Just over a week ago, I read this short article by Ros Coward on The Guardian’s comment is free, asking why the furore over bankers’ bonuses is not also directed at footballers such as Wayne Rooney, who apparently earns £18m a year.

I read this with disdain: she considered high earning only as a moral issue and completely missed the fact that remuneration in banks spurred the risk-taking that caused the credit crunch.

As conservative commentators have rightly pointed out, the public only started to complain about bank bonuses after the crash (duh). The controversy over wages in football has been around much longer.


Image: FourFourTwo Magazine

Something has gone horribly wrong with money in football.

Figures in The Times this week show that half of the Premier League’s clubs lose money. Although the revenue of the 92 professional clubs in England and Wales is a hefty £2.7 billion, the total debt as of 2009-10 stood at £3.5bn.

The amount we pay to enjoy football at a stadium or on television, or to support our club through purchasing merchandise, continues to go up, yet the clubs are not making money. The main culprit for this is, predictably, high wages.

Footballers in England take home 68% of the total income of all the football clubs, and their pay continues to inflate even as clubs are losing money.

If football is used as evidence of how good the market is at determining value and generating wider prosperity, then maybe it is time to try more regulation.

The argument over banking bonuses, a bit like footballers’ wages, has got everyone very miffed—but the point has mostly been missed.

Like in football, earnings in banks should not be judged on a moral basis and, I am afraid to say, should not be dictated by the righteous indignation of the many.

There is a better and more important argument to make: high remuneration has proven to be directly harmful to the banks’ shareholders and to the wider economy and requires a new regulatory approach.

In the run up to the crash, riskier loans and investments, with a greater forecast return due to the high interest rates that could be charged, were made often and recklessly in the City.

The more risk that bankers took on, and the greater the forecast returns, the higher their personal remuneration became. This vicious circle of escalating wages, high risk and general dick-measuring over bonus sizes is inseparable from the economic meltdown.

The mechanics may be totally different, but really we could learn a bit by comparing the two murky worlds of football and finance.

A lack of regulation has allowed the high wages of the star players in both sectors to damage both their shareholders and those of us with an indirect stake in maintaining stability.

With regards to banking, if we keep directing our complaints at the wrong targets we are deflecting attention and making real improvements less likely.

—-
A longer version of this blog-post is here.

The Bank of England, I am told, is to pump £50bn into the economy in ‘quantitative easing’.

As far as I can understand – the basic idea is that the Bank of England gives the banks £50bn. This eases their situation, which in turn frees them up to lend the money to businesses.

In their turn, the theory goes, those businesses will invest and employ more people, who will spend more, and the economy gets going.

You will note that ‘the economy gets going’ is at the end of a very long tube of causes and effects.

Most of that money, I am told, the banks decide to keep. They call it ‘deleveraging’ – reducing their commitments against a rainy day. ‘Quantitative easing’ also keeps interest rates low, so they’re quids in!

All the news from industry suggests that little of any money that trickles its way through to businesses is used in investment or employment. They, too, are busy building their balances against a possible rainy day.

And, of course, the fraction that eventually makes its way into our pockets will also be used – if you’ve any sense – for saving … to pay off your debts.

Which is why we’re not seeing much of any ‘the-economy-gets-going’ at the moment.

As a layman, I can’t for the life of me see why, if they want to stimulate spending, common sense wouldn’t suggest that they’d do better to give it to poor people, who have to spend it.

Or at least spend it on infrastructure, which will increase jobs and actually pump money into the economy – those jobs would also reduce expenditure on unemployment benefits, and increase revenue in income tax yield.

Instead, the government are reducing benefits and capital spending as part of their austerity cuts. Stupidly, I would have thought that that would have depressed the economy, but what do I know?

I am reminded how, on Wednesday, at Prime Minister’s Questions, David Cameron explained that the way to increase employment in the private sector is to give small firms more powers to sack people.

Just like the best way to reduce youth unemployment, apparently, is to make older people work much longer before they retire. Thank goodness they don’t give people like you and me – armed only with mere common sense – any say in these things.

—
John Clare blogs here

Recession looms, unemployment touches a 17-year high. But 101 Tory MPs want David Cameron to shackle the UK’s wind industry, which now employs over 10,000 people.

Their call will feed the predominant anti-renewables line in some media. The MPs want cuts in “taxpayer subsidies” for onshore wind and stronger rights for planning objectors.

In January alone, 2,700 wind industry jobs were either created or reinforced with new contracts, including Samsung in Fife teaming up with Huddersfield-based David Brown Gear Systems; Vestas in Sheerness; and wind turbine tower manufacturer Mabey Bridge, Chepstow. What is it about renewables with some MPs and the media?

First to January’s industrial news. According to RenewableUK, Samsung announced a £100 million project at Fife Energy Park to develop a 7 megawatt offshore turbine, employing 500 people.

It’s the company’s first venture of this type in Europe. Huddersfield-based David Brown Gear Systems will design and manufacture the gearboxes, a coup for a British manufacturer. Meanwhile, Vestas submitted a planning application to build a factory at Sheerness in Kent which will create 2,000 jobs when it opens in 2015.

And also in January, in the small wind sector, Leicestershire-based Evance Wind Turbines announced its sales had grown 200% in 12 months, leading to a 25% increase in its workforce and a doubling in the size of its manufacturing facility.

The Tory MPs claim, in their letter to Cameron, of a huge ”taxpayer subsidy” is plain wrong.

It’s a levy on consumer bills, and as a new DECC study shows, renewable energy policies add just 2% (£19) a year to consumer energy bills last year.

Media bias against renewables would be funny if it wasn’t damaging jobs and skills opportunities.

A Pirc study shows that in the Daily Mail 46% of all articles mentioning renewables were negative, while only 15% were positive. Of articles centrally concerned with renewables in the Daily Mail, 75% were negative.

The Sun likewise was broadly more negative than positive in its coverage. But jobs and employment tended to be associated with much more positive coverage, especially in the Daily Mail.

—
Philip Pearson is a Senior Policy Officer at the TUC.

Yesterday, the minister for disabled people, Maria Miller, said there are no shortage of jobs and blamed unemployment on people’s unwillingness to apply for work.

Every month I report on the latest unemployment data, the number of people claiming JSA and the number of vacancies in each Local Authority.

The last set of data showed that there are as many as 20 people chasing the one vacancy in some areas, in Lewisham there are almost thirty five dole claimants chasing each vacancy.

Download full analysis

This is using the claimant count only; the number of people unemployed is significantly higher if we used the ILO definition of unemployment, as many unemployed people are not claiming JSA.

Currently there are 2.68 million people unemployed using this definition, and there are 463,000 vacancies, and around 6 people chasing every vacancy.

If we look at the same areas pre- recession, what do we see? Significantly lower levels of unemployment and higher number of vacancies.

So what has caused the change in numbers? Not unwillingness to apply for jobs but the deepest recession we have had since the 1930′s, which has not just affected unemployment in the UK but globally.

There are one million more unemployed people than there was 4 years ago. It is time for the Government to stop blaming the unemployed for their situation and to start taking responsibility for creating jobs.

—
A longer version is at Touchstone blog.

Almost year ago I wrote here how the huge mismatch in public trust levels meant the Government was always going to struggle to win support for its controversial NHS Bill.

