Reaction to Glasgow By-election Result

I have sent out the following press release as a first reaction to the disastrous by-election result in Glasgow.

Fatal to dismiss Glasgow result as protest vote.

Commenting on the result of the Glasgow by election Labour MP John McDonnell said If this result does not demonstrate to the Labour Government the need for change nothing will. It would be a fatal mistake to dismiss this result as a by election protest vote. The message is straightforward. Labour must change or we are finished.

New Labour attacks welfare . . . again

Yesterday, the Government set out its new plans for 'welfare reform'. The plans reform both Jobseeker's Allowance and Incapacity Benefit (soon to become Employment Support Allowance).

The proposals include compulsory community service for those on unemployment benefits (equating benefit entitlement with criminality), and a range of punitive measures for people on incapacity benefit.

At a time of increasing unemployment such draconian measures will not only prove counter-productive, but the requirement for forced labour and the greater harassment of disabled people is a moral disgrace.

Allowing the private sector to make money out of the unemployed and those on incapacity benefit is a step further than even the Governments of Thatcher or Major went.

The Government has sacked 30,000 staff in DWP since 2004 and now it is proposiing to give more of their jobs to the private sector through letting private companies deliver welfare programmes.

I will be standing in solidarity with the unemployed and the disabled, as well as PCS members working for Jobcentre Plus, to defend public services and welfare rights.

Solidarity with public sector workers

From tomorrow, public sector workers in local government and across the civil service will be taking industrial action to demand that their pay reflects the rising cost of living.

The Government appears clueless about the depth of anger among public servants facing pay cuts while energy, fuel and food prices are letting rip.

These strikes are just a reflection of the strong feelings public servants have because the Government has ignored their worries and refused to act.

I'm calling on the Government to review its pay strategy so that public sector workers are protected from the economic crisis and recession that we now face.

In solidarity with all Unison, Unite and PCS members on picket lines.

Housing Crisis Worsens but Government Dithers.

I was in a succession of meetings at Hillingdon Council yesterday accompanying local families to meet housing officers in the hope of persuading them to give the families a council house. The families were living in appalling housing conditions, overcrowded, damp, and subject to the harrassment of their private landlords.

This is a weekly event for me, following up cases from my weekly advice surgery. It is one of the most depressing experiences. The housing officers are struggling to do their best but are faced with a housing shortage on a scale we haven't seen since the Second World War.The families are desperate to get a decent home and to feel settled, instead of subjecting their children to the constant moving from house to house and school to school as the private tenancies run out.

Buy to let landlords, who have been promoted by Gordon Brown, are profiteering from housing benefits. They are often maximisimg their profits by charging extortionate rents and minimising their costs by doing the least possible to maintain the standard of their properties. The promotion of buy to let landlords is creating a modern form of slums. It was exactly to deal with this private landlordism that over a century ago council housing was created.

The refusal of the Government to allow councils to build homes once again has resulted in a doubling of homeless households from 40,000 in 1997 to 80,000 today. True to Brown's neo-liberalism the Government has relied upon the private sector to deliver the homes we need and of course not only has it dramatically failed to deliver it is now in crisis. The house building industry is collapsing fast and the Government's target of 3 million new homes by 2020 is looking extremely unrealistic. The aim was to build at least 250,000 nrew homes each year. The estimate for this year in at best 100,000 and falling.

The Government's solution is to give more public funds and public land to the private sector. This will just increase private sector profits.

The solution which the Government will inevitably have to implement is to ask local councils to take the lead in building new council homes on a massive scale aiming at a target of 500,000 a year. In the short term we have a house price slump,(today we hear that house prices have dropped for the 8th month in a row),many private landlords wanting to offload properties and over half a million homes are standing empty. Local councils shoud be given the ability to borrow in order to purchase properties lying empty in their areas. If landlords resist a reasonably priced sale local councils should be able to use speeded up compulsory purchase powers.

The scale of the housing crisis requires an emegency programme. The days when I have to witness parents pleading in tears for a decent settled home for their children could so easliy be put behind us if the Government had the will to act.

Left Candidate Must be Allowed to Run in Scottish Labour Leadership Election

Now that Wendy Alexander has resigned the Scottish Labour party has a real opportunity of staging a democratic leadership election, which would be able to focus on an honest debate about the current state of Labour in Scotland. It is deperately needed given the way the SNP has been able to dominate the political agenda so effectively since it was elected to government.

My fear is that there will be an attempt to prevent a real political debate either by following the Brown example of blocking any contest or more subtely by only allowing candidates from the right to run. Preventing a candidate from the Left from getting on the ballot paper would be as disastrous in the long term as the Brown no contest strategy. It would be seen as an obvious avoidance of facing to the much needed political debate about the future of the party in Scotland.

A candidate of the Left is needed and I believe that the best and most principled advocate for socialism in the Scottish Parliament is Elaine Smith. Elaine has a superb record of commitment and campaigning. She is articlate, popular and rooted in her community.

I hope that Elaine decides to stand and if she does it is critical that we mobilise to ensure she is on the ballot paper. The right and the bureaucracy must not be alowed to get away with a right wing slate on the ballot paper. We must not let them block Elaine. If they did it would another step on the path to the destruction of the Labour Party in Scotland.

