“I WAS THERE AT THE BIRTH Of THE NHS”

“Aged 20, I joined the civil service in the Ministry of Health. The minister, of course, was Nye Bevan.

Sensing that morale was low, Nye called all staff to Westminster Central, Hall. Without rhetoric and with no notes, he spoke about the need for a national health service, describing life in the Welsh mining valleys and the health problems among miners.

By the end of the speech, the mood had changed and most were converted to Nye’s cause. I have heard many political speeches, but none to compare with that”.

Harold Miller, The Observer.

WYKEHAMIST SUNAK TELLS WORKING CLASS TO THINK SMALLER

“The Prime Minister (in the Daily Telegraph) claimed there needed to be a change of ‘mindset’. In some young people, an aspiration to go to university should be nudged and redirected towards an aspiration to do an apprenticeship. But whose mindset is Sunak thinking of here exactly?

A poll carried out by More In Common, found that those in wealthier ‘blue wall’ constituencies are among the most likely to think too many young people go to university.  But the more working-class ‘red wall’ voters are among the most likely to say too few are able to do so. Is Sunak telling students and parents from disadvantaged backgrounds to think smaller? ”

Martha Gill, The Observer.

“THE BIGGER PICTURE – IT’S CLASS THAT SHAPES OUR LIVES”

Within capitalist society, this is one of life’s certainties. Kenan Malik, in The Observer, gets behind the superficial picture.

Thatcher suggested there was no longer any “primary poverty” and that existing poverty is the product, not of social policy but of “personality defect”. This prejudice has deep historical roots – from the Victorian notion of the “undeserving poor”, to New Labour’s “problem families”, to Ian Duncan Smith imposing a benefit cap on parents with more than two children, to teach the poor that “children cost money” – as if they didn’t know this already!!

The increase in strikes and the crumbling of support for the Tory Government have helped resurrect many old themes. According to the Daily Mail, more than half of the population gets “something for nothing”. Income tax is apparently a “stealth tax”.

The greater individuation of society has made it easier to present poverty as a product more of moral failure than of social problems, ie the consequence of individual action rather than of structural iniquities.

Equality and diversity are not synonymous. Even as societies and institutions have become more diverse, many have also become more unequal. The focus has shifted from addressing the needs of working class people in general, and in particular the working class in minority communities, to providing better opportunities for middle class professionals. The fact that some people of colour are rich and powerful, should not be regarded as a victory for all the people of colour who are not.

There are few issues today not shaped by by class divides. The trouble is, the indirect ways in which we discuss the impact of class on people’s lives unfortunately,  all too often, tends to obscure that reality.

POSTSCRIPT

“Politicians are happy to talk about social mobility in the context of helping the underprivileged climb the social ladder, but they go quiet when it comes to the other side of the equation: helping the overprivileged climb down”.

Martha Gill, The Observer.

CHARLIE FALCONER SPEAKS OUT

Tony Blair’s old flat mate, who was Lord Chancellor in Blair’s Government, explains in The Observer the background what the Tories are up to.

Attacks on lawyers occur whenever governments want to break with a well-established status quo. Thus the Tory Government maintains that basic rights do not somehow apply to “small boat” people. The Tories are trashing the UK’s reputation for playing by the rules. Charlie concludes by saying “the long-term damage to domestic freedoms and international standing will be all too real”.

WARNING SIGNALS THAT STARMER AND HIS ENTOURAGE WILL IGNORE

WE REVISIT THE 2023 LOCAL ELECTIONS

Generally speaking, Labour had weaker showings (in contrast to previous patterns) in wards where students/higher educated had a large percentage, similarly in wards with large numbers of Muslims and other ethnic minorities.

The Observer

The Tories gained seats in Redcar, Stockton, Solihull. Labour also weak in Walsall, Sandwell.

The Sunday Times

THE DIRTY STORY OF DIRTY WATER

• Before 1974 water was run by local authorities. In 1974 it was handed over to public bodies and later, under the Tories, was privatised – no compensation was paid to the local councils that had built all the infrastructure. Had water remained with councils it would have been well nigh impossible for it to have been privatised.
• “The private water firms have presided over years of underinvestment,  cost-curting and mammoth dividend payments. Analysis of the accounts of Thames Water, from 1990 to 2022, show how privatisation – supposedly intended to lead to a new era of investment, improved water quality and low bills – turned water into a cash cow for investment firms and private equity companies”

The Guardian

• “Ministers were warned about the dangers of private equity taking over the water industry in a briefing that has been kept secret for 20 years. Details of the analysis are still being withheld as sewage pollution and the failure of water companies to invest in infrastructure are under national scrutiny”.

