More thoughts from a seminar. It was organised by one of the North London CLPs and was advertised as a look at the Digital Economy. So what did I learn and what did I think? See overleaf for more ...
The digital economy, surplus value and monopoly
Fatal Weaknesses
This is part II of my commentary on the Labour Leak, it looks at the missteps and failures to control the bureaucracy from 2015 to 2019 and looks at the structural faults, the need for a robust segregation of duties, how Labour has changed its rules to make expulsion of alleged antisemites or troublemaker’s easier and how McNicol’s eventual departure allowed both damage to be continued and a cover-up to become deeply embedded within the Party.
What cost equality?
51.5% of Labour MP’s are women and 20% of Labour MP’s are BAME.
But what about the class background of MP’s?
29% of MP’s went to private school (7% of the population did), 14% of Labour MP’s went to private school.
25% of MP’s went to Oxbridge (0.5% of the population did)
50% of MP’s went to the Russell Group of Universities, 24 ‘top’ universities (11% of the population did).
In 1979, 15% of MP’s came from ‘blue-collar’ backgrounds. In 2019, 3% did!
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Closing the Stable Door II
Tye Labour Party’s inquiry, now known as the “Forde Inquiry” after its independent chair, Dr Martin Forde, into the leaking of its investigation into the activities of its complaints team and senior management has published a call for evidence. It’s web site is at fordeinquiry,org and the call for evidence page is here and behind the image.
I plan to make a submission based on Unanswered Questions, also Closing the Stable Door and a third one based on the various acts in breach of the member’s charter, the rules and the law which impacted me personally. …
Mushroom Therapy
I have just bookmarked Crispin Flintoff’s video made for Stand up for Labour, as part of his campaign to get the Party to spend more on the CLPs by means of remission of a higher proportion of the membership subs.
From 29:30 Dave from Milton Keynes, kicks off a discussion about the management and reporting of the Party’s finances. Two NEC members, Gurinder Singh and Jon Lansman comment on the exclusion of the NEC from the management of money. It’s really quite shocking. …
Arbitrary & Disproportionate
Starmer’s firing of Rebecca Long Bailey for sharing an interview with Maxine Peake containing an alleged antisemitic comment is both arbitrary and disproportionate. …
Westferry
Much of a to-do about the Robert Jenrick and the Westferry/tower hamlets planning scandal. Many are calling for Jenrick’s sacking/resignation and for a police investigation. What’s being missed is that Richard Desmond’s company is required to take adequate measures to stop bribery under the Bribery Act? Failure to do is a crime. It may be an easier investigatory route. …
More Masonry
Paul Mason comments on the Labour Together report; the article examines how to reassemble a majority voting coalition, he argues it’s not just policy, it’s campaigning culture and this I agree about; he also argues that we must be ready to go into coalition with the SNP as we cannot win sufficient Scottish seats while Scottish Labour holds a unionist position. I think he maybe right about economism being sufficient but is too hopeful about Momentum, certainly the election campaigns to its national committee itself suggests that neither its leadership nor its challengers are ready to learn the lessons on political culture that he advocates. The Left needs to recognise why Corbyn’s coalition has fractured and learn how to rebuild a new one otherwise it’s in a minority in the Party and country. …
Black Lives Matter
Over the weekend, there were many protest demonstrations about racism in the UK under the slogan #blacklivesmatter
There was violence at the demo in London, a police horse bolted after the police had decided to charge a bunch of protesters; it injured a protester, several statues inc. that of Churchill were defaced. In Bristol, the statue of Edward Colston a slaver, later a Tory MP and philanthropist was pulled down and thrown in the Avon. Both these actions have started debates, about Churchill, slavery, museums and how we do history in the UK.
The establishment was quick to apportion blame on the protesters, with Johnson calling them thugs, and Priti Patel yet again disgracing herself, but this is to avoid examining the racism within British society, the Tory led state and the Tory Party itself. Only when we, i.e. the people of the United Kingdom, have satisfactorily resolved the Windrush scandal, the hostile environment and, most recently the suppression of the report into BAME propensity and deaths from CV19 can the Tories have anything to say about anti-racism demos.
The Labour Party has its own demons to exorcise, apart from the record of the Attlee government in India and Africa, more recently there is the allegations of racism at the most senior levels of the Party towards its leading black MPs, and Keir Starmer, albeit in a longer interview criticised the Bristol demonstrators who had pulled down the Colston statue. He has been rebutted by Marvin Rees, the black Mayor of Bristol, who also criticised the Govt’s priorities and Dawn Butler, the black MP for Brent Central.
Len Duval, the Leader of London’s GLA Labour group issued a statement, in which he says, this must be a turning point. Anyone who disagrees is just not listening to their friends, co-workers, family and neighbours.
This is a challenge for everyone in the UK, together we can make a better society and move towards eliminating racism within our society. …
Culture for all
Tracy Brabin, in her statement, “Culture for All” says,
When times are dark, culture and creativity provide a light. That’s why I’m proposing a vision of Culture for All to be at the heart of Labour’s forward journey.
She has great ideas on Football, the BBC, diverting the festival of Britain funding, access to the creative industries,and comments on nepotism, class bias and the impact of other informal networks, together with the impact of the growing gig economy relationships in the creative industries.
For instance on football, which she identifies as important community resources and hubs, she says, “We need to tackle the mostly undemocratic ownership and control of football clubs, and the way that sport is organised, so that fans and communities are properly engaged.”
While she recognises the stake holding interests of fans in sport, she doesn’t spend the words on talking about them in terms of acting, music nor film? Although she does say ” … Campaign to put more digital cultural content online. Just as the National Theatre has done in response to Covid-19, so too must we support our regional arts institutions in reaching new audiences.”, although this is also weak on the contribution of value by fans.
There is a good section on health and well being
On digital she says, amongst other demands, the UK needs, “a new properly resourced internet regulator to tackle online harms, abuse and misinformation” is needed and Labour should “Make the case for a Digital Bill of Rights so UK citizens have greater control over their own data”. She does not repeat the free broadband promise on which I comment positively here, and less positively here.
This is a thoughtful review of what we could do, it might be a shame she lost the shadow spokesperson position, but she remains Shadow Spokesperson (Minister) on Cultural Industries.
ooOOOoo
This does not repeat big media’s bollocks on the “Value Gap”, which is an unmeasured & unmeasurable concept aimed at appropriating the value created by fans and commentators and implementing a trickle-down approach for artists and performers. It appeared in one of the NPF reports.
Featured Image: cropped from Tracy’s twitter feed …