Brown Sets Private Sector on Attack on Unemployed

Gordon Brown will announce with John Hutton on Monday yet another review of welfare benefits to the unemployed. One of Brown's investment banker friends is to undertake the review. Clearly the Chancellor believes that an investment banker has so much more experience of welfare benefits than the unemployed themselves or the people who actually administer the systenm or give claimants advice.

Just an idea, why can't we have a review of the system undertaken by the claimants themselves for a change?

The main proposal being promoted by Brown is privatisation of the administration of welfare benefits. Private companies are to be given the responsibility for getting people into work. An incentive arrangement is to be introduced. The private company will be able to retain as profits a part of the unemployment and other benefits of the people they force into work.

This is a recipe for the intimidation and harassment of the unemployed to make profits for private companies. It appears that the Chancellor is vying with the Tories on who can be more brutal to the poor in our society.

If this is a taste of the policies planned for his fabled first hundred days as Prime Minister it stands as a stark warning to those party members, trade union general secretaries and Labour MPs who are considering backing him for leader.

If Brown even before entering Number 10 is capable of setting the wolves of private sector companies on the poorest in society there is no limit to how far he could go if he ever achieved prime ministerial office in undermining the principles upon which our movement founded the welfare state.

I salute the health workers and campaigners who today demonstrated all over the country against the job cuts, unit closures, privatisations and pay cuts inflicted upon our NHS by the Chancellor. Brown's welfare review demonstrates that the attack on the NHS today is merely a foretaste of what could follow across the whole of our public services and welfare state if we allow it.

Defend Women's Right to Choose

Today women and men will be demonstrating and campaigning for better abortion provision. Abortion Rights are launching the Campaign for a Modern Abortion Law 12.30 outside the QEII Conference Centre; and the March for Abortion Rights begins at 6.30pm at ULU, Malet Street.

In a political climate where the anti-choice lobby is sadly growing with several parliamentary attempts to cut back the time limit occurring in the last year, it is important that we strongly assert the principle of a woman’s right to control if and when she has children. We should not only defend the current limit, but we must look to ensure that all women really do have the option of a free and safe abortion.

The link between abortion provision and the privatization of the NHS is a crucial one, given that NHS waiting lists can delay women waiting for an abortion by up to eight weeks and there are still wide variations throughout the country of the percentage of publicly funded abortions, ranging from more than 90 per cent in some areas to less than 60 per cent in others.

We should also seek to ensure that there is detailed sex education in schools, better choice with regards to contraception, and better childcare support and a living wage so that financial hardship is never a factor in choosing not have children.

I am committed to supporting a woman‘s right to choose - and wholeheartedly support today's actions.

Brown's Attack on Pay and Trade Union Rights

As you may have read on the front page of the Daily Mirror today, I issued a statement yesterday about Brown's pay cut for millions of our public sector workers:

"This pay cut from the Chancellor for public service workers will further alienate millions of Labour's natural supporters.
"If we want good public services, those who work in them must have decent levels of pay which properly reflects their contribution.
"People will fail to understand how we can spend billions of pounds on Trident whilst cutting public sector pay."

Yesterday I was at a packed rally in Parliament marking the publication of the Trade Union Rights and Freedoms Bill which I have been taking through the House of Commons as a Private Members Bill. Those speaking at the rally included Tony Benn, Tony Woodley, Katy Clark MP, Bob Crow, Matt Wrack, Roger Klein and John Hendy QC. I was impressed by the enthusiasm and determination to support a bill which is, after all, supported by Labour Party Conference and the TUC.

The Bill was due to be introduced today, along with Paul Farrelly's superb Bill extending the rights of agency and temporary workers. Like the Trade Union Freedom Bill, this piece of legislation has already received massive support from Labour backbenchers.

You can imagine how angry I was today at the tactics used by the Government to prevent both Bills progressing. Deliberate filibustering has been used in order to ensure that no vote was taken on either Bill. The passage of both Bills would be a major step forwards for millions of workers in this country - and would provide a major boost for the Labour party at a time when there is such massive disillusionment among our supporters.

We'll be taking both Bills back to Parliament in October. Between now and then, we'll continue to mobilise for these campaigns and press the Government to accept these legislative proposals.

UPDATE: We've uploaded a video clip of me setting out my commitment to restoring trade union rights - keep checking back for new clips.

New Labour Privatises the Probation and Prison Services tonight.

I have just got back from the House of Commons after the debate on the Government's Bill to privatise the Probation Service and Prisons. 23 Labour MPs voted against the Government and about 33 abstained. Nevertheless the Government's proposals were voted through the Commons with majority of 25 and now go on to the Lords.

Gordon Brown intervened personally to get the privatisation bill through the Commons by calling in individual Labour MPs to meetings with him in order to persuade them and indeed threaten them to vote for the privatisation.

In opposition when the Tories started the process of privatising our prisons both Jack Straw and Tony Blair described the use of the private sector in the process of imprisoning our fellow citizens as immoral.

To justify this privatisation policy John Reid and his junior minister Gerry Sutcliffe did the usual dressing up of the privatisation as just another way of allowing the voluntary and charitable sector to play a wider role in providing probation and prison related services.

