Ode to Corbyn

Life Under Corbyn

If our next Prime Minister’s Corbyn,
A wise and weathered man,
Unlike the reform party,
Mr Corbyn has a plan.

He’ll build decent social housing,
An end to bad landlords, at last,
The damp we have to suffer,
Will become a thing of the past.

He’ll renationalise our industries,
And our household bills will drop,
Neoliberal profiteering,
Under Corbyn, it will stop.

A million jobs created,
Decent terms and conditions for all,
End of tory zero hours contracts,
We’ll all stand proud and tall.

Our services are in crisis,
But migration isn’t to blame,
It’s decades of underfunding,
And that sadly, will never change.

Immigrants will be welcomed here,
To live and work and play,
Well revigorise the migrant impact fund,
We’ll be happy for them to stay.

Now Corbyn, he’s a brave old soul,
But he doesn’t want a war,
To kill innocent people for money,
That, we should all abhor.

The banks who caused the crisis,
Will be reigned in, just you see,
And those tax avoiding leeches,
Will learn sharing and not greed.

We are a land of true compassion,
We love and care, not hate,
This is what it means to be British,
This is what makes Britain ‘Great’.

So Corbyn is very electable,
Don’t put you faith in the press,
For all they have to offer is,
Their vested interest.

The press is owned by billionaires,
And taxes they don’t pay,
Which is why they denounce Corbyn,
To stop him making change.

This life could be reality,
Vote any one else is a sin,
So next you visit the ballot box,
Ensure you vote for Corbyn.

Will We Become A 'Nation Of Shopkeepers?'

One thing that people are great at is surviving. As working terms and conditions are rapidly being eroded by this Tory government, the negative effect isn’t going to be limited to public sector services. Will people change the economy by changing their own futures?

There is already movement of workers to every part of the private sector. So what does this mean for the private sector?
We are already witnessing record numbers of people leaving the public sector to work in the private sector. And as attacks on pay and conditions continue to worsen within the public sector, this trend is only going to continue.

This is inevitably going to have a negative effect on the existing private sector, as competition for available jobs is increased. Increased competition also means cheaper prices, only this time, it’s cheap Labour.
So with diminishing opportunity and people struggling to survive employed within the private and public sectors employee, they will seek out decent standards of living by entering self employment. This is the sector that will see the largest growth in new start-ups, a positive move for people entering the sector, but at the same time, creating greatly increased competition for existing business with diminishing numbers of available staff to run them. New start-ups will enter the sector naturally adapted to the new conditions, but many existing business will be forced to adapt their business model by downsizing in order to survive.

Our essential fire brigade, police and hospital services will still be needed. I don’t think that it is inconceivable that these service professionals could become entirely freelance naming their own price for a days work, the negotiations of which won’t be controlled by staffing agencies but more than likely, the unions, who may become stronger than at any time in history.
I’ve always believed that the public sector is the barometer for the working terms and conditions for the rest of the nation. Destroying the public sector will have the consequence of diluting the private sector. Large business will fail as micro businesses flourish, essentially returning the country back to being a nation of shopkeepers.

Jeremy Corbyn Just Isolated The Tories

Has Jeremy Corbyn just pulled off some magnificent political skulduggery?

The last two weeks have been quite remarkable, in that it appears as though Jeremy Corbyn has just isolated the Tories into their right wing, neoliberal pen.
Whilst the Tories and the rest of the political right have been on their holidays or dreaming up their next batch of unfounded slurs or both, to use against Jeremy Corbyn and the labour shadow cabinet, in a game of ‘personality politics’, they were too preoccupied, that they failed to realise that Mr Corbyn and the team, were playing an entirely different game. The game of policy politics.

In one week they have announced the policies to attract the young, the old, workers, remainers, brexiteers and even business. He has covered the entire political spectrum from the very poorest right up to neoliberalism’s front door, effectively sweeping aside the rest of the centre ground by creating policies attractive to them and pinning the tories into a right wing, anti europe, anti single market, anti immigrant, pro tax evasion, anti disabled, poverty creating, child starving corner, that they can’t escape from.

It is time for Parliamentary Labour Party to unite behind Jeremy Corbyn, if only because they have nowhere left to go.

Appropriate that this should happen at Easter, don’t you think?

Open Letter to Scotland

Open letter to Scotland.

Dear Scotland,
I have some fantastic news for you. There is a real movement happening in England right now and personally I’d love you to be a part of it.

