On high pay, Ed Miliband misses the wood for the trees

by Chris Dillow    
June 13, 2011 at 10:05 pm

It is a cliché that the Labour party owes more to Methodism than to Marxism. Today’s speech by Ed Miliband highlights the witless vacuity that this can lead to.

He says “we have to tackle the new inequality in this country between the top and everyone else.” And he complains that “over the last twelve years Chief Executive pay in Britain’s top companies has quadrupled while share prices have remained flat.”

So far, so good. But why has inequality increased? Here, Miliband fails atrociously.
continue reading… »

Caroline Lucas looks to decriminalising drugs

by Newswire    
June 13, 2011 at 3:27 pm

An urgent new evidence-based approach is needed to tackle the UK’s drug crisis and make our communities safer, Caroline Lucas MP will say today.

The Green party leader will make a speech to NHS healthcare professionals in Brighton this evening. She will echo the findings of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which earlier this month called for a major review of drugs policy.

The Brighton MP will say:

There is growing agreement across the scientific and political communities, in the police and the legal professions, that we need to move away from prohibition of use towards an evidence-based, public health approach to drug addiction.

One of my top priorities as a local MP is to tackle Brighton and Hove’s very sad reputation as the drugs death capital of the UK. In order to do that, we need to recognise the reality that the so-called ‘war on drugs’ has failed – and start dealing with drugs differently.

Lucas is an active member of Parliament’s All Party Group for Drug Policy Reform.

She says she is planning a high level roundtable in the city later this year, bringing together medical experts, and key local stakeholders, including the police and council representatives, to help develop an alternative approach.

She will praise local initiatives such as the RIOTT trial, which has helped addicts achieve major reductions in their use of street heroin.

Though she will stop short of calling for decriminalisation, her office says it will be a call for “potential decriminalisation of personal drug use

I don’t think it will be easy. A new approach, based on treating drug addiction as a health issue not a criminal one, will represent a significant shift in thinking – and any changes should be brought in slowly and carefully.

But in the long term, a more evidence-based drugs policy will help us to prevent crime, and protect our communities from the worst effects of drug abuse.

From a press release

Poll: 75% back Labour’s jobs plan

by Don Paskini    
June 13, 2011 at 2:45 pm

Last week, Labour launched a campaign for a £2 billion tax on bankers’ bonuses in order to create 100,000 new jobs for young unemployed people.

Polling by ComRes on Sunday found strong support for this policy, with 75% agreeing that “a tax on bankers’ bonuses should be introduced and the proceeds used to fight youth unemployment”.

The poll also found that only 13% of people thought that the government was doing a good job at helping people into work, and 66% agreed that “this government’s economic policy threatens to leave a generation of young people jobless”.

These findings show a way forward for Labour to address criticisms about a lack of policies and internal divisions. The jobs plan was one which was mentioned in the speech which David Miliband would have given had he been elected leader, and sets out a costed and clear alternative in an area where the government is failing. It fits with the principles which Ed Miliband set out in today’s speech on responsibility.

The message that Labour wants to tax the bankers to get young people into work will only start to reach the wider public at the point where politicos and journalists are screaming with boredom because they’ve heard it so many times. And it is just the start of generating an alternative set of policies which offer a real alternative to the government. But it’s an encouraging sign that so many people support it when asked.

What Ed Miliband will say today: summary

by Sunny Hundal    
June 13, 2011 at 1:55 pm

Ed Miliband’s speech today is themed ‘responsibility’ – and will focus on a range of issues tackling high pay and inequality all the way to making sure the welfare state is seen as helping people who contribute towards it.

The key passages:

For too many people at the last election, we were seen as the party that represented these two types of people. Those at the top and the bottom who were not showing responsibility and were shirking their duty to each other. From bankers who caused the global financial crisis to some of those on benefits who were abusing the system because they could work – but didn’t.
…
Labour – a party founded by hard working people for hard working people – was seen by some – however unfairly – as the party of those ripping off our society.”
…
When we were in government, the CBI, the FSA and the Governor of the Bank of England sounded more willing to speak out on top pay than us.
…
We were intensely relaxed about what happened at the top. No more. We will be a party that supports the real boardroom accountability that rewards wealth creation not failure.
…
It is said we cared too little about responsibility at the bottom of society. No more. We will be a party that rewards contribution, not worklessness.

MAIN POINTS ON HIGH PAY
» Will commit Labour to acting to restore the link between what highly paid individuals are earning and what they are contributing to shareholders and the economy – through greater transparency and greater accountability to shareholders.

» A future Labour government will require boardrooms to publish the ratio of high pay to average employee pay.

» Is looking at the case for including employee representation on the remuneration committees of every large firm.

In the 1970s, pay and performance became detached by penal rates of taxation. That was bad for our economy and it was right to fix it. But the danger today is that pay and performance have become detached again and the time has come to take action.”
…
This failure to link reward to achievement for shareholders and the economy is undermining not just our sense of fairness but our economic future as well. The right way to address that is through renewed transparency and accountability in the boardroom.

MAIN POINTS ON WELFARE
» Wil say Labour’s approach to welfare will change – to recognise the contribution that recipients are making to their local communities and through work.

» Will praise innovative social housing schemes which seek to give priority to those who work and contribute to their local communities in other ways, such as volunteering, foster parenting or working against anti-social behaviour.

We are facing a challenge to the belief in our welfare state – founded on principles of solidarity and compassion, but now tarred with the brush of unfairness and irresponsibility. If we want to protect and improve the British welfare state, we must reform it so it genuinely embodies responsibility and contribution as much as need

He also focuses on housing, giving examples of two areas where a different approach to social housing is being tried out.

