Salvaging something in the Wreckage. by Les May

THERE’s an understatement!

Last Thursday was not a good day for Labour. I’ve heard three explanations so far; Mandleson ‘It was a hangover of Jeremy Corbyn’, Starmer ‘We lost the trust of working people’, my wife ‘Labour should have focussed on Tory stinginess towards the NHS workers’.

I have a different view. My guess is that what scuppered Labour under Starmer is what scuppered Labour under Corbyn. It’s called Brexit. The people who wanted it in 2019 still want it in 2021. They associate the Tories with Brexit, Labour with being at best lukewarm about it and at worst against it. Whether its downside will have become apparent by 2024 or 2029 is unknown. Perhaps the older Brexiteers will have fallen off their perch or the young ones begun to wonder what all the fuss was about. For the moment Labour is stuck with Starmer and we are all stuck with Boris.

So what can be salvaged. Starmer is probably feeling safe for the moment because the rest of the front bench is so unprepossessing. It’s just possible that Starmer will come to realise that eventually he has to reconnect with those supporters who gave the Labour party a distinct ‘buzz’ under Corbyn and are now leaving or just drifting away from it, though I doubt it. Many of these will be the people who went out ‘on the knocker’ at election time to drum up support from Labour. They won’t be doing that in 2024.

And what about chancer in chief Boris? As we are stuck with the Tories for at least three more years what can we make of this? Curiously enough the results may have an upside. Remember all those particularly nasty sounding Tories who had such a lot to say during the Brexit debate? Remember how Boris had to find a new Chancellor who was more amenable to spending money to fund furlough during the pandemic? Waiting in the wings are a lot of ‘small state’, low public spending zealots. For the moment at least they are unlikely to be able to eject Boris.

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Blackmailers Always Want More by Les May

AFTER Jeremy Corbyn was suspended from the Labour party the Guardian newspaper opened its comment column to Margaret Hodge. Her article is high on opinions, hers, resorts to generalisations, ‘the hard left’, complains about online conspiracy theories, which originate abroad and have nothing whatsoever to do with the Labour party, and dismisses as ‘fantastical’ the notion that she and her acolytes sought to ‘weaponise anti-semitism’, a view that is shared by many Labour supporting people I know.

Here’s an example.

In the article she claimed; ‘Only last week, the trade union leader Len McCluskey repeated a common antisemitic trope on television when attacking Peter Mandelson.’ But a more detailed account in the Jewish News, an online publication of the Times of Israel, which I quote verbatim, suggests a very different interpretation.

The Unite union’s general secretary, a leading ally of Jeremy Corbyn, made his comments on BBC Newsnight after reporter Lewis Goodall told him that former cabinet minister Lord Mandelson had been 'nothing but full of praise for Keir Starmer' in an interview.

Len McCluskey responded: 'I stopped listening to what Peter Mandelson said many, many years ago. I would suggest Peter just goes into a room and counts his gold. Not worrying about what’s happening in the Labour Party – leave that to those of us who are interested in ordinary working class people.'

Mr Goodall had said earlier in his report that 'When Mr McCluskey sat down with me, he used language that could be considered an antisemitic trope.'

After the Newsnight report looking into Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership and the future of the Labour party was aired, a clarification of Len McCluskey’s comments was read out.

The statement by Unite the union said:

'Mr Mandelson’s religion was not relevant to the comments made by Mr McCluskey. Indeed to the best of our knowledge Mr Mandelson is not Jewish.

'The ordinary meaning of the statement made by Mr McCluskey is one of his belief that in recent years Mr Mandelson has had more interest in increasing his own wealth than fighting for justice for working class people. The suggestion of any antisemitic meaning to the commentary would be ludicrous.'

Lord Mandelson is not religiously observant but his grandfather founded the Harrow United Synagogue.’

At this point you might ask yourself if you knew that Mandelson had Jewish ancestry and whether knowing it now makes any difference to your opinion of him. As for ‘counting his gold’; in August 2011 the media showed considerable interest in how he could afford an £8 million pound house and in January 2009 the Evening Standard published the results of its detailed investigation into how he could afford to buy his £2.5 million pound Regency Villa.

Hodge shows far more interest in the Jewish ancestry of herself and others than I can muster. And, as in this case, she’s always ready to ‘play the race card’ when it suits her, though she is hardly the first politician to do this.

In July 2018 she called Corbyn a ‘fucking racist and antisemite’ in the chamber of the House of Commons. Her response to hints that she might face being reported to the Whips, and face a disciplinary inquiry was to give an interview to Sky News and say: 'On the day that I heard that they were going to discipline me and possibly suspend me, it felt almost like, I kept thinking what did it feel like to be a Jew in Germany in the Thirties?' For ITV News this was: 'Because it felt almost as if they were coming for me. It’s rather difficult to define, but there’s that fear… '

This must surely be one of the most preposterous exaggerations that any politician has ever uttered. To try to draw a comparison with what happened to many Jewish people and many others in Nazi Germany in the 1930s beggars belief. And then she has the gall to use the word ‘fanatastical’ about other people!

Hodge’s response to the Unite statement was to say: ‘Regardless, he doesn’t get to obfuscate and dictate to us what is and is not anti-Semitic when called out. The ignorance with which these tropes are used by McCluskey and others shows just how pervasive and unchallenged antisemitism is on the Hard Left.’

