Business Secretary Vince Cable, one of the sadder Liberal Democrat barnacles clinging to the hull of the coalition, has launched a ‘call for evidence’ on reforming employment law.
Up for grabs are ideas such as allowing businesses to cut the consultation period for making redundancies from ninety days to just thirty, making it harder for workers to take their employers to an industrial tribunal and the introduction of ‘protected conversations’ between managers and staff. This last means that employers would be allowed to discuss sensitive issues such as retirement or performance with staff without, as Dan Watkins of Contract Law told politics.co.uk this week, ‘fear of their every word being used against them in a tribunal.’
Perish the thought; actually the thought I seem to have had most about ‘protected conversations’ is that like ‘protective custody’ any exercise of power needing to be disguised by a mealy mouthed euphemism is unlikely to be a good thing. As Brendan Barber of the TUC put it ‘protected conversations’ could provide the ‘perfect cover for rogue bosses to bully at whim without fear of being found out.’
Am I the only person out there who thinks this call for evidence seems more like a fishing trip to see what the government can get away with?
If so some of the things they’d like to get away with are very nasty indeed, take for example the proposal put forward by Adrian Beecroft, a big time donor to the Tories, that ‘unproductive’ employees should lose their right to claim unfair dismissal. The Lib Dems managed to kick that idea into the long grass a while ago; I doubt it will stay there though.
The purpose of this assault on hard won rights for working people is dressed up under the dubious term ‘reform’ is, according to Adam Marshall of the British Chambers of Commerce to create a situation where ‘firms won’t have to waste time and money and can focus on running their business and delivering growth.’ Yes, naughty workers always wanting their pesky rights and gobbling up money their bosses could be paying themselves.
Hang on a moment though, will turning the clock back on employment law really kick start the economy? Chukka Umunna, shadow Business Secretary doesn’t think so and told the press this week that ‘watering down people’s rights at work is not a substitute for a credible plan for growth.’ He may have the misfortune to labour under the tag of being the ‘British Obama’ and being named as a potential future leader of a party that has lost its way big time, but on this issue Mr Umunna has a valid point.
There are a great many things the government could do to help businesses, simplifying the tax system in return for companies investing a slice of the money saved in long term job creation; speeding up the planning system for companies that move to areas where jobs are scarce for example. You might notice something about these ideas; they all involve an element of working in partnership; both sides giving a little to meet in a mutually advantageous middle.
That approach is something successful businesses and healthy societies understand implicitly. If the relationship between employers and employees is one of ‘us’ and ‘them’ with both camps armed to the teeth and spoiling for a fight sooner or later everybody loses out.
Anyway should we be dismantling rights for people in work, and for those looking for work thanks to the harshest welfare reforms for decades, in the name of promoting growth; might growth itself be something of a chimera? Natural resources and human capability are finite; the real challenge of the century ahead is to find a way of sharing what we have fairly rather than endlessly chasing after more.
Yet again the government has proved to be drawing its policies from a 1980’s playbook. Demonize the unions, shout at the poor that they just aren’t trying hard enough and attack anything connected to ‘rights’, the public will lap it up; maybe not. Times have changed, if small businesses are going to drive the recovery, and they surely are, then promoting partnership working will matter more than making it easier for bosses to fire staff on a whim.
That the government led by David Cameron can’t see that explains why they can’t some up with a Plan B for the economy and why what we need to get Britain back in business isn’t fewer rights for workers; what we need is a new government.
Sunday, 27 November 2011
Sunday, 20 November 2011
Were August’s riots just a taste of what is to come?
This week the first academic analysis of the riots in London, Birmingham and several other cities at the end of the summer was published; I doubt David Cameron will care all that much for what it has to say.
In ‘Mad Mobs and Englishmen’ Steve Reicher and Clifford Scott of, respectively, the universities of St Andrews and Liverpool predict that a refusal on the part of politician to pay attention to the real causes of the riots could make such social disorder more likely. They reject the knee jerk reaction that ‘straightforward criminality’ was solely to blame for the riots, claiming the real trigger was a sense of grievance and lack of opportunity felt by a growing number of young people.
Speaking to politics.co.uk Professor Reicher said the riots began because ‘police failed to engage with local communities’ and that when politicians responded by calling for ‘water cannon and curfews’ to be deployed next time they risked ‘making a bad situation still worse.’ He went on to say that politicians could learn ‘much about our society if we stop, listen and learn from what people did on those four nights in August.’
His concerns were shared by Mark Seddon, director of the People’s Pledge campaign, who said in an interview given to politics.co.uk that more unrest on the streets was possible if nothing was done to address the ‘democratic deficit’, adding that there was a real risk that ‘the state response will become more violent as the riots become more violent.’
Elsewhere director general of the CBI John Cridland warned this week that the UK economy was in a ‘bad place’ and that efforts by businesses to turn things around were being hampered by the speed with which the government was implementing its austerity policies. As understatements go that deserves some kind of prize, this week number of people out of work rose to 2.62 million, 1.02million of whom are aged 16 to 24; far from curing our economic woes austerity seems to be making things worse and could cause government borrowing to reach £100 billion above target by 2015.
In a speech to the Social Market Foundation reported by the BBC this week Labour leader Ed Milliband said that given the harm being done to the economy and to society by their policies it would be ‘the height of irresponsibility for the government to carry on regardless.’ He went on to urge them to ‘change course for the sake of our young people, change course for the sake of the country.’
Even the dear old Church of England got in on the act with eighteen bishops signing a letter printed in today’s Observer calling for the government to reconsider its plans for welfare reform because they risk tipping thousands of families into poverty. It is the sort of comment the church should have been making when the Occupy protest camp first appeared on its doorstep; but better late than never.
The unfortunate truth though is that none of this, not the reasoned analysis of academics, or the politely heartfelt concerns of senior clerics, or the appeal from the leader of the opposition to put the good of the country ahead of party politics will penetrate the shell of indifference surrounding the government. David Cameron and George Osborne have painted themselves into a corner over the economy and fixing ‘broken Britain’ and lack the strength of character to find a way out.
