Earlier this week, Jeremy Corbyn MP announced he was running for Leader on an anti-austerity platform, he’s been welcomed by many; his campaign twitter feed, facebook page and web site are now all on line. I have a piece on what went wrong and other things waiting to be finished, but I am busy at work, at home and campaigning. I’ll say more when I have time. …
Labour launched its manifesto last Monday. I’ve skimmed it once, and it’s not what we’ve come to expect. I wrote as a Storify and made this post in June 2019.
Labour launches its Manifesto with the tag line, “We believe that Britain only succeeds when working families succeed”. In his speech at the launch, Ed Miliband further makes the point that the obverse, that just because it’s working for the few, be they rent takers, landlords, entrepreneurs or press barons doesn’t mean its working for everyone, in fact it’s a proof point that it isn’t. N.B. A leader of the Labour Party said that, although his words are better than mine. It’s the first time in a long while that the Tories are going to have to argue why it’s in the interests of the majority that the economy is structured in the interests iof the rich. It’s an end of consensus that “trickle down” works. …
Popped into NX Learning to join in with the Labour Party’s Deptford campaign launch; well summarised by Brenda Dacres here… …
Trefor Davies of trefor.net commissioned and published an article by me on the state of the politics of digital and its likely impact on the General Election. In the article I classify the issues around citizenship and economics. Obviously the manifesto has not been published and so prediction of its content is not easy. Regular readers will know that I am a supporter of both the Open Rights Group and Privacy International. I have also served on NESSI, the EU’s internet/I.T. R&D project incubator. I am hopeful on the issues of citizenship, unsure on copyright and intellectual property laws and expect a good offer on digital government. …
Michael Meacher convened a meeting to launch his anthology, “The State we need”, the title of which is a play on words on Wlll Hutton’s “The State we’re in”. The launch was held in Portcullis House. The speakers were, Meacher himself, Kelvin Hopkins, John Mills , Anne Pettifor and Richard Murphy. …
The once mighty PASOK has been reduced to the smallest Party in the new Greek Parliament. In 2009, it won 44% of the popular vote and formed the Government; earlier this year, it won a under 5%. Its decision to join the New Democrat led coalition in 2010 had led to a split, with much of the left of PASOK leaving to support its eventual replacement, Syrizia. PASOK has been killed by its own austerity policies and walking away from the hopes and causes of their political base. …
Will Hutton in the Guardian states that the Greens propose to extend the rights to belong to Trade Unions and to prohibit discrimination against TU members. It’s true see, check out their policy statement http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/wr.html, they also plan for a a right of Union recognition. Where’s the Labour Party on this? Actually, where’s the TUC and unions? I know it’s a long way from manifesto, to government policy, as a long term labour party member, boy do I know, but if the party policy ain’t right, then the parliamentary party’s policy and government policy is unlikely to be. …
Last year, Luke Akehurst published a piece on Labour and the Green Party on Labour List, in which he argued that Labour needs to campaign strongly against the Greens to stop their momentum. Like all good strategists, he’s seeking to avoid a war on two fronts. I made a comment on the page, and considered writing a longer piece here but in the end failed to find the time. …
A recovered stroy from storify created to document London Labour’s Conference.
This is published as at the date created. …