An appeal from Michael Moore to support the NHS

Israel's disdain for international law

Two items in the news recently have highlighted Israel's disdain for international law and seriously question Israeli leaders commitment to the peace process.

First we saw the white-wash which was the Israeli inquiry into the deadly attack on the aid flotilla last May.  The inquiry ruled that the attack and the naval blockade are legal under international law.  It is beyond belief that these actions can be found to be legal.  The attack was in international waters on a ship sailing under the Turkish flag, this can be interpreted as an act of war or at the least an act of piracy.  We can only hope the UN inquiry due to be released later this year produces a different set of findings.  Although like previous UN inquiries it is likely Israel will reject the outcome.

Then yesterday we saw the leak of Palestinian documents showing how much the Palestinian negotiators have been willing to sacrifice in order to come up with a peaceful settlement.  The documents show that the Palestinian administration were willing to surrender all but one of the illegal settlement areas in East Jerusalem to Israel.  This is despite the fact that Israel have illegally occupied these areas since the 6 day war in 1967.  This huge gesture was still not satisfactory for Israel, one can only presume that Israel is not interested in giving away the land it seized and will continues to build illegal settlements on.  It appears that the only acceptable resolution for Israel is the complete surrender of all settlements by the Palestinians.

The map below shows how much land the Palestinians have lost since 1948.  The longer the occupation and settlement building continues the more likely it is that there will never be a peaceful resolution.  This may prove to be a crucial mistake by Israel as eventually the only workable solution will be a one state solution.

Charity gimmicks for the Big Society

Got the following letter in the Press yesterday

The latest Big Society initiative to come from the Government is for cash machines to be able to accept donations for charity.

Although I have nothing against such moves, it is diverting attention from the fact that charities are going to face a serious funding crisis over the next few years.

In all likelihood, charities will see a drop in income from individuals as a result of the VAT rise, public-sector redundancies and pay freezes and the resulting redundancies in the private sector. Unfortunately, when times are hard, charitable donations are often the first area individuals look at when trying to save money.

Charities will also see a drop in income from local and central government, and with nearly a quarter of charities receiving funding from government, many charities are going to feel the squeeze from both individual and state funding. This at a time when many charities are going to face greater demand for their services as a result of the cuts.

This is just another example of the results of the over-the-top unnecessary cuts being imposed on us by the current Tory-led Government.

Predictions for 2011

Towards the end of 2010 we began to see the signs of what to expect for 2011.  Here are a few of my predictions for 2011:

Re-alignment of politics, the Liberal Democrats and the AV referendum


At the end of 2010 the Liberal Democrats were hovering around 8-10% in the opinion polls, only a few months into the coalition.  The first big test will be in the May local elections, Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections.  If the opinion polls are to be believed it will be devastating news for the Lib Dems, it is quite likely hundreds or even thousands of Lib Dem councillors will lose their seats, and lose control of most the councils they currently control.  Hopefully it will be mainly Labour who benefit from these losses, particularly in England, although the votes are liable to be shared with the SNP in Scotland and Plaid Cymru in Wales.

At the same time we will be voting on the AV referendum.  My prediction is that the result will be close, probably with the No vote winning.  If this is the case, the No vote alongside massive seat losses will put serious pressure on the coalition with many Lib Dems questioning their commitment to it, knowing that if they decide to stick with it they are likely to lose many parliamentary seats come 2015.

2011 should see a continuing rise in support for Labour, with Ed Miliband being the right man to lead the party forward.  This should be a good year for Labour, hopefully winning the Oldham by-election and greatly increasing the number of council seats.

Ed is right to lead a review of party policy and question which Labour policies worked and which didn't.  Only a re-invented party, moving on from New Labour will engage with voters, particularly those who drifted away from Labour due to Iraq and attacks on civil liberties.  The Labour Party is the natural party for those who believe in fairness, equality and strong public services and hopefully the number of new members will continue to grow throughout the year.

A year of protest


Just because the tuition fee rise has been passed by Parliament, the ConDems are likely to be disappointed if they think the students will now leave the streets.  There are likely to be continued demonstrations about fees and the loss of EMA.  Alongside these demonstrations they student movement will be part of the bigger movement challenging the ConDem cuts.

