"Red" Ed has the Tories worried

Red Ed?

It didn't take long for the Conservative attack dogs and right wing media to lay into Ed Miliband once it was announced he was leader.  Labelling him "Red Ed" and claiming the unions now have a hold over him.

Headlines have appeared such as:

'Red' Ed Miliband says New Labour is dead but vows to stand up for the 'squeezed middle'  Daily Mail

RED Ed Miliband was elected Labour leader last night after snatching the crown from under his big brother's nose. & Left-winger Ed, 40, was catapulted into the job thanks to the backing of union barons who urged activists to vote for him. News of the World

The fact it that there is nothing "Red" about Ed Miliband.  He is a centre-left politician, admittedly to the left of his brother David and some of the Blairite old-guard, but this is not a bad thing.  The policies Ed has proposed are not leftist policies which will alienate the electorate.

A graduate tax will speak to many middle class as well as working class families in the UK who are worried about increasing student debt, debt which may well increase significant if tuition fees rise later this year.

Saying it was wrong to go to war with Iraq is not a leftist policy.  The majority of the country now believe it was wrong, and I believe one of the reasons why David lost was that he continued to defend it.

Ed wants the banking industry to make a bigger contribution to reducing the deficit.  This is hardly radical, and again the majority of the country will agree, especially once the cuts really kick in after the spending review.

It is rare for me to quote Norman Tebbit, but he was right in his Telegraph blog when he said:

The narrowness of David Miliband’s defeat and his brother Ed’s victory says more about the closeness of their views than any deep split in the Labour Party at the present time. Ed is the man most likely to get Labours five million lost voters back to the polls. He is unlikely to neglect the chance to feed off the discontented Lib Dem supporters, but he will not neglect to strengthen the party’s natural constituency.

I think this is why the Tories and right wing press are worried.  Ed really does have the potential to win back lost voters, particularly the many who stop supporting Labour after the Iraq invasion.


He is also helping to continue the rise in Labour party membership, as a recent @uklabour tweet said:

Since @Ed_Miliband was announced as our new Leader at 5pm yesterday 726 people have joined Labour. One new member every 1 min 48 secs #Lab10

The voting system


Some are questioning how fair the voting system is, as the union votes from the electoral college sealed Ed's win in the 5th round.  But union members are not mindless automatons who blindly follow their leadership.  If you look at the results many union members did not give Ed first preference.   


If the voting system is to be reviewed, it will be important to also look at the 1/3 of the electorate college which is given to MPs and MEPs.  Surely this is less democratic with a few hundred voters having a significant say on the outcome of the election.

We should never go back to Blairism

Recently I have seen numerous Labour activists defending Blair on the basis that he won us 3 general election.  A quick look at the polling figures show that this defence is not so black and white:

Labour Party results

Year    Popular Vote    Percentage of the vote
1997    13,518,167       43.2%
2001     10,724,953      40.7%
2005     9,552,436        35.2%

If Blair was so popular with the electorate why did Labour lose 4 million votes between 1997 and 2005?  The only reason Blair won the election in 2005, was that the alternative was Michael Howard.

The argument is that we should continue to use Blair's policies to attract back Tory voters.  In reality we did not lose that many votes to the Conservatives.  In 1997 the results for the other two parties were as follows:

1997
Cons: 9,600,943
Lib Dem: 5,242,947

And in 2010:

2010
Cons: 10,703,954
Lib Dem, 6.836.824

This shows that of the 4 million lost votes the Conservatives have only taken about a million votes and the Lib Dems about a million and a half.

This means that many who no longer vote Labour have either stopped voting or have opted for smaller parties.  It is these parties and the Lib Dems who we need to focus on.  Many of whom will have stopped voting Labour because of Iraq and attacks on civil liberties. 

Blarism may be good for targeting Tory voters, but that is not where we should be directing our efforts.

