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 […]
Posts under ‘Planning’
Do we want predatory capitalism or an economy geared to the common good?
Mar 29th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.Despite the predictable whines of some FTSE-100 bosses reported yesterday about a post-election Labour-SNP pact, Ed M should flesh out more about his vision to replace ‘predatory capitalism’ both because that is what a majority of people want and also to put paid to the ignorant mantra that self-interested executives like to propagate that anyone […]
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The ‘Black’ Route: a black day for Wales
Sep 3rd, 2014 by Nick Davies.In July 2014, the Welsh Government, which claims that sustainability is the central organising principle of everything it does, decided to build a motorway relief-road across a wetland containing four Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Anyone who cares about sustainability, who regards it as more than a pious aspiration or just something one says – […]
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Fracking may be coming to somewhere near you – without your permission
May 22nd, 2014 by Michael Meacher.It is scarcely credible that the government is including in the Queen’s Speech on 4 June the right for the shale industry to drill on your land without your consent. Such a gross infringement of the rights of private property would be unthinkable, especially for a Tory government, were it not to secure a bonanza […]
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Floods, climate change and Cameron’s money burning machine
Mar 2nd, 2014 by Michael Meacher.Cameron is a rootless chameleon politician, but his daily masquerades putting on new guises sometimes do get in the way of each other. Having delayed and reacted late as the floods engulfed the Somerset Levels and then beyond, as soon as the growing climactic violence put his own leadership on the line he swung round, […]
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George (fracking) Osborne may be in for a big shock in 2014
Jan 3rd, 2014 by Michael Meacher.Significant doubts are now emerging in many key areas about the real benefits of fracking. Two months ago Peter Voser made public that his biggest regret as boss of Shell was the $24bn his firm invested in North America’s shale beds. Over the months before it had caused his company to take a big write-down […]
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The planning laws are being reformed in the wrong direction
Mar 28th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.Eric Pickles’s announcement yesterday aimed to embed in the planning system a presumption in favour of development, combined with proposals to speed up the planning approval process for major infrastructure projects. But that misses the the real flaws in the planning framework — that it is already massively tilted in favour of corporate power and […]
