...and so say all of us (quote about best crimbo present from TUC Brendan Barber).A little late (as was the announcement by the government) but excellent news on Monday about the rescue plan for pensioners whose final salary pension schemes have collapsed. This £2.9 Billion package will help an estimated 140,000 people.
The Labour government financial commitment to supporting failed pension schemes is now worth £12.5 billion. The real hero’s are the pension action groups, the unions and the TUC for lobbying and keeping up the pressure.
Most pension and many trade union or political meetings I have attended in recent years have had well organised pensioner pickets outside the venue (and co-incidentally it was one of my first posts). Well done also to respected pensions minister Mike O’Brien.
Of course, the Labour government has not covered itself in glory in its handling of this affair (until recently that is). However, I think that this type of intervention is “clear red water” between the Labour and Conservative Party’s.
The damage done to ordinary working people during 18 years of Tory misrule, particularly over pensions was colossal. We are still paying the price today and so will future generations.
The Tories failed to properly regulate pension’s scheme and to set up any protection for employees if their sponsor companies failed. This was due to a blind, dogmatic and misplaced trust “in the market”.
This week a close friend who suffers from serious health problems remarked that he was pleased that when he joined the company it was compulsory to join the pension scheme. If it had not been a condition of employment (bringing up 4 young children) he wouldn’t have joined. He pointed out that nowadays many people choose not to join the scheme despite its benefits and asked why did the government (Thatcher) change the law?
The only honest answer is again this fundamentalist belief in the “invisible hand” superiority of the individual against any form of collective action. Personal pensions were an absolute disastrous “choice” compared to company pension schemes.
The personal Pension accounts and its quasi-requirement for compulsory contributions from employers is a step in the right way. More please Gordon, more.
20 comments:
`good news for pensioners
good news that Tory sleaze is starting come out
first in Camerons local party, next West Mids Industrial, them Ashcroft
Tory big business sleaze is back
time for class war against the Eton Tories
"blind, dogmatic and misplaced trust “in the market”."
Wow, it's been ten glorious years of Labour rule since we've seen anything like that(!)
Let's face it - this was Brown scratching around for good news.
Here's more clear red water that the Tories wouldn't drink:
scrap thatcher's anti-union laws and Trident, bring the roops home and say "pre-emptive attack on Iran or any other country", hold a referendum on EU treaty as promised, and extend devolution to England.
Is Gordon thirsty? I think not...
Hi Anon
Preferably we will defeat Cameron in the next general election so we will not need a “class war”!
Hi Charlie
Gerald Kaufman famously described the 1983 Labour Party general election as “the longest suicide note in history”. Unfortunately (in the main) most of what you and "respect" would appear to propose would only result in a shorter but equally suicidal political manifesto.
By all means those of you who fundamentally disagree with the Labour Party on the Ultra Left are entitled to criticise it for not going further (regardless of any electoral considerations). However, to constantly have a go at even Labour’s successes (and this in my view is one of them) is I think just carping for the sake of it?
Perhaps its just me?
John. Either we have our beliefs or we are salesmen.
Yes, this was very good news. But it came after years of Brown holding off, and now happens when he's up shit creek.
As for electoral success - millions of traditional voters abstain, others have switched to the liberals or the Scottish and Welsh nationalists, half of the party has dropped out.
The electoral system is biased in favour of about a million swing voters in key marginals. Labour has had a decade to introduce a fair voting system that makes it worthwhile for people to take part in elections.
I am not on the Ultra Left. If this was the mid-eighties I'd be in the Labour party.
I don't fundamentally disagree with "a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power in favour of working class people and their families" - New Labour does, though. It's happy with the status quo.
Hi Charlie
Sorry this response is a little late. Had a festive break from blogging.
I think we have to be both – believers and sellers (persuaders?). Otherwise your beliefs, no matter how valid are meaningless. Which might be fine with some people but not me and I suspect not you.
There are problems and I would agree with you about the unfairness of the electoral system, but I don’t see change as the “be all and end all”. Countries with PR seem to have similar problems.
