A Message of Solidarity to the Firefighters in Dispute in Liverpool

I send a message of support to the firefighters taking industrial action in Liverpool. No firefighter takes industrial action lightly but there comes a time when they see their service being put at risk and neither management nor government is willing to listen and so they have no alternative. That is what is happening in Liverpool and increasingly in other fire authority areas, as we saw in Hertfordshire only weeks ago.

Disputes are breaking out in various areas across the country as the local fire authorities develop their local integrated risk management plans. The Government has scrapped national fire safety standards and has withdrawn from any role in monitoring or enforcing any national performance levels. Instead local fire authorities have the responsibility to produce a local risk management plan, setting out local staffing levels and the level and type of service needed within their areas.

Some fire authorities have seen this as an opportunity to cut firefighter jobs, remove pumps and close fire stations.

The Government has washed its hands of setting national standards to which local fire authorities must adhere or of intervening to ensure fire authorities abide by any particular minimum level of staffing. The result is that in some areas local managers are riding roughshod over the views and experience of their front line staff.

The fear is that cutting firefighter jobs in LIverpool or anywhere else will put lives at risk. That is why I fully support the FBU not only in the industrial action its members are taking in Liverpool but also in calling upon management of the fire authority to engage in meaningful talks to resolve this dispute.

Changing Leader is Futile without Changing Policies

Many Labour MPs who have supported Blair for over a decade and voted for virtually every policy he has put in front of them have suddenly woken up to the need for Blair to go.

For some it is a fairly desperate attempt to save their seats which successive polls now clearly demonstrate are threatened at the next election. For others it is just Brown's accolytes stirring in the background for their man to succeed Blair sooner rather than later.

All this is pretty cynical and more importantly pretty futile.

Of course Blair's position is increasingly unsustainable but changing the leader is futile without changing the policies.

To coin a phrase "it's the policies stupid."

The challenge to those MPs who are calling for Blair to go is what changes in Labour's policies and political direction do they want to see after Blair?

What is their post Blair agenda?

If their resignation calls are simply to change Blair for Brown, the architect of most of New Labour's policies, many may well ask what's the point? There would be no change in policies and as a result no effect on the electoral unpopularity of New Labour.

Yes Blair should go but if Labour is to survive in Government there must also be a radical break with the neo con politics of New Labour.

Bring on the leadership election and let's have that debate on the policies not personalities.

Hands Off Venezuela

Reports have appeared this morning confirming what many of us suspected. The Bush regime is interfering in the Venezuelan elections in an attempt to depose President Chavez. Funds are being deployed by the US to mobilise support against Chavez. This is an unacceptable act of imperialist inteference in a foreign country which must be condemned by democratic governments across the world.

As joint president of the "Hands Off Venezuela Campaign" I am calling on our Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to issue immediately a statement condemning any such interference and calling upon the Bush regime to disengage in this illiegal activity. The UK government must insist on the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people being respected and must disassociate itself from any acts by the US or any other government seeking to undermine democracy in Venezuela.

Under a real Labour Government Britain would work co-operatively with the Chavez administration to tackle poverty and inequality in both our countries and to secure peace and justice globally. This includes upholding the rights of the people of Latin America to determine their own futures democratically and to secure the full benefits of the natural resources of their continent.

The message to Bush is "Hands Off Venezuela."

Message to Byers and Milburn: People aren't Interested and aren't Listening Any More

The press have been briefed that New Labour outriders, Byers and Milburn, are to make major speeches over the next few weeks, to accompany major policy announcements and speeches from the Prime Minister to demonstrate that New Labour still exists.

They clearly just haven't got the message yet even though the rest of the country has. People aren't just not listening to them any more they are just not interested.

The only questions of any interest to most people are when is Blair going and what does the future hold.

Whilst Blair, Byers and Milburn desperately plot how long they can delay the innevitable, we continue to reap the harvest of the failed policies of their New Labour. Another British soldier dies in Afghanistan and the bumper drugs harvest from that country floods the streets of Britain. Iraq continues to degenerate into civil war and the US army is staging another new battle for Bagdad. Health workers are demonstrating against closures and job cuts in their local health services, and it is revealed that BP has been allowed to get away with manipulating the energy markets aginst the interests of consumers to maximise its profits.

The considered view amongst even some of the MPs who have been the most supportive of Blair and New Labour, is that Blair and his courtiers should now just go quietly.

But what are Gordon Brown and his supporters offering? Absolutely nothing. No change. Nothing new.

For Brown Ed Balls has taken on the mantle of Milburn and Byers as Brown's representative on earth, tactically manouevring to hasten Blair's demise but vacant wneh it comes to explaining what the difference would be under Brown as leader.

Next week in Manchester I start a national campaign tour explaining to rank and file party members across the country why there needs to be a challenge for the leadership of the Labour Party and the policy programme upon which we are campaigning.

Come along and get involved in this debate. Let Milburn, Byers, Balls and all the other New Labour outriders continue to engage themselves in a self interested, self serving discussion of their own futures, cut off from the realities facing our communities.

Let us get on with the real debate about how we secure a world free of poverty, war and the grotesque inequalities we witnesss today.

Come along if you can.

Surely the Message to Blair and Brown Coming from All Sides is that Time is Up for their Policies

In a week when nearly 40 members of Margaret Beckeet's local party have resigned in protest at Blair's international policies, and AMICUS's General Secretary, Derek Simpson, has described New Labour's domestic policy programme as being infected by Tory ideology, the message coming from all sides to both Blair and Brown is that the time is up for their policies and politics.

It appears that the only minister New Labour could field to defend Blair was his old flatemate, Lord Falconer, a person who owes his whole political life to the powers of patronage of the Prime Minister. However Lord Falconer's response unwittingly confirmed our own view that removing Blair and simply changing leader will do nothing to halt the slide in support for Labour in the polls.

Leadership change without a radical break with New Labour's policies will be totally futile.

The response to New Labour's failed and unpopular policies from Labour Party members is not to leave the party but to stay and campaign for change. The reaction from trade unions should not be simply to voice criticisms of the policies but to work for a radical break with New Labour's programme of privatisation, flexible employment exploitation and anti trade union rights.

This requires the development of an alternative new Warwick agreement setting out the programme trade unions want a real Labour Government to pursue in power. Central to this Warwick Mark 2 programme should be the end of privatisation, the promotion of public ownership and public services, and the implementation of the Trade Union Freedom Bill.

The media have been briefed this week that the Prime Minister is to undertake a series of major policy speeches to bind the future programme of the Labour party for a decade. It is clear that he and his dwindling entourage have just not grasped the growing reality that increasingly people are just not listening. After nearly 10 years of office and having the opportunity to lay the foundations of transforming our society in a way few other Labour Prime ministers have had, the Blair administration has demonstrably failed. The very simple message to both the key architects of the New Labour, Blaur and Brown, is that time is up.

Radical change is needed and our campaign for the leadership will give the rank and file of the Labour party, trade unions and progressive organisations the opportunity of participating in the creation and advocacy of that radical new agenda.

One way in which people can participate in this creative policy process is just simply letting us have your ideas via this website and blog of the policies a real Labour government should be implementing in office to transform our society.

We will publish these ideas for debate on the site and bring people together to work up their ideas into practical programmes for government.

Over to you.