20 September 2018
Diary of a Corbynista
Labour prepares to implode
by Don Urquhart
13 September
At PMQ’s Jeremy Corbyn decided to go in on Universal Credit, majoring on the hardships its implementation was delivering to the vulnerable.
It was a topic on Politics Live afterwards and Kemi Badenoch MP, a vice chair of the Conservative Party voiced the opinion that the implementation should only be paused if a majority of claimants were suffering:
At the moment it’s a minority. When it starts to be a majority of cases then…because we are still fixing it… Labour acts as if pausing it has no consequences. There are consequences to pausing it which are never acknowledged.
She is probably accurately reporting the government’s view but they also probably wish she would not publicise it.
14 September
The Chequers Proposal makes no sense but it is the basis of our negotiations with the EU. There will be a Commons vote of some kind on what is agreed. Gradually the presentation has shifted from “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” to “Withdrawal Treaty first, then trade agreement over the transition period”.
The government will ask Parliament to agree something later this year and they are likely to lose the vote, which will, logically, lead to a no deal Brexit on the basis that the British could not accept the deal offered by the EU.
I concede that there are many ifs in my line of argument, but it seems not unlikely that there will be subsequently a vote of no confidence. If there is I believe it will fail because Tory MP’s will submerge their Remain/Leave leanings to avoid a General Election and many Labour MP’s fearing deselection will vote with the government to keep themselves in a job.
From then on we would have a government totally lacking credibility and an opposition crippled by its lack of unity.
Not good days for democracy.
15 September
In yesterday’s i News, Serina Sandhu reported on the experience of Arthur Chappell whose local Jobcentre ordered him to purchase a smartphone for his job search because his basic model was not good enough. He said that it felt as though the adviser wanted him to be able to search for a job round-the-clock with a smartphone.
He added:
With people starving and [dying of] suicide over the Universal Credit changes, forcing us to use credit-hungry phones is really beyond the pale.
16 September
Britain’s infrastructure is crumbling. The fine things we have developed over centuries like industries, housing, schools, hospitals, libraries, care services, transport networks, legal system, police forces, fire services are falling apart. Progress is not inevitable. The Conservative austerity project recognises this and ensures that it is the poor and vulnerable who take the hit. Whatever the Mail, Telegraph and the Sun say, Labour is the only political party with a programme to address the underlying problems.
Without a positive strategy for rebuilding our infrastructure we are a country only for people with plenty of fat to see them through and this is a small proportion of our population. When these people see what is happening to those round them they should feel uncomfortable.
17 September
The Social Metrics Commission is the new kid on the block when it comes to poverty analysis but today’s report tells the same old story. Here are some of the key findings. It’s a pity there are no PMQ’s this week.
14.2 million people in the UK population are in poverty: 8.4 million working-age adults; 4.5 million children; and 1.4 million pension age adults.
12.1% of the total UK population (7. 7 million people) live in persistent poverty, (over half of those who appear in our new in poverty measure). This means that more than one in ten of the UK population are in persistent poverty.
More than six in ten working-age adults and children who live in families more than 10% below the poverty line, are also in persistent poverty. For those less than 10% below the poverty line, the figure is four in ten.
Of the 14.2 million people in poverty, nearly half, 6.9 million (48.3%) are living in families with a disabled person.
Social Metrics Commission report
18 September
Fans of The Godfather will recall the ambivalence surrounding the Cosa Nostra. Local people knew where they stood. As long as they paid their dues they would be protected.
The Huffington Post today reports on the rapidly expanding market for private security companies.
Neighbourhood Policing Cuts Are So Bad, Some People Are Paying For ‘Private Police’
It’s a sorry story caused by the Tory government’s 19% cut in police funding since 2010.
As in so many other areas they are running the country into the ground.
19 September
I began this diary 18 months ago asking the question “What is the point of people like Alan Johnson?” Yesterday he was on Newsnight publicising his latest book and, egged on by Emily Maitlis to denounce the new members of the Labour Party as plants from the SWP and Respect, the Enfield North vote against Joan Ryan as being due to her Chairmanship of Labour Friends of Israel. Johnson was always the acceptable face of Labour for my Tory friends.
These could be great days for Johnson and the Tory Party.
The Labour Party Conference runs from Sunday September 23rd to Wednesday September 26th and it could be the week the Labour Party implodes, not on the “People’s Brexit Vote” issue but over internal party democracy. There are a few contentious aspects but the one that really counts is the selection of parliamentary candidates. It’s like the bad old days with party grandees and union bosses stitching things up in smoke-filled rooms. Since Corbyn the party’s ordinary members have been gradually taking over the levers of power, illustrated by the votes of no confidence in MP’s like Frank Field and Joan Ryan. It appears that Trade Union leaders, some MP’s and some NEC members are attempting to use the Conference to re-establish their control of who represents Labour in Parliament. This could get very messy and could lead to a mass exodus from the party.
Many Labour members will be asking “What is the point of this Labour Party?”
