Tag Archives: capitalist

Don’t be fooled by Starmer’s conference speech. Labour is now right-wing and deeply racist

This is just one of the many problems with Keir Starmer’s Labour. Read on for more.

People are raving about Keir Starmer’s keynote speech at the Labour Party conference. Why?

Have a gander at the highlights:

He made a lot of promises. But he breaks his promises, left, right and centre.

And his promises weren’t even that good. A new company called Great British Energy, that would be publicly-owned?

That’s not nationalisation. That’s capitalism.

Meanwhile, part three of Al Jazeera’s investigation into Labour Party corruption, The Labour Files, has been released on YouTube. Then it was set to ‘private’, presumably due to fears that Starmer and his cronies would take out a lawsuit of some kind. Then copies of it appeared elsewhere, like this one. It says it’s unavailable but if you click “Watch on Facebook” you should be able to see it:

Here’s the direct link, too: https://www.facebook.com/Labourheartlands/videos/792236845345375/?extid=CL-UNK-UNK-UNK-AN_GK0T-GK1C&ref=sharing

The promotional blurb states: “Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit reveals how a British political party that claims to embrace progressive values created a hierarchy of racism that discriminated against its Black, Asian and Muslim members.”

The documentary has created a groundswell of anger against the party:

Here’s an example of what the documentary showed:

Labour has responded – but it seems that response is being held in doubt:

And still there is no interest from the mainstream media – particularly the BBC, whose Panorama strand ran a hugely controversial documentary about Labour and anti-Semitism in 2019. You may recall This Site’s series of articles debunking what it said (links here).

It seems there may be an agenda involved:

Meanwhile, at the Labour conference, a ‘reference back’ referring to a vote at last year’s event, calling for the party to support action to end Israel’s continuing illegal actions against Palestinians, was lost under highly dubious circumstances:

And, of course, the purge of Jewish socialists who say “Not in my name” to all these machinations continues:

The current case-in-point remains that of Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, newly-elected as the only Jewish member of the party’s National Executive Committee, whose party membership was suspended in suspicious circumstances on the eve of the party conference.

Now Labour has gone further:

So I’m sorry if you heard Starmer’s speech and thought Labour was coming back into the light; it isn’t.

Under Keir Starmer, that party has become a dangerous tool for racists and allies of a hostile foreign power.

It is not fit for government, and never will be while Starmer and his cronies – or their successors – are in control.

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Here’s why we don’t have an entirely neoliberal government even though it’s run by neoliberal people

Here’s an interesting debate thrown up by the controversy over pay rises for HMRC and the NHS:

You’ll be aware that the discussion is about the perceived unfairness of HMRC employees receiving a 13 per cent pay increase while NHS workers get just one per cent.

Over in the comment column of the Vox Political Facebook page, a reader suggested, “Surely at a time of wage reduction, more jobless, food banks, child poverty, a pandemic and low inflation we should not be talking about wage rises. There will we hope be a time and place for that in the future.”

I replied: “When we have a good socialist government in Westminster? I’m glad you agree that it won’t happen until then.” He hadn’t made any such suggestion but I was trying to prompt debate.

He then responded with a link to an Independent article from 2017 in which columnist Ben Chu suggested that it is wrong to attach labels like “capitalist” or “socialist” to our political parties because their policies today cannot possibly correspond to what those words originally meant. “That is if we understand what socialism really is,” he stated.

Interesting point!

Let’s see if you agree with my response:

This article from 2017 is an incredible piece of work. About the only part with which I could agree was the claim that it is wrong to say a Tory government is entirely capitalist or a Labour government entirely socialist.

The Tories are capitalists, though (or more accurately, neoliberals). And Jeremy Corbyn was a socialist, although many of his MPs weren’t.

The government is a mixture of the two because change doesn’t happen overnight. Labour governments of a socialist persuasion have implemented socialist policies and Conservative governments since 1970 have done their best to dismantle them while remaining on the good side of public opinion.

That’s why we have the social democracy that we have; the policies implemented by previous governments that are not repealed by their successors remain in effect, no matter whether those successor administrations approve of them or not.

The amount of socialism exhibited by any government may be gauged by the amount of benefit to the people. So, for example, Norway provides a huge amount of benefit to its people and may be considered to be at the better end of the scale. The United States provides much less and may be considered to be at the worser end. The UK would be closer to the United States.

We won’t see an end to wage reduction, more jobless, food banks, and child poverty while we have a Conservative government because those are all results of capitalist (in reality, neoliberal) Conservative policies. They can only come to an end when a socialist government ends them.

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Schools are now for indoctrination, not education, as teaching of non-capitalist ideology is forbidden

Education secretary Gavin Williamson: he’s too stupid to realise the best way to get people interested in something is by banning it.

Boris Johnson’s government has lurched further towards fascism with an edict banning any anti-capitalist ideology from schools.

Any ideology other than capitalism is to be considered an “extreme political stance” from now on, according to guidance issued by the Department for Education and its secretary of state, Gavin Williamson.

Resources from organisations that have expressed a desire to end capitalism are henceforth to be considered equal to opposition to freedom of speech, anti-Semitism and endorsement of illegal activity.

As former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said, the measures effectively outlawed reference in schools to key events in British history, and symbolised growing authoritarianism within the governing Conservative party.

McDonnell said: “On this basis it will be illegal to refer to large tracts of British history and politics including the history of British socialism, the Labour Party and trade unionism, all of which have at different times advocated the abolition of capitalism.

“This is another step in the culture war and this drift towards extreme Conservative authoritarianism is gaining pace and should worry anyone who believes that democracy requires freedom of speech and an educated populace.”

