'This is the message of this programme. It is a call above all to the
whole Labour Movement to recall its glorious traditions of struggle for
the immediate interests of the working people, and to safeguard their
future interests in a Socialist Britain. But it is no less a call to the
great majority of the British people to join with the Communist Party
and the whole Labour Movement in the struggle to win a new future for
Britain in the socialist world which history is now shaping.'
Those were the utterances of Harry Pollitt in 1951, when the country was then, as now we suspect, facing a General Election and I was about to start delivering the
Daily Worker. Allowing for the time lapse, the utterances of Chris Williamson last night were only slightly different in tone from those of Harry Pollitt almost almost 60 years ago. His rhetoric was all too easy, suggesting we can do it; a sovereign Labour Government after Brexit could print the money and build a better Britain afresh, no trouble there he claimed.
Working people could take over failing companies to save them from the asset strippers, and establish cooperatives to manage business. Denis Healey, when he was Chancellor, was wrong in the past to go to the IMF for money and fall into the hands of the Wall Street bankers.
'He should have listened to Tony Benn', who knew what was what!*
This is all post-facto
'What if?' stuff, if you like: But, what if the James Callaghan government had accepted Tony Benn's
'Alternative plan B' in the 1970s would it have resulted in avoiding Thatcher, Hayek's
'The Road to Serfdom revisted', Milton Freedman economics, and the consequent problems of what came to be called neo-liberalism as Chris Williamson claimed in his theatrical performance last night? **
Tony Benn admitted his own plan would result in a
'siege economy', but he claimed the
difference is that in the monetarist course
'you will have the bankers
with you and the British people, the trade unions, outside the citadel
storming you; with mine it will be the other way round'.[3] ***
All this was referred to in the speech of Chris Williamson last night at Woolworth's Social Club in Castleton, Rochdale, but it was not easy to discern among the gabbling annunciations from the megaphone beneath his mouth. Les May has criticised this presentation in the post below entitled
'Our Answer to "No Platforming".'
Despite our concerns about his performance and some the things he has to say, we are anxious to continue to hear him speak. Unlike some senior people in the Labour Party!
*****************
* Healey became
Chancellor of the Exchequer in March 1974 after Labour returned to power as a minority government. His tenure is sometimes divided into
Healey Mark I and
Healey Mark II.
[21] The divide is marked by his decision, taken with Prime Minister
James Callaghan, to seek an
International Monetary Fund
(IMF) loan and submit the British economy to IMF supervision. The loan
was negotiated and agreed in November and December 1976, and announced
in Parliament on 15 December 1976.
[22][23] Within some parts of the Labour Party the transition from Healey Mark I (which had seen a proposal for a
wealth tax)
to Healey Mark II (associated with government-specified wage control)
was regarded as a betrayal. Healey's policy of increasing benefits for
the poor meant those earning over £4,000 per year would be taxed more
heavily. His first budget saw increases in food subsidies, pensions and
other benefits.
[24]
** The
Alternative Economic Strategy (
AES) is the name of an economic programme proposed by
Tony Benn, a dissident member of the
British Labour Party, during the 1970s and 1980s.
The
Secretary of State for Industry in the Labour government,
Tony Benn,
wrote a paper for his Department in January 1975, which he described in
his diary:
"It described Strategy A which is the Government of national
unity, the Tory strategy of a pay policy, higher taxes all round and
deflation, with Britain staying in the Common Market.
Then Strategy B which is the real Labour policy of saving jobs, a
vigorous micro-investment programme, import control, control of the
banks and insurance companies, control of export, of capital, higher
taxation of the rich, and Britain leaving the Common Market".[1]
*** With Britain in
economic crisis in October 1976, Benn put forward the AES in Cabinet with the partial support of
Peter Shore.
[2] He claimed the two courses open to the government were the
monetarist,
deflationary course recommended by the
Treasury and
"the protectionist
course which is the one I have consistently recommended for two and a
half years...protectionism is a perfectly respectable course of action.
It is compatible with our strategy. You withdraw behind walls and
reconstruct and re-emerge".[3]
Benn further said that both courses were a
"siege economy" but the
difference is that in the monetarist course "you will have the bankers
with you and the British people, the trade unions, outside the citadel
storming you; with mine it will be the other way round".
[3]
However the Cabinet rejected the AES (along with two other proposals)
on 1/2 December and accepted the terms for a loan from the
International Monetary Fund on 12 December.
[4]
*****************************
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