We’ve seen a steady stream of groups representing health professional formally oppose the Bill, with the Royal College of GPs among the most recent and significant.

As Dr Hamish Meldrum of the British Medical Association has argued: “If the Prime Minister wants to put clinicians in control, he should listen to what they are saying – louder each day – and put this increasingly confused legislation out of its misery.”

The NHS Supporters campaign group has this weekend produced a devastating chart summarising which health professionals support or oppose the Government’s Health and Social Care Bill (below).

Many Coalition MPs and Ministers will be wondering how they can save face and pull back at this late stage.

There is one way: publish the Department of Health’s Risk Register. The unpublished advice and projections in the Risk Register are likely to reveal an array of unknowns and significant potential for spiralling costs and deterioration of patient care.

If not, then why is the Health Secretary so keen to avoid the instructions of the Information Commissioner to release it?

The ‘last-minute revelations’ from the Risk Register should enable Coalition MPs to say with a reasonably straight face that they have taken on board the warnings alongside those of the Health Select Committee.

However without the publication of the Risk Register there is no plausible exit strategy for MPs who have ignored pressure to repeatedly vote for such a controversial Bill.

That is why it is so important in the coming weeks health campaigners and parliamentarians focus on this specific measure and provide a way out.

Last week tenacious Labour MP and Health Select Committee Member Grahame Morris launched an Early Day Motion (2659) calling for the publication of the Risk Register.

In just a few days it has gathered 29 signatures with a quarter coming from Lib Dem MPs. Campaigners across the UK should now follow suit and press their MPs to add their name to this crucial EDM and collectively ensure over 100 new signatures within the next 10 days.

Pressure can be increased further if Ed Miliband decides to raise the issue of the Risk Register at the next Prime Minister’s Question Time. This should be followed by Labour using an Opposition Day Debate in Parliament on this and force all MPs to vote either for or against a motion demanding the register’s immediate release.

Contact your MP straight away using these tools from 38 Degrees and in your message urge your MP to sign Grahame Morris’ Early Day Motion 2659 insisting on the release of Lansley’s Risk Register.

For Conservative and Lib Dems MP it could be the least risky thing they do all year.

It has become a media consensus that turning a school into an academy will automatically turn it into a more successful school, improve its results.

But a closer look at the figures, which the mainstream media has conspicuously failed to carry out, shows a very different story.

So let’s have a look at the reality.

The percentage of pupils making expected progress in English, the most important subject on the curriculum, in Community schools, Foundation Schools and oluntary Aided schools all of which are run by their local education authority was 71%, 73% and 79% respectively.

Compare this to academies however and their pitiful score is just 65%. So much for the “dead hand of local authority control” as Michael Gove likes to call it. The deadening hand of direct control by Mr Gove from Whitehall is far worse.

But what about overall GCSE results? Well, 27% of academies saw their results fall last year, some quite dramatically. The normal yardstick is GCSE results grades A-C. One school, St Aldhelm’s Academy achieved a score of just 3%.

The important thing to remember here is that before it converted into an academy its score under this measure was 17%, not fantastic but a whole lot better than it is now.

If we focus the figures to the all important English and Maths scores the dire performance of academies is laid bare; the percentage achieving 5 GCSEs including English and Maths is as follows:

• Academies: 47%?
• Community Schools: 56%?
• Foundation Schools: 61%?
• Voluntary Aided Schools: 67%

The government has said it would force any school to convert into an academy if its GCSE A-C score fell below 35%. However just over a third of academies themselves failed to achieve that level. Does this mean Gove will turn them into…academies again?

The figures would suggest that if Gove were serious about “not tolerating failure” he should in fact convert them back into community schools. Indeed out of the top 150 performing schools in the country, there are only three academies, and those three are selective grammar schools. There are no non-selective academies in the top 150.

Chillingly Gove has said that he wants every school in the country to become an academy.

The online magazine Uni Lad received a lot of attention yesterday after they published an article on seduction that “jokingly” suggested a majority of rapes go unreported made for “pretty good odds” if your date refused you sex.

When challenged on Twitter, they initially asked the person complaining if they were “a dyke”, before taking down the piece from their site and issuing a partial apology. They now have a full apology and took down the site.

Their fans on Facebook repeatedly suggested whoever had called Uni Lad out should be raped and called the editors “fucking PC faggots”.

This aside, the website contained a wealth of misogyny: one piece advised slamming a woman’s head into the wall during sex “to knock some sense into her”, another describes non-consensual sex as “fun for one”.

I’m sure a lot of us have heard worse “jokes” at university, not whispered between close friends but offered to new acquaintances as an acceptable form of male bonding. The language of male banter – “bros before hos”, “fair game”, “wolf pack” – insists that young men can only connect with each other via a predatory attitude to women.

These assumption are expressed in a variety of ways. Moving into graduate accommodation at university a few years ago, I was unpacking when a rep from the student union arrived with my bag of welcome-to-uni goodies.

On seeing me, she apologised that the name on my door had confused her, and hastily swapped the ‘girls’ welcome pack she’d been about to give me for the ‘boys’ version. The difference was not gender-specific pizza vouchers, or an earnest leaflet about non-directive bloke counselling, but a lads’ mag.

To the international students arriving that day, the union was essentially saying “Welcome, this the ethos of our institution. Phwoaarrr, eh?”

This is part of a spectrum of casual misogyny and a troubling tendency at university life to define authentic masculinity as leering, sexist and potentially violent.

No doubt the writers of Uni Lad would claim they were just saying out loud what every man secretly thinks, and frankly too much of what you hear on campus wouldn’t prove them wrong.

That’s why it is important to challenge these attitudes loudly and publicly: that most people don’t think female students are somehow the “prey” of their male peers, and that we don’t accept that “lads will be lads”.

If universities cannot provide a space for people to explore their personalities and their place in the world without being told at every turn that they are either a slut or a date rapist, then we need to make some serious changes.

—
Jem Bloomfield tweets from here and blogs at http://quiteirregular.wordpress.com/

In 2008 we were plunged into the worst recession in living memory, the direct result of a financial crisis caused by the reckless gambling of an irresponsible cartel of banks who thought they were too clever to fail.

Despite receiving the biggest taxpayer-funded bailout in history, nothing much has changed: banks continue to pour money into socially useless lending and risky speculation.

Move Your Money is a campaign that launched today to encourage individuals to transfer their money from HSBC, Barclays, RBS, Santander and Lloyds to ethical, local and mutual alternatives such as credit unions, ethical banks and building societies.

The UK campaign follows the hugely successful American campaign, which has seen over 4 million accounts moved since 2010 – in a single day over 40,000 people moved their accounts.

We hope to raise awareness about more ethical and socially useful financial providers and encourage people to make informed decisions regarding the kinds of financial institutions they want to support.

This is not about asking the banks nicely to change, or waiting for politicians to act. By moving our money to more ethical and socially useful financial providers we can strengthen the sector, widen the debate about financial reform and build on the kind of system we want to see.

Change happens when we act together – 12,000 students leaving Barclays led to them pulling out of apartheid South Africa. March 2012 is ‘Move Your Money Month’ where we will act together for better British banking.

This is fundamentally a campaign to support and grow the ethical alternatives within the banking sector, so rather than being absolutist, every pound counts: anything you can move across makes a difference whether it’s your whole current account, a section of your savings or your pension fund.

