While Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party have brought many improvements to party policy, much remains to be done. In particular, Corbyn has been weak on energy and climate policy. Although Labour’s election manifesto was widely interpreted to include energy nationalisation, in fact it promised no such thing. It pledged to bring the electricity […]
Posts under ‘Environment’
NPF Policy Responses: Environment, Energy and Transport
Apr 4th, 2017 by Chris MacMackin.The National Policy Forum has made the strange decision to group culture with the environment and energy. Meanwhile, transport is placed, not completely without justification, with local government and housing. However, as transport is a major consumer of energy and a transport policy will be essential to fighting climate change, I decided to address it […]
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What’s in the NPF draft policy statements?
Mar 24th, 2017 by David Pavett.According to the Labour Party Rulebook: “Party conference shall decide from time to time what specific proposals of legislative, financial or administrative reform shall be included in the Party programme. This shall be based on the rolling programme of work of the National Policy Forum.” (Emphasis added) The results of that “rolling programme of work” […]
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A 21st Century Energy Policy, Part 3: The Institutions to Make it Happen
Feb 28th, 2017 by Chris MacMackin.As discussed in Part 2, the transition to a low-carbon economy is a massive task requiring extensive government intervention. In the recent leadership campaign, Jeremy Corbyn promised to “promote the growth of over 200 ‘local energy companies’” and to “support the development of 1,000 community energy co-operatives”. Presumably by “local energy companies” he is referring […]
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A 21st Century Energy Policy, Part 2: The Technology of the Future
Feb 20th, 2017 by Chris MacMackin.If humanity is to have any hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change, developed countries must take aggressive steps to decarbonise as quickly as possible. This will mean not only replacing existing fossil-fuel power plants, but greatly expanding electricity production to replace gas and petrol. Such a task demands not just an energy policy, but a […]
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United we stand? The Southern Rail dispute and the unions
Feb 15th, 2017 by George Waterhouse.117 years ago, my great-great grandad, president of the Amalgamated Society of railway servants (ASRS), sat down in a meeting between the executives of ASRS and the Associated Society of locomotive engineers and firemen (ASLEF) to discuss federation. Had they succeeded in establishing unity between the rail unions back then, I might not be writing […]
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Energy for the 21st century, part I: fossil-fuels, renewables and nuclear
Feb 13th, 2017 by Chris MacMackin.With the exception of Arthur Scargill, most on the Left agree that the days of fossil fuels must soon come to an end. We all know that it would be environmental catastrophe to revive the coal industry. We have to wean ourselves off coal and other fossil fuels but what will take their place? The […]
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Labour needs to rediscover comprehensive economic planning
Dec 19th, 2016 by John Penney.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 […]
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This Chinese nuclear deal is unsustainable and costly
Oct 26th, 2015 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Had Labour done it, the Tories would be screaming bloody murder. I am, of course, talking about the deal with the Chinese to build two nuclear power stations. If the Tories really were standing up for Britain, from a national security perspective it beggars belief that key national infrastructure be handed over to a power […]
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Tory privatisation economics: try the London sewer, the mother of all scandals
Aug 15th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.As an illustration of what the Thatcherite privatisations of the 1980s now mean, you could not have a better example than the London super sewer. It costs £4.2bn, and you might expect that Thames Water, the privatised company that controls the whole of its length, should obviously be expected to pay for it. Not a […]