Instead we are treated to comments such as the following from Tory Party Chair Michael Fallon who told the BBC that ‘rather than speculation whether businesses are good and bad Ed Milliband should set out a credible plan to clear up the mess Labour left behind.’ Yes that’ll solve the problem, another spat at the despatch box between George Osborne and Ed Balls over who is to blame for the deficit; it won’t be at all like playing pass the parcel with a time bomb will it?
In his conference speech David Cameron twittered on at length about ‘leadership’; I doubt he knows what the word means, he certainly hasn’t shown any. If he were serious about solving the problems afflicting our society and economy he would be working to bring the three main political parties, business leaders, the unions and anyone else with a stake in Britain’s future together to address the problems we face and to find a solution that is to the benefit of everyone.
That is what real coalition government is about, not using scare tactic to prop up a first past the post electoral system that disenfranchises millions of voters and using the introduction of IER to rob millions more of their vote altogether; not roaring like a lion at the people tagged as the ‘underclass’ by the tabloid press then mewling like a kitten frightened by a thunderstorm whenever he deals with the city or the banks. He lacks the courage and understanding of the fears of ordinary Britons to do so and so in its place we will get instead is a vicious cycle of riots and retribution that in the end will harm everyone.
In ‘Mad Mobs and Englishmen’ Steve Reicher and Clifford Scott of, respectively, the universities of St Andrews and Liverpool predict that a refusal on the part of politician to pay attention to the real causes of the riots could make such social disorder more likely. They reject the knee jerk reaction that ‘straightforward criminality’ was solely to blame for the riots, claiming the real trigger was a sense of grievance and lack of opportunity felt by a growing number of young people.
Speaking to politics.co.uk Professor Reicher said the riots began because ‘police failed to engage with local communities’ and that when politicians responded by calling for ‘water cannon and curfews’ to be deployed next time they risked ‘making a bad situation still worse.’ He went on to say that politicians could learn ‘much about our society if we stop, listen and learn from what people did on those four nights in August.’
His concerns were shared by Mark Seddon, director of the People’s Pledge campaign, who said in an interview given to politics.co.uk that more unrest on the streets was possible if nothing was done to address the ‘democratic deficit’, adding that there was a real risk that ‘the state response will become more violent as the riots become more violent.’
Elsewhere director general of the CBI John Cridland warned this week that the UK economy was in a ‘bad place’ and that efforts by businesses to turn things around were being hampered by the speed with which the government was implementing its austerity policies. As understatements go that deserves some kind of prize, this week number of people out of work rose to 2.62 million, 1.02million of whom are aged 16 to 24; far from curing our economic woes austerity seems to be making things worse and could cause government borrowing to reach £100 billion above target by 2015.
In a speech to the Social Market Foundation reported by the BBC this week Labour leader Ed Milliband said that given the harm being done to the economy and to society by their policies it would be ‘the height of irresponsibility for the government to carry on regardless.’ He went on to urge them to ‘change course for the sake of our young people, change course for the sake of the country.’
Even the dear old Church of England got in on the act with eighteen bishops signing a letter printed in today’s Observer calling for the government to reconsider its plans for welfare reform because they risk tipping thousands of families into poverty. It is the sort of comment the church should have been making when the Occupy protest camp first appeared on its doorstep; but better late than never.
The unfortunate truth though is that none of this, not the reasoned analysis of academics, or the politely heartfelt concerns of senior clerics, or the appeal from the leader of the opposition to put the good of the country ahead of party politics will penetrate the shell of indifference surrounding the government. David Cameron and George Osborne have painted themselves into a corner over the economy and fixing ‘broken Britain’ and lack the strength of character to find a way out.
Instead we are treated to comments such as the following from Tory Party Chair Michael Fallon who told the BBC that ‘rather than speculation whether businesses are good and bad Ed Milliband should set out a credible plan to clear up the mess Labour left behind.’ Yes that’ll solve the problem, another spat at the despatch box between George Osborne and Ed Balls over who is to blame for the deficit; it won’t be at all like playing pass the parcel with a time bomb will it?
In his conference speech David Cameron twittered on at length about ‘leadership’; I doubt he knows what the word means, he certainly hasn’t shown any. If he were serious about solving the problems afflicting our society and economy he would be working to bring the three main political parties, business leaders, the unions and anyone else with a stake in Britain’s future together to address the problems we face and to find a solution that is to the benefit of everyone.
That is what real coalition government is about, not using scare tactic to prop up a first past the post electoral system that disenfranchises millions of voters and using the introduction of IER to rob millions more of their vote altogether; not roaring like a lion at the people tagged as the ‘underclass’ by the tabloid press then mewling like a kitten frightened by a thunderstorm whenever he deals with the city or the banks. He lacks the courage and understanding of the fears of ordinary Britons to do so and so in its place we will get instead is a vicious cycle of riots and retribution that in the end will harm everyone.
Sunday, 13 November 2011
In the future everybody will be allowed to strike for fifteen minutes.
There are times when you open your morning paper and feel obliged to check the date on the off chance that you have somehow passed through a wormhole and emerged on April 1st without noticing.
I had one such moment yesterday when I read that Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude had suggested that public sector workers angry over pension reform plans imposed by the government hold a ‘token’ fifteen minute strike on November 30th. This was, he said in an interview given to the Financial Times, something the government would be ‘willing to accommodate’ and that he ‘couldn’t imagine’ any public sector employer docking worker’s who took part a day’s pay as a result.
Gawd bless you Mr Maude sir; you’re a gent and no mistake. I’ll just give my forelock a good hard tug before writing the rest of this article in honour of your boundless generosity. Then again maybe I won’t.
This offer delivered from somewhere in the leftfield had attached to it the threat that if public sector workers followed the instructions of their union and took part in a full day’s industrial action then the government would see this as making further tightening of trades union laws inevitable. As one BBC commentator put it, if the government was offering the public sector unions a carrot then it was attached to ‘a pretty hefty stick.’
Speaking to the BBC TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said that if Francis Maude had ‘genuinely wanted this idea to be taken seriously I would have expected him to have raised it directly with the unions rather than play it as a PR gambit in an interview.’ He went on to say that real progress in the dispute over public sector pensions would only be achieved via the government making ‘acceptable offers’ as part of the negotiation process.
