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Michael Meacher

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  1. As Gordon Brown moves this week further to the right, arm in arm with Tony Blair - on foreign policy especially - it is increasingly clear that the Labour party and the public deserve an open contest for the leadership, between candidates representing all the main wings of the party - not just the Brownite right and the Blairite far-right. They want a debate on policies, not a parade of personalities. The single overarching issue is: do the party and public want another decade of New Labour? If not, there must be a candidate with the necessary number of nominations who represents mainstream Labour aspirations; and we should be settling now - not later - the programme for a change of direction that can win us the next general election, when carrying on as we are will certainly lose it. The most pressing requirement is that we pull our forces out of Iraq by the middle of next year. The presence of occupation troops is not preventing violence and a slide into civil war; it is fuelling them as well as exposing us to retaliation in Britain. We should also make it clear that we will not support any military attack by the US or Israel against Iran. The way to reduce tension both in the Middle East and at home is not a US-style war on terror, but through pressure on Israel - after its Lebanese debacle - to negotiate a two-state solution in Palestine, and through a much more even-handed western policy towards Israel and the Muslim states. Nor is replacing Trident at a cost of £25bn (revised upwards, if maintenance costs are included - as they must be - to £75bn) a relevant or value-for-money proposal when world security is threatened not by nuclear states but by regional conflicts and international terrorism. Domestically, we should end the obsession with privatisation as a panacea, not only in health and education, but also in housing, pensions, probation, rail and local government. We need a new leadership that will genuinely listen to the party and the public, with mechanisms in place so that it can be held to account. Conference should have a decision-making role, not merely act as an opportunity for the leader to grandstand, and nominations each year for leader and deputy leader would allow sentiment within the party to be channelled towards change. Parliament should take back much of the patronage and decision-making that No 10 has appropriated to itself. We cannot any more have an economy which is driven purely by letting market forces rip. Inequalities in wealth and income have reached grotesque proportions, with average City earnings now 400 times the average pension and 160 times the minimum wage - which should be increased to £7 an hour. We need a much more determined break with the low-pay, low-skills, low-productivity economy. Employment rights need to be strengthened to create justice in the workplace and to balance the undue power of some employers. Last, but not least, a more radical approach to climate change is sorely needed. The government should be pressing to bring air travel into line with the Kyoto protocol, requiring the industry to measure and report on its environmental impact, and to introduce a carbon credits system for individual households. Above all, we should be leading the world in energy conservation and switching from fossil fuels to renewables, rather than reverting to nuclear power with all its risks and downsides. A centre-left programme of this kind would, I believe, transform Labour's election prospects. If enough people vote for a candidate with those values in the forthcoming leadership election, we can make it a reality. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/st...1881897,00.html
  2. Where does the Labour party go from here? At his meeting with Labour MPs on Monday the prime minister made two main points. One was that members should trust him and leave the timetable of his departure to him. The other was to claim that Labour would not get a fourth term unless it stuck to his strategy. Yet all the evidence over the last year suggests the opposite: that we will not win a fourth term if we stick to his strategy. The loss of 4m votes since 1997 and of half the party's membership, and now the loss of 320 council seats, does not suggest underlying popular support. Understandably, several colleagues at the parliamentary Labour party meeting called for unity, but that can only be achieved around a framework of policies that command broad support both within the party and among the public. A change of leadership is clearly necessary; however, unity will not be achieved simply by a transfer of leadership that continues the existing policies, which have brought us to this point, but by a renewal of the party around a new and different approach. So what is wrong with British politics today? The single biggest problem is the lack of accountability of power. It underlies every issue where the party and the public disapproves of government policy but cannot change it. There is little point in lobbying parliament or taking to the streets in protest at war in Iraq or Iran, or the replacement of Trident or a new round of nuclear power stations, or the marketisation of public services, if the government (for which often read the prime minister) has already made up its (his) mind, and can't be held to account. The checks and balances have all but disappeared. What is needed is a new framework of power that restores the authority of the House of Commons, secures effective ministerial control of the civil service and moves to a more constitutional type of premiership. Parliament, through strengthened select committees, chosen by a secret vote of the whole house in accordance with party numbers and not by the whips, should have statutory power to ratify cabinet appointments, summon ministers and require disclosure of all relevant documents, to appoint external committees of inquiry where the government may be reluctant to do so, and to table its own motions for debate on the floor of the house at least once a month, with a vote at the conclusion. The honours system, which is corrupted by patronage, should be sharply curtailed and overseen by parliament, or preferably abolished. If parliament were empowered to respond effectively to public and party opinion, a wholly different agenda would become possible. Inequality is now more extreme even than under Thatcher. It is true that child poverty has been reduced, pensioner allowances extended and tax credits increased. But the government's own figures show 11.4 million people, a fifth of the population, still living in poverty, while last year the average FTSE 100 chief executive earned £32,263 a week - 408 times the state pension and 185 times the minimum wage. This is utterly unacceptable: wealth