PROGRESSIVES MUST COLLABORATE TO DEFEAT THE FORCES OF CONSERVATISM

How can Labour win the next general election will be a question exercising the minds of Labour’s leadership contenders and party strategists alike.

The Tories, with their reactionary policy prospectus, have just won an overall majority with less than 37 per cent of the popular vote.  That doesn’t of course mean that 63 per cent of the electorate necessarily want a progressive alternative.  I do however believe there is a large enough electoral cohort to give Labour the edge in 2020 if we can inspire enough people who have just voted Green, Lib Dem or SNP.

I know that some people hark back to the New Labour project.  They suggest we must accept privatisation, market economics and austerity if we are to stand any chance of beating the Conservatives next time, but I think that would be a mistake.  We should remember the words of Harold Wilson who told the 1962 Labour Party conference that “this party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.”

Labour’s purpose is to stand for something better, to offer hope and provide a vision of a better world.  Our problem in the last election was that we didn’t persuade enough people that we still represented the ‘moral crusade’ to which Harold Wilson referred over half a century ago.  

Even though our manifesto offered a genuinely progressive policy prospectus, our timidity in decisively breaking with austerity and failing to speak loudly enough about the importance of public services cost us dearly.  

I was one of the casualties of Labour’s diffidence, losing Derby North by just 41 votes.  The Conservative’ negative and vituperative national campaign strategy undoubtedly scared enough floating voters away from voting for me.  But I would still have comfortably won my seat for Labour were it not for the votes that were lost to the Green Party. 

I have been campaigning on social justice and green issues since the mid 1970s, a vegan since 1976 and a League Against Cruel Sports trustee since 1979.  I won Derby North with a majority of 613 in 2010 and had hoped the Green Party might welcome my re-election as a kindred spirit.  After all, they weren’t standing in every constituency and I therefore thought they wouldn’t put a candidate up against me. 

But that proved to be a naïve pipe dream as the Greens did field a candidate at the last minute who secured 1618 votes.  I spoke to dozens of voters during the short campaign who said they would support me if the Greens weren’t standing.  Others told me it was “safe” to vote Green in Derby North as they thought I was going to win by a “landslide”.

My experience illustrates why it is imperative for Labour to win back those voters who dallied with the Green Party on 7 May before their support becomes a long-term relationship.  To achieve this we must demonstrate that Labour is committed to a moral crusade and remains the best vehicle to deliver social justice and progressive social change. 

If those of us who believe in a fairer and more compassionate society continue competing for votes in marginal seats it will only help the Tories to win again in 2020.  People may not like the first past the post electoral system, but it’s the one we’re stuck with.  We therefore need to work within its constraints to deliver a better society.  That means collaborating with fellow progressives, including those in other parties, and convincing people to make smarter voting choices in order to defeat the forces of conservatism. 

Failure to rise to this historic challenge will see the Tories laughing all the way to the despatch box, and leave Britain’s most vulnerable citizens at the mercy of the most pernicious, ideologically driven Tory government in living memory.

LABOUR’S BETTER PLAN FOR OLDER PEOPLE

THE Tory plan is failing older people.  Pensioners’ living standards have been hit hard by the Tories and their Lib Dem collaborators.  

This government’s refusal to act against rip-off energy bills, their decision to slash social care funding and their changes to pension rules have diminished living standards for pensioners.

Typical energy bills have risen by £300 a year since David Cameron became Prime Minister.  Nearly one in ten older households now face fuel poverty and delayed action to ban rip-off pension fees has left savers worse off.  Cuts to elderly care have sent more older people to A&E with unnecessary hospital admissions, making it harder for them to get the care they need at home.

With all the damage the Tories have already inflicted on us, they still want to go even further by cutting public spending to a level not seen since the 1930s before there was an NHS.

Older people who I have spoken to say they are tired of being let down by the Tories.  Labour knows the importance of ensuring those who have worked all their lives can retire with dignity.  That’s why Labour’s plan for pensioners and older people is essential.

Labour will protect the ‘triple lock’ that ensures pensioners’ incomes keep pace with the cost of living.  Although Ed Balls has said he will restrict Winter Fuel Payments from the richest five per cent of pensioners to help pay down the deficit, Labour will guarantee that there will be no further changes to Winter Fuel Payments.  Furthermore, we are guaranteeing that universal free TV licenses and bus passes for pensioners will be protected by a Labour government.

We will help pensioners struggling with energy bills by capping gas and electricity prices until 2017. We’ll also offer free efficiency improvements to at least 200,000 households at risk of fuel poverty.

We’ll give people freedom over how to spend their pension savings, but ensure they are protected from rip-offs.  This will be achieved by introducing a cap on fees and charges for new pension products that allow people to draw-down on their savings so they get the same protection when they take their money out as when they put it in.

