politicians and the media convincing us there's no alternative. If even Labour supporters think this, maybe we should just hand over all of our cash, possessions and our freedom to Serco and perform frontal lobotomies on each other.

Or move to Scotland.

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Jeremy Corbyn is a reluctant leadership candidate who would probably be a lot happier backing another left-wing candidate. But there aren't any. I watched the debate on Sunday Politics and Burnham and Cooper particularly looked as though they were giving a very carefully written presentation on the merits of a new financial software system they want your workplace to invest £2m in. Liz Kendall sounded like someone who at the last minute had been asked to stand in for someone who couldn't be there because they were busy destroying children's dreams.

Corbyn, meanwhile, sounded genuine. He believes in what he says and always has. He might get flustered when someone takes a quote out of context or deliberately misunderstands what he says because he doesn't come from the school of presentation politics: to him it actually matters and he doesn't waste time crafting soundbites that can't be taken the wrong way. He's too busy being active in politics to do any work on his image.

I think people will be pleased to see a normal person talking passionately about things he genuinely believes in and has campaigned on for decades. Hopefully if he doesn't win, he will come close enough to spark a resurgence of the left within the Labour party. At the very least, having a left-winger in the debate will shift the 'overton window' a little back to the left after so many years of rightward drift. The fact that there are already rumblings of concern from some MPs who leant him their nomination and even rumours of a possible coup should he win suggests he is doing very well indeed.

But what of the 'other way'? So many dismiss his ideas as impossible, or keep banging on about the need for Labour to be seen as economically 'credible' and so far, very little airtime or column inches have been given over to discussing what the alternative to austerity is.

Essentially, it's speculate to accumulate: ironically, the very thing that the government expects the public and small businesses to do, and the very thing that they adore the City for doing so recklessley and destructively. Spending money on infrastructure not only improves peoples' lives (better transport, homes, schools, hospitals etc), it provides work which boosts the economy. A living wage (a proper one, not a re-badged minimum wage) would benefit the country via much lower in-work pay subsidies, low paid employees would be paid more of course and businesses would get more custom as disposable incomes rise. Tougher tax policy tidying up avoided and evaded tax and new ways of getting additional tax from the wealthiest (e.g. a higher top rate of tax, removal of the allowance for buy-to-let landlords, a banking levy etc) would also make a huge difference to our economy.

Austerity is only one way to 'balance the books'. It's also the most painful for the most vulnerable in society. And as a final point, it's worth noting - again - that it wasn't until one thinktank pointed out that the recession was a good excuse to shrink the state and hand over public money to private profiteers that the Tories changed their tune from one where they backed Labour's spending (which they now claim was ridiculously extravagant). At that time, the shadow chancellor was one Gideon George Osborne and the leader of the opposition, David Cameron. The fact that 'making tough decisions' and Labour needing to accept austerity to be seen as 'fiscally responsible' is now the only idea in town is an enormous success for right-wing propaganda. If failing banks should stop automatic bonuses, surely writers and editors in the sun, the mail, the times, the telegraph etc should have huge increases because what they have done is brainwash an entire nation and turn sound economics into a complete joke. It's incredible.

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.