While our money sits in these banks, we’re providing a cheap source of credit and tacit assent to continue destructive behaviour.

So learn more about the choice you have and pledge to Move Your Money.

MYM campaign video

A key political battleground now exists around the issue of creating a fairer system of capitalism. Ed Miliband initiated this agenda and now both David Cameron and Nick Clegg have said they want a move away from ‘crony capitalism’ to ‘responsible capitalism’.

However, at the first opportunity – on boardroom pay – the Government failed to take the required action (introduce worker representation at board level). What we need some strong ideas to make capitalism fairer – and here are five that can achieve this:

1) Equality in educational opportunity
Capitalists often pride themselves on their belief in ‘equality of opportunity’. Yet from almost birth, many children are at a huge advantage – through education at private schools. To put this into perspective, 32% of teenagers at private schools gained three A/A*s at A Level last year, compared to just 8% in the public sector.

There should be an immediate end to the current system of tax breaks worth £88m per year and tax-deductible donations to independent schools.

Further down the line, a review should be held looking into the viability of preventing schools from charging fees and selecting pupils. Instead, a lottery style application process for places could be considered as an alternative approach.

2) Fairness over worker pay
Workers currently face a squeeze on their incomes; whilst those at the top have seen their salaries rise at a much quicker rate. The Spirit Level, by Wilkinson and Pickett, showed that countries with the most unequal pay ratios – are also the ones with the most societal problems, such as poorer health and lower educational attainment.

To change this, consideration should be given to the idea of having an earnings structure in companies which ensures the lowest paid earn as a minimum a certain percentage of the highest – perhaps 10 per cent. So theoretically, if the highest earner took home £200,000 per year, the lowest paid would have to receive a minimum of £20,000.

3) Taxation on wealth
The hoarding of private property is perhaps the most historic example of ‘crony capitalism’. It is reported that just 0.6 per cent of the population own 50 per cent of all rural land. Indeed, a core of just 1,200 ‘aristocrats’ own 20 million acres of the land in Britain (out of a total of just 60 million).

In order to change this, the Mansion Tax should be immediately implemented, whilst a Royal Commission should be introduced to consider the viability of a land-value-tax. Andy Burnham spoke frequently of the latter during his Labour leadership campaign and the tax has already existed in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Estonia and Russia.

4) An end to monopolies
The existence of monopolies is an example of market failure, and indeed, is economically inefficient and socially undesirable. Capitalists should be in favour of strong competition policy to correct the imperfections of the market; unless of course they support the crude dog-eat-dog, free-for-all of an unregulated system.

The maximum fine for being guilty of illegal anti-competitive acts should be increased to subsume a substantial percentage of the worldwide revenues of offending firms. Freedom of Information rules should also be extended to private organisations that provide public services, to ensure that their practices uphold the same high standards expected of the public sector.

5) Greater employee ownership
Co-operatives and mutuals have a social conscience, their workers are usually happier, productivity is often better than in private companies and there is greater equality in the proceeds of success. John Lewis is a prime example of this and indeed the Government has indicated that a Co-operatives Bill will be introduced in the next Queens Speech.

However, it is vital that co-operatives increase as a percentage of the private sector, rather than being used by the Government, as some suspect, as a mechanism for yet more privatisation of public services. In addition to tax breaks for new co-operatives, consideration should be given to the idea of making large companies reserve a percentage of their shares for the average worker.

Just tinkering around the edges won’t alter our existing system that maintains the status quo in which the wealthy few hold all the aces. Instead we need radical change that will put power and control in the hands of working people, resulting in capitalism for the many.

Alex Salmond’s announcement of a referendum on Scottish independence has set plenty of political hares running – not least in the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

The SNP’s opposition to the location of British nuclear weapons in Scotland is well-known, and it mirrors majority Scottish public opinion pretty accurately. MoD thoughts are now turning to the knotty problem: if Trident is kicked out of Scotland where will it go?

A new report released today spells out the options, as they have been considered over the decades. Frankly, the alternatives posed range from the alarming to the downright bizarre. And the potential costs involved would only add to the snowballing expense of Trident.

So where can we put those nukes? How about Portland, Falmouth, Devonport or Milford Haven? All have been considered in the past, such as when the location of Trident’s predecessor, Polaris, was being considered.

But the MoD itself found them all unacceptable for various reasons. Yet having rejected them in the past, with the prospect of no more Scottish base, these archives are being dusted off and pored over.

The bad news for the MoD is that the problems with these locations haven’t gone away – they have proliferated.

Portland is set to be the sailing venue for the 2012 Olympics. Relocating to Falmouth would mean evacuating two villages and destroying National Trust land. There would be similar consequences at Devonport plus closure of the Thanckes oil depot.

Devonport currently services Trident submarines, but it is inconceivable that the Office for Nuclear Regulation would permit a new nuclear missile depot next to Plymouth – a city with a population of a quarter of a million. Going to Milford Haven would mean five petrochemical facilities being closed down with huge job losses – even if it was politically acceptable in Wales.

The bizarre end of the spectrum includes relocating the fleet to the US. In what sense would we then actually have our ‘own’ nukes? And if that’s not weird enough, we could consider moving in with France’s nuclear submarines in Brittany.

This location crisis should just be the nail in the coffin for Trident. It has already been declared ‘useless’ by senior military figures, and the government’s own National Security Strategy has downgraded the risk of state-on-state nuclear attack to a Tier Two threat.

Does spending £100 billion on nuclear weapons, when vital services are being slashed, seem a sensible idea? Particularly when that bill will exponentially increase when relocation is added? The logical conclusion is plain to see: just scrap it.

—-
Kate Hudson is General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)

Drugs policy is back in the headlines once again, and, this time, those of us who favour drug policy reform were in for some light relief.

Early last week, tycoon Richard Branson appeared in front of the Home Affairs Select Committee’s new inquiry into drugs policy to denounce the war on drugs as having ‘totally failed’ and called for a major re-think of policy.

You can get involved in this issue too.

Branson is one of a number of high-profile public figures who shared a platform with the likes of Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General, to produce the Global Commission on Drug Policy Report, published in June last year.

Put simply, drug prohibition exacerbates and creates the very problems it tries to solve. The market for drugs is so huge, and the human desire to become intoxicated so powerful, that prohibition is nothing short of unenforceable: officially, some 35% of the British population have taken illicit substances .

Another frustration is that every drugs policy debate sets off from the simplistic, conservative drugs-are-bad, just-say-no, approach.

But people ought to be free to do whatever harm to themselves they wish, provided they do not harm others, and provided their decision is fully and correctly informed. It is a scandal that someone can be legally incarcerated for occasionally wanting to get intoxicated.

Another serious problem is the staggering degree of media and government misinformation on drugs.

The Commission’s report produces a graph which compares the actual degree of harms – as reported in The Lancet – with the level of seriousness with which they are treated within the drug control regime: the sheer disparity between the two has to be seen to be believed.

Ecstasy – a Class A drug which regularly features in newspaper scare-stories – appears second to the bottom of the table, as one of the most harmless drugs of all.

Those of us who support reform therefore have a responsibility to make it more politically desirable for politicians to pursue what many of them know is the correct course of action.

The committee are still collecting written evidence for their inquiry, and have done a call out for submissions from members of the public.