And we will improve social care to keep people safe and healthy at home.  We’ll end the scandalous culture of 15 minute care slots for some of the most vulnerable older people by bringing in 5,000 new homecare workers.

Older people can’t afford five more years under the Tories.  Labour has a better plan to protect pensioners’ incomes, safeguard savings, keep homes warm and invest in our NHS with more doctors and nurses so they have time to care.

BADGER TRUST CALLS ON NFU TO STOP MISLEADING THE PUBLIC OVER THE IMPACT OF BADGER CULLING

Ahead of a meeting with the Environment Secretary Liz Truss on the 3 March, the Badger Trust has called on the National Farmers’ Union to stop misleading the public by making claims over the impact of badger culling on TB rates in cattle in the Gloucestershire and Somerset cull zones, which have no scientific foundation and are not supported by Government data from the pilot badger culls.

At the NFU Annual Conference in Birmingham on Tuesday 24 February, the NFU President Meurig Raymond stated: “I want to stress that in the two pilot areas in Somerset and Gloucestershire we are already seeing that TB incidence on farms has declined. Not just by a small amount either, in the Somerset Pilot area TB incidence on farms has decreased from 34% to 11% compared with two years’ ago”.

He then went on to say: “just two days’ ago, one of our Gloucestershire members was given the fantastic news that his farm is now clear of TB for the first time in 11 years. He is very clear that the only thing that’s changed on his farm is that we are now doing something to control the disease in wildlife”.

When making these statements the NFU President at no point confirmed that it was far more likely these reductions in TB (which have also been seen outside of the cull zones) were due to tighter testing, movement and biosecurity controls forced on the UK farming sector by the European Commission in 2012. He also made no mention of the fact that DEFRA have not released any data on the pilot culls to support any claims about the impact of badger culling on TB rates in cattle.

In responding to the claims by the NFU, the CEO of the Badger Trust said:

“Nigel Gibbens, the DEFRA Chief Veterinary Officer, recently stated that: 'the fall in TB outbreaks in cattle herds, cannot be attributed either to the pilot culls or in Wales to their badger vaccination programme. It is to do with continued strengthening of the cattle measures.'

“Meurig Raymond seems to have forgotten these important facts when it comes to his NFU conference speech.

“The Badger Trust would never make any claims about the impact of badger vaccination without scientific evidence to back it up and we expect the NFU to do the same, when it comes to making claims about the impact of badger culling.

“We must deal in facts not fiction when it comes to assessing the impact of the badger culls on lowering bovine TB. When it comes to real facts the case against the badger cull policy is damning.

“Approximately £15 million has been spent killing 2476 badgers to date (£6058 a badger). None of these culled badgers were tested for TB, but data from a Government-led scientific trial and results from badgers tested by DEFRA in 2013 for the European Food Safety Authority, indicate a disease rate no higher than 15%.

“Many of these badgers were shot by poorly trained marksmen with no effective monitoring and took up to 10 to 15 minutes to die a long painful death by multiple gunshot wounds.

“This is despite the fact that the DEFRA Chief Scientist Ian Boyd confirmed at an NFU TB conference in November 2014, that the transmission rate of TB from badgers to cattle is less than 6%. The key route of infection is cattle to cattle transfer.”

It's clear that the Badger Trust's observations are based on scientific fact whereas the NFU's position is based on myth and supposition.

The NFU would do well to focus on improving poor and inadequate husbandry rather than its unjustifiable default position, which is always to blame everyone and everything else.  The fact that the demonisation of the badger population flies in the face of the evidence doesn't faze them, they just bluster on and on regardless.

It's the same with the fox population being used as an excuse for poor husbandry at lambing time. All the evidence shows foxes do not kill lambs, but still they are blamed for lamb mortality.

It's time governments stopped paying so much attention to the views of the NFU.  Not only is a lot of their policy prospectus spurious nonsense, the vast majority of farmers are not even members. 

TIME TO JAIL FOXHUNTERS

THIS month marked the 10-year anniversary of Labour ending years of Tory filibustering by banning the barbaric act of hunting foxes with dogs.

But while the anniversary is worthy of celebration, it still grates on me and everyone else who found fox hunting so utterly barbaric to know that the practice has not yet been completely stamped out.
The League Against Cruel Sports revealed this month that there is still, on average, one person per week prosecuted under the Hunting Act’s provisions.

About two thirds of those prosecutions lead to a conviction, suggesting there is still a hunting fraternity more than willing to flout the laws that Labour set out a decade ago.

As a long-serving trustee and former Chair of the League, they are statistics that disappoint me but, unfortunately, do not surprise me.