is not generated by the rich but by teamwork, and pay should reflect that, but the capitalist market does not. Two reforms are urgently needed: the bonuses, so-called "fringe benefits" and stock options enjoyed by the rich should be costed and taxed at the marginal rate, which should be 50% in excess of £100,000; and the minimum wage, now £5.05 an hour, should be raised over a five-year period to the Council of Europe decency threshold (now £7.40 an hour), which would take 6.5 million people out of poverty. A reinvigorated parliament is also needed as a bulwark for the defence of civil liberties. We are now seeing the rebalancing of power towards the state, with restrictions on jury trials, cuts in legal aid, a national database of all individuals registered via ID cards, limits on the right to protest, the use of control orders for detention without charge or trial, and even the use of the Terrorism Act to frogmarch a pensioner off the premises. Without risking genuine national security, which must remain paramount, many elements of this illiberal legislation can and should be reversed, and parliament should take the lead. The obsessive introduction of the private-market model into every area of public services - the NHS, education, housing, pensions, probation and local-authority "strategic development partnerships" - has neither party nor public support, nor the evidence base to justify it. What is needed instead is a genuine public-service model - identifying failings in delivery of the service and vigorously remedying them, but retaining the structure and concept of a public service that uniquely expresses an equal citizenship and nationhood for all. New measures are needed to restore equity and justice as a balance against the overriding drive for economic efficiency. As Sweden has shown, a more socially integrated society is also more economically dynamic. Social mobility, which all support, is highest in countries with much more equal distribution of income and wealth. A fixation on economic dominance within the Lisbon EU agenda has led to the downplaying of environmental goals against unfettered expansion of car and plane travel, weaker targeting of industrial emissions, and slower development of renewables and energy conservation. Equally, industrial rights in the workplace are kept suppressed in cases of unfair dismissal, reinstatement, corporate manslaughter and union recognition. Lastly a new start is needed in our relations with the US, especially under the Bush administration. There are two arguments for the present policy of continuing to hug the US close. One is that this is the best way to influence events. But as we found out, painfully, over the Iraq war, there was no reciprocity, even in the award of contracts afterwards. The other is that we are so dependent on the US for our strategic defence capability that we have no alternative but to stay close. But politically that dependence means for ever relegating ourselves to a role of mere accessory to America's military goals, serving under its command and fostering a unilateral US hegemony, when the aim of British foreign policy should be a stronger role for the UN in support of multilateralism and the rule of international law. http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1771972,00.html
  3. We not only need a radical strengthening of parliament's holding the executive to account but also, even more important, new forms of direct democracy involving the electorate. In parliament, we need a fully elected second chamber - perhaps based on regional representation - in order to secure a more democratic determination of policy than a whipped programme handed down from above without genuine consultation. We need cabinet appointments to be ratified at a public hearing of the appropriate select committee before they can come into effect, so that the principle of joint accountability to both prime minister and parliament is established, with the option of recall by either where justified. We need the appointment of the chair and members of specialist committees of inquiry (such as Hutton and Butler), and their terms of reference, to require approval by the relevant select committee. And we need the members of these revamped committees to be elected - in quotas reflecting the balance between the parties in the Commons - by MPs of each party in a secret ballot. If introduced, these measures would greatly strengthen parliament in checking the centralisation of power in the executive. But the democratic deficit will not be met without wider reform. Turnout at elections is steadily declining because people feel that one vote every 4-5 years gives them no influence over major events - foundation hospitals, top-up fees, GM crops, war in Iraq, to name just some. Bills, instead of being hammered through parliament on a whipped vote, should be examined first by a Commons committee in televised sessions, with specialist witnesses. Interested electors could then offer online comments, to be fed into the parliamentary process. Even more important is to draw on best democratic experience from abroad. In Switzerland, for example, citizens have a right to call a referendum on any issue they like, so long as they gather enough signatures. Indeed, any new law brought before the Swiss parliament can be challenged by the voters before it is enacted. If 1% of the population sign up to a proposal within an 18-month period, it can be voted on by the public and, if passed, become law. This really is direct democracy in action. Suppose, more modestly, we were to require a 5% threshold: that would require nearly 2 million people to sign up - an exacting demand, but by no means a prohibitive one. It would radically transform our politics. Of course there is a risk, with inflammatory tabloid headlines, that law-making could be too influenced by emotions rather than reasoned judgments. But a delay before a referendum could be held would allow tempers to cool. What is needed is a public debate about the pros and cons of referendums, which would enable us to achieve a real element of direct democracy while minimising any unintended misuses. If we could get that balance, it would re-engage public involvement in the big decisions, make politics meaningful beyond one vote every five years and, as a last resort, hold government leaders to account when all else fails.
  4. Born in 1939, Michael Meacher was educated at Berkhamstead School, New College Oxford and the London School of Economics. He joined the Labour Party in 1962 and has been Labour Member of Parliament for Oldham West (now Oldham West and Royton) since 1970. His political appointments comprise: Under Secretary for Industry (1974-75); Under Secretary for Health and Social Security (1975-79); Minister of State for the Environment (1997-2003).
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