You have until the 7th February to make your submission.

Defining what we consider ‘comedy’ is impossible in terms of jokes; everyone has a different set of standards to how amused or offended they are by something. Almost every joke made is at the expense of offending somebody somewhere. Some jokes are just engrained in our culture to the point that many of us laugh without really examining what it is that makes the joke funny.

Many argue that you can’t pick and choose where to draw the lines and that anything is up for grabs when it comes to comedy.

I consider myself firmly in the ‘against’ camp when it comes to jokes alluding to rape or sexual violence, not because I’m easily offended, and not because I’ve necessarily been affected first-hand by either, but because I genuinely don’t see how such a topic can be funny.

Did it ever occur to you that if the statistics of those committing rape are so high, it’s very likely someone in your circle of friends has or will commit such an act? The open letter ‘To all the men who don’t think rape jokes are a problem‘, was a real eye-opener for me, because I’d never even considered it from that point of view.

I’d like to think that none of my friends would ever do something like that, but reality is harsh. I’d also like it to be the case that none of my friends had been the victims of rape or sexual violence, but again, reality is harsh.

Comedian Sarah Silverman is arguably best known for her rape jokes. In a New York Times article proposing to be about the ‘breaking of taboo’, Jason Zinoman said “if you had to pinpoint one joke as a breakthrough for this new generation of female comedians, it might be this one: ‘I was raped by a doctor, which is so bittersweet for a Jewish girl.’

When I saw Sarah Silverman deliver that signature one-liner in a downtown theater almost a decade ago, the audience exploded with laughter followed by groans. Then came the anxious chuckles whose subtext seemed to be: ‘I can’t believe I laughed at that joke.’ On a separate occasion, Silverman delivered a joke that directly drew attention to the fact that the majority of sexual assault victims never report it, “Who’s going to complain about rape jokes? Rape victims? They barely even report rape.”

It may well be the case that certain rape jokes can provoke people to become more conscious, more aware, perhaps even make it easier for victims to come forward and there’s a chance it could even lead to better discussions on how society deals with sexual violence. It might even be possible that using humour in this way, by way of a rape joke, can be a useful way of getting that statistic through to people, as The Funny Feminist has considered, “That’s a rape joke I can get behind, because she’s not making fun of the victims, but in fact pointing out one of the most fucked-up things about our culture: that rape victims often don’t report rape.”

Certainly, it could be argued that there is a difference between jokes that make fun of rape victims or the act of sexual assault and those that make fun of rapists, rape culture, or acknowledge the low percentage of rapes reported.

As far as social media is concerned, we must consider at what point we consider something posted on Facebook or Twitter as being possibly harmful to victims. There are many other cases – racial hatred, homophobic content and threatening behaviours – that are not tolerated and, depending on just how ‘important’ you might be deemed, are punishable in different ways.

Of course it’s difficult to justify censoring anything, because by its very nature censorship is the removal of true freedom of expression.

But if the sensibility and empathetic natures needed of society are somewhat lacking, how else can we challenge those that either seek to harm, or inadvertently do so? I’ll keep standing up to people and keep saying it until I’m blue in the face: ‘It’s NOT OKAY’.

–
This is an edited down version of a longer post here.

I’ve noticed some curiously suggestive language being used by Cameron and his crew: that people who are paid benefits “earn” that money. That people who are paid benefits ought to start “paying back society”. That those who pay tax ought to be riled at others being paid benefits.

How dare they take money they are entitled to? Never, more than of late, have I felt so sidelined, so belittled, so very offended by that notion that I should feel guilt at my situation.

My problems are endometriosis and depression. The only job I have had is a paper-round, delivering a weekday local newspaper and collecting the money at the end of the week.

Crucial to my mentioning this oft-lonely job of mine is that I could not even do that as I should have been able. Periods. Always the periods. Then, as now, they rendered me unable to walk, instead causing me to rely on my Mum to help me get to the toilet, to bring me my tablets, to get me up the stairs to bed, to sit up to eat.

She stays with me to hold me while the pain rips me apart, burning me inside with unforgiving and inexorable cruelty. On the average worst 2 days of a period, I’ll take about 45 tablets in all. Certainly at least 20 a day, and that only includes the painkillers.

It doesn’t help the whole big awkwardness that my periods are irregular. So, your guess is as good as mine regarding when they will start. Today, for instance, is 3 weeks since the last one started, and I was on the kitchen floor with period pain. I am wiped out for the best part of a week.

I wake in the mornings feeling sick, and almost always with a headache. I find it hard to concentrate and remember what I have to do around the house, so must write down my goals for the day. I need to sit down, I need to “rest” between things. I may have a burst of that energy stuff and decide I can manage the trays, the washing, and the kitchen sink and make a cup of tea for Ma and me. Then I’ll sit.

I don’t claim incapacity benefit; I’m not eligible.
I don’t claim housing benefit; I’m not eligible.
I don’t claim Disability Living Allowance; I’m not eligible.
I don’t claim tax credits; I’m not eligible.

I know people who have worse times than I, people who have to live a life knowing they won’t get better, people who can not walk, people who can not find anything to help the, feel even slightly improved. I’d never suggest that my endometriosis is the worst in the world, or the worst amongst my friends.

For me, though, working outside of my home is not an option. I worked so hard at college, through periods of hell, depression blackening my soul for days and weeks and month. Anxiety caused me to shake and retch at the thought of getting to and staying at a place which contained so many things I utterly adore – Art materials, books, people. Hormones. Real, genuine, actual problems because of hormones.

I want to use my talents as an Artist to earn my OWN money. I don’t want people to pay for me, look after me, and be my chaperone. But it is that way and it won’t change. It’s not negativity; it’s realism. I want to sell my work – my drawings, take commissions, and paint garden birds in watercolours. I want to use MY money to buy my own sanitary towels, my own socks, and my own hair grips to replace the others that bent too much to use any more.

Even if I did manage to create some work to sell, it would take a while to do. I’d need to pay for prints of my Hendrix picture, and they’re not altogether cheap to have done. But they do look fabulous.

I don’t want luxuries, I’m not greedy, I don’t want innumerable possessions, I don’t want holidays abroad every 6 months; I just want a better life than the one I have. That’s not bad, that’s not shameful, and it’s not snobbery.

I will not risk my health to be what this unkind government wants me to be. Money does not stop pain hurting.

“Surviving”, as Cameron indelicately puts it, and getting by might be good enough for his way of thinking for others, but it doesn’t wash with me. People deserve better. I’ve survived enough with endometriosis and depression and I will not fall in to the trap of believing my life is my fault.

—
A longer version of this was posted on Lucy’s blog

The Global Warming Policy Foundation is facing a Freedom of Information request this Friday to reveal its sources of funding, reported to be £500,000 a year. The GWPF declined to open its books to the Request Initiative, which is leading the FOI appeal.

In November, GWPF founder and chair, Lord Lawson, accused the Environment Secretary of failing “to provide any empirical evidence” for man’s influence on global warming, which Chris Huhne had said was getting stronger every year.

