Opposition From Labour Is Long Overdue

The news that Usk Library in Monmouthshire has been earmarked for closure may not have set the political world alight, but the reaction to the news shows how political attitudes in this country have shifted.  It was once easy to guess where anyone would stand on an issue such as this: Conservatives would be sympathetic, but look at savings to tax payers; Liberals and their like would look at alternative ways of borrowing books; Labour would be up in arms about the idea of a municipal asset being taken away.

Sadly, this no longer seems to be the case.  It appears that the official Labour stance on the closure is to wring hands and point out that there are other priorities.  Really?  I don’t want to produce a league table of priorities and nor do I disagree that vulnerable people and health services need their budgets protecting.  What I object to is the view that libraries are an optional extra, the froth on the coffee of an affluent society.  Libraries have helped raise the literacy skills of families for generations, providing an almost endless source of reading material for families who perhaps cannot afford to purchase and keep huge numbers of books at home.  From the Fabian Society to the Workers Education Association, there has always been a strong belief in the Labour Party that education gives people an opportunity to better themselves and improve their situation.  To see libraries as anything other than a crucial part of the education process is just plain wrong.

 

Those who think that education is only something that happens inside schools are doing people a great disservice.  Reading sparks the imagination – how many of us have become interested in a subject and immediately wanted to find out more?  If only there was somewhere we could go to have easy access to published materials.  There’s also a strong link between reading and spelling.  If you see a word written correctly time and time again, the likelihood is that you will be able to spell it correctly, too.  Do we want to see this kind of self-betterment become an exclusive preserve of those who can afford it?  As for those who argue that the internet has supplanted the need for libraries, I have simply one word: Wikipedia.  Anyone can edit it.  I have an editing log in.  Would you trust me to write an unbiased account of Margaret Thatcher?

For Labour to argue that Usk Library is expendable is a dereliction of opposition.  Monmouthshire County Council, under the Conservatives, has one of the lowest Council Tax collection rates in the country.  The equivalent of one household in every street gets away without paying.  If the Council were willing to do their job properly, we could pay for Usk Library many times over.  The Conservatives and their Lib Dem partners (yes, we have them here too) have chosen to keep an estimated £5 million pounds in reserve.  They have chosen to freeze Council Tax.  They have written off thousands upon thousands of pounds in arrears.  A Council who chose to spend money sending staff on an away day to imagine what ‘ordinary’ council tax payers think (I would have knocked on doors and asked them) feels it is justified in taking away a crucial community resource.

Labour in Monmouthshire seems to be meekly accepting this closure and plenty of other cuts the Tories are proposing.  This is not a Labour opposition.  It is Labour acquiescence. It’s a municipal disgrace.

Unfairness Has A Home With The Tories

I recently wrote about the increasingly nasty tone of the present Government.  Events of recent weeks have shown no change in that tone – in fact it’s just about the only thing on which they’ve not performed a U-turn.

Leaving aside (for the moment) the disgraceful performance from Ian Duncan Smith in the Commons on Monday, the policies being pushed through at present represent little more than the indebted bully taking dinner money from the most vulnerable children in the playground in order to appease their friends.  Take, for instance, the ‘Spare Room Subsidy’, which everyone else refers to, quite rightly as a ‘Bedroom Tax’.  Essentially, anyone who claims housing benefit for Social Housing will have to pay extra if they have a spare room.  This, the arguments go, is to reduce under-occupancy.

According to the Government, there are a huge amount of social houses that have spare rooms and if the occupants of them claim Housing Benefit, they will have to pay more.  If they can’t afford it, they have to move to somewhere with fewer rooms.  It may have escaped the Tories notice that the Social Housing stock has decreased over the last generation, ever since the ‘Right to Buy’ was introduced by, erm, the Tories.

Of course, if you live in Social Housing and need to claim Housing Benefit, the chances of you having extra cash to pay this tax are fairly slim.  So you have to move.  Where to?  Well, not within the state sector, that’s for sure.  So you will have to go private.  And, of course, such restrictions are not being applied to private landlords.  If you claim housing benefit in the private sector, you can have as many spare rooms as you wish, which means a cut for money staying in the public sector, but plenty of money flowing from the public purse to private landlords.