March 26th will see the March for the Alternative demonstration, organised by the TUC.  In all likelihood this will be the largest demonstration the country has seen since the 2003 demonstration against the Iraq war.

Alongside the demonstrations there are likely to be an increasing number of strikes from public sector unions defending workers against the hundreds of thousands of jobs the ConDems wish to shed.

Royal Wedding

The diversion of a royal wedding will not take out minds off devastation the ConDems are causing to the country.  Unlike the Di/Charles wedding it is likely to polarise opinion, many will support it, but many  will questioning the relevance of a monarchy in the 21st century.  Republic will be leading the campaign for an elected head of state.

A look back at my year and the year in politics

Below is a little round up of what I have been up to over the past year as well as some of my views on major political events.


Snow, my accident and the NHS


The year started off as it finished with the most snow we have seen in many a year.  With half witted headlines like this:

It did make life difficult for us all and made getting about difficult, especially as many councils were woefully in prepared and did not have the grit reserves required to keep the snow clear.

The snow also resulted in me having a bad accident on my bike.  Cross a bridge a skidded on some ice and landed on my right elbow breaking my arm in 4 places.  After being rushed off to hospital I was operated on and had pins inserted into my arm, so it now looks something like this:

Unfortunately during the operation my lung collapsed and I ended up in a high dependency unit leading to a 5 day stay in hospital.  My arm will never be the same again, although hopefully will be a bit more comfortable once part of it is removed next month, a year after the accident.

This was my first real experience of a hospital, and found York District Hospital to be professional from the ambulance to the post-op physio.  It is clear they all work under a lot of pressure and those who criticise clearly have little understanding of the many demands on staff time.  I sincerely hope that the improvements Labour have made to the NHS over the past 13 years are now not going to be unravelled by the ConDem root and branch re-organization.  I do however have grave concerns as I laid out in previous blog entries this year on the NHS.

My injury along with the continuing pains I have from a pinched nerve in my neck have pretty much put an end to my cycling, and 16 years I have finally purchased a car again.  I would rather have not, but there is no public transport where I live, so was left with little choice.

From Green to Labour

In May I voted Labour for the first time since 2001 as I had confidence in Gordon Brown's economic skills, and greatly feared what my result from a Tory or ConDem government, which unfortunately I am now placed to say 'I told you so' to all those who voted Lib Dem.

Gordon Brown had help re-build my confidence in Labour after the appalling actions of Blair.  He wasn't perfect and unfortunately didn't come across well in the media, but I feel in years to come Brown will be acknowledged to have made the right moves when it came to the economy.  Where as like Antony Eden and Suez, Blair will only be remembered for Iraq.

I won't go into the details again as to why I left the Green Party, as they are outlined in my original post.  There are still many things I agree with them on, and respect many of the activists, particularly those in Green Left.   The only areas I fundamentally disagree with them is mainly around Science and the Food Industry, particularly their opposition to GM.  But if I am to be honest, my main reason for joining the Greens was because they were anti-war, and although I of course believe in climate change and reducing consumption I feel these are not the only major issues to be focusing on and that the majority of the public just do not buy the Green manifesto and feel my time and effort is better spent working to get Labour back in power at the earliest opportunity, rather than working against them.

When I joined Labour in May along with tens of thousand of other new members we were immediately faced with a leadership election.  I supported the Ed Miliband campaign and was very pleased to see him elected.  I feel Ed was the fresh start we needed.  Only getting Labour elected will help put a stop to the devastating changes faces the country's public services, and urge every to get involved and join the party.

Heslington


I remain a Parish Councillor in Heslington, now in my fourth year and plan to stand again next May.  I will be putting most of my time into helping David Levene take the Heslington council seat from Labour, which I believe is an achievable target.  Visit his site at http://www.yorklabour.org.uk/people/davidlevene.php

Heslington now has a new website, which I maintain.  Thank you to Matthew Clements for designing and hosting the site.