Further vandalism of the NHS as Con Dems axe NHS Direct

The Tories claimed in the general election:

"We can't go on like this. I'll cut the deficit, not the NHS"

This may be technically correct, as they have ring-fenced the budget.  But they are using some of the funding for a pointless and dangerous re-organization of the NHS and to pay for it they are cutting services.

The latest example of this is the announcement yesterday in the Guardian that the Con Dems plan to scrap NHS direct replacing it with a new budget service called NHS 111.

Currently forty percent of NHS Direct's staff are trained nurses.  NHS 111 will have one trained nurse to every 25 call centre staff, in other words only 4% of the staff will be professional nurses.  The other call operators will go on a 60 hour training course.

As soon as the public realise that the new call centre is not staffed by health professionals they will start putting extra demand on casualty and out of hour GP services, rather than risk receiving unprofessional advice from call centre operators.

I have used NHS Direct on more than one occasion in the past and was satisfied with the professional advice I received to save me having to put demand on other NHS services.  I would not use the proposed new service for health advice.

The biggest risk could come from a member of staff offering poor or incorrect advice to a caller which could result in them not seeking professional medical advice when they do require it.

The cost to the public of NHS Direct is £123 million a year.  This is money well spent, which reduces the demand on other areas of the NHS.  We must fight to defend this and you can start by signing the petition at http://www.savenhsdirect.co.uk/

There is no need for these cuts.  The government would not need to be looking for cuts if it was not for their expensive and dangerous re-structuring of the NHS which is going to cost the tax payer £1.8 billion a year.

We have to fight the cuts and the Con Dem vandalism of the NHS before it is too late and see all the improvements of the past 17 years thrown away.

Why I won't give a preference to any Labour leadership candidate who sends out a negative message on immigration

After a few months of the leadership campaign I have come to the decision that there are two candidates in the leadership election I cannot give a preference to on the ballot paper due to their views on immigration.

The first is Ed Balls.  It is with a heavy heart I do this as I feel he as been very good calling the Con Dems to account, but I cannot support a candidate who has come out with the following statements:

"What I've said is we should look at that free movement of labour directive to see whether or not it needs to be changed either to allow transition arrangements to be longer or also to prevent the practice where people can come and work in our country and then send benefits back to their own countries". UKPA

To be honest, I think Gordon's answer to Mrs Duffy showed he'd not been having the conversation, because what she said was the kind of things being said by Labour supporters, and in some cases former Labour supporters over the last year and a half. [This] was: 'Look, we're not racist, and we support our EU membership and we know that immigration's important for the NHS, but look what it's doing to my community, to my child's job prospects, to our housing queues'. Guardian

Secondly we have Andy Burnham.  Once again he has been good tackling the Con Dems, particularly on NHS reform.  But I will not support him because of statements like the following:

"We were in denial. We were behind the issue all the time, and myths were allowed to develop. There's still an ambivalence among some in Labour about discussing immigration. I've been accused of dog-whistle politics for doing so.

"But it was the biggest doorstep issue in constituencies where Labour lost. People aren't racist, but they say it has increased tension, stopped them getting access to housing and lowered their wages." Telegraph

While he said he would "avoid disowning our past" on immigration, he said: "Their [the electorate's] strong feeling was that we had our fingers in our ears and our hands over our eyes. We just didn't want to talk about it.

"For me the big task is for Labour to reconnect with people who are feeling this. They need to feel that Labour understands what they are saying and then will take steps to address it." Guardian

These two candidates worry me about the direction Labour would take if they became leader.  I don't deny that immigration is a doorstep issue, but this is mainly due to right wing tabloids blaming migration for everything from lack of housing and jobs to terrorism.

We have to establish a two pronged approach to this problem.  Firstly we have to have policies to increase and improve housing stock and tackle the areas which have high unemployment and deprivation.  Secondly we have to challenge the myths around immigration.

The easy solution is to agree with the likes of Mrs Duffy and try to appeal to those who feel immigration is an issue by lurching to the right and trying to out do the Tories on immigration.  But this is surely wrong and against the fundamental values of the Labour Party.

