Labour’s conference is over. We now need a Labour government but, just as important, we need a groundswell of opinion and activity against Austerity.
On Saturday 18 October, hundreds of thousands of people will come together to demand an alternative to cuts, privatisation and falling living standards on the Britain Needs a Pay Rise national demonstration. Be there! Continue reading
Amid all the hysteria over the referendum a few other events are worth noting below the radar, though obviously on a much lesser scale. Two appointments and one non-dismissal have been notable in this last week alone, though these are only the latest examples of a long decline in proper accountability in this country.
After a string of well-known public figures had all turned down the post of the government’s choice to chair the BBC Trust, Rona Fairhead agreed to accept it. It is a position requiring a lot of sensitive handling after the Savile abuse saga, controversies over executive payoffs of £369m, and a failed digital media venture. Yet Fairhead declared that whilst she would ‘prioritise’ her job as the BBC’s chief regulator (so that’s all right then), she would also cling on to her non-executive roles at HSBC and the US multinational Pepsi – quite likely the terms she exacted from the government to take up the job at all. Continue reading
The fight over the euphemistically named Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which the US Congress successfully blocked over the last year, is about to be pushed forward in a higher gear now that the new EU Commission has made clear their eagerness to drive a deal through with the US over this next year. The previous Commission had already met with corporations and their lobbyists 119 times, according to FOI requests, compared with just 8 times with civil society groups. The argument is that TTIP will promote jobs and growth – the same argument that the US used to promote NAFTA, when it actually led to an export of jobs from the US and is only now supported by 15% of Americans. The other main argument is that it will remove regulation and red tape that gets in the way of trade. The talk is of ‘regulatory convergence’ which is likely to mean chasing the lowest common denominator in terms of labour, social and environmental standards. Continue reading
The arguments about the fragmentation and privatisation of NHS services are well rehearsed. The public know the reorganisation wasted £3 billion and vital resources which should have been spent on frontline services and patients, but what has often gone unnoticed is the democratic deficit and the erosion of our rights to question those who run public services and spend our money.
Freedom of information (FoI) is one of the Labour government’s greatest achievements, ensuring transparency and accountability in modern government but currently it is not possible to make private providers comply with freedom of information requests, which is why this week I re-tabled my Private Members Bill ‘to amend the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to apply to private healthcare companies; and all other bodies seeking health service contracts’. Continue reading
I never expected, having called for bankers, doctors, business executives, MPs, police, media to be held to account for serious wrongdoing by sacking and/or prison in the worst cases, that the imperative for such accountability would be so quickly manifested.
On 26 August Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, was finally forced to apologise, three and a half years late, that one of his officers sprayed CS gas at close range into the faces of campaigners protesting against tax avoidance by Boots in Oxford Street, causing (as he admitted) intense pain, fear and panic. For years the Met. failed to properly investigate this incident in January 2011 involving the use of CS gas in a very crowded area in central London, and were only forced to respond when the protesters, UK Uncut, finally sued the police in court. The deficit in accountability is stark. An apology wrung out of the Police Commissioner over 3 years late is wholly inadequate. Why wasn’t an investigation immediately undertaken and a full written apology made and compensation paid to each of the protesters sprayed? And why wasn’t the policeman concerned immediately dismissed from the service and disqualified from any police service in future? Continue reading