The Cuts and the Con Dem government


Even in my wildest imagination did I expect the horrific vandalism planned for the public services by the Tories.  From near privatisation of the NHS, to free schools, to extreme funding cuts, to universities resulting in trebling of tuition fees to hundreds of thousands of public sector redundancies.  This is a shameful attack on the public sector which has more to do with right wing ideology than dealing with the deficit, and it is shameful that the Lib Dems are propping up this Tory Government.

I urge everyone to become active in their trade unions and local anti-cuts groups, as we cannot stand by and our public services get trashed by the government.

I am involved in York Stop the Cuts and am also a delegate to York Trades Union Council and will be spending the next few years campaigning against these cuts and help build for the national demonstration in London on March 26th, which is likely to be the biggest protest against the government since the Iraq war.


Other activism


I still remain committed to other campaigns including Republic, which in a year of the royal wedding will be leading calls for an elected head of state, please consider joining at http://www.republic.org.uk/Get%20Involved/Join%20Republic/form.php

This year sort Israel blocking the Viva Palestina convoy at the beginning of the year and later carrying out a massacre on the Mavi Mamara in international waters in May.  The Palestine Solidarity Campaign continues to campaign to end the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, and I would urge you all to join the campaign at http://palestinecampaign.org/Index5b.asp?m_id=1&l1_id=78&l2_id=102

Twitter


I really enjoy engaging with other Labour activists on Twitter.  You can catch up with me at http://twitter.com/#!/mr_andy_c

To look forward


Health permitting I hope to be fully engaged in 2011 campaigning for Labour and against the cuts.  The future of the country is at stake and we cannot sit by and let the Con Dems wreck it.

Irish Daily Star tells it like it is

ConDem solution to unemployment is to get them wombling

The latest proposal from the office of Iain Duncan Smith is to send the unemployed out to do tasks such as litter picking once they have been unemployed for 12 months.  Or as the Telegraph puts it 'Work-shy will be 'pushed' into working for free by welfare revolution'.  This headline sums up the ConDem approach, it is pandering to the right wing press by picking on people they see as welfare scroungers.

The problem is that this measure will not just target the long-term unemployed.  The ConDem cuts could make 1.5 million people unemployed bringing the unemployment figure to around 3 million, and there are not the jobs available for the unemployed to go to.  Many professional people and recent graduates are going to find themselves unemployed for over a year, is it the best use of their time to make them go litter picking.  Many people are going to have to spend time re-training for the few jobs which are available, the government should be aiming to help these people out of unemployment, rather than sending them on chain-gangs carrying out what can be seen as pointless tasks to please the Daily Mail reading public.  Clive Anderson also made a good point on the Marr show this morning that is this work does need doing the government should create jobs and pay people to do it.

There are admittedly some people who do not want to work, who are capable of work, and maybe if this limit was set at 3 years it may be more likely to focus on this group.  But as it is many professional people who are unemployed through no fault of their own will be made to do menial tasks due to ConDem cuts.

Stop the government snooping on every Email and Facebook message

From Open Rights Group

The government has announced that it will be spending up to £2 billion into new ways to snoop on email and web traffic.

This Kafka-esque “Intercept Modernisation Plan”, was stopped near the end of the last government, but was quietly revived in the 2010 Spending Review. While billions of pounds are being slashed from education, welfare and defence, the government plans to waste vast sums trying to snoop on our emails and Facebook communications.

We need to tell the government to stop this wasteful, intrusive plan for wholesale snooping on our daily lives.

Please sign the petition at http://action.openrightsgroup.org/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=1422&ea.campaign.id=8227

Paul O'Grady on Osborne and the cuts

York Stop The Cuts - Right To Work Demo

Around 200 protesters turned up for the first public demo called by York Stop The Cuts - Right To Work.  There were speeches from Hugh Bayley MP, Cllr Dave Taylor, Father Tim Jones and representatives from PCS, FBU and UCU.

It is unfortunate that many of the public still support the cuts, but I believe this is because they don't realise yet how badly it will target their public services.  It is not until swimming pools and libraries start closing, social services are cut, unemployment rockets and there are fewer police on the streets that the public at large will become motivated to oppose these cuts.