We have to move away from the New Labour rhetoric which resulted in David Blunkett accusing asylum seekers of "swamping" some British Schools (BBC News) and Phil Woolas putting out this dreadful leaflet during the general election:

100 days

We have now reached 100 days of the Con Dems and we face a very bleak picture of what the country will be like for the next five years.  The country faces:

• Drastic cuts to public services of up to 40%, even though the private sector is in no position to absorb the thousands of public sector workers who will be made redundant.  Those who manage to keep there jobs face a two year pay freeze at a time when RPI is currently 4.8%.
• A rise in VAT to 20%.  A regressive tax which will hit the poorest in society the worst.
• A wrecking bill which will see an expensive re-organisation of the NHS and allow back door privatisation by scrapping primary care trusts.
• An unequal education system which will see Gove's free schools create a two-tier education system at the expense of 700 projects being scrapped from Labour's building schools for the future scheme.  At the same time we will see higher education facing a real funding crisis as cuts kick in.
• A shake up of benefits which will see many of the poorest in society facing even tougher times as benefits are slashed.
• A cut in the number of MPs tagged onto the AV bill. The money this will save is negligible and will mean MPs will be more thinly stretched to cover constituency work.
• Councils will see funding cuts of £1.165 billion, meaning drastic cuts to local services.
• The arts will see major cuts regardless of how successful some of the projects currently are.  This has been shown by the scrapping of the UK film council.
• 9 regional development agencies have been scrapped.
• More outsourcing of government duties to the private sector, most recently with the scrapping of the audit commission.

There is absolutely no need for such huge cuts to public services at such speed, and no need for root and branch re-organisation of our public services.  These moves have more to do with Tory ideology than reducing the deficit.

None of this would have been possible without the support of the Lib Dems.  Many Lib Dem voters feel betrayed as they did not vote for this.  Many voters believed the promises of not bringing in immediate cuts or raising VAT and I sincerely hope they desert the Lib Dems at the next election, polls at the moment show a drastic drop in Lib Dem support and at the same time the highest polling for Labour in 3 years, not something you would expect so early in a new administration.

It was not an easy decision for me to leave the Green Party as I supported many of their ideals and policies, but the country now faces impending crisis and the wrecking of the public service improvements made by Labour in the past 13 years.   Only Labour can mount a serious challenge to the ConDem government and it is important that all of us who feel passionate about defending public services no longer sit on the sidelines and join the fightback to ensure the next election brings a clear Labour majority to roll back the mess this coalition will have made.

Action Alert – Panorama ‘Death on the Med’ - Contact the BBC

The following is a mailing from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign:

Action Alert – Panorama ‘Death on the Med’ - Contact the BBC

Last night, the BBC broadcast a Panorama programme entitled ‘Death on the Med’.

It claimed to reveal ‘what really happened’ when Israeli commandoes boarded the Mavi Marmara on 31 May 2010.

Watch the programme here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00thr24

The programme was extremely biased, portraying the activists on board as violent terrorists who set out to kill Israeli soldiers.

Please write to the BBC asking the following questions:

