I have really enjoyed the Christmas break. It was lovely spending precious time with family and friends and generally messing about.
Yet like many I am apprehensive about the year to come. It was good to hear the leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, emphasise the need to articulate an alternative to the current government’s policy of austerity in his New Year message.
The coalition front benches have been very effective in their message to voters, convincing people that Britain has “maxed out its credit card’ and they have no choice but to tackle “Labour’s mess”.
And while many of us have been pointing out that there is an alternative (growth as opposed to cuts), we need to get the message across more effectively. This is an urgent task.
A quick review of the coalition government’s actions so far shows incredibly damaging change at breathtaking speed.
Secondary education is now effectively out of the hands of elected local authorities. One million young people are unemployed, Educational Maintenance Allowance has been abolished, tuition fees tripled and youth services slashed.
These changes add up to an unprecedented cocktail of assaults resulting in highly predictable long term damage to individuals and society as a whole.
Unemployment among women is soaring, cuts in public services and benefits are hitting women hardest.
Forecasts for unemployment now exceed the 2010 estimate of 1,300,000 by the Office of Budget Responsibility, with no sign at all of the 2,000,000 new jobs the government promised would be created by the private sector.
The ‘Health and Social Care Bill’ is still with Parliament and threatens the founding principles of the NHS. This is not an exaggeration.
All the pundits who said the Private Finance Initiative would create unaffordable and costly debt were spot on. They now warn that opening up the NHS to EU market rules will be irreversible.
The coalition’s abolition of Regional Development Agencies allied with inertia on support for UK manufacturing amounts to a ‘Pontius Pilot’ approach as skilled workers are shown the door and companies shift production elsewhere.
It is imperative therefore for Labour to explain that there is an alternative.
So I welcome Ed Miliband’s commitment to do this. To convince people, Labour’s alternative must be based on values that unashamedly seek to urgently reverse economic and social inequality.
Labour must restore public services and welfare and speak out against systems of privatisation that leave care of the elderly in the hands of private enterprises such as Southern Cross.
To achieve this Labour has to show a clear strategy for growth that boosts manufacturing and rescues the UK’s skill base that in currently in peril. France and Germany operate procurement policies which promote domestic economic growth and so should the UK.
Crucially Labour has to restore trade union rights so that working people can challenge corporate greed and the race to the bottom that characterises globalisation and ‘neoliberal’ policies that dismantle health, education and welfare.
To overcome the coalition’s arguments, the battle of ideas need to be fought with energy, imagination and new resolution.
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