The GWPF has routinely challenged the climate science community for a lack of evidence, openness and accountability. What’s sauce for the goose…

Knowing better than the work of the thousands of eminent scientific studies contributing to the work of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, in December 2011 the GWPF published The BBC and Climate Change: A Triple Betrayal. The BBC had

“failed in its professional duty to report accurately and objectively on the issue of climate change …BBC journalists went out of their way to publicise almost every alarmist claim the promoters of the scare could come up with, even after these had been shown to be without scientific foundation.”

Lord Jay, in an introduction to the report, commented: What really needs changing is the size of the BBC.

Characteristic of the GWPF’s reportage is its coverage of a new Pew Centre study of American opinion. The recession and job insecurity are inevitably uppermost in the minds of many Americans. This is reflected in Pew’s annual poll, confirming that jobs and the economy are the main public concerns. But the GWPF, through its climate sceptic lens, finds that “global warming is last in importance with the public in 20 topics covered.” Yet the same survey shows 43% of respondents were concerned about the environment, an increase on a year ago.

There is no doubting the dip in public concern in the UK over climate change. Yet in a recent Yougov survey, 60% of respondents believe Britain “should tackle climate change” – whether unilaterally or making action conditional on the actions of others.

Just under one third are not persuaded of the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Among opinion-formers, perhaps reflecting the GWPF’s core constituency, some 14% of Conservative supporters, 54% of Labour and 41% of Liberal Democrats view climate change as a high priority.–

—
cross-posted from TouchStone blog

The Law Centre is surging with people. More and more have eviction notices, court dates and tight benefit appeal deadlines. Volunteers and staff perch in every office, trying to advise the poor and the upset.

Years ago Patrick, a sad old man drinking and lost from his family was evicted from social housing for being an annoying drunk. We argued that he was vulnerable because he had a tendency to self harm.
The Authority deemed the risk low. We explained to him why this was the end of the line.

Patrick perfectly understood the legal niceties of risk assessments, and on the day of his eviction arrived at our office blind drunk and cut his wrists in the bathroom. An ambulance came and he survived. He also bled all over the donated children’s toys which forced us to throw them all away.

We have a policy that prohibits abuse of staff, racist ranting and threatening behaviour. Yet vulnerable people with severe mental health problems increasingly come to our door.

Eventually another client begins to scream. It might be something that the Council or their landlord is doing to them. It might be blame and recrimination towards our advisers who have not warded their misfortunes with legal argument sufficiently. In the end it makes little difference.

Working in this environment takes its toll. All that stress, all that shouting, the adrenaline becomes poisonous after a while. Experienced lawyers, trained to work with the worst of the worst, can’t keep on working in these conditions.

In a sense I agree with Kenneth Clarke and Jonathan Djanogli, sponsors of the Legal Aid Bill that will strip most funding from social welfare Legal Aid. If the public services worked properly, and they should, I would happily hang up my shingle, because there would be no need for a lawyer.

No need for a lawyer then? Yet cases for the Social Worker and the Therapist keep on arriving at our door. When we are gone, where will these people, these human beings, be sent to next?

—
Help save Legal Aid – support the Justice For All campaign

A proposed benefit cap will lift claimants out of dependency and into a fruitless search for jobs that don’t exist, says Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith

With unemployment at its highest level since 1994, Mr Duncan Smith has hit back at suggestions that one of the key ingredients of employment is jobs.

“As the system stands there is little incentive for people on benefits to break the cycle of dependency,” he explained.

“If we can reduce the amount of money we spend on the welfare system then this in turn will lessen the need for us to reduce unemployment.”

“When people say to us that unemployment has gone up, we can say ‘yes, but it’s costing us less’”

“The number one priority when employment is high shouldn’t be job creation, it should be about reducing the cost to the taxpayer.”

With the unemployed wallowing in opulence and the disabled and sick clearly faking it, polls suggest that the benefit cap is popular amongst the public, with some believing it should be reduced further.

“It’s all very well saying that putting a benefit cap in place will push thousands of families into poverty, but it all boils down to what people want to pay for, ” said one disgruntled taxpayer.

“There are badgers terrorising our countryside, we have a head of state that doesn’t even have a yacht, we have schools that have copies of the King James Bible that don’t even feature a foreward by Michael Gove!”

“This is the sort of hardship we need to be prioritising.”

—
This is a satirical article. Spacey writes more regularly for the spoof news site Newsthump.

‘Politics and religion should not mix’. This is the mantra that is lazily wheeled out by self congratulating lefties as they marvel in their own enlightened wisdom.

I come across social progressives who openly shun the role of faith based organisations (FBOs) as either an evangelical force that should be scorned, or, at best, a tool by which individuals can act out their selfish desire to please God.

This lingering stereotype of FBOs not only alienates billions around the world but also pragmatically restricts social movement’s ability to bring about the change they are so desperate to see.

Many, at this stage might assume that I am one of those rather smug Christian types who go around asking people to accept Jesus’ warm love into their hearts – I am not. I am however, excited about the truly radical potential of Christianity to bring about social change.

All around the world, we can see different denominations working progressively on a range of issues. Just think of The Salvation Army offering support to the homeless, the Quakers campaigning for peace or the Catholic Church fighting global poverty.

At this point, the sceptics out there will point to Christianity being used to discriminate against entire communities (LGBT for example) or the Catholic Church and their opposition to contraception. Religion, in the mind of many is the bringer of war, the perpetuator of hatred and an opium for the ill informed masses.

My response to this would be to point to the fallibility of all human organisations, including organized religion. There is nothing inherent within any faith to suggest that it will always work for a positive social agenda, neither is there to suggest it will always cause harm.

If we on the left are too smug to engage, we will leave ‘doing God’ to those who want to justify oil wars, invasions or subordinating an entire gender.

It has taken me a while to get to a position in my life where I can work comfortably with people of faith. When working for Amnesty International, I saw the myriad of backgrounds and experiences that had drawn people to become human rights activists. It is clear to me now that somebody’s faith is just one of those reasons. Why are many on the left happy to work with those of faith but not FBOs?

I am excited to be putting this theory into practice. In February I will be heading out to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel which is coordinated through the World Council of Churches. This is an organisation bringing different denominations, faiths and backgrounds together to work progressively for a non-violent solution to the conflict. It is an exciting example of a FBOs working inclusively with Israelis, Palestinians and the International Community on human rights issues.

We on the left need to incorporate faith based groups into all of our work. They unlock the door to millions in the UK and billions around the world. We need to show we are truly inclusive by illustrating that faith can be used positively.

If we fail to do this, we run the risk of George Bush and the like becoming the public face of Christianity. There are inspiring people out there from Archbishop Desmond Tutu through to the Archbishop Dr John Sentamu who are working on causes I would be proud to support.

Some on the secular left need get over these out-dated stereotypes of FBOs and embrace their progressive potential.

I was thinking the other day about the Labour Party and its recent history and I realised something that had not really occurred to me before.

Despite having held power for almost half of the last 50 years, there are only two Labour PMs from that period who have actually won an election. They are Harold Wilson and Tony Blair.

I think perhaps this sometimes gets a bit lost in the detail of the 7 election wins and 24 years of power they yielded.

Jim Callaghan and Gordon Brown were also PM during this period but they never won any elections. It is actually quite rare for Labour to have leaders that actually win power following an election. In that period there has been Wilson, Callaghan, Foot, Kinnock, Smith, Blair and Brown.

