As this blog observed a few days ago, the ‘business as usual’, anti-Corbyn faction of the Labour party is currently carrying out a second ‘silent coup’ – a strategy of silence and denial with regard to the credibility of the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn.
Basically, this consists of keeping silent about any Labour ‘vision’ and then claiming “there’s no plan!” at every opportunity, with the assistance of the media who put 10 ‘plan-deniers’ in front of the public for every Corbyn supporter and who give the former an easy ride while sneering at the latter.
Of course, the reality is that Corbyn and his team have both a vision and a plan. The quandary is, as it always has been for a Labour opposition, that disclosing plans runs the risk of the Tories stealing them – usually with the guts ripped out, as in the living-wage-that-isn’t-really – in the hope of taking the wind out of Labour’s sails.
But with a large section of the PLP (Parliamentary Labour Party) perfectly prepared to undermine the party’s electoral credibility if it allows them to retake control of the party, that’s the lesser of two evils.
So Corbyn has published a range of policies – and the have this writer genuinely excited about their breadth, depth and vision – but as his own media team is unfunded while the official Labour feeds keep silent on matters of substance while finding time to tweet about Ed Balls’ ‘dancing’, he needs our help to get the word out.
Below are the policy areas covered and a very brief summary – click through to see detail, including download links for the full policy documents:
Take a lead on climate change, build a world-class green economy, create clean, affordable energy, extend and build on EU environmental protections
Create a ‘secure homes guarantee’ through housing investment, regulation of private rents, securing tenancies, scrapping the ‘bedroom tax’ and the benefit cap
Securing the NHS and social care by reversing ‘marketisation’, removing the profit-motive from healthcare, integrating health and social care into a coherent whole, improving disease-prevention and, crucially, valuing and rewarding staff properly, including restoring the bursary for student nurses that the Tories have idiotically scrapped
Equality for women, investment in an economy that delivers for women, ensuring equal representation and tackling sexism and sexual harrassment
Create a ‘universal service network’ delivering high-speed broadband and mobile for every household and organisation, an ‘open knowledge’ library providing free-to-use information for a National Education Service that will operate on the principles that the NHS brings to healthcare; update the BBC charter to ensure diversity and that communities are adequately represented; co-operative ownership of digital platforms, diversity of programming and a ‘digital citizen’ passport; a charter of digital liberty rights and an online platform for ‘deliberation’/consultation on pressing issues and new legislation
Bring railways back into public ownership, with an integrated public transport system; give the public control over procurement orders to ensure British manufacturing is supported; allow all councils to set up and run bus services; expand capacity; invest savings created by eliminating profit-taking back into services
Restore the arts to a place of importance, including restoring and expanding funding; create an ‘arts pupil premium’ to ensure access for all regardless of financial circumstances; protect artists’ pay and conditions, protect the BBC and keep museums and galleries in public ownership
If you want the policies, support the man and his team. You certainly won’t get anything like this from the ‘moderates’.
And spread the word – the mainstream media will not do it for us.
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I just wish the next election would hurry up.