There are some great policies emerging from the labour party right now that will be to the benefit of all of us in the United Kingdom. Policies that will benefit all of us whether what we want is improved business, health, transportation, education, local services, jobs, housing or the economy, there is something there for everyone.

As the Tories create an ever widening divide between us and the rest of Europe, labours policies will close those fissures. Even though we may be out of Europe, it will feel to us and our European friends, that we had never left.

Jeremy Corbyn has promised us a new central bank from where we can build a million new homes, that equates to 10,000 homes on average per county. Just think of the jobs that could bring to your area and ours.  An end to zero hours contracts and a rise in the living wage to £10 per hour.

Labours policies would ensure that we can retain tariff free trade with Europe, our closest and best trading partner and also retain free movement of people but under Labour, without the exploitation of our continental brothers and sisters that the Tory government are so willing to exploit to the detriment of our Great British Union.

This is a dream that we all hold but we can’t do it alone. This tory government have divided the UK so badly to ensure that we, as a nation cannot realise this dream alone. We need you Scotland to turn back to Labour to ensure that we can all share in the prosperity that the next Labour government will gift to us all.

We can win over the divisions the tory party has created, between our great nations, but only together, can we make our dreams a reality.

Please Scotland, vote Labour.

Why We Need Len McCluskey

The upcoming Unite General Secretary leadership contest has been described as ‘a battle for the soul of the labour party’.
There have been some spurious claims made in the campaign, allegations of misuse of party funds for Jeremy Corbyns leadership campaign and claims that Len McCluskey has used members money to purchase a plush flat in London.
Politically we live in turbulent and quite extraordinary times and the ride at times hasn’t been pleasant, but now it is all too evident that the political ‘dirty tricks’ campaign is spilling over into our union elections.
These days it is a difficult task trying to find reliable information, the press are very selective indeed when portraying information, as it attempts to sway your vote, to their advantage. So what I have done is to look behind the headlines and try to find the real story.
I have looked at Gerard Coynes election manifest and as a union member, it deeply concerned me, it should concern everyone of us regardless of what union we belong to because Gerald Coyne is advocating the separation of Unite from the Labour Party. In effect, this would sever our links, as union members with those who make our employment laws. Unite, through Len McCluskey is the conduit that our voices, hopes and futures use to reach those in power. For the first time in a very long time, we have a leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn and the leader of our greatest union Unite, who truly share our hopes and aspirations. As members, if we severed this relationship, we would sever our voice in parliament and leave ourselves at the mercy of those in power. This is the choice we are faced with and your vote will determine how protected your future prosperity, security and rights will be.   

Severing our link with the Labour Party will silence our voice in parliament.

Those that wish to deprive us of our voice are the same as those trying to discredit both leaders. And its fair to say that they have used some fairly imaginative journalism, otherwise known as a ‘smear campaign’ to swing your vote and further their cause. So, I have taken a look behind the headlines to find the real story behind the smear.

THE LONDON FLAT

The first story makes claim, that Len McCluskey spent £400k of members money on a flat.
Well the first thing I discovered was that it wasn’t £400k that Len used for his flat, but £417K, slightly more than we thought. However, as Len now works in London, it is not unreasonable for the leader of the largest union in the UK, to have some form of accommodation in the area. But did the Unite executive really ‘gift’ Len £417K to by a luxury London flat? 

Well, the answer is, no.

What Len actually did was enter into a ‘shared equity’ agreement with Unite where the £417K represents 60% of the value of the flat, belongs to the membership. An agreement approved overwhelmingly by the Unite Executive. Conditions were included that meant that the Unite membership, could never be ‘out of pocket’ because of the deal. Incidentally, deals such as this are quite commonplace for union chief executives.

The Unite investment in the property was £417K on a £700k apartment. Len is funding the rest. This same apartment as of June 2016 had increased in value by £24,000 meaning that the value of the unite members investment had also increased to £430,800, making unite members just shy of £14,000. So Len has ‘made’ money for Unite members, not squandered it.

MEMBERSHIP SUBSCRIPTIONS

Len has been criticised for donating money to the Labour Party. The reality is that we, as members, gave Len that money specifically to donate to the Labour party. Its an optional political levy made in addition to our membership fees. In 2013, unite members voted overwhelmingly to ‘opt in’ to this political fund, a political fund which is regulated in law.
The political levy is the members only route to influencing our working terms and conditions that are dictated by government to enhance the good and oppose he bad. Severing these links, that have been built on for generations, would only serve to weaken all unions, expedite the erosion of our terms and conditions of employment rendering us compliant or having to resort to the increased prospect of taking industrial action, that no-one wants.