Totalitarianism is nearer the mark.

Economist and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said the guidance showed “how easy it is to lose a country, to slip surreptitiously into totalitarianism”.

He added: “Imagine an educational system that banned schools from enlisting into their curricula teaching resources dedicated to the writings of British writers like William Morris, Iris Murdoch, Thomas Paine even. Well, you don’t have to. Boris Johnson’s government has just instructed schools to do exactly that.”

Of course Mr Varoufakis will be among the first to be banned:

Critics of the new policy have come out in force.

Emyr Lewis added a few names to the list of banned authors: “We’ll have no more of your William Blake, your Shelley, your George Bernard Shaw, your D. H. Lawrence…”

And here’s mention of one highly notable person that the Tories ought to ban, if they’re serious:

This, from Jessica Simor QC, makes the point that the Tory government itself has broken its new guidance on multiple occasions:

How about this:

This makes the point in coarser terms:

Opinions of the Johnson government have been… frank:

Rohit K Dasgupta put it mildly, commenting on Tory racism: “Teachers: Rosie has 10 apples and gives Rashid 4. How many apples does Rosie have now? DfE: Stop that at once. This is straight up communism. Rashid has to prove he is a legal immigrant and can buy those apples.”

Then there’s this:

But there is an optimistic side to this. Here‘s Martin O’Neill:

“Schools in England told not to use anti-capitalist material in teaching”. – My optimistic prediction is that this will backfire spectacularly. This government are creating a generation that will forever despise them and everything they represent.

And it is creating a generation that will want to know why alternatives to capitalism are being banned from schools.

This Writer certainly intends to put as much information about those alternatives into the public sphere as possible.

I’m happy to take suggestions too.

Source: Schools in England told not to use anti-capitalist material in teaching | Education | The Guardian

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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How do we wrestle fairness from a rigged economic system?

The problem in a nutshell - and this cartoon was drawn in 1972! [Image: Alan Hardman]

The problem in a nutshell – and this cartoon was drawn in 1972! [Image: Alan Hardman]

It’s terrific when an article makes you think.

Why Capitalism needs unemployment, by Cheltenham & Gloucester Against Cuts, tells us that unemployment is used as a weapon against the workers – with the threat of it used to force pay cuts on employees, while we are told to fear inflation if unemployment falls.

So fatcat company bosses win either way, it seems.

The article commented on Margaret Thatcher’s ideological mentor, Milton Friedman, who “understood that low levels of unemployment give confidence to workers, who can fight for better pay and conditions. When they’re successful, the profit margins of capitalists are reduced, causing them to put their prices up in response“.

We know this happens; we have seen it many times. Some may argue that it is different from cases in which shortages of particular commodities push up their prices and the prices of products that are made from them – but, with fuel prices as the only notable exception, have you ever seen prices drop after these shortages end?

The system is rigged to ensure that working people stay poor, either through pay cuts during high unemployment or inflation in low unemployment; meanwhile the employers and shareholders ensure that they stay rich, by sharing out extra profits gained by keeping pay low or by putting up prices.

What do they do with this money?

The answer, it seems, is nothing. They bank it in offshore tax havens and leave it there. This is why, we are told, Britain’s richest citizens have more than £20 trillion banked offshore at the moment.

That’s more than £20,000,000,000,000! Enough to pay off this country’s national debt 18,000 times over and still have plenty to spare. Enough to solve the problems of the world, forever. It is, in fact, more money than we can comfortably imagine.

It is doing nothing.

Faced with this knowledge, there can only be one logical question: Why?

Why rig the system so that ever-larger sums of money pour into these offshore accounts, if nothing is to be done with it? Where is the sense in that?

The only logical answer appears to relate to its effect on workers: Keeping the profits of their work away from the workforce means they are kept in misery and servitude to the ruling classes – the parasitical board members and shareholders.

There are knock-on effects. Taxpayers are hit twice – not only are they forced to grapple with ever-more-hostile pay offers, but their taxes pay for in-work benefits that subsidise corporate-imposed pay levels; they support people who have been forced into unemployment unnecessarily and the silly make-work schemes that are forced on those people by the Department for Work and Pensions, under threat of sanction.

It’s a protection racket. There should be a law against it. And this begs the next question: Why isn’t there a law against it? How can this corrupt system be dismantled and what should replace it?

That’s a very good question, because the other cosh being held over our collective heads is the possibility that firms will move abroad if new laws in this country threaten their massive profits. This is where an international agreement between nations or groups of nations would be very useful, if it was carried out in the right way – a Transatlantic, or Trans-pacific, Trade and Investment Partnership, perhaps.

And what do we see? Plans for such agreements have been put together and they do the exact opposite of what they should – tying the workers into ever-worsening conditions. This is why the TTIP, currently being pushed on the European Union, must be rejected – and why bosses will do anything to ensure it succeeds.

This is the situation. It seems clear that nothing will change it for the better until somebody has the courage to stand up to these manipulators (who were probably schoolyard bullies back in the day) and say enough is enough; change is coming – do what you will.

Tax evasion and avoidance is already a huge issue here in the UK; perhaps we need to make a criminal offence of manipulating the economy – with prison sentences for bosses who put their prices up purely to retain high profit margins when their salaries are already dozens of times higher than those of their workers.

But what else is needed? How can such a mechanism be brought in without scaring off business? Or should we let them go, and put something fairer in their place? Ban them from trading in the UK unless they conform to the new model?

These are ideas that need exploration – by many people, not just a few.

What do you think should happen?

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

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