Red Pepper's Election Blues

Did you see...

... the UKIP Election Broadcast? It was like a cross between the Channel 4 News spoof ads, a B-List movie and a cable TV sales pitch for insurance. Surely destined to be a cult classic: yodic flying for the 21st century... and about as sophisticated, politically.

I must admit, I also had a guilty giggle at this unfortunate incident regarding the Green Party's broadcast.

And finally, if you still need a laugh after all that, then check out this tongue-in-cheek advice to a certain 'not George Galloway'.  OR

Mapping Dissent

Ever since '97 the left has found coping with this right wing Labour government extremely difficult. As the General Election approaches those problems are thrown into ever sharper focus, producing a mosaic of opposition that is simultaneously cutting with the grain of public opinion but is itself too often disorientated, fragmented and punching below its weight.

Red Pepper has teamed up with the Socialist Unity Network to produce the definitive dissenter's   guide to the election. Use the map to find progressive candidates in your constituency.

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A 'truth' worse than lying

In drawing a comparison with the war in Kosovo and previous bombing raids on Iraq, Lord Goldsmiths' memo also draws attention to the dubious basis of legality of those conflicts: “[O]n a number of previous occasions, including in relation to Operation Desert Fox in December 1998 and Kosovo in 1999, UK forces have participated in military action on the basis of advice from my predecessors that the legality of the action under international law was no more than reasonably arguable. But a “reasonable case” does not mean that if the matter ever came before a court I would be confident that the court would agree with the view.”

Why has New Labour repeatedly rushed into such conflicts on such a dubious basis? The answer lies in a mix of moral certitude and political constraints. To start with, Blair and his cohorts seem to have take an extraordinarily benign view of Britain's role in the world as a 'force for good'. Blair thinks that 'The spread of our values makes us safer' - a doctrine of international community which he outlined during the Kosovo war, incidentally. In practice, British foreign policy has rarely lived up to such ideals, as Mark Curtis has amply documented.

With the decline of Britain's empire, these illusions have been held together by the myth of a 'special relationship' with Washington. Political commentators have often given credence to this view, although it is worth noting that Blair's powers to influence George Bush seem to extend little beyond the power to agree with him. In the case of Iraq, there is little reason to doubt that Blair wanted a second UN resolution – since the case for a 'moral' intervention requires at least the veneer of legality. But in acting as if this would be possible, and sending troops to the Iraqi border, there was only ever going to be one outcome once Blair realised (some time after the rest of us) that the intellectual basis of his position – which rested on the classic 3^rd way fudge of Britain as a 'bridge' between the US and Europe – was untenable. This strikes me as a spectacular and ideologically-driven misjudgement, rather than an out and out lie – albeit one that quickly necessitated the most dubious of retrospective justifications. But it is no better for that. If there's one thing worse than a Prime Minister lying, its one who is resolutely convinced that he was acting in the name of a discredited 'truth'. OR

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Liar, liar?

So its finally come to this: the Conservatives taking campaign lessons from Respect. In the war of the posters, the Tories' If he's prepared to lie to take us to war... comes in about a year after Respect's Bliar. There is something to be said for this tactic: it recognises that the symbolic power of the Prime Minister is considerable, and that our perceptions of the government often pass through a vague sense of trust, embodied in how we view him. But it takes us little further in the debate on the Iraq war - which I suspect is just fine for the Tories, who supported it, but should give Respect pause for thought. Would Gordon Brown as leader, or Michael Howard, have acted any differently? Without developing a significantly different conception of 'Britain's interests', and turning their back on the 'special relationship' - which displaces post-colonial anxiety onto a continued myth of our influence on Washington - surely the answer would be no.  OR

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Reg Keys: Blair must be held to account

‘I wish I had no need to stand in Sedgefield against Tony Blair. It was the sight of my son lying in his coffin with 31 bullets in him that made me decide to do it,’ writes Reg Keys in this month's Red Pepper. Keys explains why his campaign to unseat Blair is about accountability: ‘Tony Blair took us into an illegal war and, in effect, made my son and other soldiers into war criminals. Now there has to be accountability. Britain can’t put a catastrophic event like this behind it and just get on with other things.’

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The Tabloid Agenda

Red Smoke billowing from the roof of The Sun's Wapping HQ signalled that Britain's best selling tabloid will tell its readers to vote Labour. The paper likes to claim an influence on the electorate, although many commentators have correctly pointed out that the paper more often follows voting trends than makes them. We need to look beyond the PR stunts, however, to assess the pernicious influence that the tabloids can have on the political debate.

First up, there is the role played by The Sun and other tabloids in setting the political agenda. Time and again in this campaign, immigration has emerged as a central issue of the election as politicians attempt to match the tabloids' ferocious appetite to discuss this 'problem' (a framing of the issue that is rarely challenged). But this is not simply a question of political responses to media agendas - it is also a reflection of the centrality of political marketing to the organisation of the major parties. The  machinery of large PR departments, rabid rebuttal units, etc. is designed to feed off tabloid debate, rather than seeking to engage the general public (or, still less, party members) as active participants in the political process.