In Manchester, as well as helping the most vulnerable families and disabled people with housing, they prioritise households who are giving something back to their communities – making a contribution – for example, people who work for or run local voluntary organisations and those who are working. They also look to reward people who have been good tenants in the past and who have paid their rent on time and never been involved in any Anti Social Behaviour.

The London Borough of Newham is looking at something similar – prioritising work when allocating social housing and for example helping first those who give something back by, say, fostering children in need. In their words they are “finding ways to end the race to the bottom where improving your situation and finding work are punished by getting pushed down the waiting list for a quality home

These approaches, he says, also encourages the kind of responsible behaviour which makes our communities stronger, makes them work.

We are looking at all these issues in our policy review, but this is a simple way of rewarding people who do the right thing and it’s something I’d like to see done right across the country.

Ed Miliband doesn’t need more speeches, he needs interventions

by Sunny Hundal    
June 13, 2011 at 1:14 pm

Ed Miliband’s response to the media-hyped “crisis” of the last week is somewhat worrying: he’s making speeches on policy. He is signalling a change in Labour’s approach to high executive pay and to people who abuse the benefits system today.

He will also makes pledges on delivering housing.

I don’t have anything against policy speeches per se, but they are not what Ed Miliband needs. What he needs are ‘interventions’. And the two are very different.
continue reading… »

Chris Huhne should admit the energy market has failed and fix it

by Adam Ramsay    
June 13, 2011 at 11:15 am

Chris Huhne was in the papers yesterday encouraging consumers to punish energy companies for putting their bills up. That’s Chris Huhne, Secretary of State for Energy.

Apparently this is Mr Huhne ‘intervening dramatically’. By, er, giving an interview to a newspaper. He tells the Observer that we shouldn’t accepted the current rise in prices ‘lying down’. So he has bravely stood up and, um, done essentially nothing about it.

We might have thought that the person chosen democratically(ish) to oversee energy in the country may have some kind of control when he believes that companies are charging more than they should. But, no.
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Where did the council houses come from Cam?

by Paul Cotterill    
June 13, 2011 at 10:02 am

On Saturday morning on ITV David Cameron said (10mins 30 secs):

I get people coming to my constituency surgery saying exactly that: “We waited before we got married until we could afford it, we waited till we could afford to have children, we waited and then we managed to get a house and I see someone down the road do none of those responsible things and they get put up in a council house, they have as many children as they want.

Which council houses would these be then?

West Oxfordshire Borough Council, in which Cameron’s consituency sits, got rid of its council housing in 2001.

Left-Libdems flex muscles at first conf.

by Sunny Hundal    
June 13, 2011 at 10:00 am

It could be interpreted as a sign the Libdem-left are starting to flex their muscles more openly.

Later this week the Social Liberal Forum is hosting its first ever national conference, with senior Libdem figures such as Chris Huhne, Evan Harris, Mark Pack, Vince Cable and Simon Hughes all attending (though the jury is still out on whether the last two could be described as left-wing).

Other speakers at the SLF conference include the columnist Will Hutton, Compass’ Neal Lawson, Lee Chalmers, Naomi Smith and Claire Tyler.

The SLF successfully presented a motion to the Liberal Democrat spring conference challenging the government’s planned NHS reforms, forcing the Conservatives to review their plans.

Dr Evan Harris says:

The Liberal Democrat Spring Conference support for the SLF’s health reform motion clearly flagged up a significant and growing disconnect between Liberal Democrat ministers and the grassroots.

The conference will provide a timely platform for debating the nature and scale of this relationship.

Founded in 2009, the Social Liberal Forum brought together various Libdems who were formerly involved in the Beveridge Group and the Reinventing the State Group. They say they want to develop social liberal solutions and approaches to challenges such as rising inequality, declining social mobility, global financial chaos and climate change.

The aim of the conference will be to encourage greater debate within the Liberal Democrats to determine how far the party can push the equality agenda within the coalition.

There is growing concern the party is serving only as a “heat shield for the Tories”.

The conference will take place on Saturday 18th June, at City University.
See http://socialliberal.net

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
- How we got here
- Deficit Reduction: Ideology or Necessity?
- Inequality, Social Mobility, Pay: What does Fairness Look Like?
- Are the Big Society and Community Politics compatible? Accountability or marketisation?
- Health Reforms: Good for Us?
- The Triple Crunch: Credit, Fuel, Food – Will Resource Scarcity increase Poverty?
- Political Alignments: Delivering the Social Liberal Agenda

Isn’t it time to re-think our (lack of) strategy in Libya?

by Flying Rodent    
June 13, 2011 at 9:15 am

I’ve been putting off revisiting the points I made before we started bombing Libya, for two reasons – first, the situation there is so murky and indecipherable that it’s difficult to assess, and second… Well, I don’t feel very good about saying some of this stuff while people are fighting and dying for their families and homes.

Nonetheless, I think it’s worth looking at this again.

Recall the atmosphere at the time, which was thick with the implication that opposition to a fresh bombing campaign was a ridiculous, childish concept, far outside the boundaries of political acceptability, and quite possibly tantamount to de facto support for Gaddafi’s goons.
continue reading… »

Labour has an affordable housing problem, not an immigration one

by Éoin Clarke    
June 12, 2011 at 7:11 pm

Labour lost almost half its private renting voters between 1997 to 2010. The largest loss was at the last election dropping from 36% to 25%.

Bearing in mind that 18-35 are the ages people are most likely to rent privately, it should be no surprise that they were also the age categories who deserted in the largest numbers. In fact 46% of Labour’s lost voters where aged 34 or younger, too young to have voted in any General Election before 1997, thus they are first generation Labour voters.

We stopped attracting young private rental voters.
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