A spokesperson for UNISON, the union representing many of the workers due to take part in the strike, questioned whether the government was in a position to guarantee that nine thousand public sector employers wouldn’t dock the pay of staff who took part. He described the offer as a ‘load of PR gimmicks to make people think unions are being unreasonable’ and went on to say that UNISON members had ‘voted a certain way and how that strike goes ahead is not a matter for Francis Maude to decide.’
I don’t know which surprises me more that the offer was made in the first place or that the response to it has been so restrained. The line taken by UNISON, the TUC and most of the media is that this is just another piece of out of touch eccentricity from a government composed of people so wealthy they really do think the world smells of fresh paint and that it is entirely normal to be met by an honour guard of footmen and chambermaids whenever you pop down to your little place in the country.
I don’t think it is anything of the sort; I think it is a concerted, cynical and potentially disastrous attack on democracy. The only question relates to how many of the people complicit in it know and agree with what is being done and how many are too stupid to understand what is happening.
Last week a commons select committee attacked the proposed introduction of individual voter registration saying that it could damage democracy and lead to the legitimacy of future election results being called into question. Turning the right of working people to withdraw their labour into something granted from above and only to be exercised within confines so strict as to make doing so irrelevant is no less dangerous.
This week the Greek people saw their, admittedly unpopular and ineffectual but none the less democratically elected, government replaced by one led by a grey technocrat in order to appease the market, a god more cruelly capricious than any their ancestors once thought inhabited Mount Olympus; in a short while Italy will follow the same sad course. Across Europe democracy is under threat in a way it hasn’t been since the end of the war because the clever manipulators of capital see it as a barrier to their turning the debt crisis into an opportunity to make money.
Here in the UK we are told that the government’s heroic deficit reduction plans will keep the wolf of financial chaos from our door and that our political system is somehow immune to the troubles that have afflicted the rest of Europe over the decades. That, to me, sounds dangerously complacent; far from saving the economy the policies driven ahead so recklessly by George Osborne risk turning a recession into a depression, if people are being stealthily discouraged from even registering to vote and tricked out of the right to withdraw their labour then our democracy will slowly atrophy.
Democracy isn’t a perfect system; but it is demonstrably the best one on offer, not least because it allows the people to make things awkward for those who set themselves up as their rulers. If things turn out how Francis Maude and his kind think they should in the future everyone will be ‘allowed’ to strike for fifteen minutes, but whether that is the same as being free is open to question.
I had one such moment yesterday when I read that Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude had suggested that public sector workers angry over pension reform plans imposed by the government hold a ‘token’ fifteen minute strike on November 30th. This was, he said in an interview given to the Financial Times, something the government would be ‘willing to accommodate’ and that he ‘couldn’t imagine’ any public sector employer docking worker’s who took part a day’s pay as a result.
Gawd bless you Mr Maude sir; you’re a gent and no mistake. I’ll just give my forelock a good hard tug before writing the rest of this article in honour of your boundless generosity. Then again maybe I won’t.
This offer delivered from somewhere in the leftfield had attached to it the threat that if public sector workers followed the instructions of their union and took part in a full day’s industrial action then the government would see this as making further tightening of trades union laws inevitable. As one BBC commentator put it, if the government was offering the public sector unions a carrot then it was attached to ‘a pretty hefty stick.’
Speaking to the BBC TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said that if Francis Maude had ‘genuinely wanted this idea to be taken seriously I would have expected him to have raised it directly with the unions rather than play it as a PR gambit in an interview.’ He went on to say that real progress in the dispute over public sector pensions would only be achieved via the government making ‘acceptable offers’ as part of the negotiation process.
A spokesperson for UNISON, the union representing many of the workers due to take part in the strike, questioned whether the government was in a position to guarantee that nine thousand public sector employers wouldn’t dock the pay of staff who took part. He described the offer as a ‘load of PR gimmicks to make people think unions are being unreasonable’ and went on to say that UNISON members had ‘voted a certain way and how that strike goes ahead is not a matter for Francis Maude to decide.’
I don’t know which surprises me more that the offer was made in the first place or that the response to it has been so restrained. The line taken by UNISON, the TUC and most of the media is that this is just another piece of out of touch eccentricity from a government composed of people so wealthy they really do think the world smells of fresh paint and that it is entirely normal to be met by an honour guard of footmen and chambermaids whenever you pop down to your little place in the country.
I don’t think it is anything of the sort; I think it is a concerted, cynical and potentially disastrous attack on democracy. The only question relates to how many of the people complicit in it know and agree with what is being done and how many are too stupid to understand what is happening.
Last week a commons select committee attacked the proposed introduction of individual voter registration saying that it could damage democracy and lead to the legitimacy of future election results being called into question. Turning the right of working people to withdraw their labour into something granted from above and only to be exercised within confines so strict as to make doing so irrelevant is no less dangerous.
This week the Greek people saw their, admittedly unpopular and ineffectual but none the less democratically elected, government replaced by one led by a grey technocrat in order to appease the market, a god more cruelly capricious than any their ancestors once thought inhabited Mount Olympus; in a short while Italy will follow the same sad course. Across Europe democracy is under threat in a way it hasn’t been since the end of the war because the clever manipulators of capital see it as a barrier to their turning the debt crisis into an opportunity to make money.
Here in the UK we are told that the government’s heroic deficit reduction plans will keep the wolf of financial chaos from our door and that our political system is somehow immune to the troubles that have afflicted the rest of Europe over the decades. That, to me, sounds dangerously complacent; far from saving the economy the policies driven ahead so recklessly by George Osborne risk turning a recession into a depression, if people are being stealthily discouraged from even registering to vote and tricked out of the right to withdraw their labour then our democracy will slowly atrophy.
Democracy isn’t a perfect system; but it is demonstrably the best one on offer, not least because it allows the people to make things awkward for those who set themselves up as their rulers. If things turn out how Francis Maude and his kind think they should in the future everyone will be ‘allowed’ to strike for fifteen minutes, but whether that is the same as being free is open to question.
Sunday, 6 November 2011
Voting is NOT a lifestyle choice.
Ever heard of IER? I’ll give you a clue it’s not a ‘must have’ computer gadget, the next iphone app or a distant relative of self appointed conscience of the Tory party Iain Duncan Smith.