The Guardian

Water Industry facts:

• £60bn – the combined debt of England’s water companies;
• £72bn – the amount  water companies have paid to shareholders since 1989;
• 389,000 – the number of discharges of raw sewage into England’s rivers last year;
• 51 litres leaked per person per day in England and Wales in 2020/21.

The Observer.

• The Storm Overflows Taskforce set up by the government to tackle raw sewage discharges by water companies in England has met only once in the last year. It is supposed to meet fortnightly according to its mission statement.

The Guardian.

• 3% of respondents to a YouGov poll were in favour of renationalisation.

Investors’ Chronicle.

• “Labour’s current policy silence on water is embarrassing”.

Nils Pratley, The Guardian.

WES STREETING IN HIS OWN WORDS.

Streeting was afforded a very friendly interview in The Guardian. The following are some of his comments (To be taken with large pinches of salt! Ed.)

• “I’ve always believed in Labour as a broad church. There has always been that tradition in the parliamentary party from the left, the Bennite tradition to the Campaign Group, and it still has a place in the party today… The party is definitely a lot stricter on quality control of candidates now.”
• “If I was focused on the pursuit of the top job, I’d tack left…You win the Labour leadership from the left, as I reminded Tony Blair from time to time. His pitch of 1994 was not the Tony Blair of 2007. So even an arch moderniser like him still did a bit of tacking left…Successful leaders meet the party where it is… That’s what Keir did when he won the leadership, and he’s taken the party on a journey back to where the public are”.
• Britain is riven with class inequality… If my place in the history books is akin to Nye Bevan’s, I’d be more than happy”.

PAUL ON THE ROAD FROM DAMASCUS (PRIVATE EYE)

Paul Mason was for years a hard leftie, but then switched to totally backing Starmer. Mason has been desperately trying to get selected as a Labour PPC.

• “The attempt to smear Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters as antisemitic is wrong”.

Paul Mason, Huffington Post 2016.

• “Glastonbury should not screen Corbyn conspiracy theories – the documentary ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn: The Big Lie'”.

LabourList, 19 June 2023.

NOW FOR SOME ECONOMIC DATA

• First, let us look at the four big shocks to the current economy.

A. The global financial crisis – this brought productivity growth down to near  zero.

B. Brexit – this provoked reduced trade and business investment, and reduced growth.

C. Covid-19 led to a recession, often described as the “biggest since the Great Frost of 1709”, with a huge fiscal intervention in response.

D. Soaring inflation/cost of living crisis (partly the result of the Ukraine war).

This provoked the highest interest rates for over 15 years.

• Cameron and Osborne remain shameless for austerity. In fact “the UK’s national debt was actually higher in 2016-17 when Osborne left office than when he arrived”.

The Guardian, Editorial.

(Presumably the terrible two would say, “We should have imposed more austerity” Ed.).

• “£4 billion is what it would take cost to settle the pay demands of public sector staff at the rates set up by the pay review bodies, per IFS Chief, Paul Johnson”.

The Guardian.

• The so-called “base effect” can give a misleading impression regarding inflation. Inflationary “base effects” are when inflationary changes are caused considerably more by how prices behaved in the previous year, rather than it being particularly due to what is happening now.

Investors’ Chronicle.

• “Government interest payments on a 12-month basis reached £117 billion in May 2023 – double the level of the period to September 2021. Index-linked debt accounts for almost a quarter of UK government debt stock: the next largest issuer in the G7 – Italy – has just 12 per cent. The latest forecast predicts that the UK government will spend 10.4 per cent of total revenue on interest payments this year – the highest of any major economy.
• Quantitative tightening: UK government bonds will be sold for less than the Bank of England paid for them, and interest has to be paid on commercial bank reserves at the Bank – this could amount to £200 billion per some estimates “.

The Sunday Times.

• “Starmer rarely talks about the economy in a way in a fundamentalist way i.e. as a rigged system for distributing resources and rewards. A perspective that was such a novel and welcome feature of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership”.

Andy Beckett, The Guardian.