Labour Party

The Republicans in the US Congress seem set to take the US budget deficit up to the wire on 17 October. And possibly beyond, to the point where the US government not only sends workers home unpaid, but fails to pay its bills. If president Obama and the Democrats campaigned boldly for the principle of universal health insurance — which is what the Republicans want to destroy — then the Republicans could not get away with it. Or even if the Democrats were bold about using unusual financial expedients. But the chief political lesson is on how politicians who are militant and determined can use...

Big investors, and a fair few middle-class people who can afford £750 to bid for shares, stand to make large windfall gains as Royal Mail shares are allocated and start trading, from 15 October. The government has deliberately set the share price low to get a successful sell-off, and the moneyed classes are confident that new private bosses will be able to get good profits by beating down postal workers’ pay and conditions. On 16 October the postal workers’ union CWU will announce the result of a ballot on strikes to win guarantees on terms and conditions. However, the union’s campaign so far...

Unite members in the Ineos oil refinery in Grangemouth have voted by 81% for strikes and by 91% for action short of strikes. The turnout was 86%. Unite called the ballot, and recommended a “yes” vote, to defend shop stewards’ convenor Stevie Deans, who has been subject to ongoing investigation by senior management since the summer of this year. Investigations were initially based upon allegations by Labour Party officials that Stevie, who is also chair of the local Labour Party, had been involved in signing up new party members without their knowledge and forging signatures on direct debit...

If Damian McBride’s Power Trip: A Decade of Policy, Plots and Spin has any value – a highly debatable question – it lies in its exposure of how politics was systematically debased during the years of the Blair-Brown control of the Labour Party. Politics – a word hardly to be found in the book – was nothing to do with achieving social change by attacking inequalities of wealth and power. It was everything to do with media manipulation and undermining political opponents by leaks about their personal lives. Allegations – founded or unfounded – of politicians’ drug use, extra-marital affairs...

Ed Miliband’s announcement at Labour Party conference that a post-2015 Labour government would freeze energy prices has been met with outrage from energy bosses and the right-wing press. The Express foresaw “rationing” and “blackouts”. Bosses from Centrica, RWE Npower, SSE, and other firms denounced the plan. Centrica chair Roger Carr called it “a recipe for economic ruin”. Miliband promised a 20-month gas and electricity price freeze for homes and businesses. He was addressing a real problem for working-class people. Government statistics show that over two million UK homes are in “fuel...

The Government has speeded up the sell-off of Royal Mail so that the shares will be sold and trading on the market before the strikes for which the Communication Workers' Union is now balloting can start. The share offer went out on 27 September, the same day that the CWU ballot started. Applications to buy shares must be in by 8 October. The allocation of shares to buyers will be announced, and some limited trading will start, on 11 October, and then full trading on 15 October. The CWU ballot closes on 16 October, and the first legal date for strikes will be 23 October. Dave Chapple, Bristol...

On 23 September Labour Party conference passed a motion against the public sector pay freeze, which the Labour leaders have promised to continue, and for the Living Wage to be made law. Speaking for the motion, Dave Prentis, general secretary of the public services union Unison, called for “a clear unambiguous Labour promise to turn a statutory minimum wage into a living wage”. He continued: “The pay freeze must end. No ifs, no buts — a clear commitment to end the Tory pay freeze”. The actual text voted on — a composite of motions put to conference on the question — had been made vaguer...

The “interim report” from Ray Collins, presented to Labour Party conference on 22 September, emphasises the role played by trade unions in founding the Labour Party. It says that the federal structure of the Labour Party “should remain”. It promises an ongoing “collective engagement” and “collective relationship” between affiliated unions and the party. It says that if the Labour-union link did not exist, then it would be necessary to invent it. It suggests that the scheme to have trade unionists “opt in”, floated by Ed Miliband on 9 July, should mean individuals opting to gain “additional...

At a Q&A in the Labour conference at Brighton, Ed Miliband was challenged by an activist: “When will you bring back socialism?” “That’s what we are doing”, Miliband replied. Ed Miliband has, at last, promised to repeal the “bedroom tax”. Miliband’s obscure and unpopular plan not to count trade unionists as affiliated to Labour unless they complete a form to “opt in” was soft-soaped at the conference, rather than blazoned as a sign of his will to confront the unions. After Ray Collins presented a slipperily-worded report, GMB union general secretary Paul Kenny was called to speak. “The removal...

That the Labour Party have finally announced they would repeal the Bedroom Tax if elected at the next election is very welcome, but not before time. That Labour have adopted this is down to pressure from tenants, campaigners and the Labour left. Much more meaningless was a vote by Lib Dem conference to oppose the Bedroom Tax at the next election. That pledge is worthless while the parliamentary leadership of the party is supporting policies like that are destroying people’s lives now. It all begs the question for Labour and Lib Dem councils which still control their own council housing. If...