You may think that this sounds crazy.  You would be right.  But it’s all part of this Government’s ploy to help those it likes at the expense of those it doesn’t.  It just so happens that those it likes are rich and those it doesn’t like are poor.  What else could possibly explain the Tories forthcoming tax cut for those earning millions at the same time as they introduce a real terms cut in maternity benefit?

The best way to tackle the huge housing benefit bill would be to introduce private sector rent controls.  The average rent has increased by over £100 a year in the last twelve months, and is now heading towards four figures.  Whether Housing Benefit contributes to this inflation, as the Government claims, is a moot point.  However, forcing people out of social housing and into the private rented sector is not going to cut the benefit bill.  All it will do is swell the pockets of private landlords at the public expense.

The idea of rent controls would have many on the Tory right in paroxysm of rage about interference in the market.  But the market is being interfered with anyway, just that it is the wealthy that benefit.  The playing field is not level; everything is weighted towards those who have. 

A last word for Mr Duncan Smith.  Calling people childish names, as you did in the Commons on Monday, says several things.  Firstly, it suggests that you have lost the argument.  Secondly, it shows a complete lack of gravitas.  Whether the behavior of others was bad is not the point.  Two wrongs don’t make a right.  You are a Minister and should be setting an example.  Shame on you.

Facebook: LiamStubbsLabour
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Basic Standards Would Be Right For Everyone

As a vegetarian, you might think I’m a bit insulated from the current storm over horsemeat.  I will admit that part of me wonders what all the fuss is about – you’re eating an animal, and in different parts of the world, different animals provide staple dishes.  It surely does not matter which animal you are eating, you are eating an animal.  After all, buy a ‘meat pastie’ or ‘meat pie’ in a bakers shop and you could literally be given anything.

But I am concerned.  I’m very concerned, not just about food, but all elements of the supply chain.  The scandal for me is not about horse v cow or horse v pig, but the incorrect labelling and the loss of control over what we are putting into our mouths.  Various investigations are being carried out which may lead to criminal prosecutions, but if anyone who thinks that will be the end of the story, they are sadly deluded.  The meat industry has passed responsibility for quality control further and further down the line, but they are not alone in that.  What we have seen in the last twenty or so years is a gradual erosion of industry, a haemorrhaging of influence and a rise in ignorance.

All industries have been effected by out-sourcing, not just the food sector.  Pottery which once carried the Stoke-on-Trent seal of approval is now manufactured in Indonesia.  Teesside and Sheffield now produce far less steel than their rivals in Malaysia and India, while the textile factories of Lancashire have been replaced by a label proclaiming ‘Made in China’.  It’s also a long time since a British Prime Minister has had to worry about what the miners might think.

How do we know what we are getting?  How can we guarantee the quality of our purchases?  More importantly, how can we be sure we are not contributing to sweat shop labour, child exploitation and modern day slavery?  The easy answer is that we can’t.  And it is the fault of all of us.

We all want bargains.  We want good quality produce but are not prepared to pay for it.  We want a Dyson vacuum cleaner at half the price it was 10 years ago.  And thanks to the decision to send production overseas, we can have just that.  Forget that the people producing a lot of products are working in conditions we would not accept, just look at the price.  Think about what else we can now afford.  Think about ourselves, not others.

We want more in our bank accounts and companies want more as well.  Bigger profits, higher salaries for executives and larger dividend payments to shareholders.  Let’s conveniently forget that this will ultimately rebound on us all – in the shape of more unemployment, higher benefit costs and, in the case of household names like Findus and Tesco, a suspicion that it doesn’t do what it says on the tin, or packet or bag.

It would be easy to shrug our shoulders, point the fingers at a few criminal gangs and settle down to Shergar & chips.  But if this is important to us, we should be pressing for change.  If companies could not exploit cheap labour overseas, they would be less likely to compete on cost, plumping instead for a pursuit of greater quality.  If workers in the developing world enjoyed the same employment rights we do here, they would be rewarded for their work, not exploited for their labour.  This may make companies think twice about outsourcing, perhaps leading to more jobs for the home market – reducing the benefit bill and making sure that more money was circulating round the economy, benefitting us all.