Unite, under Lens leadership, Unite recognized that Labour's new leadership team would be a great asset for the work of Unite. The money used to help secure Jeremy Corbyns successful leadership campaign was an investment for our futures and will serve to keep the strength in all of our unions.

We cannot allow our relationship with our closest political ally to wither.

Voting day is just around the corner, you are voting to protect your rights, your prosperity, your futures but above all, you are voting for you.

VOTE LEN McCLUSKEY

How To Repair an Irrepparably Split Political Party

I wrote this story about 35 years ago on my Commodore64, neither its USB or HDMI connections were functioning but I managed to Bluetooth it directly to my tablet.

Today It seems almost profetic but as you know, having been written so long ago, it couldn't possibly have been based on any recent events.

                                                             Setting The Scene

Imagine if you will, a political party split on whether to go to war or not, a split that runs so deep, that it threatens the very existence of the party. The leader of that party only has a few merry men and women standing firmly behind her, but to her advantage she holds the support, of the majority of the membership. The remainder of the party leadership are pro-war and vastly outnumber the leader, but their membership following is far smaller. Neither side is willing to give any quarter.

So, the pro war faction decide to stage a coup to oust the anti war leader. And to lend weight to their treachery, they devise a plan to assissinate her, not with weapons, no, but with words. They were not brave enough to use weapons, because they thought that they might get into trouble. So they called her names and made shit up.

The pro war side had a terrible weapon in their arsenal, for they held power over the selection process for new candidates and undemocratically, they have selected all of their own candidates for election. Meaning that, even though the vast majority of members support the anti-war agenda, they will never get to see any of their preferred candidates selected, which they felt was very, very unfair.

To make matters worse, every time one of the pro war candidates lost, they tried to put all of the blame on the shoulders of anti-war candidate, but her supporters were having none of it.

Both sides stake claim to having the support of the wider electorate, but neither can prove their claims because they are based on heresay, doorstep gossip. Their refusal to put this question to the electorate meant that the answer to this question will never be discovered.

                               The situation seemed hopeless, stalemate, or was it?

Whilst both sides of the party had reached an impasse, a small group of 500 of the most faithful and loyal members had had enough and decided to do the unthinkable, they resigned their membership of the party and created a new party so they could carry on with their anti-war beliefs without hinderance.

Eventually, the time to start campaigning for the long awaited general election arrived, the pro war faction of the party fielded all of their own candidates and were ready for battle. The anti war majority, predicted to have done well in the elections, had no-one standing. 

On the day of the election the candidates were announced, the 500 loyal anti-war members who resigned from the party, re-emerge as independent candidates. Well funded by a number of wealthy benefactors, foreign governments, we'll never know but they have a clear purpose in mind, to stand against everyone except, the anti-war members from their old party.
The campaigns came went and were surprisingly strong for the independents, no-one expected it.

When election day finally arrived, slowly over the course of the night, the results came in......
1st place 250 seats - The pro war party.
2nd place 180 seats - The anti war party.
3rd place 120 seats - The Independents
Everyone else won 50 seats between them.

The massive loss of seats cost the anti-war party dearly in the election and the pro-war party of division, hate and poverty were duly elected.

                                                                   The Fallout

On day one of the new government there was nervousness in the air, no victory celebration from the pro-war party and the entire country were glued to their TV sets, waiting for the announcement that they had long suspected was coming.

The news reader came on....

"We are hearing reports of mass defections from the independents to the Anti-war party, we will keep you posted with developments".

By early evening, the news anchor came back on the TV, the atmosphere in the country was charged with excitment and anticipation, could it really happen? could it be true? because everyone knew what had just happened, they just wanted it confirmed.

"Well its been an extraordinary day in politics, a day that shall be long remembered. The final counts are in and we understand that all, I shall repeat that, all of the independents who won their seats have now all defected to the anti-war party, We are unclear what this means exactly, but it does appear that the main opposition to the government actually hold more seats in parliament than the elected government itself. Ladies and gentlemen, on their first day in office, the elected government has been rendered a 'lame duck'. Quite extraordinary."

On day one, all of the winning independents defected to the anti-war party who, for the first time in years, are now unified in their anti-war majority, massively strengthening the leaders position. Their resignation wasn't an act of desperation but a calculated act to illicit a specific outcome. Some called it unfair but the fact remained that defections were well within the rules.

