Who's Afraid Of Jeremy Corbyn?

So let's get this right. Jeremy Corbyn is a leftie. Jeremy Corbyn is a socialist. Now, forgive me for perhaps missing the point here, but what is so strange about a left-wing socialist party being led by such a man? Unless, of course, the Labour party has now decided that it is not left-wing and is no longer socialist. This seems quite likely given their track record over the last twenty years or so. Perhaps then they should change their name to Tory Lite. Their argument seems to be that socialism is dead, that right-wing neo-liberal economics has won and that the British electorate cannot be persuaded that there is something wrong with greed and selfishness. They may be right but shouldn't some one at least be making the counter-argument? What is wrong with politics being about principles? Why can't a political party take a principled stand, argue the issues, seek to persuade and then win an election when public opinion finally catches up? We have spent the last twenty years watching the Labour party argue that they must win power no matter what the cost, ditching all their principles and then finding themselves unable to do anything worthwhile because they "don't have a mandate". How about this for an idea? Why not point out that the Tories are a bunch of lying crooks and hammer home the point until the electorate realise the truth? Why isn't Labour shaming the Tories on a daily basis for murdering the disabled, for preying on the sick and infirm, for a corrupt economic policies that amount to fraud and for protecting their kiddie-fiddling predecessors? The Tory party is nothing better than organised crime and we need some body to stand up and say so. Labour supporters have been abandoning the party in droves because it no longer represents their views while most of the electorate can't be bothered to vote at all. And why is this? Because a growing number of people see quite clearly that there is nothing for them in the modern political system and that corruption and lies are all they get in return for their support. Those who like corruption and lies vote Tory in any event so what is there to lose by having a bit of backbone and having principles? So who's afraid of Jeremy Corbyn? The Tories are.

How To Turn The World Upside Down With The Daily Mail.

First let's look at the facts. In the Council Elections last Thursday the Tories lost 231 seats while the Lib Dems lost 307 - a total of 538 seats in all. Of those loses Labour won 338 seats - a total of 63%. UKIP won 161 seats - 30% of the seats lost by the Coalition. And what was the headline in the Daily Mail the next day? "The Savaging of Red Ed". Pardon? Shouldn't that have read "That Savaging of the Coalition"? Or "The Savaging of Whimpy Clegg"? Or even "The Savaging of Etonian Cameron"? Perhaps a more accurate headline would have been "How UKIP Surged Without Actually Surging"? There was no UKIP surge as such, merely a bunch of Tories deciding to vote for another bunch of Tories. UKIP is simply the Tory party with a pint of beer in its hand instead of a bottle of champagne. The true lesson of the night was the loss of 307 seats by the Lib Dems as Nick Clegg has managed, in four years, to reverse all the hard work of his party over two generations. Way to go Cleggy! So what is the excuse of the Tory rag known as the Daily Mail? They don't have one. They simply took a straightforward story and twisted it beyond all recognition because that's what they do - presenting Tory propaganda as "news". A waste of good quality paper you read this rubbish at your peril.

It's Deja Vu All Over Again.

The four men pictured above, from left to right, are William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft and Woodrow Wilson collectively know as "The Progressive Presidents" who governed the United States between 1897 and 1921. The political era that came before them was known as the "Gilded Age", one that was characterised by uncontrolled capitalism, political corruption, unregulated finance, monopolistic multi-national companies and social injustice. You would be forgiven, listening to what passes as modern political debate, for believing that the Progressive Era had never happened. Television studios are filled to bursting with earnest news presenters, political pundits and politicians who talk as if our modern political, financial and social problems are unprecedented. They do this because, by and large, they are ignorant and ill-educated. The truth is that these so-called debates are actually old hat and the arguments were won and lost over 100 years ago. How has this happened? It began in the 1980's when the neoliberal economists, ignoring the lessons of the past because it suited their utterly selfish agenda, made an ignorant, ill-educated and amnesiac electorate believe that they had come up with something that was both brand new and utterly amazing. In fact all they presented us with was a re-tread of the 19th century and then, with a smile, they invited the majority of us to slit our own throats. That was the message of the recent Tory party conference which was nothing more than a re-packaging of the same old disingenuous lies and yet another invitation for us in Britain to slit our own throats. The Labour party has little choice under these circumstances but to remind us yet again of the lessons learned in the early part of the 20th century. As Rudyard Kipling once wrote; "If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken, Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools." The point is that we've already had this debate and the selfish, greedy and self-serving lost the argument. As Woody Allen, the great American philosopher, tells us; "It's deja vu all over again."

Energy Companies Threaten Shortages If Not Allowed To Rip Off Customers.

The fat cat multinational energy companies have been very quick to condemn Ed Miliband's promise to curb their rapaciousness. He had barely finished his speech in which he promised a 20 month freeze on energy prices before they were yelling from the rooftops that such out-and-out socialism would lead to power shortages and a collapse of the energy market in Britain. "How dare this man try to prevent us from ripping off our customers whenever we want," one energy company spokesman told our reporter. "Who does he think he is? It's a well known fact that British governments should support big business because otherwise we'll take our bat and ball home. How can we be expected to provide ourselves with eye-watering bonuses and shower cash on our shareholders without charging outrageous prices? It's not fair." The threat of deliberately creating power shortages is a real one and should be taken seriously. So, should Ed back off on his promise and knuckle under to the blackmail of the energy companies? Fortunately there is an alternative to this - re-nationalisation without compensation. Now that is a threat that really has some gravitas.

Ed Miliband: The Invisible Man.