IER stands for individual Electoral Registration and it is perhaps the most dangerous idea this misguided government has come up with so far. Up to now it has been the responsibility of the ‘head’ of every household in the country to ensure that every eligible adult living in his or her property has registered to vote, the penalty for not doing so being a fine of up to £1000.
Under IER all that will be swept away and it will be up to individuals to register to vote, or not. The vote, something women threw themselves under horses to win and men (and not a few women too) of all nations died in two world wars to protect will stop being a civic duty and become just another ‘lifestyle choice.’
This has attracted expressions of concern from the Electoral Commission, academics, pollsters and, belatedly, the Labour Party, all, it seems, to no avail, the government has set its course and the presence of a huge rock in the way is seen as not being a good enough reason for changing direction.
The latest group to draw a map of the rock in this particular instance is the commons Political and Constitutional Reform committee, who said last week the that introduction of IER could ‘damage democracy.’ I admire their restraint; personally I think it risks destroying it completely.
Why so? It’s very simple, if they are not compelled to do so, register to vote that is whether or not a person actually cast his or her vote is and should remain a matter of choice thousands of people will simply not do so. As the Labour MP and chair of the committee Graham Allen told the BBC ‘Getting people to take responsibility for their own votes is the right thing to do, but it has to be done in the right way.’ In this instance the right way is by making it a requirement to register and educating people in the importance of using their vote.
A spokesman for the Cabinet Office said the government was acting to ‘modernise’ electoral registration and that they were ‘putting safeguards in place to stop people dropping off the register as well as looking at what we can do to increase registration levels.’ This all sounds very proactive but is, in fact, little more than bland nonsense since there are no plans in place to hold a national canvass of registered voters in 2014 so when IER is introduced a year later the information against which the number of voters registered will have to be checked and any targets for increasing it set will not be accurate.
There is no doubt that there is something uncomfortably paternalistic about the ‘head’ of a household registering the voters in his property and I can see the potential for fraud, but IER will not solve the problem in fact it will create even more problems. Not least because whenever I hear a bureaucrat talking about ‘modernisation’ it seems to be an excuse for someone to cry ‘havoc’ and let slip the dogs of incompetence.
What should concern us even more is the fact that, as pointed out in a recent article published in the New Statesman, that under IER the number of people registered to vote could fall from the current level of 90% to 65% or maybe even 60%, meaning that ten million or more voters could vanish from the electoral register and the democratic radar at a stroke. As Jonathan Tongue, professor of politics at the University of Liverpool pointed out in the same article this will be a ‘disaster in terms of shrinking the electoral register and reducing the number of people voting in general elections,’ he goes on to add that ‘If you diminish the number of people registered to vote, you delegitimise the outcome of elections.’
The voters who ‘vanish’ as a result of the introduction of IER will, inevitably, come from the poorest communities, the young, members of ethnic minorities and people living in rented accommodation. They are in effect being told that the political system isn’t interested in their views or their votes so would they please go away.
This should concern everyone outside the richest sections of society. The rich don’t much care about democracy because they can buy whatever they need from an education for their children to health care for themselves when they grow old or fall sick. People on low to middle incomes, the gap between the two groups is shrinking by the day, need it desperately. Without the ability to make their collective voice heard at the ballot box they, we, are sunk because their cries for help will always be drowned out by the bellowing of the corporate giants.
After an ecstasy of dithering the Labour Party has woken up to the importance of this issue, Harriet Harman denounced the introduction of IER from the conference platform and party leader Ed Milliband is said to be ‘steamed up’ about the proposals and is planning an Obama style registration drive in universities and colleges across the country.
Labour are, of course, in something of a difficult position over IER since they came up with the idea of introducing it whilst in government. I also fear that for all the good intentions behind it Red Ed’s attempts to galvanise sceptical students might be unfortunately comic in its delivery; more a timid whisper of ‘do you think we should? than a triumphant shout of ‘yes we can.’
What is deadly serious though is the threat this ill thought out plan poses to our democracy. I don’t take the line that it is part of a right wing conspiracy since this government lacks the organisational skills to mount one, it is, instead, the product of an out of touch political class that masks is inability to connect with the public with endless fiddling about with processes.
IER will damage the legitimacy of our democratic process, whether your views belong to the left or the right if you believe in the right of the people to choose how and by whom they are governed call for it to be abandoned before it is too late.
IER stands for individual Electoral Registration and it is perhaps the most dangerous idea this misguided government has come up with so far. Up to now it has been the responsibility of the ‘head’ of every household in the country to ensure that every eligible adult living in his or her property has registered to vote, the penalty for not doing so being a fine of up to £1000.
Under IER all that will be swept away and it will be up to individuals to register to vote, or not. The vote, something women threw themselves under horses to win and men (and not a few women too) of all nations died in two world wars to protect will stop being a civic duty and become just another ‘lifestyle choice.’
This has attracted expressions of concern from the Electoral Commission, academics, pollsters and, belatedly, the Labour Party, all, it seems, to no avail, the government has set its course and the presence of a huge rock in the way is seen as not being a good enough reason for changing direction.
The latest group to draw a map of the rock in this particular instance is the commons Political and Constitutional Reform committee, who said last week the that introduction of IER could ‘damage democracy.’ I admire their restraint; personally I think it risks destroying it completely.
Why so? It’s very simple, if they are not compelled to do so, register to vote that is whether or not a person actually cast his or her vote is and should remain a matter of choice thousands of people will simply not do so. As the Labour MP and chair of the committee Graham Allen told the BBC ‘Getting people to take responsibility for their own votes is the right thing to do, but it has to be done in the right way.’ In this instance the right way is by making it a requirement to register and educating people in the importance of using their vote.
A spokesman for the Cabinet Office said the government was acting to ‘modernise’ electoral registration and that they were ‘putting safeguards in place to stop people dropping off the register as well as looking at what we can do to increase registration levels.’ This all sounds very proactive but is, in fact, little more than bland nonsense since there are no plans in place to hold a national canvass of registered voters in 2014 so when IER is introduced a year later the information against which the number of voters registered will have to be checked and any targets for increasing it set will not be accurate.