The benefactors and the public were well aware and supportive of their agenda but no-one believed it could happen, for they knew that these independents had no intention of remaining as independent. On day one of the new parliament all of those who won, defect back to their old party to rejoin the leader in her anti-war stance. Sadly, because of the unavoidability of this action, the party lost this election by 130 seats and handed the victory to the party of division, hate and poverty. But, 180 of the faithfull 500 won their seats and immediately defected.

This now resulted in the unprecedented, extraordinary situation where the opposition party had lost the election, but had more representatives in parliament than the government, thereby rendering them a lame duck government, with no power to enact any of their dreadful, punishing laws. It was only a matter of time until the government in waiting, the anti-war party, seized power.

The End         

The Death of Neoliberalism - Part 2

One can't help but notice that there has been some political shenanigans going on of late.
Tory, Labour or Ukip? The posturing, the argument, it has all been great fun and yes, maybe a little boisterous. But what is it that is actually at stake here? What battle is really being fought here?

The fight isn’t just between political parties this time, its for a change in the economic model. In 1979, Margaret Thatcher introduced a new kind of economic model to the people of Britain, the economics of neoliberalism. It is this very economic model that ‘leaves people behind’. In 1997, when Tony Blair became prime minister, he rejected socialism and adopted neoliberalism as his favoured economic model. So the labour party were no longer socialists but had become neoliberals. Every election since then, irrespective of a tory or labour win at the ballot box, neo-liberalism in one form or another, always won and for almost 40 years, those left behind have struggled to survive. Forgotten by both the Tories and New Labour, it isn’t difficult to understand the distrust in the political establishment.

There is an easy way to separate neo-liberalism from socialism. Neoliberals want the wealth and power of the people handed over to the private sector, our NHS, railways, utility companies. Its a kind of ‘corporate communism’ which has been evolving for decades where business as opposed to the state own everything, but its still basically communism.
Socialism wants wealth and power handed over to the people so as everyone benefits, not contracted out to the private sector, where profits are kept as personal wealth in private bank accounts, instead of being re-invested into our services.
This is the real battle that is going on, the fight to wrestle the wealth and power once rightfully owned by the British people and taken piece by valuable piece, by successive neoliberal governments, to hand back to the British people so as they alone, not corporations, will be the architects or their own future.

As there are neoliberals and socialists within the Labour party, this also explains why the party is split. This isn’t a battle over a weak leader, but a battle for the very soul of the Labour Party, is the Labour Party neoliberal or socialist? When the Labour Party fielded a true socialist candidate for leader of the Labour Party in 2015, socialists around the country woke up and flocked to the party. Now the membership is made up primarily of true socialists. This is also why the Labour Party cannot depose Corbyn, because he has the overwhelming backing of, the membership. All the neoliberal element of the Labour Party can hope to achieve is to erode the membership support for Corbyn enough to launch yet another leadership challenge. It seems that the job of the socialist Labour members is to stay united, stay strong and stay members. The main danger for the Socialist labour party is that as time goes on, the membership who joined to support Corbyn as leader may feel their job is finished. Lapsing membership is one of the great threats to Corbyns leadership, especially if they are not allowed vote in leadership elections, without being party members for 6 months.

These same splits are evident, within the tory party who have their own internal (but suppressed from public view) battles between capitalism and neoliberalism, but you’d be lucky to find it documented though. Ken Clarke though strikes a lonely figure as one of the last remnants of a true tory conservative.

As for the future, neoliberalism has almost finished draining the last drop of capitalism from the Tory party. With capitalism being a close cousin of neoliberalism, it wasn’t too difficult for capitalism to be overwhelmed and subdued. The return of Socialism to the Labour Party has created a powerful defence against neoliberalism, and over the next 3 years, those defences will be continually tested for weaknesses. The weapons deployed by neoliberals run along the lines of leadership challenges, false accusations (trot infiltrations, unelectable etc) demonising the membership and of course, fake news which is happily delivered by the main stream media in the hope that they can create enough lethargy to divide Corbyns support base.
It seems to me that the battle for the next general election isn’t in 2020, its now. Neoliberalism does not want to face socialism in a fair fight, it would much rather face itself as it has done for he last 38 years. Neoliberal tory, or neoliberal Labour, it matters little. But neoliberal versus Socialism? that is a battle that neoliberalism knows that it can't win and therefore has to kill off socialism before the next general election.   

While neoliberalism has just elected its first president in the States, in the UK neoliberalism is in retreat and fighting for its very survival. If socialism wins in 2020, neoliberalism in the UK will be forced back into obscurity and the Tories will have to create more left leaning policies in order to just survive.
All 'socialism' has to do to win, is stay united, stay strong and retain the membership.