As We Wait for the PM's Decision on an Unnecessary Election, the Business of Privatising under Brown Goes on as Usual.

Whilst the media is all consumed with whether Gordon Brown is about to risk a Labour Government with an unnecessary election, government policy rolls on as usual.For those who supported Brown because they thought that there would be a change in direction two largely unnoticed stories of the policy roll out under Brown remind us that the business of New Labour neo liberal politics goes on as normal.

Yesterday RMT published an analysis of the tax avoidance being used to boost the profits of the privatised railway companies. The research exposed that the private rail industry profits from £1.3 billion in unpaid tax and that these companies are using deferred-tax loopholes to fund a leap in dividends to their shareholders. RMT revealed that nearly half of the £1.5 billion in dividends paid out in the last five years by nine private train operators and rolling-stock companies has been funded by unpaid tax, according to a detailed analysis for RMT by tax expert Richard Murphy of Tax Research.

Richard Murphy confirmed that almost £1.3 billion of deferred tax is owed by the biggest six train-operating companies (Tocs) and the three rolling-stock leasing companies (Roscos) - but this is tax that will most likely never be paid, and is effectively a hidden subsidy that dramatically increases cash profit levels.The report shows that the nine companies declared profits almost doubled from £435 million in 2002 to £810 million in 2006, but their declared tax charges remained almost constant at about £190 million a year throughout the period. The declared percentage rate fell from 43 per cent in 2002 to 24 per cent in 2006.

If people were also looking forward to Brown pulling back on the privatisation agenda they will also be disappointed to hear that Alan Johnson has announced this week that £70 billion worth of new contracts for the management and commissioning of NHS services are to be put out to the private sector.What this means in my area is that BUPA is being given half a million pound contract to vet whether a patient really needs the operation at the local hospital that their consultant has recommended. If BUPA says no they get a cut of the money saved from the operation not going ahead. And oh yes, if the patient is unhappy, then there is always a BUPA hospital on hand to offer the operation at a price. UNISON has expresed the union's concerns at this latest round of privatisation and profiteering from the NHS.

Who did the UNISON leadership insist on backing for Labour leader?

Of course, Gordon Brown, the architect of this policy. As someone once said "It's a funny old world." Not so funny though for the patients who will not receive their treatment and the UNISON members whose jobs are being privatised by this latest round of sell offs under Brown.

Hypeing up an Early Election Just Presents the Tories with an Open Goal.

From early September through the TUC and on to the Labour Party conference it must have seemed to Gordon Brown, but more importantly to his acolytes, that they were infallible, could do no wrong when it came to political gameplaying. And why not? The polls told them so.

So what better than to hype up the possibility of an imminent general election to wrongfoot the Tories. When the political tetosterone filled young men surrounding Gordon Brown sped round the Labour party conference briefing the media on the potential dates for an election in November it must have seemed such fun.

Unfortunately some of them started believing their own propaganda on their omniscient political talent and became turboed up for an immediate election. As a result the prospect of a general election gained an almost unstoppable momentum of its own.

The next week was filled with a public relations strategy which was little more than a crude political painting by numbers. The headlong rush of policy announcement after policy announcement on everything from Crossrail to Adazi's health proposals was rather obvious. The Prime Minister's timely trip to Iraq during Tory Party conference risked being interpreted as political opportunism but was overshadowed by the bizarre spinning of the scale of the planned troop withdrawal which became reminiscent of dodgy dossier calculations.

The Tories reacted in the only way that they could -" Bring it on!"

As a result of this inept tactical posturing by Brown's inexperienced team we have reached a point where the Prime Minister either calls an election in the face of volatile polls and unecessarily risks a Labour Government or backs down and looks both opportunist and weak.

Just when the weakness of the Tories could have been consolidated the Prime Minister and his team of arrogant young men have presented them with an open goal and offered them a chance of revival.

Confidence in a leader and a government once lost are almost impossible to regain. The inept handling of the last few weeks by the Brown team has jeopardised the good will people felt towards Labour as a result of Tony Blair going.

It is time to just get back to serving the people and governing the country.

New Routes for the Left Emerging

After the events at the TUC and the Labour Party conference it is time for the Left to take a hard nosed look at where we go from here. First of all we have to face up to the harsh realities of the new political world in which we are operating.

The historical path of the Left stems from working people coming together in the workplace and discovering their strength through solidarity. Nourished by socialist ideas they recognised that if they wanted to exercise power beyond the workplace they needed political representation and so the Labour party was born. Democratic party structures were established to develop the policy programmes to be implemented when power was achieved.

This week's vote to close down democratic decision making at the Labour party conference and Gordon Brown's first leader's speech demonstrated that the old strategy is largely over. The conference is now virtually irrelevant and its replacement, the National Policy Forum, is a behind closed doors exercise of centralised control of party policymaking.

Brown's speeches at both the TUC and Labour conference demonstrated decisively how much he fundamentally believes in the principles of neo liberalism - the dominance of the market, flexible labour and privatisation. Even if there was the potential to use what is left of the party's structures to attempt to influence him, it is clear that the overall political direction of the Brown government is non negotiable.

The Left has the difficult task of accepting and explaining to others that the old routes into the exercise of power and influence involving internal Labour Party mobilisations and manoeuvres have largely been closed down. We have to face up to the challenge of identifying and developing new routes into effective political activity.

The contradiction is that the more undemocratic the Labour Party becomes the more it cuts itself off from the real world at a time when new social movements are emerging. People may be increasingly giving up on political parties but they haven't given up on politics. They still want to challenge the injustices they meet in our society and they are devising a multitude of mechanisms to do so from indy media and climate camps to affinity groups organising direct action.

New social movements have mobilised on a vast array of issues ranging from climate change, asylum rights, to housing and arms sales. Many trade unions have also rediscovered their roots as social movements themselves in their new campaigns on everything from private equity to the exploitation of migrant workers. New alliances are being forged and where trade union leaderships have been incorporated as supporters of the status quo, rank and file activity within their unions is re-emerging and organising.

The difficult task for the Left now is to appreciate that new strategies, new coalitions of forces and above all else a new dynamism are needed to deal with the new political environment where the traditional routes have been so narrowed. The Left needs to open itself to co-operation with progressive campaigns within our community, learning from them, treating them with mutual respect, rejecting any patronising or sectarian approach, and where needed to serve as the catalyst to instigate and facilitate campaigning activity. Creativity is also needed to stimulate the analysis, debate and discussion of the ideas and principles which we may share in our wish to transform our society.

The main political parties are increasingly seen as irrelevant to the real world issues facing our communities resulting in declining participation rates and election turnouts and deepening scepticism. This doesn't mean people are apathetic. Far from it. There is a growing radical nature to our times and an opportunity for a period of exciting, frenetic activity capable of creating a climate of progressive hegemony which no government could immunise itself from no matter how ruthlessly it closes down democracy in its own party.

This article first appeared in the Morning Star.