There is no doubt that there is something uncomfortably paternalistic about the ‘head’ of a household registering the voters in his property and I can see the potential for fraud, but IER will not solve the problem in fact it will create even more problems. Not least because whenever I hear a bureaucrat talking about ‘modernisation’ it seems to be an excuse for someone to cry ‘havoc’ and let slip the dogs of incompetence.
What should concern us even more is the fact that, as pointed out in a recent article published in the New Statesman, that under IER the number of people registered to vote could fall from the current level of 90% to 65% or maybe even 60%, meaning that ten million or more voters could vanish from the electoral register and the democratic radar at a stroke. As Jonathan Tongue, professor of politics at the University of Liverpool pointed out in the same article this will be a ‘disaster in terms of shrinking the electoral register and reducing the number of people voting in general elections,’ he goes on to add that ‘If you diminish the number of people registered to vote, you delegitimise the outcome of elections.’
The voters who ‘vanish’ as a result of the introduction of IER will, inevitably, come from the poorest communities, the young, members of ethnic minorities and people living in rented accommodation. They are in effect being told that the political system isn’t interested in their views or their votes so would they please go away.
This should concern everyone outside the richest sections of society. The rich don’t much care about democracy because they can buy whatever they need from an education for their children to health care for themselves when they grow old or fall sick. People on low to middle incomes, the gap between the two groups is shrinking by the day, need it desperately. Without the ability to make their collective voice heard at the ballot box they, we, are sunk because their cries for help will always be drowned out by the bellowing of the corporate giants.
After an ecstasy of dithering the Labour Party has woken up to the importance of this issue, Harriet Harman denounced the introduction of IER from the conference platform and party leader Ed Milliband is said to be ‘steamed up’ about the proposals and is planning an Obama style registration drive in universities and colleges across the country.
Labour are, of course, in something of a difficult position over IER since they came up with the idea of introducing it whilst in government. I also fear that for all the good intentions behind it Red Ed’s attempts to galvanise sceptical students might be unfortunately comic in its delivery; more a timid whisper of ‘do you think we should? than a triumphant shout of ‘yes we can.’
What is deadly serious though is the threat this ill thought out plan poses to our democracy. I don’t take the line that it is part of a right wing conspiracy since this government lacks the organisational skills to mount one, it is, instead, the product of an out of touch political class that masks is inability to connect with the public with endless fiddling about with processes.
IER will damage the legitimacy of our democratic process, whether your views belong to the left or the right if you believe in the right of the people to choose how and by whom they are governed call for it to be abandoned before it is too late.
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Far from being ‘all in it together’ pay for Britain’s top directors shows they aren’t even on the same planet.
Pay for directors of the UK’s top companies has risen by 49% according to a report complied by Incomes Data Services (IDS). The average pay package for a director of a FTSE 100 company now stands at £2.7 million, this takes into account salary, benefits and bonuses and the rise is higher than that given to the chief executives of the same companies. They, the poor dears, have had to struggle along on just 43% more pay than they received last year; how have they coped eh?
Pay for most employees has risen by 2.6% over the same period and many workers have seen their pay cut or remain static. Consumer price inflation is currently running at 5.2%; for most families balancing their budget has become a circus act performed on a high wire without a safety net.
David Cameron, who has been in Australia all week attending the Commonwealth heads of government jolly in Perth, said the findings of the report were ‘concerning’ and called for greater transparency when it comes to setting pay levels for senior managers. Labour leader Ed Milliband said the levels of pay awarded to directors were evidence of the ‘something for nothing culture’ that had infected business.
Trades union leaders took a more robust line, Len McCluskey of UNITE said the government should ‘consider strongly giving shareholders greater powers to question and curb these excessive packages.’ TUC leader Brendan Barber accused directors of using ‘tough business conditions to impose real wage cuts, which have hit people’s living standards and the wider economy, but have shown no such restraint with their own pay.’
If you were in need of evidence that we have passed through the looking glass into Wonderland the IDS report provides chapter and verse. On a weekly basis we are lectured by ‘business leaders’ of one stripe or another about the need for pay restraint and the importance of imposing brutal austerity measures on public spending as they vote themselves massive pay rises and cry for huge bonuses on top.
The reason for this, we are told with finger wagging imperiousness is that they are ‘wealth creators’, sorry; run that one by me again. The economy has stalled, unemployment is soaring and productivity figures are at an all time low; just what are this shower doing to create wealth? At best they seem to be shifting what little wealth there is into their own pockets.
About all of this the best David Cameron can find to say is that he is ‘concerned’, granted I don’t expect our PM and his Downton cabinet to string a ‘Capitalism is Crisis’ banner on the gates of Downing Street before leading a march on the stock exchange; but a somewhat more robust response does seem in order. Out in the real world people have moved beyond being ‘concerned’ to being alternately terrified and furious.
When Ed Milliband spoke about ‘predator’ and ‘producer’ forms of capitalism in his party conference speech he was accused, shamefully by some members of his own shadow cabinet, of not fully understanding economic realities. Now it looks like he might just have had a point, if not quite enough in the way of nerve when it comes to matching words to policies.
Even the union leaders, although they have proved the continued relevance of their movement, haven’t quite got the message yet. It isn’t enough just to point out that the casino capitalism of the past thirty years has failed, doing little to create wealth and even less to distribute it fairly, we need to have a genuine and for all parties often troubling debate about the sort of country we want the UK to be.
Do we want growth at all costs? Are we happy to see social mobility continue to decline for the sake of paying a little less tax? In short do we really want to all be in it together or just out for ourselves?
I don’t pretend to know the answers to any of the questions listed above or the dozens of others that could take their place; but, like most people outside the charmed world of the Westminster bubble I can’t see how we can deal effectively with the problems Britain faces if we don’t start asking them soon.
Pay for most employees has risen by 2.6% over the same period and many workers have seen their pay cut or remain static. Consumer price inflation is currently running at 5.2%; for most families balancing their budget has become a circus act performed on a high wire without a safety net.
David Cameron, who has been in Australia all week attending the Commonwealth heads of government jolly in Perth, said the findings of the report were ‘concerning’ and called for greater transparency when it comes to setting pay levels for senior managers. Labour leader Ed Milliband said the levels of pay awarded to directors were evidence of the ‘something for nothing culture’ that had infected business.