Secondly, The Sun and other tabloids play a vital role in 'framing' the way that political issues are discussed. To continue with the example of immigration, this means the familiar narrative of Britain as a 'soft-touch', the articulation of immigration to fears of terror, etc. to the exclusion of debates on the structural factors that influence population movements, such as the impact of neoliberal globalisation on job security and conditions in the Global South.

Instead of watching the smoke, then, we should be looking at how the tabloids create narratives about what kind of Britain we inhabit, and at how the restructuring of political parties adds fuel to their vindictive fires.   OR

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Outsourcing the public sector

The public sector is at the top of today’s political agenda, but none of the mainstream parties are talking about its erosion through outsourcing. Yet according to UK Public Sector Outsourcing, a report by Kable Market Intelligence Services, the public services market in Britain is set to grow from just under £45 billion this year to more than £67 billion in 2006-2007. Growth will be fastest in the Ministry of Defence, rising from £1.1 billion this year to £4.2 billion in 2006-8, whilst the NHS outsourcing market could grow to £16.4 billion in three years time. “There are now few ideological or policy limits to the use of outsourcing in the UK public sector,” the report concludes. 

This is good news for the outsourcing companies (see Red Pepper’s ‘Know Your Enemy’ column to find out who’s getting rich and at what cost) but bad news for the public. There is little credible evidence that outsourcing provides value for money, and government claims that outsourcing transfers risk to the private sector often turn out to be flawed. Even where penalty clauses are included in contracts the government has been reluctant to enforce them for fear of scaring off future private investment. The democratic arguments also favour publicly run public services. Public bureaucracies may creak at times, and would often benefit from more participatory practices, but private provision makes that even harder. The outsourcing of services necessarily results in an outsourcing of accountability, since private companies are primarily accountable to shareholders rather than patients, pupils and other services users.  OR

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Cleaner hospitals require hospital cleaners

The Conservatives’ focus on hospital ‘super bugs’ betrays the lack of political space between the two major parties on the future of the health service (see this earlier post). But this doesn’t mean that dirty wards are not a genuine issue. For a good analysis of the flaws in the current ‘contract culture’ and how it has affected cleanliness, look no further than Unison’s recent report on Hospital Contract Cleaning and Infection Control.  OR

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Interview with Graham Elliot

Today I interviewed Graham Elliot, Green Party candidate for Waveney. Here's what he had to say:

Salman Shaheen: Climate change is commendably at the top of the Green agenda, but do you think there is a danger of people perceiving the Greens as a single issue party?

Graham Elliot: I think there has been, but I think we’re getting over that. I mean I’ve had problems with that, going to things like Defend Council Housing meetings. People have thought, ‘well what’s that got to do with the Greens?’ But I think we’re getting over that image. We have got over that image, and the elected members around the country are involved in some diverse campaigns, and putting the message across on all policies, particularly public services, and particularly peace. Climate change is a big issue, it always has been a big issue for us, but it’s not the only issue, and I think we’re getting the message across. People are associating us with public services and peace.

Salman: Peter Tatchell made the case for the Greens being the new party of the radical left, and Derek Wall talks of Eco-Marxism, do you feel that the Greens are a party of the left?

Graham: I think we are a party of the left, yes, but I think we can appeal across a much broader spectrum than a traditional, say, socialist party. Particularly in rural Suffolk here, outside the towns it’s quite a conservative area. We have got an elected member in mid-Suffolk, which is very strong Tory, but he got in with a huge majority, with the backing of the local community. He’s introducing radical thoughts and measures into his local council, where he can. But with the backing of a real broad cross section of the population. So yes, the policies are radical and left-leaning, but I think that’s a nice thing about the Green party, that we can involve people who are not traditional socialists, and who would be frightened by the socialist label.

Salman: In Leeds the Greens have gone into coalition with the Conservatives on the council, do you feel this was a bad decision to make?

Graham: It’s a very very difficult decision to make. I can’t really comment on whether it was the best decision or not. I know in Norwich they chose not to go into coalition, they could have gone into coalition with either the Lib Dems or Labour. I think Norwich’s decision was, in that case, right, and to have no overall party in control, and to do things on an issue by issue basis. That’s my personal preference. I can’t really say Leeds did it wrong. It might be that that was the right thing to do in that particular case, but it’s an unusual coalition, very unusual coalition. I wouldn’t like to say that’s wrong, because I just don’t know the details. But I do favour the Norwich role of actually tackling things on an issue by issue, rather than going into a formal coalition.

Salman: You drew comparisons with the traditional socialist left, but what do you think is preventing the Greens from attracting widespread support from this traditional socialist left, and disaffected Old Labour voters, despite having progressive social policies?

