Category: Blog

In 2011, thousands of our bravest men and women will continue to serve far from home in Afghanistan with the highest commitment and dedication. My thoughts are with them and their families at this New Year.

Here at home, 2011 will be a year of consequences for Britain. Consequences that will be felt by hardworking families across the country. Consequences of the decision taken to reduce the deficit at what I believe to be an irresponsible pace and scale.

Many people feel powerless in the face of these decisions that will affect their lives, families and communities. The political forces in Whitehall which have made these choices appear forbidding and unheeding.
It is the message I get talking to young people about the loss of their educational maintenance allowances and trebling of tuition fees, people in different areas worried about their services and those wondering where the new jobs to replace those lost are going to come from.

In 2011, many people will wonder what they can do. Some will ask whether there really is an alternative to this scale of cuts. Still more will shrug their shoulders at casually broken promises and conclude politicians are indeed all the same.

Labour’s challenge and duty in 2011 is to be people’s voice in tough times and show that these are changes born of political choice by those in power not necessity.

And we will take the next steps on the journey to win people’s trust that we offer a better, more optimistic future for Britain.

To do that will require learning from what we did right and wrong in government, strong opposition where it is required and laying the foundations for an alternative path for Britain.

I began my leadership by admitting that in government, we had lost touch and lost trust and that we needed to change to be the party that Britain needs. I saw it on the doorstep at the 2010 General Election and I know it can’t be put right automatically.

It is why our journey to construct a better future for Britain must start from people’s lives and their hopes and dreams. And we must change our party so that it becomes a genuine community force in every part of the country.

People also need our voice now.

So in 2011, we will be arguing for a proper economic strategy rather than an economic policy reduced only to deficit reduction. We would have made cuts but the scale, pace and targeting of these changes is not just wrong, it holds us back from answering the bigger economic challenges we face: about where the jobs of the future are going to come from and how can we create an economy which works for all.

We will stand up for young people because the promise of progress should be that the next generation does better than the last. That is not what young people feel is being delivered when they face the burden of tens of thousands of pounds of student debt, or are told there will be no more help to stay on at school or college or to find a job.

And we will expose the promise of new politics when it is simply about the breaking of promises in 2011 that were made in 2010.

And as we begin a New Year, I call on all people of other parties and none who share our values and worry about the direction of the country under this government to work with us.

I said in my Labour Party Conference speech that I have never believed that all wisdom resides in one political party. That is why I want to reach out to all other forces of progress in Britain.

To those who feel that politics as it is being practised is high-handed, remote and arbitrary, I also urge them to campaign and work with us. Decisions over school sport and in recent days, bookstart, were reversed because of the power of people arguing and winning their case.

It shows that political change comes because people make it happen.

2011 will be a year where we work to change Labour and seek to rebuild trust in us and in politics as a force for good.

Even in these tough times, we must keep the flame of optimism burning.

I sincerely believe that we can build a better future for Britain. That means closing the gap between people’s aspirations and their chances of fulfilling them, being a society where we look after each other and meeting the promise that the next generation does better than the last.

That is our mission as a party which we will pursue next year and in the years ahead.

Ed Milliband

Shouldering the load

I was encouraged by the warning in The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Christmas message. Dr Williams cautioned of:

” the lasting sense that the most prosperous have yet to shoulder their load”

The alarm bells should be ringing across the political spectrum because Dr Williams is right. The Tories historically seen as the party of the rich should find as the sense of injustice grows, that support ebbs away from those squeezed between the loss of services and increased cost of living. The Lib Democrats look washed out and finished. Labour as the party of working people should be in a good position to benefit from the disaffection but needs to show courage and clarity of purpose.

Tony Blair was besotted with the super-rich and Gordon Brown’s actions suggest he at best shared Peter Mandelson’s relaxed approach. How Blair and Brown ever allowed these billionaires their obscene cushioning against taxation and responsibilities to continue under New Labour remains a running sore. But Labour needs to take heed of Dr Williams’s call for the burden to be shared if it’s to begin the journey back to Government.

Both Blair and Brown were enamoured with the United States where there’s a tradition of the wealthiest contributing voluntarily to the arts and foundations; Bill Gates has given away over £38bn. We simply haven’t seen anything like the scale of this philanthropy in the UK for years and we should not expect to. Britain is a country where inherited wealth is considered top of the heap, and the one thing these families have learnt is not to give it away; or pay their taxes.

If the prosperous are to shoulder their load, we are going to have to go after them. The tax loopholes have to be tightened and Labour needs to regain a steely determination to do so. I sincerely hope that Ed Milliband can rediscover the bravery that enabled him to throw his hat into the leadership ring in the first place.

The prize for boldness is huge. As Professor Philo in his Guardian article points out;

The total personal wealth in the UK is £9,000bn, a sum that dwarfs the national debt. It is mostly concentrated at the top, so the richest 10% own £4,000bn, with an average per household of £4m. The bottom half of our society own just 9%. The wealthiest hold the bulk of their money in property or pensions, and some in financial assets and objects such antiques and paintings.

A one-off tax of just 20% on the wealth of this group would pay the national debt and dramatically reduce the deficit, since interest payments on the debt are a large part of government spending. So that is what should be done. This tax of 20%, graduated so the very richest paid the most, would raise £800bn.

It shouldn’t surprise us that Britain’s wealthiest actually got richer during the global crash. Essentially if the bank lends to people without means of repayment to buy at inflated prices, the money doesn’t just disappear, the seller of the inflated leasehold still received the inflated payment. The banks didn’t lose as they were baled out by us. They were baled out by ordinary folk who pay taxes. And we know that the wealthy don’t pay taxes, but do benefit from bale outs.

I’m old fashioned. And yes I’m encouraged that the Archbishop of Canterbury is recognising the lasting sense that the most prosperous have yet to shoulder their load. But we need to get angry.

Mike Cordingley

The Manchester Evening News were last night carrying a story that Trafford Council’s handling of the planning applications for the Tesco/LCCC project and the White City supermarket determined by the same planning committee are to be challenged in the High Court.

Trafford really have made a dog’s breakfast over this whole episode. We’ve seen the related plans for the Academy thrown out and it really feels as though the Tory Council lacks the ability to deliver large projects. There’s a telling comparison between Labour’s celebrated development of Sale Waterside and the continuously stalled progress of Urmston town centre under the Tories. We know the Tories couldn’t give tuppence for Stretford Town Centre, but even when they find something they want to get behind in the north of the borough, in this case the Cricket Club, they’ve turned the delivery into such a shambles.

The case against a super-sized Tesco at that location was so compelling, it doesn’t surprise me that Derwent Holdings are challenging the rejection of their proposal.

And it’s not only Tory ineptitude that’s hurting the Cricket Ground Development

On the same day as the news of the High Court Challenge, we’ve had the disappointing news that the North West Development Agency is cutting its contribution from £7.2m to £5.2m due to the Conservative Government’s cuts. Thankfully, the cricket ground believes it can cope with this reduction.

Pointedly we’ve been arguing that the £21m that Trafford is contributing to the Cricket Ground is too much for Trafford residents to bear and we should negotiate down that figure. Trafford’s Tories rejected this as it would jeopardise Test Cricket. Funny that when the North West Development Agency makes the cut, LCCC can still cope.

Letter on Google Docs

Why cuts are the wrong cure from False Economy on Vimeo.