• Why was Israel’s ‘right’ to board the ship presumed throughout the programme?
• Why did the programme completely fail to mention that Israel’s siege of Gaza has been declared illegal by the UN? The assumption was made that Israel has the right to blockade Gaza, while the motives of those attempting to break an illegal blockade were questioned.
• Why did Jane Corbin not mention the bombs, rockets and white phosphorus dropped on Gaza by Israel during Operation Cast Lead over a three week period in 2008/9, killing 1,400 people? She did, however, mention the ‘thousands of rockets’ fired from Gaza into Israel, but did not say over what time period.
• Why was the Israeli evidence of how and when they killed the activists unquestioned? Activists who were on the top deck of the ship say the first person was killed – shot from a helicopter – before any Israeli had even landed on the deck. However, none of these activists were interviewed.
• Activists shot footage of the Israeli attack, but their cameras, laptops and other recording equipment was taken by the Israelis and has not been returned. Why was this point not raised during the programme, or put to the Israeli spokespeople?
• Why were the autopsy reports – which reveal that each victim was shot several times at close range, in a way that can’t constitute self-defence – not used, or even mentioned?
• Why was there no footage of the Israeli assaults on the activists – which led to nine deaths?
• Jane Corbin never questions the use of the word ‘terrorists’ to describe the activists, or their alleged willingness to attack the commandoes. Why does she then fail to examine why there were no fatalities or serious injuries among the Israeli commandoes, when these ‘terrorists’ were so willing to attack?
• Why were there no interviews with any of the British activists on board the ship, or with any of the journalists who were on board?
• Why was it not pointed out that the IDF has admitted doctoring the audio footage used in the programme, that the BBC claims was broadcast from the captain's deck?

  

You can find more points to make on the PSC website at www.palestinecampaign.org and http://t.co/wxcKyPH

Where to send your complaint:

Online: BBC complaints link: Follow the link and fill out the online form: https://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/

Ring: BBC complaint line number: 03700 100 212

Email: panorama.reply@bbc.co.uk

Write: BBC Panorama, MC4A1, Media Centre, Media Village, 201 Wood Lane, London, W12 7TQ.

=====================================

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) aims to raise public awareness about the occupation of Palestine and the struggle of the Palestinian people. PSC seek to bring pressure on both the British and Israeli government to bring their policies in line with international law. PSC is an independent, non-governmental and non-party political organisation with members from communities across the UK. Join PSC today!

Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Box BM PSA
London
WC1N 3XX

Tel:   020 7700 6192
Fax:  020 7609 7779

Email: info@palestinecampaign.org

Web: www.palestinecampaign.org

A short video explaining why the ConDem plans equal the privatisation of the NHS

The ConDem Milk Snatchers

Borrowing from Thatcher's milk snatching policy of the 70s, the ConDem government are now going to stop free milk for under-fives in nursery and day care.

What really annoys me about this move is the rubbish spouted by Health Minister Anne Milton to justify the cut by saying there was no evidence the scheme improved health.

Anyone with the slightest knowledge about health knows it is a given fact that milk is beneficial to child development.  I'm sure many experts on health will soon come out to challenge Milton's statements.  This has already started with the following quote:

Tam Fry, honorary chairman of the Child Growth Foundation charity, said scrapping the Nursery Milk scheme would be "disastrous", adding: "The Conservative minister for health doesn't seem to have learnt the lessons from Margaret Thatcher. Milk is absolutely vital for children in their growing years, particularly pre-school, and has many other attributes as well. It's a step towards healthy living."

Yahoo news

Fib Dem Clegg misled voters in run up to election

Last night's BBC documentary Five Days That Changed Britain, about the negotiations which produced the Con Dem coalition proved to be quite revealing.

Many of us have been rightly saying that the Lib Dems have ditched their principles for power, but the documentary proved that they were not even honest with the voters before the election.

Nick Clegg admitted that he changed his mind about the timing of spending cuts before the election, even though he was telling voters that to bring in cuts now would be "economic masochism" (More on this story in the Guardian)

I hope this latest revelation will cause the exodus of even more Lib Dem members.  They have been betrayed by their leader, and will pay dearly in the next election.

Who can trust a word the Lib Dems say in the future after this betrayal?

Why I'm supporting Ed Miliband for leader

A month ago today I blogged in support of Diane Abbott.  I still very much support Diane's policies and will give her my 2nd preference, but after a month of campaigning and having watched several hustings online I do not believe Diane is the right person to lead the Labour Party.

I don't feel she has proven that she can be a unifying force to lead the party into the next election, and unless we are unified we will not win the next election.