We must all work to build are local groups to oppose the cuts and build for the London demo next year.

We're all in this together?

As expected the comprehensive spending review has attacked the poorest in society and set the blue-print for decimating our public services.  As a result of the review we are expected to see:

• Up to half a million public sector jobs go by 2014-15
• £81bn cut from public spending in the next four years
• £7bn extra welfare cuts

Source BBC News

The Con Dems insist the private sector will create jobs to absorb those who have been made redundant, but there is little evidence to support this dangerous gamble, in the short term there is likely to as many if not more private sector job losses from companies reliant on public sector spending.  So the end result is that we are likely to see the highest UK unemployment figures this country has seen in decades.

What is most grating is George Osborne constantly telling us "We're all in this together".  The Con Dem cabinet loaded with millionaires will not feel the pain from the cuts they are inflicting on the low paid.  Neither will the bankers who caused this state of affairs feel the pain, as many will still rake in huge bonuses, while the dole queues get longer.

And I hope no one forgets that the Lib Dems are responsible for propping up the Tories and allowing these cuts go through, cuts which go far beyond what is needed and have far more to do with right wing ideology.

There will be demos across the country this Saturday against the cuts.  Find your local demo here.

Lib Dem broken promises

Looking back at the 2010 Lib Dem manifesto, you immediately see that many of their election pledges have not been met:

• Saying no to the like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear
  weapons system, which could cost £100 billion. We will hold a full
  defence review to establish the best alternative for Britain’s future
  security.
• Scrap unfair university tuition fees for all students taking their fi rst
  degree, including those studying part-time, saving them over £10,000
  each. We have a financially responsible plan to phase fees out over
  six years, so that the change is affordable even in these difficult
  economic times, and without cutting university income. We will
  immediately scrap fees for final year students.
• Reject a new generation of nuclear power stations; based on the
  evidence nuclear is a far more expensive way of reducing carbon
  emissions than promoting energy conservation and renewable energy.
• Rule out the like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons
  system. At a cost of £100 billion over a lifetime it is unaffordable, and
  Britain’s security would be better served by alternatives. We support
  multilateral nuclear disarmament and will ensure that the UK plays a
  proactive role in the arms reduction talks starting later this year

If you read the manifesto you will find plenty of other policy statements which will not come to pass.  They also made a U turn on delaying the cuts.  And who can forget this election poster:

Again, the Lib Dems are now supporting the rise in VAT.


The question is, what have the Lib Dems got out of this agreement?

From the looks of it very little.  They have got a referendum to allow some minor tinkering with the electoral system to bring us AV.  But there is no certainty they will get a yes vote with their Tory partners campaigning against it.

At the end of the day, all they've achieved is the chance to say they are in government and a few seats at the cabinet table.  They may well regret this at forthcoming elections, as who is going to believe them when they have committed a u-turn on so many of their election pledges?  And it is clear they can no longer pretend to be a party of the centre left, when the policies their cabinet are selling are clearly centre-right.

Is this the beginning of the end for a public higher education system?

Two stories about HE have made the press this week.  The first is the Browne report which proposes tuitions fees starting at £7000 but with no upper limit, it would therefore be no surprise if we see much higher fees, especially from the Russell Group universities.


Then today we see a leaked letter from Universities UK which has been sent to universities warning them to expect cuts of £4.2bn to teaching budgets and £1bn to research budgets a result of the comprehensive spending review.

The result of both these proposals could be an end to the higher education system as we know it.  It would not be a surprise if we see a drop in student applications from those who do not wish to saddle themselves with debts at more than double the current level.  We could also see some universities going bankrupt due to budget cuts and decreased public funding.

What is most worrying is that this clearly looks like the final step to a privatised university system.  If these changes are implemented universities will need to start funding some arts and humanities courses purely from student fees, as funding is to be withdrawn from all but science, engineering, medicine and modern language degrees and with variable fees we are already very close to seeing a private market in HE with only one more step needed to make the system completely funded by tuition fees and private research funding.

UCU and the NUS have organised a joint national demo called "Fund our future:Stop Education Cuts" on 10th November 2010.  Details at http://www.demo2010.org/

"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.