In spite of the economic evidence and some sort of acknowledgement that the United Kingdom needs a more balanced economy if we are to avoid the pitfalls of boom and bust, there have been no specific proposals made through Labour's Policy Forums as to why a more balanced economy is essential for the future wellbeing of the United Kingdom. Nor has the Labour Party argued elsewhere why a more balanced economy is essential. Indeed by not making the need to create a balanced economy an electoral issue, this only serves to strengthen the SNP argument for the need to leave the Union. Indeed the renewed interest in devolution for the English regions is also in part driven by economic failure.
In reality, the British Economy is in a worse state than it was at the end of the Second World War. We ended the war with a far more skilled workforce in comparative terms than is the case today.
Another issue that should be used by Labour is to dispute the frequent claim that the number of apprentices is higher than ever in the UK. I was an apprentice in 1946 and can speak with knowledge of our past. Which is a good deal more than Clegg, Cameron or Ed Miliband can. It is far too easy for today’s Politicians to make general statements about how much better off we are today than we were say 50 years ago. While materially that claim has some merit, working people have much less security of employment. Here again we end up talking about the economy. Until we can return to having a balanced economy, we shall be unable to provide either decent pensions nor a decent health service.
The above is from Ken Curran
2 comments:
Agree 100% with Ken Curran insofar as for many working class people they are worse off now than ever and it is getting worse by the day.
While work was never great for the working class at least the workforce of the 1950's and 60's could look forward to full employment and a living wage and, if not a spendthrift, we were able to aspire to home ownership, annual holidays and a decent pension in old age and when we fell ill or on hard times we had the safety net of a welfare state.
For many youngsters today on minimum wage and zero contracts that is dream land and many who work for the likes of Poundland, NEXT, Amazon, Starbucks, et al. they won’t even qualify for a state pension. A sad state of affairs where the poor get shafted every-which-way and where even in capitalist terms capital has long since ceased to circulate around fairly and trickle down to the working class, who are the real wealth makers.
So unbalance is not the word I would use insofar as we live now is a casino, scam economy where money is hoovered out of deprived neighbourhood communities for the benefit of the super-rich, the city of London, corporate thieves, tax dodgers, celebrities and those who have everything.
And they get away with it because our FPTP political system is broken and our main political parties (Tory, Labour & Liberal) have been corrupted by big money and the Westminster gravy train.
So while promising milk and honey at election time, they are, to a greater or lesser extent, neoliberal apologist who manage a plutocracy where one nation politics and Western values are simply marketing spin.
THIS IS A REPLY FROM KEN CURRAN
Ernest Jaqcues is quite right, the issue has never been part of the election debate and Labour is as guilty as the Tories & Lib-Dems. The leadership spend their time deceiving the electorate by carrying out a PHONEY WAR. They all appear to accept neoliberal capitalism, its as though there is not an alternative. A world without hope! What would the pioneers of the Labour Party think about the gang we have to
contend with? The enemy is in our ranks.
Perhaps it is late in the day for our generation to rebel over the way in which the election debate and the manifesto has been slewed to avoid major issues like the Need For A Balanced Economy, Climate Change, Public Ownership. The question over the future of the Health Service is having to be forced onto the Election Agenda by Doctors, and Health Service Workers. Labour is burying its head in the sand. Nothing in the Labour Party Manifesto will seriously address the huge and frightening issues that people shall have to face during the next decade. Miliband has the cheek to claim Labour is the Party of Working People, his claim is a very sick joke!
FROM KEN CURRAN
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