Harriet Harman told the BBC today that "a lot of people don't know Ed Miliband." As a political statement this was hardly contentious or even particularly imformative since it remains highly unlikely that any individual would be personally known to every person in the country. However it is rather peculiar that Ed is so elusive that even most Labour supporters have no idea as to who he actually is. Much of this is probably a matter of tactics - after all, why would he expose himself to scrutiny when David Cameron is making such a good job of sinking the Tories without trace all on his own? There have been a couple of disastrous attempts by Ed to introduce himself and his thinking to the British electorate. "Predistribution" wasn't a great success, but it does provide a least a glimpse of the man behind the legend. Demonstrating that he seems to understand that the present economic system is wildly unfair, it suffered from two major drawbacks - the average voter had no idea what he was talking about and neither did he. All he was trying to say is that wages are too low and that using the tax credit system to redistribute wealth is expensive for the taxpayer and very inefficient. Simples! So why didn't he just say that? The answer is that he can't because, like so many of our politicians, he doesn't speak the same language as most of the electorate. For him politics is essentially an intelectual exercise divorced from the concerns of ordinary people and he lacks the necessary vocabulary to "connect" with voters. This, under normal circumstances, would be disastrous for a political leader but, once again, David Cameron rides to the rescue. He is even further removed from ordinary people and, lacking the political intelligence to recognise this, resorts to the Tory default setting of "just do as your f**king told, you f**king pleb". To be honest I don't really need to know who Ed Miliband is, I just need to know what he's going to do to reverse the disastrous neoliberal economic experiment of the last 30 years. So give us a break Ed and explain, in simple terms, what we need to know and stuff the PR - give us something we can believe in and the rest will follow.

Ed Milliband Fleshes Out His "Predistribution" Policy.

Ed Milliband has begun to add flesh to the bones of his "predistribution" policy through the "Independent". Senior Labour sources were at pains to stress that "no decision had been taken" and that "a living wage would not be imposed on all companies by legislation". Rather, they suggested, employers would be "encouraged" to pay higher wages in the way, presumably, they are "encouraged" to pay their fair share of tax. In other words Ed Milliband's "big idea" is all froth and no substance and is, as the "News in Shorts" has already suggested, mere soundbite politics. In a speech Ed admitted that; “The redistribution of the last Labour government relied on revenue which the next Labour government will not enjoy. The option of simply increasing tax credits in the way we did before will not be open to us.” No, of course not - not when big businesses have made it abundantly clear that they will not pay tax. Predistribution will simply join all those other "policies" that quickly become mere "aspirations" after a general election. So, at the next general election, it seems our choice will be between the Tory Conservative party, the Tory Liberal Democratic party or the Tory Labour party.

So What Is "Predistribution" Exactly?

It has to be admitted that the "News In Shorts" was quick to rubbish Ed Milliband's ideas about "predistribution" without, some might say, explaining why. Are we guilty, perhaps, of dismissing the idea simply because it seemed supiciously like soundbite politics without giving it due consideration? There is, after all, at least one economy in the world that does actually operate a predistribution system - Japan. Essentially it consists of distribution of the nation's wealth through the medium of a much more equitable wage structure without the need for excesive government interference in the form of a redistributory tax system and artifical devices such as tax credits. In other words Japanese employers pay a living wage to all their employees and, in return, they have managed to sustain a high level of domestic final demand that has benefitted both the employer and the employed even in the face of sustained recessions. The key to their success, however, is that the Japanese have the necessary highly skilled and productive workforce and low unemployment to sustain such a system. Britain, after decades of ideological interference in education, the wholesale waste of talent and a criminal lack of investment, unfortunately has none of these things. In Japan training the workforce to maximise both its productivity and earning potential is considered by employers to be the indispensible foundation of their success and, ultimately, of their profits. In Britain employers see driving wages down to starvation level, even as they drive prices up, as the foundation of their success - and we can all see how well that's worked out. In a country like Britain, where class is still the measure of all things, where millions are without proper employment and greed is seen as a force for good, predistribution seems doomed to failure. Low wages and the rationing of good education for ordinary people have been the shame of Britain for decades and there is little prospect that it can be reversed during the lifetime of a single government.

Ed Milliband Signals Labour Surrender.

In an interview for the "New Statesman" today Ed Milliband nailed his colours to the mast and, it pains me to say, it was the white flag of surrender. Cowed by 30 years of not being able to make any political statements that are even faintly socialist, still afraid of the right-wing press despite the apparent demise of Murdoch and eager to reassure the banks, he seems relieved that the Tories will do all the nasty stuff and all he has to do is hold up his hands and tell us that its too late to do anything about it. His one big idea seems to be "predistribution" as opposed to "redistribution" which seems to involve ordinary people getting a living wage - though how he's going to stop private companies from "cutting costs" by forcing wages down he doesn't say. One thing was clear, however, and that was the complete absence of any reference to the NHS. Ed Milliband is revealed as a mainstream western politician - afraid to dismantle and then rebuild an economic system that is broken beoyond repair and utterly lacking in any vision for the future. All we can expect from him or any Labour administration he might lead is a slightly watered-down version of Cameron's prescription - basically more of the same tricked out with catchy phrases that, ultimately, will change nothing. We have been essentially disenfranchised in a democracy in which there is no real choice any more - all we have is the right to choose between competing branches of the Tory party. Walter Raleigh is credited with writing a few lines that sum up rather well where we find ourselves at the beginning of the 21st century; "Put not your trust in princes, for in them lies no salvation."