Trades union leaders took a more robust line, Len McCluskey of UNITE said the government should ‘consider strongly giving shareholders greater powers to question and curb these excessive packages.’ TUC leader Brendan Barber accused directors of using ‘tough business conditions to impose real wage cuts, which have hit people’s living standards and the wider economy, but have shown no such restraint with their own pay.’
If you were in need of evidence that we have passed through the looking glass into Wonderland the IDS report provides chapter and verse. On a weekly basis we are lectured by ‘business leaders’ of one stripe or another about the need for pay restraint and the importance of imposing brutal austerity measures on public spending as they vote themselves massive pay rises and cry for huge bonuses on top.
The reason for this, we are told with finger wagging imperiousness is that they are ‘wealth creators’, sorry; run that one by me again. The economy has stalled, unemployment is soaring and productivity figures are at an all time low; just what are this shower doing to create wealth? At best they seem to be shifting what little wealth there is into their own pockets.
About all of this the best David Cameron can find to say is that he is ‘concerned’, granted I don’t expect our PM and his Downton cabinet to string a ‘Capitalism is Crisis’ banner on the gates of Downing Street before leading a march on the stock exchange; but a somewhat more robust response does seem in order. Out in the real world people have moved beyond being ‘concerned’ to being alternately terrified and furious.
When Ed Milliband spoke about ‘predator’ and ‘producer’ forms of capitalism in his party conference speech he was accused, shamefully by some members of his own shadow cabinet, of not fully understanding economic realities. Now it looks like he might just have had a point, if not quite enough in the way of nerve when it comes to matching words to policies.
Even the union leaders, although they have proved the continued relevance of their movement, haven’t quite got the message yet. It isn’t enough just to point out that the casino capitalism of the past thirty years has failed, doing little to create wealth and even less to distribute it fairly, we need to have a genuine and for all parties often troubling debate about the sort of country we want the UK to be.
Do we want growth at all costs? Are we happy to see social mobility continue to decline for the sake of paying a little less tax? In short do we really want to all be in it together or just out for ourselves?
I don’t pretend to know the answers to any of the questions listed above or the dozens of others that could take their place; but, like most people outside the charmed world of the Westminster bubble I can’t see how we can deal effectively with the problems Britain faces if we don’t start asking them soon.
Sunday, 23 October 2011
It is time for the 99% to occupy the political mainstream.
The protestors from the Occupy London movement who set up camp outside St Paul’s this week have done something truly historic, and I don’t mean forcing the cathedral to close its doors to the public for the first time since the war. They have given our complacent political elite a much needed shock.
The closure of the cathedral, which initially welcomed the protestors, rightly asserting their right to protest peacefully over the possible loss of tourist income, was instituted on, it is claimed due to health and safety concerns. The Right Reverend Graham Knowles, the Dean of St Paul’s, said the potential dangers arising from cooking stoves and small fires lit by the protestors were a hazard to cathedral staff, visitors and the protestors themselves.
The protestors, who are part of a worldwide movement calling for a ‘structural change towards authentic global equality’ and for the world’s resources to ‘go towards caring for caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich’ claim to speak for the 99% of people for whom globalisation has brought only debt and despair over the past quarter century. They have promised to ‘accommodate the cathedral’s concerns in any way we can’; even so an organisation founded by a man who threw the money changers out of the temple has still got cold feet about supporting their cause, I’m not a believer but I still think that is rather sad.
The real impact of the protest lies not in what is participants have said and done, but in what they haven’t done. Unlike the protests over tuition fees late last year there has been no public disorder, no windows have been smashed at Tory Party HQ and no national monuments have been defiled by the offspring of rock royalty. To a man and a woman the protestors have been, for all their eccentricity, impeccably well behaved.
As one protestor calling herself ‘Lucy’ told the BBC yesterday the protest is ‘not just about a few people who have got tents in St Paul’s, it’s not a stunt, it’s not a spectacle.’ That would explain why it has given the media and the political establishment such an almighty shock.
The media had settled within twenty four hours of the first tent going up outside St Paul’s on the line that this was another outing for the ‘rent-a-mob’ protest movement, several commentators even raised the ghost of Swampy the poster boy of the Newbury by-pass protests of the nineties, even though he hung up his dreadlocks years ago. Yet is wasn’t the protestors or the public who were out of touch at all, it was the press with its default setting of moral panic who failed to grasp what was going on.
As for the politicians, all three parties have spent the week in a panic about Europe and whether or not Britain should stay in the European Union, a significant number of people would like to see a referendum held on the subject but the politicians don’t and so all three party leaders are trying to strong arm their MPs into voting against one. Not everyone who wants to see a referendum is an angry little Englander, some of us would like to see the UK leading a drive to modernise the EU so that it is strong enough to meet the challenges of a world where the US could be out of the economic game for a decade or so, but we’re being denied the chance to have a reasoned debate because a remote political class is treating the issue like something that mustn’t be spoken of in front of the children.
The presence of that sort of attitude at the heart of Westminster is why the Occupy London protests have so wrong footed the political establishment. They can cope with protests that provide a couple of hours of chaos on the streets and then melt away, not least because it allows them to adopt absurd moral postures of the sort struck by David Cameron following the riots in August.
What they can’t cope with is the existence of an ordered and articulate protest movement that refuses to conform to their favoured stereotypes. Occupy London is just such a movement and at a time when inflation is soaring, unemployment is going up and more and more people are feeling left behind in the rush for growth it resonates strongly with the public mood too.
It isn’t a panacea for all our political ills, sooner or later the tents will have to be packed away and the protest movement will have to adopt more conventional tactics, like building a strong grassroots membership, organising community activism and maybe even making an impact at the ballot box. That is has, so far, maintained its integrity and good humour whilst avoiding a damaging confrontation with the police suggests that this earnest band of eccentrics could be the start of a movement to bring politics back home to the people.
The closure of the cathedral, which initially welcomed the protestors, rightly asserting their right to protest peacefully over the possible loss of tourist income, was instituted on, it is claimed due to health and safety concerns. The Right Reverend Graham Knowles, the Dean of St Paul’s, said the potential dangers arising from cooking stoves and small fires lit by the protestors were a hazard to cathedral staff, visitors and the protestors themselves.