Graham: I think we are. I was just literally on the phone when you arrived, with somebody who has never voted Green before, just phoned me up, said ‘I want to vote Green, I want to know more about the Green Party, I’m a socialist, I always have been’. So yes, four years ago, in my home town, a lot of my friends in Beccles, would still be putting the ‘vote Labour’ posters up. Over the last four years, all those posters have come down, and they’ve all gone up ‘vote Green’. One by one, there’s one person left, whose paranoid the Tories will get in! We are getting the message across to disaffected socialists, and they are coming over. They’re maybe not coming over fast enough. I think it is an image thing. I’m perhaps not the best person to counter that image, being a stereotypical hairy green. I’d rather, in many ways, someone else took on this role, and became the parliamentary candidate for Waveney, and became a Green MP for Waveney. I’m quite happy to be in a supporting role, but until that’s there, I’m going to do it, until someone better comes along, more able, more willing. So partly image, if you look at the Green candidates, they’re not all hairy Greens anymore, there’s a good cross section. We’re not ashamed of that, but we are a very broad cross section now. We’ve got Muslim candidates; we’ve got candidates from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds. Not a brilliant gender mix this year, but we can be working on that.

Salman: Michael Howard has recently made some pretty vicious remarks about travellers, what is your opinion on this issue?

Graham: Travellers, it’s a hot issue locally actually. Local councils do need to provide bases for travellers to stay. That’s the bottom line really. There have to be places for them to go, so they’re not staying on common land and causing problems really. But it is down to local councils. Many councils have refused. It’s almost inevitable really, if you don’t provide sites for travellers, they will make their own. We do need to treat them with respect, and hopefully they will treat the community that they’re in with respect. But the vicious remarks, I think is very much playing on middle England’s fear of travellers.

Salman: Now the 500 million dollar question, what is the way forward for Iraq?

Graham: I think we need to pull out UK forces. I think we can do that immediately. We need to replace all external forces, with a UN security force, and to have genuinely fair elections that encompass the whole of the country. It would have been easier for you to ask that two and a half years ago! But one by one countries are pulling out, showing America is on its own. If we had pulled out two and a half years ago, the US probably would have gone in, but they would have been in much deeper trouble, much more pressure at home. They couldn’t say they were an alliance if they only had a couple of African countries, or a couple of Eastern European with them. It’s mainly because of our government backing of their policy that they’re their in the first place. We’re the only party that has consistently opposed the war, before, during and afterwards. The Lib Dems very much opportunistic beforehand, and during they’re backing it. The best way to look after our people that are out there is to bring them home, and they’re not helping the security situation there. So basically we’ve got to have an international solution to it, the UN have got to get back involved.

SS

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Manifestoes, manifestoes everywhere

I'm in Paris with possibly the most bland collection of holidary reading ever: a complete set of election manifestoes. Is it worth the bother? Judging from new Labour's record in office, the answer is probably not. On 6 May 1997, just four days after its first election landslide, Gordon Brown announced the independence of the Bank of England. It wasn't simply the case that the Party had 'forgotten' to mention this in its manifesto. It had actually promised to "reform the Bank of England to ensure that decision-making on monetary policy is more effective, open, accountable and free from short-term political manipulation." Retrospectively, this could be taken as a hint of what was to come, but I've yet to hear an explanation of how removing large swathes of economic decision-making from democratic control is a recipe for making it more open and accountable.

Nor was this decision unique. In 2001, Labour's Manifesto (in)famously promised "We will not introduce 'top-up' fees and have legislated to prevent them," but this did not prevent the Party from legislating for such fees in its subsequent term in office. Other broken promises are more farcical, such as the commitment to building a "first-class athletics stadium for the World Athletics Championships in 2005." Plans for a World Class stadium in the Lee Valley ignominiously collapsed, Britain lost the right to host the games, and the genius response has been to bid for the 2012 Olympics - with the promise of a World Class stadium in the Lee Valley.

But its the things that weren't mentioned in the Manifesto at all that have been amongst the most debated of Labour's second term: anti-terror legislation, ID cards (aborted, but not forgotten) and, of course, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Events, dear boy, events" - in Harold MacMillan's famous phrase - are the driving force of politics, the Government might claim in its defence. Yet this does not account for the fact that the definition of an event is politically contestable. The shock of September 11th clearly called for some kind of political action - but then how many more sickening and deadly spectacles in recent history have been met with inertia, and treated as non-events? Nor do such events account for the type of action that is taken. Still less do they justify it. The institutions of government have fallen over themselves to legislate in response to the new terror threat, and to legitimate the bombing countries that have, in and of themselves, posed no threat. But what mechanisms exist for engaging the public in these decision-making processes? Or for involving us in these decisions? The answer, sadly, is: very few.   OR

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