Globalisation has brought us many advantages.  But with it has come the shame of exploitation for our personal gain.  The campaign to encourage Fair Trade has reaped huge dividends for some in the developing world.  Now it’s time to go further and ensure that those who work in factories as well as farms avoid gross unfairness and enjoy basic rights.  In the long run, we will all benefit.

Half Way On The Road To Nowhere

Is there anyone left who seriously believes the Coalition Government? 

On Monday, David Cameron and Nick Clegg gave us their mid-term report, a staged PR stunt, designed to convince the world that they were on target to achieve everything they desired.  Taken at face value, this variously involved “cutting the deficit”, “getting the economy back on track” and “getting Britain working.”  By Tuesday night, it was clear that, with at least one ex-minister voting against the attempt to cut benefits from the country’s poorest, even its former members have ceased to take the Government seriously.

No matter how much Cameron and Clegg protest, the truth is very different from the image they like to portray.  The real terms cut in benefits harms ordinary families most.  Only 3% of all benefits go to the unemployed.  The majority of the cuts have fallen on ‘in work’ benefits, such as maternity and paternity pay, adoption pay and the child element of the Working Families Tax Credit.  According to the BBC (1), single parents are the group most affected by the cut.  This coming from the same Government who gave the richest 1% a huge tax cut in the ‘Omnishambles’ budget.

But it is not just the act of taking from the poor and giving to the wealthy that offends our sense of decency.  It’s the underhand way this Government has chosen to go about it.  Ian Duncan Smith was recently caught out by Channel 4’s ‘FactCheck’ (2) when an article he wrote for the Telegraph stretched the truth beyond credible boundaries.  Mr Duncan Smith was attempting to portray Tax Credits as frippery, an example of excess and a honey pot for foreign fraudsters.  Unfortunately for him, Channel 4 sought to verify his claims with his own department and discovered that his statements were at best exaggerated and at worst, downright lies.  More unfortunately for everyone is the fact that the mud has probably already stuck in the minds of the ordinary voters.  Those greedy working class families should not be pandered to in this way.  They should take home their poverty wages and be thankful, unlike the wealth creators whom we should be making even richer.

There is more than a faint whiff of Dickensian morality about the Coalition, reviving notions of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor, blaming working people for their own plight rather than tackling the real problems.  For instance, the Government has been very keen to cut the Housing Benefit bill.  I would be fully behind this if they approached it in an intelligent way.  Surely, with the economy heading for an almost unheard of triple-dip recession, it would make sense to prevent landlords exploiting the public purse by ratchetting up rents as much as they can?  But no – rent controls would interfere with the free market (the same one that is rigged to make sure that some businesses enjoy charitable status despite not being charities at all).  Blaming the poor for not being able to afford housing is much easier.  And if anyone should stick their noses in to complain, just follow the example of Ian Duncan Smith and make things up.

The Tax Credit system is also an area that needs to be looked at.  That so many people who go out to work are having their wages subsidised by the state is just plain wrong.  While I am in favour of the Government assisting small businesses create jobs, the fact that giants such as Tesco and McDonalds can pay their employees so little that the rest of us have to chip in to give them a decent wage is abhorrent.  Look at some of the profits announced by major companies in the last few recession-hit years and it becomes obvious that we are putting money straight into the pockets of the rich.

Maybe I’m being unfair.  Maybe the Coalition are achieving their goals and what I’ve described above is exactly what they want.  Perhaps they want to get the economy back on the sort of track that saw unemployment hit 3 million in the 1980’s.  Maybe Britain working for lower and lower wages is their ultimate aim.  So far, the Big Society is visible only in the increased use of food banks and charity hand outs.  For all the fanfare, after two and a half years, they have very little else to shout about.

(1)    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20950691

(2)http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-ids-tax-credit-claims-discredited/12160

Twitter - @LiamStubbs
Email - liamstubbslabour@hotmail.co.uk