The protestors, who are part of a worldwide movement calling for a ‘structural change towards authentic global equality’ and for the world’s resources to ‘go towards caring for caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich’ claim to speak for the 99% of people for whom globalisation has brought only debt and despair over the past quarter century. They have promised to ‘accommodate the cathedral’s concerns in any way we can’; even so an organisation founded by a man who threw the money changers out of the temple has still got cold feet about supporting their cause, I’m not a believer but I still think that is rather sad.
The real impact of the protest lies not in what is participants have said and done, but in what they haven’t done. Unlike the protests over tuition fees late last year there has been no public disorder, no windows have been smashed at Tory Party HQ and no national monuments have been defiled by the offspring of rock royalty. To a man and a woman the protestors have been, for all their eccentricity, impeccably well behaved.
As one protestor calling herself ‘Lucy’ told the BBC yesterday the protest is ‘not just about a few people who have got tents in St Paul’s, it’s not a stunt, it’s not a spectacle.’ That would explain why it has given the media and the political establishment such an almighty shock.
The media had settled within twenty four hours of the first tent going up outside St Paul’s on the line that this was another outing for the ‘rent-a-mob’ protest movement, several commentators even raised the ghost of Swampy the poster boy of the Newbury by-pass protests of the nineties, even though he hung up his dreadlocks years ago. Yet is wasn’t the protestors or the public who were out of touch at all, it was the press with its default setting of moral panic who failed to grasp what was going on.
As for the politicians, all three parties have spent the week in a panic about Europe and whether or not Britain should stay in the European Union, a significant number of people would like to see a referendum held on the subject but the politicians don’t and so all three party leaders are trying to strong arm their MPs into voting against one. Not everyone who wants to see a referendum is an angry little Englander, some of us would like to see the UK leading a drive to modernise the EU so that it is strong enough to meet the challenges of a world where the US could be out of the economic game for a decade or so, but we’re being denied the chance to have a reasoned debate because a remote political class is treating the issue like something that mustn’t be spoken of in front of the children.
The presence of that sort of attitude at the heart of Westminster is why the Occupy London protests have so wrong footed the political establishment. They can cope with protests that provide a couple of hours of chaos on the streets and then melt away, not least because it allows them to adopt absurd moral postures of the sort struck by David Cameron following the riots in August.
What they can’t cope with is the existence of an ordered and articulate protest movement that refuses to conform to their favoured stereotypes. Occupy London is just such a movement and at a time when inflation is soaring, unemployment is going up and more and more people are feeling left behind in the rush for growth it resonates strongly with the public mood too.
It isn’t a panacea for all our political ills, sooner or later the tents will have to be packed away and the protest movement will have to adopt more conventional tactics, like building a strong grassroots membership, organising community activism and maybe even making an impact at the ballot box. That is has, so far, maintained its integrity and good humour whilst avoiding a damaging confrontation with the police suggests that this earnest band of eccentrics could be the start of a movement to bring politics back home to the people.
Sunday, 16 October 2011
Austerity isn’t working.
The party conference season is over and the political circus has packed up the bunting along with its hangovers and trooped back to Westminster as the leaves begin to turn. If there is a nip in the air this year it has as much to do with the state of the economy as the arrival of autumn.
Unemployment figures released on Wednesday show that the number of people out of work has risen by 114,000 to 2.57 million, reaching its highest level since the mid nineties. Part time workers have been hit hard as have the young with youth unemployment rising to 991,000, meaning that 21.3% of 16 to 24 year olds are without a job.
Alan Clarke, an economist for Scotia Capital, told politics.co.uk the spike in unemployment ‘shouldn’t come as a surprise because the economy is growing at half the pace it needs to unemployment stable.’ Things are likely to only get worse with huge cuts in the public sector workforce and a failure on the part of the private sector to make up the jobs lost with fresh recruitment.
Labour leader Ed Milliband has called for an emergency budget to deal with the effects of the looming economic crisis saying the government needed to show a ‘greater sense of urgency’ and that its deficit reduction plans risk sending ‘our economy into a tailspin.’
In a speech made at a college in Southend this week he called for a plan for jobs to be implemented that would feature, amongst other elements, a one off tax on banker’s bonuses the proceeds from which would be used to create 100,000 jobs for young people; investment in large infrastructure projects that would create jobs and demand for services and tax breaks for small firms that take on extra staff.
The was, Mr Milliband said, ‘an economic emergency’ and that through its economic policies the government had shown itself to be out of touch ‘with what is happening in Britain’s factories, its high streets and its homes.’
The response from Tory MP Matthew Hancock, a former advisor to Chancellor George Osborne, was both predictable and cynical. He told the BBC that Labour had ‘abandoned the Darling plan and now freely admit they would just keep spending on the taxpayers credit card’, he added to this a jibe that just as ‘you wouldn’t bring Fred Goodwin back to run the banks, so why would you bring Ed Balls back to sort out the economy.’
I am, it is fair to say, not the most enthusiastic of cheerleaders for Red Ed, not least because most of the time he is barely pink at best; but his assessment of the damage being done to the economy and society by an arrogant and out of touch government is spot on. Quite how wide the gulf between the antics of our leaders and the experience of most Britons has become is amply demonstrated by the behaviour of Liam Fox and Oliver Letwin.
I don’t much want to join in the schoolyard game of nudging and winking that has been played by the press all week over the relationship between erstwhile Defence Secretary Liam Fox and Adam Weritty, a close friend who pretended to be one of his ministerial advisors in a political equivalent of saying ‘I’m with the band’ as a way of blagging stuff for free. What angers me and I suspect most people is the though of the not so fantastic Mr Fox and his VBF trotting the globe at the public expense while at the same time service people returning from Afghanistan were being handed redundancy notices along with their campaign medals.
As for the antics of ‘Posh Ollie’ Letwin, who it was revealed this week likes to read his ministerial correspondence in the park and then drop it in the bin because carrying all those confidential papers back to the office is the most awful fag, it is all too clear what has been going on. This is the latest incident in the gaffe prone career of a man who thinks his, alleged, intellect frees him from having to apply common sense to what he says or does. There are occasions when eccentricity can be a sign of brilliance; here though it is just a symptom of pathological self indulgence.