The slogan you quote I think was from the 1974 manifesto – very different times from the 1980’s. I think New Labour does actually agree with it. However, I think Thatcher would broadly agree with it as well (with regard to the role of the state and families) so I have never found it particularly illuminating – what does it mean? Note again however, that you will need Power in the first place before you could even consider trying to shift it.
John, I trust that you had a happy and peaceful Christmas and wish you a safe and successful new year.
What does the phrase "a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power in favour of working class people and their families" mean?
Concretely it means that for a start workers are given back the rights taken from them under the Tories and denied them under New Labour.
It would mean that policymaking is shaped by and for working class people rather than the wealthy minority. Instead of liberalising gambling, championing super-casinos, etc, there would be a focus upon retaining and developing manufacturing, no?
Both the Tories and New Labour have sought to benefit the established ruling class of capitalists, have gone against working people when they have taken industrial action, and have used legal and repressive means to prevent them from struggling to improve their working conditions.
Hi Charlie
Thank you I have had a very good xmas and New Year. Hope you had the same!
While I would support the reintroduction of the lost rights of trade unions (to ILO standards at least), I don’t think that this is the real issue. Times have moved on, the industrial base of Britain has changed. The questions we should be asking ourselves is how can we organise workers in the service sector, the self employed, part time workers, agency etc. What do they need that the state cannot (or should not) provide. Ironically in some ways, the government has undercut the role of unions (for good reasons) by such measures as minimum wages , equalities legislation and paid holidays.
Marxism is dead and buried (but not totally forgotten). However, we do need to find another way of running the economy and our society in a international world dominated by capitalism. Dare I say a “third way”?
"we do need to find another way of running the economy and our society in a international world dominated by capitalism. Dare I say a “third way”?"
Oh god, please don't. Hasn't the last ten years taught you that the Blairite slogan "third way" is actually the old way - the unfettered rule of the capitalist class?
Hi Charlie
I thought you would not like that expression. In fact the “third way” isn’t only a Blairite slogan. Wasn’t it the IS/SWP who use to go on about “Neither Washington nor Moscow but International Socialism Now” (... or else we pass another strongly worded resolution!).
However, while I have had “differences” with the Party over its direction during the last 10 years I don’t think it helps anyone to describe it as “unfettered rule of the capitalist class”. My own family and the people I work with and for have benefited hugely from Party policies e.g. old age pensions, minimum wage, Money poured into the NHS and Schools. This stuff actually really matters.
I think that was Third Camp... It's all rather irrelevant.
Who was the first to use "third way" - erm, Mussolini... Whoops.
I take it you don't know anyone who's lost a job because of businesses shifting to low-wage economies, or any young men back from Iraq and Afghanistan... That stuff really hurts, you know.
Hi Charlie
I think that was the “Third Position”? The term “Third Way” has been around for a long time (19th century).
I was brought up in a community which was decimated by local steel and textiles factories closing down (in part) to low wage competition. I think at one point male unemployment was 33%? Some UNISON members are also facing redundancy due the outsourcing of so-called “back office” services abroad. I have met young men and women (and had friends who have served/still serving) who are back from Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Northern Ireland.
I am not sure why you brought this up? developing countries must be kept poor? Wars will never happen in socialist societies?
Look, I am utterly and absolutely convinced that any form of revolutionary socialism (Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism or Maoism, Third Camp, Stalinism whatever ism) has never worked, will never work and has in any case no chance whatsoever of achieving power in this country.
However, the thing about politics is that I could be completely wrong – you can never, say never.
Sorry Charlie, but in the same way that I politely refuse to invite in the nice elderly ladies who knock on my door once or twice a year and ask me if I want to talk about the Bible with them.
I am pretty damn certain you are equally wasting your time and energy believing in something that just doesn’t exist.
I'm not asking you to consider any ism taking power in this country - I am asking you to consider the benefits of the working class taking power... Does the working class not exist, John? Am I imagining it?
