Peter Kenyon

Labour preaches living wage, but remains wanting on public sector pay

Whenever I mouthed off as a child my parents encouraged me, in a kindly manner, to always practice what I preached. Today, I hope every member of Labour's front-bench will do likewise.

Uppermost in the minds of us labelled as the left of British politics is the victory of Syriza in yesterday's Greek general election - a victory for hope. The speed with which it concluded negotiations this morning to form a government - one hour - reinforces that message.

Syriza's leader, Alexis Tsipras, has taken political ambition to new heights, by taking on both the global neo-liberal and the Greek establishment. We all owe him heartfelt thanks. In comparison, the British Labour Party's ambitions are ambiguous to say the least. 

Most recently, its shadow works and pensions secretary, Rachel Reeves, is quoted in today's Guardian newspaper applauding the London Borough of Brent for its innovative plan to cut the business rates bill for accredited Living Wage employers within its boundaries.

Speaking at the launch, she reportedly said:

“I want councils across the country to follow Brent’s lead by cutting business rates for companies who pay their staff a Living Wage. It’s a brilliant idea to tackle low pay which is good for everyone - workers, employers and taxpayers.

“It’s a scandal that one in five people who does the right thing, works hard and contributes,  doesn’t earn enough to pay their bills. Low pay is driving up the benefits bill and leading to more Tory Welfare Waste and is making it harder to get the deficit down, with income tax receipts across the Parliament £70 billion lower than forecast in 2010.

“A Labour government will tackle low pay by raising the Minimum Wage to at least £8 hour before 2020, bringing in Make Work Pay contracts to get more workers paid a Living Wage and banning exploitative zero-hours contracts.”

Not a word about Labour's own pay policy towards the public sector other than a measly commitment to lift the National Minimum Wage (NMW) to £8/hour before 2020. Correction, that is a slight improvement on the original wording which was 'by 2020', revealed in an interview with the Observer published on 20 September 2014. 

The standfirst for that piece proclaimed:

Labour leader says he would raise minimum wage to £8 by 2020 in move that 'reveals core party values'

Those of us with economic degrees know that you don't need one to know that inflation is likely to propel the NMW towards £8/hour by 2020, if not before. That, emphatically in my view, does not reveal core Labour Party values.

Core Labour values demand a more ambitious policy towards pay. The preaching has got to stop, until a coherent pay policy is agreed. Any journalist that misses the opportunity to challenge Labour Party spox about this should go straight back to journalism school.

I set out the case for a more ambitious approach over three months ago here. It is increasingly embarrassing to have Labour Party spox encouraging businesses and local government to adopt living wage policies, but remain silent about public sector pay in central government and other public bodies.

Labour must be honest with the electorate and show that the cost-of-living crisis is going to be tackled head on in, as Labour Leader Ed Miliband said in his New Year message, a 'Recovery for All'. That could be the start of offering real hope to UK voters.

 

 

 

UK politics: is a return to two dominant parties unthinkable?

Looking at the latest opinion polls, odds for political betting on seats in the next UK Parliament (note: not Westminster) the odds on a return to 2-party politics must be very long indeed. My own political life was shaped by simplistic descriptions of the ideologies of the two main parties in the UK. Conservatives/Tories stand for selfishness and greed. Labour stands for sharing and collective action.

One Nation Toryism forged out of experience post World War II recogognised that the old order shaped by the aristocracy was finished. But the nouveaux riches had other ideas. A succession of events starting in the early 1970s led to a neo-conservative project for the self-enrichment of the few and the recovery of baronial powers to subjugate the rest of us to a modern form of serfdom.

Spelling that out is Labour's challenge in 2015.

Green politics is a distraction. Any self-respecting Labour politician recognises that the planet is at risk from the selfishness of the 1%. Urgent steps are promised by Labour to tackle climate change. But it is not enough. Neither is the response to nationalism. 

Much patriotic cant has been breathed by a deepening sense in the devolved nations of betrayal by Westminster governments past and present.

A return of UK government in May under Labour could be the key to whether two-party politics ever makes a return.

Conversations, contacts: Labour confusion on the doorstep

Labour Leader Ed Miliband's ambition to secure a majority of seats in the Westminster Parliament to govern the United Kingdom for the next 5 years may depend on the ground war. To spur on the rank-and-file, he has set a target of four million conversations.

The race is on to astonish the electorate, not to mention all those cynics who on hearing Miliband's target rushed to their calculators to tell us that the target would involve an impossible number of chats per member. I wouldn't have given the matter a minutes further thought if it hadn't been for my Twitter feed which threw up the stats for #Opflight - an activity of Progress. You can read the full details here. According to Richard Angell, Progress's recently appointed new director 4526 conversations were conducted on Saturday by their teams in nine key constituencies.

But what exactly is a Labour Party conversation?

Toby Perkins Labour MP for Chesterfield conveniently tweeted the Progress director's bulletin. Excuse for a conversation, I thought. So I asked Toby what is the Labour Party's definition of a conversation. Before he had a chance to answer, Mark Houlbrook, councillor for Thorne Ward on Thorne and Moorends Town Council, asked me what mine was. Reasonable riposte! We eventually agreed this was a relevant question and rounded on Toby to clarify. We are still waiting. But my initial suspicion that an agreed definition might be desirable was underlined by Manchester councillor Kevin Peel who trilled about 4,526 CONTACTS in Saturday's #Opflight venture.

So is a Labour Party 'conversation' a 'contact'?

Are 'Not Ins' contacts? We should be told.

My first doorstep experience was over 40 years ago in Leeds. The latest was on Saturday in Weymouth with 12 comrades mainly from South Dorset CLP - split into two teams each with a leader despatching and recording the results of doorknocking. In all those years of pounding streets, clambouring up and stairs, I have learned to cope with a reality: most 'knock, knocks' are abortive - no one answers the door. That's the lot of those of us who try to engage with voters. What matters are the contacts with those voters who do open their doors to a stranger. Local political party activists call to ask whether prospective electors plan to exercise their right to vote in the next election, and for which party. If the door opens a canvasser has a chance to offer the usual pleasantries, and the contact tells you what s/he will be doing in May: Don't know, Don't Vote, Haven't Decided, UKIP, Green and so on. In my book those exchanges can not be classed as conversations. Neither can the delivery of a 'Sorry you were out" leaflet through the letterboxes of all those unopened doors. 

Checking over my notes from Saturday I personally knocked on 43 doors, made 20 contacts from the opening of 17 doors, and (by my definition) had just 10 conversations. For clarity, those are the number of times I had a informal verbal exchanges with the person who opened the door beyond the normal pleasantries, and the standard questions: Are you planning to vote in May? And for which party?

So I want to know, were those 4,526 episodes recorded by Progress - contacts, conversations or just number of doors visited?