In contrast to most of the other NPF Policy Commission reports the Economy Report proposals are more reflective of the new “Corbynite” Left Keynesian agenda than the poor quality material it produced prior to the General Election. This is obviously good in itself, but peculiar in policy development process terms. Thus, this latest report “touches base” on pretty much every key 2017 Manifesto commitment on the economy, and overall has a mildly Left Keynesian anti-austerity content and flavour throughout. Whilst those of us who have contributed to the NPF processes all year on this report obviously hope this improvement is partly based on our contributions, the marked Left Keynesian shift of this document is mainly due to the need to play catch-up with the hugely successful 2017 Labour Election Manifesto. A Manifesto which so confounded the massively dominant narrative within the PLP and Party bureaucracy according to which a reforming anti Austerity Left leaning approach could only spell electoral disaster. Continue reading
Posted in Infrastructure
Labour needs to rediscover comprehensive economic planning
In his barnstorming 2015 and 2016 Labour Leadership campaigns Jeremy Corbyn outlined a series of, very enthusiastically received policy offers of a distinctly left Keynesian, anti-austerity hue. These proposals ranged from renationalising the railways, to fully re-nationalising and refunding the NHS, establishing a universal free national education service, nationalising key utilities, controlling the banks more closely (the last two, significantly, subsequently dropped in the 2016 contest) and creating a National Investment Bank. Unfortunately since his 2015 victory essentially nothing has been done to put flesh on the bones of these proposals, or indeed to position these disconnected proposals within a wider comprehensive radical Left Economic Programme.
This seems most peculiar to those of us old enough to have imbibed in our socialist youth the concept of socialism as intrinsically involving the modification, amelioration, and re-direction of priorities created by the unfettered free play of the capitalist Market, and their eventual replacement by a better, fairer, more rational, society beyond the capitalist marketplace. This transformational process was always seen by socialists as being driven forward by conscious, democratically determined, state-led comprehensive overall direction and planning, even in a still capitalist, “mixed” economy in a process of transition. Continue reading
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Government intervention is vital to save steel and reverse industrial decline
Ken Clarke was pronouncing on Radio 4 several days ago that in the eighties people were calling for nationalisation to save British industry. He claimed the idea that the UK will collapse unless the government steps in has been heard before and is tired old nonsense. He seemed to think that history and the magic of free markets have proved the interventionists wrong.
So what really happened to the UK economy during the free market reign?
In 1979 as north sea oil and high interest rates inflated the value of sterling, foreign imports became cheaper. UK companies could buy coal from Poland and South Africa more cheaply. UK industries found they could import finished products from countries such as China for less than the cost of producing them here. So this must be good: cheap imports and low inflation courtesy of free markets. Continue reading
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Rotten Tory ideology is laid bare by crisis in steel
In order to defeat Osbornomics it is necessary to understand it. A central tenet is that the private sector is the key to prosperity and that therefore everything possible should be done to promote and encourage it. The state should shrink in order to release the inherent dynamism of the private sector. The argument runs that it may be that some people fail temporarily so some sort of safety net may be necessary, if affordable. In this framework, if it is necessary to cut support for disabled people and the poor in order to fund tax cuts for high earners and business, then so be it.
The attack on disabled people has rightly been the focus of hostility to Osborne’s Budget. But this is not an isolated case, as all those who have suffered those cuts can testify. This has been a repeated pattern of Osborne Budgets, supported by all Tory and LibDem MPs beginning in 2010. The right of the Labour Party has had no significant disagreements with it.
At the same time, the long-term decline of the steel industry has turned into a full-blown crisis. In a very useful report the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) debunks the myth that the crisis is due to ‘dumping’ of steel in the EU. The UK loss of market share in core industries producing intermediate goods, such as steel, is twice the rate of the industrialised countries as a whole over the long-term. Despite alleged ‘dumping’ by Chinese firms in Europe, German steel production rose by 2% in 2015. Continue reading
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Labour, John McDonnell and the New Economics
Once the surprise and the shock of Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader had sunk in, many (including me) became impatient for policy initiatives and membership involvement in policy formation to come to the fore. Clearly cutting through media hostility is a major task but I find it difficult to see that more could not be done. For a start, direct communication through Labour Party channels has so far, to my knowledge, not been much used – as far as I can see, looking at things from a branch and CLP point of view. A case in point is Emily Thornberry’s excellent defence discussion paper. This does not seem to have been promoted throughout the Party with a request that the issues be debated. I cannot understand why not. And where is Seamus Milne’s communications team in all this? Labour’s communications effort to be ramped up a notch or two. Continue reading