Aside from the fact that comments in a similar vein about Mandelson are unlikely to be confined to what she calls the Hard Left, it seems clear that the intention of Hodge and those who think like her is to insist that they, and they alone, have the right to decide what is, and what is not, anti-semitic.

We have already seen this used to attack Livingstone, Corbyn and McCluskey, allowing her view to prevail would have implications, not just for the Labour party, but for the whole of civil society. In February of this year Lisa Nandy said that if she became leader she would try to go further than accepting the IHRA definition of anti-Jewish hatred. This is some of what the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) has to say about that definition.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is increasingly being adopted or considered by western governments, is worded in such a way as to be easily adopted or considered by western governments to intentionally equate legitimate criticisms of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism, as a means to suppress the former. This conflation undermines both the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality and the global struggle against antisemitism. It also serves to shield Israel from being held accountable to universal standards of human rights and international law.

In September 2018 Hodge excused her calling Corbyn a ‘fucking racist and antisemite’ on the grounds that she had just learned that Labour’s NEC had declined to adopt the IHRA definition.

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Re-writing Clause 4 for Labour Party

by Les May

WHEN I was a member of the Labour party my membership card carried the then Clause 4 (part 4) which was just 56 words long. Had I pondered it closely I would have noticed two things.  It confuses 'ends' and 'means', and its not clear what the term 'common ownership' actually means. 

This had not gone unnoticed by Anthony Crosland and Hugh Gaitskell. Crosland developed his ideas in his 1956 book 'The Future of Socialism' in which he pointed out that Labour's 'ends' could be achieved without 'common ownership' a.k.a. 'nationalisation'. Gaitskell's desire to change Clause 4 in 1959 may well have been motivated more by a realisation that it was unlikely every to be implemented in full and he thought that Labour should say so. Certainly it was not an issue in the 1959 election which Labour had just lost. Nor does it appear to have been one of the reasons Labour lost the elections of 1970 and 1979.  

Whether Labour's victory in 1997 with Blair as leader can be attributed to the newly written Clause 4 which dropped mention of 'common ownership' is doubtful. A study published in The Independent in 1994 made no mention of nationalisation being a reason for Labour unexpectedly losing the 1992 election.

In 1993 Blair had authored a Fabian Society pamphlet which put forward a case for defining socialism in terms of a set of values which were constant, while the policies needed to achieve them would have to change to account for changing society. 
Superficially it looks as if Blair was simply following on from Crosland and Gaitskell. But there is one subtle difference. 

Both Crosland and Gaitskell had a strong belief in the importance of equality. Crosland in particular developed the idea that 'equality' as not just about income and wealth. It included a more equal distribution of power, of equality of treatment by public bodies and institutions, and a more equal education system, though with its line about 'equitable distribution' Clause 4 was itself not clear on this. For both Crosland and Gaitskell 'equality' meant 'Equality of Outcome'.  
That's not what the New Labour version of Clause 4 said. It referred only to the fact that a just society promotes 'Equality of Opportunity'. That's no longer a policy exclusive to New Labour, the Tories say it too and the Lib-Dems used to say it until Clegg began to use the phrase 'social mobility' as something of a synonym.   
In 1996, Yvette Cooper wrote an article for 'The Independent on Sunday' which set out what 'equality' meant to New Labour and it is still worth reading as a summary of the New Labour project. In 2015 we are now able to see what twenty years of 'Equality of Opportunity' has got us apart from Blair and Mandelson taking the opportunity to make fortunes.  
Not everyone thinks that outcomes don't matter.  The Equality Trust has compiled figures showing the scale of inequality.  People in the bottom 10% of the population have on average a net income of £8,468.  The top 10% have net incomes almost ten times that (£79,042).  In this context 'net' means after direct taxes have been deducted and before benefits have been added. Inequality is much higher amongst original income than net income with the poorest 10% having on average an original income of £3,738 whilst the top 10% have an original income of £102,366 on average, which demonstrates the impact of redistribution on equality.  Wealth (property, shares, land etc) is even more unequally divided than income. The richest 10% of households hold 44% of all wealth.  The poorest 50%, by contrast, own just 9.5%. 
Income and wealth are quantifiable but twenty years on we find that there has been a qualitative change too. Whilst in 1996 Labour still defined itself as a 'left-of-centre' party it now sees itself as being in a fight for the 'centre ground' of politics.  
In their day both Crosland and Gaitskell were seen as 'right wing'.  (Mandelson's grandad, Herbert Morrison, was seen as even more 'right wing' and he masterminded the nationalisation of basic industries in the post 1945 Attlee government.)  Both would have welcomed a rewording of the original Clause 4. But I don't think either of them would have been foolish enough to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater'.  Time perhaps for a redrafting of Clause 4 to reflect some of the spirit of the original? :  
'To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.'  http://www.labourcounts.com/clausefour.htm
 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/exclusive-how-did-labour-lose-in-92-the-most-authoritative-study-of-the-last-general-election-is-published-tomorrow-here-its-authors-present-their-conclusions-and-explode-the-myths-about-the-greatest-upset-since-1945-1439286.html http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/02/david-cameron-boris-johnson-iq http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2012/01/19/cameron-s-moral-capitalism-speech-in-full  
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/11547808/Revealed-how-Tony-Blair-makes-his-millions.html  
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/11670425/Revealed-Tony-Blair-worth-a-staggering-60m.html  
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/8714791/Mandelson-poised-to-buy-8m-home.html  
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9514481/Lord-Mandelson-follows-Tony-Blairs-global-wealth-strategy.html 
https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk