Brown Economics:Highest Profits but Lowest Pay Settlements

Inequality not only disfigures our society but also produces the insecurity, consumerism, alienation, crime and antisocial behaviour that are now endemic in 21st century Britain. It is produced by Government policies which allow the market to let rip whilst restraining the ability of workers to increase their incomes by denyimg them effective trade union rights and by imposing pay cuts in the public sector.

Today's Office for National Statistics survey of economic activity confirms that whilst profits in British companies are increasing at the fastest rate since Labour was elected in 1997 the wages of workers are rising at their slowest pace since 2002. The ONS demonstrates that profits have grown by 16.2%, in the latest quarter of the year, the best since 1994, whilst wages rose by only 3.6%, the worst in 5 years.

It is predicted that the annual excecutive pay survey will show this week that company directors' pay continues to soar, increasing the gap between executive pay and the wages of ordinary employees. This confirms the trend that has seen executive pay rise by nearly 300% since 1993, seven times the rate of the average workers pay.

Since he became leader Gordon Brown's public relations strategy has been based upon the same old Blairite New Labour process of triangulation. Take an issue on which you have failed or are being attacked, create a fanfare around change to seize the critics' territory and undermine any criticism whilst actually barely moving and in fact staying on your original underlying course.

I am never surprised that this strategy works with large sections of the media, as their politics are largely New Labour/Tory and will naturally swing behind their best bet to retain the status quo. I am amazed at times though at the gullibility of elements within the Labour and Trade Union Movement who consistently fall for it. In their desperation to see the back of Blair many in our movement so hoped for change that the slightest nod by Brown in the direction of change is seen as evidence of a radical break with the past. It is becoming increasingly like a version of "The Life of Brian" as people desperately chase for evidence of miracles to prove the arrival of the new messiah.

Today's statistics on the widening gap in pay between many of the already super rich and the average wages of workers, most of whom are struggling with high debt, demonstrate the realities of Gordon Brown's neo liberalism. This is the society his economic policies over the last 10 years have created, a society more unequal than at any time since the second world war, our public services increasingly privatised to facilitate profiteering and a dog eat dog market ethos so inherent that many believe community cohesion is strained to breaking point.

There is an alternative and over the coming period it is our responsibility on the Left to bring together all those who are interested in undertaking the detailed work of developing in all their complexity the detailed policies to create that alternative

We Have Failed to Respond Effectively to The Violence in Our Society.

Like any parent my biggest fear is of anything happening to my children. The news of the shooting of that poor little 11 year boy old killed in Liverpool last night was heartrending.

No matter what the statistics may say about falling crime, tragedies like this and all the other young deaths over this last year bring home the reality of the violence and harshness that can be encountered by children in the society we now live in.

Leading politicians, the media and many commentators appear perplexed at the scale of violence that exists within our community and have been seizing on a wide variety of causes ranging from family breakdown, the accessibility and cheapness of alcohol,the expansion of drug use, the growth of gang culture to the lack of role models for young people.

Over the last five years policy analysis and policy development seem to be trapped in a circular debate which includes at the same time both largely failing attempts at social policy interventions and an overwhelmingly failing penal policy.

And yet all the research evidence from experts such as Richard Wilkinson, Danny Dorling and many others is clearly pointing to the association between increasing inequality, increasing breakdown of social cohesion and subsequently increasing violent crime and social harm.

In virtually every opinion poll over the last decade crime has been placed in the top three of people's concerns. Fear of crime is across all social classes but it is the poorest who suffer from crime the most.

People earnestly want solutions.

It is our responsibility now to set the tenure of the debate that will now follow this week's tragedy. A debate that needs to be about the society we want to live in and how we tackle the causal factors of inequality, the loss of power in communities to effect change and the loss of a sense of social solidarity which contribute to violence in our society.

We Must Mobilise like The Climate Change Camp to Demand British Withdrawal from Iraq Now.

As the Climate Change Campers pack up and leave my constituency I just want to say thank you to them for the immense contribution they have made to our campaign against the expansion of Heathrow. More importantly I want to thank them not just for increasing our awareness of the link between the expansion of aviation and climate change but also for raising our consciousness about how social movements can be brought into existence and how they can mobilise effectively.

For one of the key lessons of the Climate Change Camp is that when the political system is ignoring us and failing to represent us, social movements, widespread coalition forming, creative protest and direct action are once again the effective tools for change for the committed but disenfranchised.

As we hear of another British soldier dieing in Iraq and large numbers of Iraqis themselves being killed in almost daily barbarity surely now is the time to demand the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq now.

Every rational person from senior generals to the squaddie in Basra now knows that the military adventure of Iraq has been a bloody, life-devasting, disastrous mistake. British soldiers are now under such attack that they are largely pinned down in their fortified bases serving as sitting targets for attack by insurgents. Even where areas are handed over to the Iraqis we can't even guarantee the safety of the Governor of the province as exemplified by the recent assasination.