The pro-hunt lobby has remained active ever since the ban was introduced, using every trick in the book to try to continue with its activities under the radar.

I have blogged before on the aggression, threats and even violence that hunt monitors have been exposed to, as the lobby does not take kindly to anyone challenging the rights and wrongs of their behaviour.

Organisations such as the Countryside Alliance continue to show their true colours too; their recent unsuccessful attempt to ban a film portraying the cruelty of hunting with dogs evidenced their desire to cover-up the obvious wrongdoing of hunt activities.

The successful prosecution to conviction rate gives us reason to believe in the action being taken. Every one of those convictions is a tribute to the original piece of Labour legislation which ended decades of procrastination from Tories who never really wanted to ban hunting.

And that factor still remains a threat.  It is only a year or so since amendments were proposed by some Tories to try to nullify aspects of the Hunting Act, and it was only after vociferous campaigning by myself and others that the Prime Minister backed down before that got any further.

Far from weakening the legislation, we should be strengthening.

For example, a current provision allows for the killing of wild mammals to be passed off as an “unfortunate accident” during trail hunts, but this dangerous loophole needs closing.

Another change which would be appropriate would be to strengthen the punishments that can be dished out to those who ignore the Hunting Act, including jail terms.

It has done much to deter the majority, but if the minority still believe they are above the law then we should give them food for thought.

These are among changes which the League Against Cruel Sports has proposed to mark the 10-year anniversary, and they are amendments I would back.

Our society is all the more decent for that change a decade ago, and that should rightly raise our spirits. But rather than rest on our laurels we should look to how we can make bloodthirsty activities like fox hunting all the more reprehensible and all the less acceptable forever.

TACKLING CLIMATE CHANGE SHOULD BE A GOVT PRIORITY

Tackling climate change is probably the single most important challenge facing humankind.  The last Labour government passed the Climate Change Act and was the first in the world to do so.

This government has retreated from the commitments given by the previous government and is full of climate change deniers.  That is why it is essential that Labour wins the next election to get the country back on track and ensure that the UK leads the world to make this an international priority.

Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has set out the objectives for a Labour government which would mean:

•  Ambitious emissions targets for all countries, reviewed every five years, based on a scientific assessment of the progress towards the 2C goal.
• A goal of net zero global emissions in the second half of this century.
• Transparent, universal rules for measuring, verifying and reporting emissions with all countries adopting climate change adaptation plans.
• An equitable deal in which richer countries provide support to poorer nations in their efforts to combat climate change.

REAL WAGES FELL BY OVER £500 IN THE EAST MIDLANDS IN 2014

The TUC has published analysis today showing average pay in the East Midlands fell by over £500 in real terms last year.

The report coincides with the launch of the TUC’s Fair Pay Fortnight, to raise awareness about pay inequality.  The campaign is calling for an increase in the minimum wage, greater extension of the living wage and higher pay settlements in the public and private sector.

Average full-time wages in the East Midlands have fallen in real terms by £2,652 per year since 2010, or £51 a week. 

This is the longest real wage squeeze since records began in the 1850s.  Even with inflation falling sharply in recent months, at current rates of progress it will still take years for wages to recover to their pre-recession levels.

Meanwhile, as average wages for workers saw a real terms fall of 9.6 per cent since 2014, fat cat pay for FTSE 100 bosses shot up by 26 per cent.  To put it another way, while workers’ wages have fallen, the remuneration of FTSE executives is on average £700,000 higher today than it was in 2010.

Rising inequality in the UK is threatening the future of our economy.  We therefore desperately need a different approach to stop Britain returning to a 'Downton Abbey' society. 

Changes in the median annual real earnings of full-time employees 2010-2014

	Change Since 2010 (£)	Change Since 2010 (per cent)	Change Since 2013 (£)	Change since 2013 (per cent)
Region/nation
United Kingdom	-2,509	-8.4	-487	-1.8
North East	-1,663	-6.3	164	+0.7
North West	-2,461	-8.9	-506	-2.0
Yorkshire and The Humber	-2,380	-8.7	-554	-2.2
East Midlands	-2,652	-9.6	-510	-2.0
West Midlands	-2,430	-8.9	-1,037	-4.0
East	-2,297	-7.9	-343	-1.3
London	-3,940	-10.1	-978	-2.7
South East	-2,935	-9.3	-390	-1.3
South West	-2,085	-7.5	-298	-1.2
Wales	-2,217	-8.3	-318	-1.3
Scotland	-1,882	-6.5	-102	-0.4
Northern Ireland	-1,681	-6.5	-527	-2.1

Source: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, RPI adjusted. All real values are reported are in April 2014 prices, using April RPI: All Items Index values

Changes in FTSE 100 CEOs real earnings 2010-2014

	Change Since 2010 (£)	Change since 2010 (per cent)
FTSE 100 Chief Executives	+£696,236	+26.3

Source: IDS Directors’ Pay Report 2014/15, data from Graph 1.2: CEO and employee median earning trends data 2000 to 2014.