Seven leaders and only two of them managed it. Wilson was the first leader to really get the importance of TV and its effect on the electorate. He managed to win 4 of the 5 elections that he contested between 1964 and 1974 (inclusive).

Blair of course was indisputedly the most charismatic politician of his political generation and used this as leverage to help his party win 3 elections.

Callaghan had some avuncular qualities but made a number of mistakes and was rolled over by the Thatcher juggernaut. Foot was an intellectual powerhouse but was unable to connect with the electorate. Kinnock never connected either, perhaps because of his tendency to make long winded speeches that struggled to get to the point. Smith never had a shot as he died in 1994 and Gordon Brown was a charisma disaster area.

This suggests that far from the pendulum swinging back and forth between the two main parties with any sort of regularity (the Buggins Turn rule) there is a lot of resistance by the electorate to elect a Labour leader as PM unless they are particularly charismatic.

But Conservatives don’t appear to obey this rule as much. Heath was terrible at connecting and yet won in 1970 and Thatcher was reguarly derided in the 1970s for lacking what was needed in this area. John Major was not exactly blessed with a great ability to connect either and yet he won in 1992 with the highest number of votes in UK electoral history (although he was up against Kinnock of course).

The barrier does appear to be set a fair bit higher for Labour. Which brings me to Ed Miliband. Looking at him purely in historical terms, his characteristics are probably closer to Foot and Kinnock than they are Wilson or Blair. He is a policy wonk who like some of his predecessors who failed to win elections is struggling to be heard.

His speech at the Labour conference last year was widely derided but it contained some interesting ideas that chime with the times we are in. But of course hardly anyone remembers that now amid all the talk of his fragile hold on the leadership and attacks from the left and right of his party on a seemingly daily basis.

There is also some talk about Yvette Cooper as a replacement. There is no doubt she is capable and we shouldn’t underestimate how the electorate may react positively to Labour’s first female leader*. But Cooper is also a policy wonk by background.

She has an unfortunate tendency to speak in the way that lots of New Labour rising stars of the noughties cannot seem to help, reeling off statistics and repeating the same points over and over again in the same interview. I think with her the party could end up with pretty much more of the problem that they have with Ed.

Which makes me wonder if it might be time for them to skip a generation. There is somebody who was only elected in 2010 but who has already reached the Shadow Cabinet. He definitely has the charm and charisma that Wilson and Blair had and is already being tipped for the top, albeit usually mentioned as the “next leader but one”. He is also highly intelligent and has a way of talking that really does seem to connect with the public. I am talking of course about Chuka Umunna.

His youth (he is 33) and lack of experience may count against him but David Cameron had only been in parliament for 4 years when he became leader of his party. And Nick Clegg had only been an MP for less than 3 years when he became leader of his. The trend for younger and only recently elected leaders is well established.

So the question is whether Labour is willing to take a chance on an untested youngster who seems to have the characteristics required to win elections. History would seem to suggest that it will take someone like him for the party to regain power in 2015.

—
*I am aware that Margaret Beckett was also leader briefly in 1994 but I am talking about leaders who were elected by the party.

Mark Thompson blogs at Mark Reckons

Mitt Romney is so close to the nomination he can taste it. Barring something genuinely strange, South Carolina is his and he’ll effectively have won the nomination.

Like the dog chasing the bus, he will have to figure out what to do with it once he’s caught it. A big part of that will be deciding on his running mate. His choice of VP is important for two reasons. The first is that it will reflect the broader strategy Romney employs in his effort to defeat Barack Obama.

The second is that it gives his choice an immediate advantage in 2016 in the event the 2012 ticket does not unseat the President.

His focus will be on picking a running mate who can help him win (and, at least in theory, also help him govern).

On the list (or should be):

Marco Rubio – U.S. Senator, Florida. Conventional wisdom has him as the top pick
Upside: His youth and ethnic heritage (Rubio is Cuban-American) are appealing counterparts to Romney’s much-parodied middle-aged blandness. The Tea Party likes him in a way they don’t much like Romney, and, most importantly, Rubio is well-liked in Florida, a state without which Romney will find it extremely difficult to win.

Downside: Contrary to what might be expected, Rubio appears a wash with Hispanic voters outside of Florida, about as many of whom say his appearance on the ticket will make them less likely to vote Republican as say it will make them more likely. This rather undercuts his utility, but he’s still the favourite.

Chris Christie – Governor, New Jersey.
Upside: Christie is the Republican Governor of a generally Democratic state; if Romney wants to appeal to moderate voters, he could find a worse ambassador than Christie, who does a good line in pragmatic conservatism. Could bog the Obama campaign down in New Jersey, a cruel political trick if ever there was one.

Downside: Christie had a severe bout of bad polling last summer, and although he has recovered somewhat, he seems to be one of those odd politicians that people seem to like less the more they see of him; he’d have to be a late announcement. He particularly seems to turn off women, which very likely rules him out.

Nikki Haley – Governor, South Carolina.
Upside: Energetic and personally appealing, Haley could help the Romney campaign shore up independent female voters. She can also galvanize the GOP Christian-right base around the country.

Downside: Like Christie, the more people see of her, the less they like her; her approval ratings in South Carolina are terrible, and still sinking. That’s not immediately relevant electorally (the Republican candidate will certainly win South Carolina), but it does raise a red flag.

Bob McDonnell: Governor, Virginia.
Upside: Hugely popular in a state Obama won in 2008, McDonnell would raise a great deal of money and galvanize the base.

Downside: Although it will be a fight, Obama is unlikely to win Virginia in 2012 anyway. It’s not clear how much McDonnell could open the race beyond white men
and the GOP base.

Rob Portman – U.S. Senator, Ohio.
Upside: Again, VP candidates are rarely selected because they come from a battleground state, but Romney might wish to rethink this. Portman handily won election to the Senate in 2010, beating his appointment by more than 20%; he could cause no end of trouble in the industrial states generally called the Rust Belt.

Downside: If Romney wants to widen the campaign beyond white, generally male voters in industrial states, Portman is not the pick to do it. He’s also a bit of a DC- insider, never a popular thing.

Paul Ryan: U.S. Congressman, Wisconsin.
Upside: Young and articulate, Ryan is the GOP’s intellectual chief and enforcer. He is particularly voluble and animated in criticism of the President’s health care reform, which might appeal to Romney given his own vulnerability on the subject from his days as Governor of Massachusetts. If Romney decides to take a hard run at the President on health care reform, Ryan is his guy.

Downside: Ryan is highly critical of any government involvement in health care, including Medicare. This is the third rail of American politics, and Ryan, at present, lives on it. On that basis, he’s a liability everywhere, including Wisconsin. He’ll get a look, but unless something changes, he’s an unlikely choice.

John Thune: U.S. Senator, South Dakota.
Upside: Considered a real political talent, Thune would be a good choice if Romney decides that the libertarian form of conservatism found in the Great Plains and the West will be a significant part of his campaign narrative.

Downside: It’s not clear how many states, if any, Thune would shift for Romney. He’d have particular appeal in Western states like Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico, as well as states with outdoor (particularly hunting) traditions like Michigan and Ohio, but it’s hard to predict how strongly voters will react to him given his limited exposure thus far.

—
Frank Spring is a director of Zentrum Consulting, a management and political consulting firm.

Ed Balls thought he was being ballsy when he spoke of his proposed public sector pay freeze at the Fabian conference on Saturday. And he was.