We cannot allow any more coronations or election stitch ups in the Labour party. We must stand up for the right of Labour Party members and affiliated trade unionists to be able to elect a candidate of their choice and from a range of candidates who reflect the spectrum of political opinion within our party. Anything less would be viewed as yet another unsavoury New Labour manoueuvre.

Gordon Brown has taken Labour to the edge of extinction

I wrote this article for the Guardian's "Comment is Free" website yesterday. It has just gone up. I wrote it before the Henley by-election result which demonstrates even further the potential political wipe out Labour is now facing.

A year ago so many Labour MPs flocked to nominate Gordon Brown as leader that I had no choice but to concede that I couldn't get on the ballot for the Labour leadership.

Now it all looks pretty bleak. Brown is relentlessly leading the Labour party to the edge of extinction and yet again Labour MPs and trade union general secretaries appear at a loss to do anything but follow over the electoral precipice.

In the first month the euphoric reception for Gordon Brown was based firstly upon the fact that he wasn't Tony Blair and secondly that he promised change. In fact in one speech he referred to change at least 20 times.

The reason for the present scale of disillusionment in him and his government particularly among long-standing Labour supporters is that there has been no change. If anything, the policies have gone further right and the New Labour style of manipulative short-term triangulation is still being pursued but with less competence than Blair

It could have all been so different. A leadership election would have ensured a real debate on the future of Labour in government and the future of our country. For over a year I had already been on the campaign trail speaking with Labour supporters and many others in open meetings just to get people talking again.

A leadership contest would have produced this engaging process writ large, drawing people into a real discussion and testing not only the ideas but also the candidates themselves.

Labour members would have been given the chance to decide. The ideas I was promoting would have proved their popularity and 12 months on we would have all been in a different place. Just think what might have been.

British troops would have by now been withdrawn from Iraq and in Afghanistan we would be deploying every skill of conflict resolution learned in Northern Ireland, including the first stages of unconditional roundtable talks with all sides to enable troop withdrawal.

Trident would have been scrapped and arms conversion put in place to transfer skills and resources to socially productive uses.

The green revolution would be well underway with an 80% target on reducing carbon emissions firmly installed in law, feed-in tariffs introduced and a mass programme of alternative energy projects already under construction. The expansion of Heathrow would have been rejected and with rail back in public ownership the largest investment programme in high speed-rail in Europe would be moving from the drawing board to construction.

The fairness revolution would be in train to create a fair and equal society. To address pensioner poverty the first year budget would have increased the basic pension and restored its link with earnings. To achieve a historic target of abolishing child poverty, child benefits would have been increased. The minimum wage would have been lifted to a realistic level, with pay equity legislation introduced to eradicate discrimination against women and others. A fairer taxation policy would have ensured that corporations pay their way and their £100bn a year tax avoidance scams would have been outlawed. Local councils would have been empowered to build half a million new homes this year and to compulsorily purchase a significant number of the 300,000 homes that stand long-term empty to tackle the housing crisis that has seen the number of homeless households double under New Labour.

The freedom revolution would have already seen the restoration of basic civil liberties and trade union rights. ID cards would have been scrapped and detention without charge would be replaced with a normal rule of law relying upon evidence and court decisions. A draft constitution would have been published for debate extending social rights to housing, education, care and a decent environment.

The democracy revolution would have seen the ending of the privatisation of our public services, and the debate engaged on how each public service could be best managed, by those who are elected to represent local communities, those that deliver the services and those that receive them. Members of the House of Lords would be in their final session before abolition, and a new chamber would be elected by proportional representation, as people also voted on a referendum on the European constitution.

The safety revolution would be at it early stage of implementation, transferring the third of prisoners with mental health and drug problems to suitable specialist centres. At the community level, safer neighbourhood teams would no longer just comprise of police officers but would include family support workers, youth workers, play leaders and community development workers to intervene earlier and more effectively to overcome antisocial behaviour, crime, and violence at their roots.

The education revolution would have already abolished tuition fees and restored grants, class sizes would be tumbling towards public school proportions and more teachers were recruited, with teaching talent released from the burden of tests, targets and league table competitions.

The caring revolution would have been extending free childcare to all families with young children and free care for all the elderly. Elderly care standards would be under intense scrutiny and residential homes under democratic control with direct care and family representation.

The political revolution would have produced a Commons chamber where MPs were not just allowed but would be encouraged to vote on principle and personal judgment. Various coalitions on individual issues would become the norm. Democracy would have been restored within the Labour party, enabling members and affiliates once again to determine the policies of the party. Yes the political debate would have been robust and decisions difficult to pre-judge but democracy would be the better for it.

By now, Labour members and supporters would be proud again of being associated with our party and our government. I can't guarantee that this would have won us the next election but at least it would be a government worth fighting for.

This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Friday June 27 2008.

Government must listen to low paid

Local Government workers in Unison (my union) have voted by a clear majority to take industrial action over the imposition of a below-inflation pay deal of just 2.45%.

The Government must listen to this appeal. The underlying reason for this vote for strike action is a genuine feeling of unfairness that lower paid public sector workers are being asked to carry the burden of the economic downturn.

Ministers, earning over £100,000 per year will barely notice their pay freeze, but for many local government workers it will mean real hardship.