We are less than ten weeks away until the general election when the country will give their views on five years of Coalition Government and the policies of austerity. Despite promising to balance the budget in a single parliament, the Prime Minister and Chancellor have missed their target on the deficit by £83 billion. It […]
Posts under ‘Public services’
The truth about Labour and Austerity
Mar 2nd, 2015 by Paul Cotterill.The labour movement’s post-election battleground: Part I of II Back in January, I was invited by Left Futures to provide a response to a post by Trevor Fisher. Trevor considers Labour a lost cause when it comes to austerity. This is his conclusion: The objective of the austerity movement is to destroy everything that Lloyd […]
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The Tories won’t win because they’re barking up the wrong tree
Mar 1st, 2015 by Michael Meacher.George Eaton in the New Statesman has done us a service by revisiting the informative audit of the 2010 election by the Tory pollster Lord Ashcroft, entitled Minority Verdict, which throws new relevant light on the likely outcome of the present election campaign. In 2010, despite Labour polling the second lowest total of electors since […]
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Whistleblowers do more to hold governments to account than parliaments
Feb 26th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.Whistle-blowers are worth their weight in gold, though governments certainly don’t think so. Some of the most important things we’ve learnt about the nature of the societies we live in have come exclusively from whistle-blowers, without whose help the democratic holding of governments to account in critical areas of policy would have been impossible. The […]
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Labour must outline a new settlement for public services
Feb 7th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.The future of public services is at a watershed in this election. The independent Resolution Foundation has calculated that Tory plans to balance the deficit by 2018 mean £37bn more cuts still to come. The stark truth of that means a cut in local government spending of no less than 42% between 2010-18, nearly halving […]
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As Syriza win on an anti-austerity platform in Greece, Labour MPs seek a change in direction here
Jan 26th, 2015 by Jon Lansman.As Syriza wins a remarkable victory in Greece on a platform of ending austerity and greater state intervention in the economy, fifteen Labour MPs have today expressed concerns about elements of Labour’s policy agenda, and proposed a change of course in three key areas. They have issued a statement calling for an alternative to austerity, for public […]
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Osborne learns to his cost that private markets don’t oblige
Jan 15th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.It’s really rich that Osborne has tweeted: “Vital this (drop in the oil price) is passed on to families at petrol pumps, through utility bills and air fares”. He’s spent the last 5 years lambasting Labour in support of the Tory free market mantra that the State should get out of the way and leave […]
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Labour can win if it’s bolder
Jan 8th, 2015 by Peter Rowlands.With only four months to go Labour can win, but only if two sets of conditions are fulfilled. Firstly, that there is internal discipline generating external unity, with the usual suspects forswearing any ‘advice’, at least until 7 May (Blair and Mandelson please note). This means Progress supporting the Miliband ‘ left’ line, which merely points in a […]
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The killer argument against PFI
Dec 14th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.We have always known that PFI was a con trick (i) to take construction and management costs of hospitals and other public buildings offline so they don’t appear in the national accounts, and (ii) to secure the extremely lucrative privatisation of yet another public service at taxpayers’ expense. But the evidence of how the new […]
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Osborne decimating the State will finally trigger the resistance
Dec 9th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.Osborne’s central objective, he would have you believe, is to cut the deficit. He has failed: the deficit he predicted would be £40bn this year turns out to be £100bn and, worse still, it is actually now rising because of the fall in the government’s income (tax receipts) brought about by his own policy of […]