I therefore decided to back Ed Miliband.  I feel he offers the policies which I can unite behind:

Equality and dignity in work – tackling the gap between rich and poor, campaigning for a living wage and a high pay commission for both the public and private sector.
Rebuilding prosperity – supporting new industries, training opportunities and taking on the Coalition’s cuts and unfairness.
Building a sustainable future – putting climate change at the centre of everything we do, including our economic future.
Foreign policy based on values – not simply our alliances, learning lessons from the mistakes of Iraq.
Fairness in education – excellent schools in every community and fairer funding in higher education.
Protecting individual liberty – support for measures like CCTV but opposition to unnecessary state intervention in people’s lives, like excessive use of stop and search powers.
A 21st century democracy – support for the Alternative Vote, reform of the House of Lords, votes at 16 and more power for local government.
Building a movement – more voice for party members and a culture change in the way we do business, with women comprising 50% of the Shadow Cabinet.

Letters in local press opposing Lib Con NHS "reforms"

I got the following letter in The Press today, there was also letters from York Labour councillors James Alexander and Ruth Potter, which you can read here

THE Tory/Lib Dem coalition has obviously never heard of the saying: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Last month, the Commonwealth Fund judged the NHS to be the second-best health-care system in the world and top for efficiency, yet despite this the Government wish to undo the improvements made over the past 17 years, and fundamentally reform the way the NHS works.
It makes no sense whatever to scrap primary care trusts (PCTs) and put GP groups in charge of funds. Such a move will create a postcode lottery for health, and the fund managers will be less accountable than the current PCTs.

Like many of the other changes and cuts we are going to see over the duration of this Parliament, these are based on Tory ideology, and not what is best for the public sector and its users. The only people who will benefit from these changes will be private health providers, as waiting lists grow and those who can afford to switch to private health care.

It is imperative that we join the battle to save the NHS before it is too late and join the campaign against the proposed reforms.

Andy Burnham on Lib Con NHS reform

In today's Independent on Sunday Andy Burnham writes a very important article challenging the Lib Con reforms on the NHS.   I strongly recommend that everyone who is concerned about the direction the government are taking the NHS in reads this article.  It clearly highlights the major flaws of a plan which could end the NHS as we know it.

Andy Burnham is not my first choice for Labour leader, but he has been excellent on calling the Lib Cons to task over their reform plans.

The end of his article is a rallying call we should all respond to:

So, my message to patients, doctors and staff who hate these plans as much as I do is this – get ready for the mother of all battles. Labour will bring forward a campaign over the summer to show the strength of opposition to these plans before the health Bill arrives in Parliament in the autumn.

We will defend our party's finest creation with everything we've got from a Bill that threatens to unpick its very fabric.

I would also recommend you join the following two Facebook campaigns:

Hands of our NHS

National General Protest Day to Save the NHS 

Why is Diane Abbott the only Labour leadership candidate to oppose Trident?

I find it surprising and disappointing that only one of the five contenders for the Labour leadership is willing to oppose the replacement of Trident.

I can understand that as a former Foreign Secretary David Milliband may be accused of double standards by carrying out a u-turn on policy, but the other candidates should reconsider their position.

There is no logical reason behind defending Trident.  According to CND:

• 58% of people say that "given the state of the country's finances, the Government should scrap the Trident nuclear missile system" in an Independent/ComRes poll of September 2009 (Table 7)

• 54% of the public say Britain should "no longer have any nuclear deterrent" in a Gurdian/ICM poll of July 2009 (Table 8)

• Only 30% of the public would spend £20bn on Trident when offered alternatives of spending on nurses salaries or affordable homes, in a YouGov poll for The People newspaper from July 2009 (Page 4)

• 72% of the British public, in a poll in March 2007, did not support the government's plans to replace Trident - More4/Populus poll.