There’s no point in promising something we can’t deliver, he thought and – with no alternative clearly worked out – the most sensible option is to stay put, hold on tight to the status quo.

But not quite. The Tories are going too hard, too fast, he keeps saying. So he thinks the cuts should take place at a slower rate (this is right) and should be better thought out (right too).

The trouble is this is only half of a plan. What’s starkly obvious is what’s missing. What is Labour’s alternative? Balls came out with his announcement as if it’s the boldest thing he’s said in months. See this Newsnight clip.

It’s only common sense, nothing more, and only a short term solution. It’s not good enough. It’s not the answer the nation wants and needs.

His error was two-fold. First, in his communication – telling the world as if he came up with something original and as if it’s the solution. Second, for not being more imaginative. People want a long term solution. We need to be radical.

And what of the unions? They have reacted angrily to his proposal and are threatening to withdraw their support – these are the unions who got Ed Miliband elected.

The unions are right to protest. They represent the workers who are severely badly hit in this recession and especially as a result of public sector cuts and bad management of them.

But they are right for another reason they may not even be aware of. This reason is innovation. A pay freeze may protect job numbers, but it angers and disincentivises the work force. The result? A stagnant, unproductive public sector.

What is much better, much braver and much more radical is to cut or reorganise the areas that are inefficient and provide an alternative. The Coalition has attempted the first half of this, but not the second. Their attempts at restoring the economy have failed, their cuts are reckless and they certainly don’t care about equality.

Innovation is the magic word.
People need hope – we have lost that. We must grow and develop – innovation will do this.

To transform the country and win back support, Labour needs to:
1. redistribute wealth, radically
2. stimulate growth in all sectors
3. reorganise and improve efficiency of state

How do we do this?
1. Take money off very wealthy and redistribute. Under this government, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Increase inheritance tax for amounts over a certain threshold, tax wealthy corporations more, enforce pay transparency and stricter regulation of wealthy landlords.

2. Provide opportunities, encourage innovation and growth. Identify young leaders in all sectors, give them start-up grants from the state, support and guidance to develop businesses and charities in their communities. Encourage young people to be entrepreneurs. Set up apprenticeships, and ensure there are pathways into jobs at the end of them. Capitalise on the innovative nature of the voluntary sector.

Provide universal childcare with money raised from increased taxes (see 1) and enforce a culture of flexible working.

3. Reorganise the public sector and resources. Good example is health and social care. Health reforms are needed, but not so that profit takes precedence over patient benefit (the risk and reality of the Coalition’s reforms).

Overhaul social care system. Tackle housing issue: many people are without homes, many others are crowded into homes that are too small. At the same time, private properties sit empty. Tax landlords more (see 1) and use money to build more Council homes and increase efficiency and fairness of the system.

—
Laura Nelson, aka ‘Delilah’, is a writer, blogger and a campaigner for equality, and has a background in neuroscience. She blogs here and tweets from here.

Ed Miliband continues to have trouble getting his message across, and he knows it. In the wake of a poor conference speech and a 2011 beset with difficulties he attempted to stop the rot by appointing a new chief-of-staff and speechwriter.

However, on the evidence of last week’s speech on the economy, things are going from bad to worse. It was billed as the relaunch speech that wasn’t a relaunch, which is just as well as it appears to have sunk without trace.

My fellow speechwriter, and friend, Max Atkinson questioned whether it was even accurate to describe Miliband’s address as a speech at all. Commenting on Twitter, Max wrote, “speeches like @Ed_Miliband’s today aren’t so much political speeches as lectures”. He went on to tweet, “speeches to non-partisan audiences (e.g. Miliband now) generate no applause and come across as very, very dull…”

Max’s observations get to the heart of the matter: speeches and lectures are very different creatures, and a speech that lectures its audience is invariably a bad speech.

The problem is, that like many leaders on the left, Miliband’s speeches are infected by what I call the Enlightenment fallacy: a blind faith in the power of reason – and evidence – to affect people’s beliefs.

Miliband would do well to read Drew Westen’s insightful book on of the role of emotion in politics, ‘The Political Brain’.

Westen makes the counterintuitive point that, in the first of the presidential debates with George W. Bush, Al Gore shot himself in the foot by using (accurate) facts and figures in an effort to undermine his opponent’s credibility. Bush’s riposte was simple and devastating, “Look, this is a man who has great numbers. He talks about numbers. I’m beginning to think not only did he invent the Internet, but he invented the calculator. It’s fuzzy math.”

Even now, if you view the debate from an Enlightenment perspective, Bush comes over as an affable, if somewhat dim, Average Joe, who is way out of his depth when it comes a grasp of the facts and figures of policy. So why is it that, despite Gore giving Bush a beating on all the rational arguments, this debate marked the beginning of a decisive shift of public opinion in favour of Bush?

The answer is that Bush’s persona helped him win the emotional argument. Despite being a scion of one of the US’s most privileged families, Bush succeeded in playing the role of an ordinary guy who understands, and sympathises with, the trials and tribulations of other ordinary guys who struggle each day to do the best for themselves and their families.

By comparison, Gore came over as a remote, privileged, East Coast intellectual who was more concerned with numbers than people. Bush was a regular guy you’d be happy to have a beer with; Gore, on the other hand, appeared to be part human, part calculator. Miliband’s advisers would do well to recall this debate next time they’re tempted to post a story about Ed being able to solve a Rubik’s Cube in one minute 20 seconds.

Yesterday in an online Q&A with the Guardian, Conservative MP Maria Miller insisted: “I want to reassure disabled people that if you need support you will continue to get it under PIP [Personal Independence Payments]“.

I can categorically state that isn’t true. Under the new rules for PIP, if a disabled person cannot walk more than 50 metres but doesn’t need a wheelchair then they will no longer be entitled to higher rate mobility. This, in short, means no access to a car through the motability scheme.

I currently qualify for higher rate mobility under DLA but I won’t under PIP.

Think through the callousness of what that means to disabled claimants like me. It effectively means that independence would be taken away, that we would return to a time where disabled people are confined to their own homes because they are unable to walk far, a disability the Government would recognise but refuse to provide help for.

And it isn’t just the mobility aspect of PIP that is a concern. The new eligibility rules for the care component of PIP are also complex, which makes it very hard for disabled charities to work out in advance how the people they support will be affected.

To qualify for either mobility or care PIP you need to collect enough points from various aspects of your health that will be assessed. So for example if you are bowel incontinent but mobile you won’t receive any help with that condition unless you also have problems preparing food, communicating or getting dressed. This is despite the fact that adult incontinence pads are expensive and DLA was originally intended to help with the extra costs associated with being disabled.

Looking at the government’s eligibility criteria, I would guess the budget will be cut by far more than the 20% the government announced, as people who are seriously disabled don’t fit their perception of what is ‘disabled’.

The result will be even greater pressure on the NHS and social services as peoples’ health deteriorates more quickly and they take up precious bed space as they no longer get the support they need to cope with their illness at home.

Ministers need to understand how these changes will drastically reduce rather than promote independence of the disabled people it is targeted at.

—
Sharon Brennan is a writer and journalist in London and living with Cystic Fibrosis. She tweets from here and blogs at NHS Buff

Perhaps the lack of concrete policies at this stage is not such a problem for the Labour Party.