The reality is that the probation service and prisons will be packaged up into sizeable contracts which will be bid for by a near monopoly grouping of transnational corporations like Securicor. Huge profits will then be made at the expense of cuts in the wages, conditions and pensions of the workforce and by reductions in the quality of service to clients and inmates. The government will eventually claim that it has invested vast sums in both services but just like the NHS tax payers this taxpayers' money will have been laundered into private profits.

Without any flicker of conscience Labour MPs trotted dutifully through the lobbies to vote for this handing over of yet another section of our welfare state.

Gordon Brown urged us all last year to be advocates for globalisation. New Labour MPs have obviously taken this to heart. We saw tonight globalisation at work. After a long but very powerful and effective lobbying campaign transnational corporations have effectively used a New Labour Government to prise open this vital element of the British welfare state for profiteering.

Some concessions were forced out of Reid such as a 3 year delay in the implementation of some elements of the privatisation process and that the existing probation officers will be allowed to compete against the private and voluntary sector for their own jobs. However I somehow doubt whether this will send the thousands who work in this service and their families off to the polls at the next election with a song in their hearts determined to vote Labour.

We will now do our best to defeat and, failing that, amend further this legislation in the Lords but the privatisation feeding frenzy under New Labour goes on apace. Last week I discovered that the Government is privatising the CoastGuard Service in a contract worth about £3 to £5 billion.

There are times when you feel ashamed of what this Government is doing in the name of our party.

Tonight was one of those times.

Bring on Miliband, the Son of Blair.

Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn today launch their so called policy debate. This is a smokescreen for a fairly obvious attempt to promote a Blairite, anti Brown candidate. Although Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn have at different times dearly hoped that either one of them would be seen as this candidate, those around them know that there is no support for either of them in Parliament and even less in the Labour and Trade Union movement. So the last remnants of Blairites are desperate for Miliband to stand as the last standing standard bearer of Blairism.

Understandably David Miliband is seen as natural successor to Blair because he was Blair's head of policy in Number 10 responsible for the back room development of the policy programme implemented by New Labour over the last decade. Parachuted into a safe seat by the New Labour machine, Blair then promoted him into the politically safe yet high profile role of environment secretary and given the warm, positive, uncontentious role of tackling climate change. Some anxieties were expressed when he was seen to be largely one large soundbite and delivering very little but when has this worried the Blairites. Panic also almost broke out when Miliband stumbled in the Commons over the bird flu outbreak.

Nevertheless you have to give Blair his due as a political operator. Positioning Miliband in this way set up the prospect of Miliband being ideally placed if the Brown leadership successsion faltered. Blair has been absolutely desperate to stuff Brown and derermine his own successor. Miliband has been quietly and stealthily promoted particularly amongst trusted members of the media as his natural and privately chosen successor.

Now the polls are running against Brown, exactly as we predicted, the Blairites have launched their pre-emptive coup. This could be the first time in history a coup has been launched against someone not just before he has become a leader but even before he has become a formal candidate for leadership!

My view is straightforward. What are all these people worried about? Why have all this backstairs plotting? Bring on the candidates and let's have an open debate on the future of the Labour Party, the Government and the country.

There is no difference in substance between Brown and Miliband or Clarke or Milburn. They have all developed, promoted and voted for the same policies for ten years. They are the policies which have lead us to our lowest standing in the polls for nearly 20 years and facing the prospect of a majority Tory government.

The attempt to divert the leadership election into personality politics based upon image not substance completely misses the point that it is the effect of New Labour policies in the real world that has undermined support for Labour.

The promotion of Miliband reminds many of us of the time when John Smith died and Tony Blair was promoted as the youthful, leader of the party without anyone knowing what his politics were or the policies he would promote. At least with Miliband we know what his politics are. They are New Labour/Blairite neo con to the core.

So let's have the leadership election and bring on the "big clunking fist" and the "son of Blair" for our grass roots campaign to challenge politically.

Labour Members of Parliament must reject Blair's Starwars Deal with Bush

On Friday I spoke at the Welsh Labour Grassroots fringe meeting at the Wales Laboour Party Conference. Delegates were still recovering from Tony Blair's speech in which he heaped praise on the policies being pursued by the Labour administration in the Welsh assembly. As virtually all of these policies and the basic direction of Labour in Wales run counter to New Labour's neo liberal philosophy and policy programme in England you can appreciate why delegates were astounded at his comments. Most somehow doubted that the Prime Minister had been converted to socialism on the road to Llandudno.

During the day on Friday it was confimed by Downing Street that the Prime Minister had been secretly negotiating with the Bush administration on the siting of part of the US "starwars" ballistic missile network on British soil. On Saturday speaking at the CND/Stop the War demonstration in Trafalgar Square I expressed my anger at the way in which as part of his legacy agenda Blair is seeking not only to bounce Parliament into a commitment to Trident renewal but also to offer up Britain as an aircraft carrier for the Bush starwars project. I will be raising this issue in Parliament tomorrow and I will be calling for support from other Labour MPs to reject this deal on Starwars.

We need a leader who serves as a British Prime Minister not as a virtual vice president of the USA. We need a peace Prime Minister.

Later on Saturday I spoke at the well attended AGM of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy. I am grateful for the overwhelming vote CLPD gave to a resolution backing my candidacy. This means that every left rank and file organisation in the Labour Party and in the trade union movement is backing my campaign.

I was also pleased to receive the public support of Tony Benn, Christine Shawcroft and Elaine Smith MSP in the letter they submitted along with others and published in the Guardian on Saturday.