• 59% of the British public oppose replacing Trident when presented with the cost of £25 billion just to acquire a replacement system. (The equivalent of building around 1,000 new schools at current prices) - ICM poll, July 2006

• 73% of Scottish people thought it was wrong that £50 billion might be spent on a replacement for Trident.
• 64% were against nuclear weapons being based in Scotland for another 50 years. ICM poll carried out for Scottish CND, January 2007

I would imagine if potential Labour voters were polled there would be an even larger percentage supporting the scrapping of Trident.  I therefore cannot see why it would be politically damaging to call for Trident to be scrapped.  Do Andy Burnham, Ed Balls and Ed Milliband really believe that it is in the country's interest to renew its nuclear deterent?

What's more, unlike when the issue of Trident first came up 2006 before the recession, we really cannot afford to be wasting billions on such a weapons system.  By scrapping Trident renewal we could save thousands of jobs in the public sector, surely on economic grounds alone this is a more sensible option.

Although Trident is not the only important issue in the leadership campaign, having a candidate who is clearly against renewal and is also questioning the mission in Afghanistan gives us a clear signal as to which direction they will take on foreign policy in the future.  That is why I am supporting Diane Abbott.

Tabloid homophobia raises it's ugly head again

Two tabloid newspapers sunk to new depths today with homophobic opinion pieces on the recent ruling by the supreme court to allow asylum seekers who are gay not to be sent back to countries where they will face the risk of persecution.

The Daily Express produced this gem:

In the article they quote Supreme Court judge Lord Rodger, who comes out with the following hideous stereotype:

He said: “Just as male hetero sexuals are free to enjoy themselves playing rugby, drinking beer and talking about girls with their mates, so male homosexuals are to be free to enjoy themselves going to Kylie concerts, drinking exotically-coloured cocktails and talking about boys with their straight female mates.”

The Daily Star produced an even worse headline with 'NO ROOM FOR GAYS'.  In the article they claim asylum seekers will go gay to gain asylum, by saying:

Some people will do whatever it takes if it means a cushy life in Britain.

We must challenge this hideous excuse for journalism when we see it.  It is designed to promote homophobia and prejudice towards asylum seekers.

The Tories and their Lib Dem poodles plan to take us back to the eighties with their wreckless cuts

Many in the public sector were shocked when Osborne announced in the budget that he wanted 25% cuts across all departments except Health and International Development.  We all knew cuts were coming but this felt far too deep and would result in many job losses and poorer public services.

To then hear yesterday that Danny Alexander wanted departments to plan for 40% cuts was a real punch in the guts to public sector workers.  Many will now be seriously worrying about their jobs, as such drastic cuts could result in hundreds of thousands of jobs being lost from the public sector.

The only two departments which will not be hit quite so hard are Education and Defence.  Yet Defence is the one department where the most obvious cuts lie, in Trident and Afghanistan.  These cuts could be made with little effect being felt by the British public.  The chances are that in Education it will be seen more politically acceptable to make higher education face the largest share of the cuts, which would be an attack on a sector which is already in great financial difficulty.

The big question is what the government thinks is going to happen to all those public sector workers they make redundant.  There is no abundance of job vacancies in the private sector to absorb such job losses.  Without a doubt these actions will lead to the highest levels of unemployment and poorest levels of public services in decades.  It will take us back to the dark days of the eighties.

Despite the rhetoric these cuts are not unavoidable.  There are numerous commentators offering examples of less harmful measures to deal with the deficit such as:

• Scrapping Trident and leaving Afghanistan
• Raising capital gains tax to 40%, as this would not affect the poorest in society
• Leaving the NI rise for employers in place
• Scrapping the married couples tax allowance
• Hitting the banks harder, who after all are primarily responsible for the mess we are in
• Bring in a higher tax level for those earning over £100k

These drastic cuts have to be fought.  I am not a person who calls strike at the drop of a hat and was not prepared to vote in favour of industrial action over pay this year, but there comes a point when we have to make a stand.

The only answer to these drastic actions is for all public sector unions to join together and work on co-ordinated industrial action, before it is too late and we end up with millions on the dole and third-rate public sector.

At the end of the day there are alternatives and these cuts have more to do with Tory ideology than being faced with no other option.