FTSE 100 CE0 pay, compared to median earnings

East Midlands median wage in 2014	£25,027
How many more times the regional median wage FTSE 100 earned in 20141	133
Hours it took CEO to earn median wage in region2	15
Working days it took CEO to earn median wage in region3	2.0

¹This value is FTSE 100 median annual wage divided by regional full time median annual wage and rounded to the nearest whole number.

²This value assumes a standard working week of 37.5 hours per week for 52 weeks per year. Not taking any leave into account, this comes to 1950 standard working hours per year. The FTSE 100 median hourly wage was therefore estimated at £1,709.74, which is the FTSE 100 median annual wage divided by 1950.  Finally, each regional full time median annual wage was then divided by this hourly rate and rounded to the nearest hour.

³This value took the number of hours it would take a FTSE 100 CEO to earn the full-time median annual wage divided by a standard 7.5 hour work day and was rounded to the nearest tenth of a day.

- Fair Pay Fortnight will run between Monday 16 February and Sunday 1 March.

- The Fortnight is part of the TUC’s Britain Needs a Pay Rise campaign and will feature a series of events across England and Wales to raise awareness about low pay, pay inequality and falling living standards. For more information please visit www.fairpayfortnight.org

WAS TORY FUNDRAISER POLITICAL SATIRE? NO IT WAS REAL LIFE

THE recent revelations about the Tories’ latest fundraising activity could genuinely have come straight from a political satire or even a sketch show.

Picture the scene.  Hundreds of obscenely wealthy Tories throwing cash around like there’s no tomorrow, spending outrageous sums on ridiculous auction lots.

Imagine one snooty Tory splashing out £110,000 so he and his pals can shoot 500 pheasants,  or another paying twice that sum for a week’s holiday at a 24-guest mansion in Majorca.

The sketch would climax with another millionaire splashing out more than £200,000 on a bronze bust of that dubious heroine to all Tories – Margaret Thatcher.

I can well imagine settling down on my sofa to watch such entertainment on a Sunday night, or perhaps as an ironic sketch highlighting the differences between rich and poor on Comic Relief.

The incredible truth is that the picture I have painted is not a fiction, but a genuine description of David Cameron’s recent fundraising ball.

This is a political party that tries to make capital out of Labour’s funding links to the trade unions.

Yet here it was, drawing cash from its wealthiest donors who stumped up £15,000 per table even to be at the event, even before the auction began.

Who are you more like?  Someone who is part of a trade union, or the sort of person who can afford to spend six figure sums on whatever folly takes their fancy on a whim, or perhaps to impress their pals.

And that, in a nutshell, is the difference between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party.

One is representative of the worker, and one is representative of the elite super-rich.

It is reflected in everything our respective parties stand for.  Labour is about sharing the wealth and ensuring that everyone is treated fairly and equitably, regardless of their situation.  The Tories are about ensuring that the wealth of the richest is protected, at the expense of the poor.

That’s why my party makes pledges to do things like abolish the bedroom tax, whereas the Tories introduce tax cuts for millionaires.

David Cameron’s quote in the official brochure for the plush fundraiser says it all: “As the clock ticks down to polling day, we all need to dig deep to ensure that we stick to our plan.”

A personal message to millionaires, and a sinister reference to “our” plan.

What is this plan you share with the super-rich, Mr Cameron?  To make them richer still while you continue your austerity measures and slash public spending?

It absolutely defies belief, and is truly sickening.  In a few words, the Prime Minister has summarised everything I despise about Tory ideology, and about the exclusive club who benefit from their policies.

The truth is that there are very few people who really benefit from a Conservative Britain.

I have a theory that the secret to their success is by convincing those better paid ‘ordinary’ people – not the millionaires or super-rich but the so-called middle earners – that they are beneficiaries of Tory policies.

They are not.

The truth is that, unless you’re the sort of person who can afford to spend lavish amounts of cash on stupid auction prizes like those I’ve described, you don’t come close to benefiting from Tory policy. 

Any people not in that bracket who vote Tory under a mistaken belief that they are rich enough to benefit are, unfortunately, kidding themselves.

These are the voters who we need to come home to Labour, because only Labour is capable of reversing the damaging cuts that have widened the gulf between rich and poor and damaged our country.

Britain is in a far worse state than it was five years ago, thanks to the Tories, yet the deficit has not been addressed.  Conservative policies have failed.

While the champagne-quaffing millionaires may chuck their money about without a care in the world, it troubles me to contemplate the state our country will be in if this goes on for five more years.