Gordon Brown must know the game is up. Having supported, argued for and funded the war he is impicated fully in this fiasco. The least he can do is accept that the situation is irretrievable and order the withdrawal of British troops. At present he is either dithering or is for waiting for the best public relations opportunity to move withdrawal forward without appearing to lose face.

Too many lives are being lost and too much suffering is taking place to wait for a face saving public relations strategy to be rolled out.

British forces should be withdrawn now and if we have to take to the streets again to achieve this let's start organising the demonstrations now.

Heathrow Climate Camp Success

Yesterday's Climate Change demonstrations against the expansion of Heathrow airport were an overwhelming success. For years in my area, which includes Heathrow, we have undertaken the hard slog of using all the usual means possible to prevent airport expansion and draw attention to the implications for our community, including petitions to Parliament, delegations to Ministers and Number 10, and a number of demonstrations.

Over the last decade there has been an awakening amongst local campaigners that airport expansion has a much wider impact on our environnment than on just a local neighbourhood and that the very future of our planet is being put at risk. The Climate Camp was the embodiment of the concept of acting locally but thinking globally.

The Camp and its demonstrations yesterday have put our issue on the world's media map. For virtually a month this issue has dominated the headlines in way our past campaigning has never before been able to achieve. The debate on the environmental impact of aviation has at long last begun in earnest. We are at that point in the debate that was reached over the car twenty years ago. The debate has begun and for that we should be grateful for the contribution made over the last week by the Climate Change Camp protestors.

The next stage in that debate will be the introduction of the forthcoming Climate Change Bill into Parliament in the next Parliamentary session. From the statements by Gordon Brown and various ministers there is little confidence that the Bill will be sufficiently radical to meet the urgency of the threat of climate change. The recent attempts by the Government not only to cover up its failure on promoting renewable energy but to undermine the limited measures introduced by local councils do not bode well for the seriousness of the Government's approach.

Over the coming weeks I will be doing all I can to assist in bringing together the broad based lobby that will be needed if we are to achieve amendments to the Climate Change Bill that reflect the urgency of our environmental crisis. No further expansion of Heathrow would be a simple and effective amendment.

More generally the Climate Camp protest has been just a further example of direct action and political activity which is based upon individuals and groups reasserting their ability to effect change and gain a voice beyond what many believe are discredited and increasingly undemmocractic traditional politics. There appears to be a social movement of protest asserting its coming into existence.

Traditional political structures are not seen as working for people and so activity is breaking out in a wide range of different forms ranging from a resurgence of industrial disputes to an increasing willingness to take direct action to have one's voice heard. Often ignored or sneered at by the traditional media direct and unfettered forms of communication are rapidly being developed and used freely and effectively. On issue by issue people can now judge whether and how to support a particular campaign in solidarity. Fluctuating coalitions are therefore being formed on an issue by issue basis.

The Left needs to recognise what's happening and get in the debate.

What a Day! Climate Camp Day Of Action and the Scottish Left Decides on Leadership Challenge

This looks like being quite a day.

I am off to join my constituents and supporters of the Climate Camp on a walk to mark out the length of the new runway at Heathrow which BAA and the Government are proposing. Our aim is to demonstrate just what local devastation will be caused to our local community. There will be a wide range of activities and protests over the next 24 hours. I have explained why I support the Climate Camp in an article on the Guardian's Comment is Free website. The Climate Camp has been committed throughout to peaceful and non violent action. BAA and elements within the media are desperate to sideline the issue of the impact of airport expansion with lurid headlines of protest violence, etc. Whatever happens today by way of activities and protests it is absolutely critical that the central message of the impact of airport expansion on local communities and on climate change is not lost.

In Scotland the Campaign for Socialism is meeting to discuss the leadership election in Scotland and whether the Left should seek to field a candidate. Some have referred to this as the "McDonnell moment" for the Scottish Left. As I explained in my last blog I believe the political circumstances in Scotland are significantly different from in England and the Labour Party overall.

This may be a "McDonnell moment" but it also smacks of being a "Rhodri Morgan moment." In Wales, people will recall, Alan Michael was imposed as the favoured candidate of Number 10 to lead the new Welsh Assembly; a puppet leader who was seen as being readily controllable by Westminster and someone who would not only would give the Prime Minister no problems but would enthusiatically follow the political line dictated in London. Labour Party members and trade unions reacted against this dictat by Number 10 and the rest is history.

The imposition of Wendy Alexander by Gordon Brown without a democratic election would be seen in exactly the same light as the Alan Michael fiasco and would be a political and electoral disaster for Labour in Scotland, offering Alec Salmond an open goal and alianating many of our supporters who want a say in the party's future. The Left fielding a candidate opens up a significant opportunity for socialists in Scotland not only to lead the policy debate but also potentially to lead the party.