Don Flynn claims that I argued “that support for the right of migrants to freedom of movement is the same as support for the free movement of capital”. Readers of my article can see that I said no such thing. It is possible to support one and not the other. Armed with this confusion he says that my argument is that in “curbing the right of people to move freely we would also be restraining the domination of capital”. Well yes, a constraint on capital to force the movement of population would be a constraint on capital. But that was not really my point. The main point, which Don avoids, is that uncontrolled large-scale population movements across national boundaries are incompatible with the social planning to which most socialists aspire. Continue reading
Posted in Social Affairs
A Spectacular Own Goal?
A new group called the Labour Campaign for Free Movement has been launched. It says that thousands have already signed up to its campaign statement. It is also clearly hoping that the model resolution it has circulated will make it through to annual conference.
An article by Hugh Lanning on Labour List puts the campaign’s case for free movement in five points. Continue reading
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Towards a National Pharmaceutical Service
There are some problems which are too big for the private sector to handle. I’ve given extensive arguments explaining why this is the case for climate change and why solutions will require public ownership of energy. However, there is another set of less well known problems which are going to require similar state action: those around pharmaceutical companies.
While there is a certain amount of hysteria and fear-mongering about “big pharma”, the drug companies are far from innocent. There are well known cases of companies withholding and manipulating data. Health authorities are periodically hit by shortages of vital drugs due to supply chain problems or cessation of manufacturing. Companies demand high prices for patented drugs and have even been jacking up the cost of generics. They demand for the legal monopoly that is patent protection in exchange for developing new drugs, yet still fail to invest in developing treatments for rare diseases. We see pharmaceutical companies raking in spectacular profits, claiming it is needed to fund research. However, almost all of them spend more on marketing their drugs than they do researching new ones and profits far outstrip investment on research. Continue reading
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NPF Report reviews – Work, Pensions and Equality
Serious discussions of Social Security policy start from a few fundamental questions. One is the balance between contributions and means-testing as a basis for entitlement, another the balance between vertical redistribution, from richer to poorer, and horizontal redistribution, between different stages in the life cycle. A third is the relationship between the social security welfare state, operated through cash payments, and the parallel welfare state based on tax allowances.
Readers will search this National Policy Forum (NPF) report in vain for references to any of these. Contributions are not mentioned. Universal credit seems to be accepted in principle, suggesting general endorsement of means-testing, but this is an inference. The idea that tax allowances have a similar function to benefits seems unknown to the authors. An earlier consultation document pointed out that the dichotomy between ‘strivers’ and ‘skivers’ was false, implying a recognition that ‘workers’ and ‘claimants’ are not fixed groups. Most people are members of both groups at different points in their lives, and many at the same time. The final report could have built on this insight, but in fact drops it completely. Continue reading
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NPF Report reviews: Health & Care
There is nothing like a snap General Election to shake health and care priorities out a thicket of possible options and fuzzy thinking. And like the rest of the document, the health and care proposals in the Labour Manifesto struck a chord with the wider public and with health and social care staff.
The headline messages from the Manifesto were an increase in NHS and Care spending of £38 billion over the lifetime of the next parliament. This makes sense as it is clear that NHS performance has deteriorated as public investment has declined. To get the best value from these increases Labour promised to invest in staff, end the commercialisation of care and to promote greater cohesion within the health service itself and with social care. Mental health funding would have a new priority with a ring-fenced budget and a greater emphasis on the needs of younger people. Continue reading