Far worse that this is the divorce from reality that has been occasioned by the vanity of the Prime Minister and the cynical ambition on his Chancellor, which could, in time, prove to be every bit as damaging as the decade long feud between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
David Cameron spends his time strutting the world stage pretending to be a world statesman whilst ignoring the growing problems in the UK, apart that is, from when he feels the urge to do his patronising ‘somewhere over the rainbow’ routine in the name of the ‘big society.’ George Osborne is sticking to his damaging deficit reduction plans not out of an intellectual commitment to their economic accuracy, which by the way seems to be disproved at least twice every week, as a cynical belief that if rather than when the coalition collapses and the Tory grassroots decide it is time for Citizen Dave to spend more time with his ego he will be ideally placed to sweep to power as the heir to the Iron Lady.
This is a government charged with leading our country through the worst economic crisis the world has faced since the thirties and at its heart is a toxic mix of arrogance, entitlement and jockeying for position. Across Europe young people are rioting in the streets because they have had their future stolen, but the political elite are carrying on as if nothing has changed. An austerity package implemented by these people is a recipe for disaster.
Years ago I used to drink in a bar that had by its exit a sign reminding leaving customers ‘You are now entering grim reality’; maybe it is time someone put a similar sign up in David Cameron’s office. He could get his new friend Tracy Emin to make one out of her old knickers if he likes anything so long as the message gets through that life for most people is getting harder by the day. Time to face the facts Dave, austerity isn’t working and you are leading a complacent government into an dangerous era.
Unemployment figures released on Wednesday show that the number of people out of work has risen by 114,000 to 2.57 million, reaching its highest level since the mid nineties. Part time workers have been hit hard as have the young with youth unemployment rising to 991,000, meaning that 21.3% of 16 to 24 year olds are without a job.
Alan Clarke, an economist for Scotia Capital, told politics.co.uk the spike in unemployment ‘shouldn’t come as a surprise because the economy is growing at half the pace it needs to unemployment stable.’ Things are likely to only get worse with huge cuts in the public sector workforce and a failure on the part of the private sector to make up the jobs lost with fresh recruitment.
Labour leader Ed Milliband has called for an emergency budget to deal with the effects of the looming economic crisis saying the government needed to show a ‘greater sense of urgency’ and that its deficit reduction plans risk sending ‘our economy into a tailspin.’
In a speech made at a college in Southend this week he called for a plan for jobs to be implemented that would feature, amongst other elements, a one off tax on banker’s bonuses the proceeds from which would be used to create 100,000 jobs for young people; investment in large infrastructure projects that would create jobs and demand for services and tax breaks for small firms that take on extra staff.
The was, Mr Milliband said, ‘an economic emergency’ and that through its economic policies the government had shown itself to be out of touch ‘with what is happening in Britain’s factories, its high streets and its homes.’
The response from Tory MP Matthew Hancock, a former advisor to Chancellor George Osborne, was both predictable and cynical. He told the BBC that Labour had ‘abandoned the Darling plan and now freely admit they would just keep spending on the taxpayers credit card’, he added to this a jibe that just as ‘you wouldn’t bring Fred Goodwin back to run the banks, so why would you bring Ed Balls back to sort out the economy.’
I am, it is fair to say, not the most enthusiastic of cheerleaders for Red Ed, not least because most of the time he is barely pink at best; but his assessment of the damage being done to the economy and society by an arrogant and out of touch government is spot on. Quite how wide the gulf between the antics of our leaders and the experience of most Britons has become is amply demonstrated by the behaviour of Liam Fox and Oliver Letwin.
I don’t much want to join in the schoolyard game of nudging and winking that has been played by the press all week over the relationship between erstwhile Defence Secretary Liam Fox and Adam Weritty, a close friend who pretended to be one of his ministerial advisors in a political equivalent of saying ‘I’m with the band’ as a way of blagging stuff for free. What angers me and I suspect most people is the though of the not so fantastic Mr Fox and his VBF trotting the globe at the public expense while at the same time service people returning from Afghanistan were being handed redundancy notices along with their campaign medals.
As for the antics of ‘Posh Ollie’ Letwin, who it was revealed this week likes to read his ministerial correspondence in the park and then drop it in the bin because carrying all those confidential papers back to the office is the most awful fag, it is all too clear what has been going on. This is the latest incident in the gaffe prone career of a man who thinks his, alleged, intellect frees him from having to apply common sense to what he says or does. There are occasions when eccentricity can be a sign of brilliance; here though it is just a symptom of pathological self indulgence.
Far worse that this is the divorce from reality that has been occasioned by the vanity of the Prime Minister and the cynical ambition on his Chancellor, which could, in time, prove to be every bit as damaging as the decade long feud between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
David Cameron spends his time strutting the world stage pretending to be a world statesman whilst ignoring the growing problems in the UK, apart that is, from when he feels the urge to do his patronising ‘somewhere over the rainbow’ routine in the name of the ‘big society.’ George Osborne is sticking to his damaging deficit reduction plans not out of an intellectual commitment to their economic accuracy, which by the way seems to be disproved at least twice every week, as a cynical belief that if rather than when the coalition collapses and the Tory grassroots decide it is time for Citizen Dave to spend more time with his ego he will be ideally placed to sweep to power as the heir to the Iron Lady.
This is a government charged with leading our country through the worst economic crisis the world has faced since the thirties and at its heart is a toxic mix of arrogance, entitlement and jockeying for position. Across Europe young people are rioting in the streets because they have had their future stolen, but the political elite are carrying on as if nothing has changed. An austerity package implemented by these people is a recipe for disaster.
Years ago I used to drink in a bar that had by its exit a sign reminding leaving customers ‘You are now entering grim reality’; maybe it is time someone put a similar sign up in David Cameron’s office. He could get his new friend Tracy Emin to make one out of her old knickers if he likes anything so long as the message gets through that life for most people is getting harder by the day. Time to face the facts Dave, austerity isn’t working and you are leading a complacent government into an dangerous era.
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