The following appeared in the Guardian yesterday and is well worthy of wider attention.
The Labour party seems to be in search of an identity and a policy agenda (Report, 13 August). About time too. Here are some suggestions for a manifesto, all of which look like common sense.
Repeal all the coalition’s NHS legislation and start all over again. Impose effective regulation of privatised utilities, capping their profits and prices. Take the railways back into public ownership as the franchises end. Abandon PFI and find ways of terminating the existing contracts. Stop privatising. It is only “efficient” at maximising profit for private vested interests.
Cap rents in the private sector and begin a substantial social housing programme. Make the living wage mandatory, thereby transferring costs from the public purse to the firms who are currently subsidised by the taxpayer. Stop persecuting the unemployed and disabled, and sack Atos.
Clean out the Augean stables of HMRC, start collecting taxes from the rich and shift taxation from basic income and everyday consumption towards property. Abandon Trident and new aircraft carriers, and convert shipyards and nuclear weapons facilities to producing green energy technologies. Stop fracking. Invest in home insulation, which will reduce demand for gas and electricity and create jobs. Mount a full investigation into the illicit activities of the police and special branch, especially as directed against innocent activists. Ban lobbying and remove private interests from direct influence on government. Implement Leveson.
These are modest proposals, and should win votes. But it would be good to see a political party proposing policies because they are the right thing to do.
John Walton
Lancaster
I can see Miliband choking on his cornflakes and shouting bloody Chartists, commies the lot of them.
I would agree with most of the things you state the Railways have to come back under Government control perhaps a not for profits company.
Water gas electricity should never have been handed over to the private sector sadly these days this would be seen by Miliband and his backing New labour Progress as down right commies truying to take over the new Tory lite party.
MIliband stated that private schools run by parents were not that bad, he stated not everything the Tories do are bad, OK he changed his mind again which he does a lot of late.
The sick the disabled well Miliband has stated if he gets in those people are going to be hammered, so that’s a dead duck.
Sadly these days as a socialist party you may as well vote UKIP, Labour has set it’s target on becoming a Soft Tory party and then we would have not need for Cameron’s lot.
“But it would be good to see a political party proposing policies because they are the right thing to do.”
This is an important point. I remember hearing an interview with a campaigner for the rights of people in developing countries whose lives and land is being ripped apart by rampaging corporations.
The interviewer pointed out that, on balance, things were getting worse rather than better. The campaigner replied: “You do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, whatever the circumstances.”
This answer is causing me to consider terminating my membership of the Labour Party. Why should I subsidise and campaign for Jim Murphy’s plan for ‘humanitarian’ interventionist war in Africa? Why should I subsidise and campaign for Liam Byrne’s demonisation of the poor and unemployed?
After all, would one refuse to donate to the NSPCC on the grounds that the charity has failed because cruelty still occurs?