The reason i brought up the wars in the middle east and offshore outsourcing was that these are policies of New Labour.
May god rest on your soul!
Hi Charlie
Yes, the working class does exist. However, exactly what is the working class is nowadays is another thing?
In any case I really don’t think that it has the slightest chance of “taking power” (even if “it” thought in a class conscious way, which I don’t think it does now and I’m not sure it ever did).
The Labour Party has never been a pacifist party (George Lansbury not withstanding – and when he met Hitler he thought he could convert him to Christianity).
I think that British troops have been on active service somewhere in the world, whenever the Party has been in Government. I also don’t think that anyone really seriously believes that it is “new Labour” policy to “outsource”. They have not done enough to head it off – but that’s something else.
Whether or not something is likely to happen doesn't trouble me. Perhaps we'll never get rid of racism, sexism, homophobia. Still, these things should be should be combatted. So too, classism - the exploitation of workers.
So maybe the working class will never win political power - but is it a desirable goal? And if so, why be involved in a party that seeks to do down workers - capping wages, banning strikes, cutting benefits?
Brown is always railing against "protectionism" - and that's what action against offshore outsourcing would be, as it would interfere with the free movement of capital.
Since Labour's policy formation is now in the head of its unelected leader and his clique, I guess we can take it that it's New Labour policy to have manufacturing jobs shipped abroad - all the better to help the stability of the global economy, right?
Hi Charlie
Well, if you don’t mind me saying it (and I will anyway – as you know) - it should do! Maybe the reason why it “won’t happen” could be that you have it wrong? Funny enough in the last 20 years our present day society has done more to challenge racism, sexism or homophobia than in the previous 2000 years? (despite the event of “Respect”).
More needs to be done, no; must be done. However, unless we have a Party that is willing to make the necessary compromises to win power and not carry on being a political debating society, then the conditions of working (and lower middle) class people’s pensions, benefits, health services etc will not improve under Cameron and his Tories.
So just sit back and moan or whinge about unproven theories? Or get your hands dirty and make a real difference to real people’s lives. There is No Alternative.
But, there again, I may be wrong (really don’t think so...)
Credit where it's due, Labour (even New Labour) has been very good on legislating to protect the rights of women, gay people, and ethnic minorities.
But as it stands, Labour are doing what the Tories would be doing on banning strikes, fighting wars of conquest, capping public sector pay, marketsing and privatising public services, etc.
In fact, the trade union leadership would be more assertive in defending the rights of working people if Labour were out of power - and Labour MPs would be doing more (do you imagine that only 35 MPs would have voted against banning the POA from striking if it were a Tory measure?).
I might be wrong, but you'll find it hard using the "don't let the Tories back in" line on doorsteps across the country come election time...
Oh come on Charlie, this is just plain daft. Every Labour government (including Attlee’s) is accused of acting as Tories.
Labour has to win political power to do anything. To win power in this country you have to dominate the centre. To do that, you have to hold your nose, from time to time. For me the “greatest good” argument wins every time. Obscure, unreadable, play school diatribes on the “Bourgeois” are not even a distraction.
In one way you are right that it will be harder (they are still the “nasty party”) to play the “don’t let in the Tories” next time, since they have realised that right wing policies loses elections and are now trying to shift to the centre. However, there is still a fundamental political and philosophical difference between Labour and the Tories. Which playing my “old git” card, I hope no-one has to live 18 years as an adult under Tory government to find out why!
"Labour has to win political power to do anything. To win power in this country you have to dominate the centre. To do that, you have to hold your nose, from time to time. For me the “greatest good” argument wins every time. Obscure, unreadable, play school diatribes on the “Bourgeois” are not even a distraction."
But what has Labour done with power? For ten years it was in the hands of Blair, now Brown. The party has given up power to those who serve the rich, and then become rich upon leaving power...
Let's change the subject if we can. What do you think of this: http://www.thecep.org.uk/
Hi
Yes, time to move on.
CEP???? I'm been meaning to post something on "Britishness".
Give me a couple of days.
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