Policies are often designed to be no more than quick hits or media sound bites, often trying to be a magic bullet for a multi-faceted problem.

But this approach only panders to the current media culture rather than delivering change. The electorate says they want a change in politics so let’s grant them their wish.

If we are to ensure that we improve people’s lives by giving them consistency, sustainability and empowerment then we should shift our focus onto institution building.

The most stable and secure institutions are those which are rooted firmly within the community they are part of. They are managed by local people and are held dear by the local residents who use its service. It ceases to be viewed as a government initiative and becomes part of civic society.

Take Sure Start Children’s Centres. Whilst the original scheme was launched by a Labour Government in 1998, they had become cherished by the local community and had become part of civic society.

Furthermore, whilst there have been substantial cuts to this scheme by the current government the large swelling of support for these centres is not based on a partisan point but rather a community one.

But there is even more Labour could emphasise; institutions need to be a conduit for users to be empowered to make change. Devolving budgets and responsibilities to locally managed institutions will enable the local community to create a bespoke service.

From this point, an initial Westminster-based policy is irrelevant when local people can make local change to an indispensible service.

A change in politics requires a shift in attitude. Why are we involved in politics? Surely it is to ensure that people’s lives are improved for the better by ensuring our party political principles are sustained.

Labour should absolutely focus on how it would build the institutions which would maintain and deliver the principles it holds dear.

It may not be glamorous politics but the only way worthwhile policies can survive is to root them into a legitimate, community-cherished institutions.

—
Joe Sarling is an economist and blogs at Comment Today and tweets from here.

Last year we had the Winter version of the silly season with a torrent of newspaper articles making it clear it that Ed Miliband’s time is up.

Predictably they were joined by some of the usual suspects in our own Party who don’t want to accept that it is time to move on from New Labour after it lost 5m votes by 2010, with 4m lost under Blair.

But the Tory boost came around the time of Cameron’s meaningless veto on a European treaty and was mainly due to a decline in the support for “others” (including UKIP). Already, as Europe moves back down people’s list of priorities, Labour’s lead seems to be opening up again.

Yet – certain things said over the past weeks can’t be unchallenged. For one, Ed Miliband has been electorally successful for Labour. Under his leadership Labour has taken some big steps forward from the nadir experienced in last 5 years of New Labour. A significant chunk of the lost support has been regained.

In 2011 the average support Labour received in Yougov’s daily opinion poll was 42%. Contrasting this with previous elections and polling is illustrative.

In general elections, Labour achieved a disastrous 29% share of the vote in 2010 and in 2005 Labour got just 35%. Against this Ed’s average of 42% is clearly a big step forward. It even compares favourably with early New Labour general election results of 40.7% in 2001. Even in 1997 it was 43% – only just higher than Ed Milibands average.

Labour’s European election performances under New Labour were even worse. In 2009 Labour got 16%; in 2005 it got 22.6%. Again against this 42% is a serious improvement.

Obviously this is comparing polls with real life elections and there are severe limitations in doing this. But restating these abysmal election results does serve to highlight just how much support Labour had lost and the low point that Ed Miliband is trying to lead the party from.

Comparing real election results is obviously a better comparison. Yet a similar picture emerges when you contrast the only national election Ed Miliband has overseen against similar previous elections.

The 37% received in May 2011 local elections was the highest level achieved by Labour in any local council elections since 1996 (when a general election is not held on the same day (which boosts Labour’s vote).

This 37% was a huge improvement on the 22% Labour received in 2009, the previous set of local elections where no general election was held. It was significantly higher than Labour’s local council elections results since 2000 where it has received in order: 30% (2000), 33% (2002), 30% (2003), 26% (2004), 26% (2006), 26% (2007), and 24% (2008).

There are only three occasions when any single Yougov poll placed Labour higher than Ed Milibands 2011 average of 42%. One was in April 2002 under Tony Blair (when it scored 44%) and the other two under Gordon Brown in September 2007 (43% and 44%).

Of course Yougov wasn’t polling in the mid 1990s when Labour was flying high in the polls. But again that just serves to underline how much support Labour lost in subsequent years and the very damage that Ed Miliband is trying to repair.

None of this is to say Labour doesn’t need to continue increasing its support over the coming year. But the above figures show that steps forward have been made in repairing the damage caused by New Labour. This evidence seems to be being deliberately underplayed to suit more right-wing political agendas.

The pursuit of a more equal society has long been one of the fundamental principles of social democracy. For 40 years from the mid-1930s – the period of the ‘great leveling`- the wealth and income gap narrowed sharply in the UK and across the rich world.

This long-term trend came to a halt at the height of the global crisis of the mid-1970s and then went into reverse, driven by a new economic philosophy, one that argued that egalitarianism had gone too far.

But between 1980 and 2007, average real wages in the UK rose by only a little over half the rate of growth. So have the architects of market capitalism been proved right?

History shows a clear link from inequality to instability. The main outcome of the post-1980 experiment has been an economy that is both much more polarised and much more fragile and prone to crisis, and the two most damaging recessions of the last century – the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Great Crash of 2008 – were both preceded by sharp rises in inequality.

So what are the mechanisms through which excessive concentrations of income trigger economic malfunction?

The first stems from changes in the relationship between wages and productivity, a key link in the way economies function. If they get out of line in either direction, they create imbalances that lead to economic failure.

The significance of a growing ‘wage-productivity gap’ is that it upsets the natural mechanisms necessary to achieve economic balance. This is because de-linking earnings and output sucks demand out of the economy and imposes deflation. In most rich economies, wage-enabled consumption accounts for around two-thirds of economic demand. Consumer societies suddenly find they lack the capacity to consume.

The second mechanism occurs because concentrating the proceeds of growth in the hands of a small global financial elite eventually leads to asset bubbles. From the early 1990s, rising corporate surpluses, uncontrolled bank lending and burgeoning personal wealth led to a giant mountain of global footloose capital. By 2008, the assets – loans, credit advances and derivatives – held by the ten largest UK banks had grown to nearly five times the size of the UK economy.

Only a tiny proportion of this sum ended up in productive investment. Far from creating new wealth, a tsunami of hot money raced around the world at speed in search of faster and faster returns, creating the bubbles – in property, commodities and business – that eventually brought the British and global economies to their knees.

The third factor at work has been an increasing divorce between the process of enrichment and economic dynamism. It became easier to make big money through business strategies that were essentially unproductive. This enriched a generation of financiers but only by the expansion of activity which stifled the ‘real economy’.

The central lesson of the last thirty years is that a widening income gap and a more productive economy do not go hand in hand.

What has been built is an increasingly wealth-diverting model of capitalism – Ed Miliband’s ‘predatory capitalism`. The great experiment in unequal market capitalism has failed on its own terms.

The lesson – for the right as well as the left – is that capitalism that shares its output proportionately between profits and wages, and fairly amongst all citizens, is not just likely to be politically more stable, it will also deliver a more productive economy, faster growth and less turbulence.

A generation ago, the baton of economic philosophy was passed from the social democrats to the market theorists, with disastrous consequences. It is now time it was passed back.

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Stewart Lansley is the author of The Cost of Inequality: Three Decades of the Super-Rich and the Economy. A longer version appears in the winter 2011/12 Fabian Review.