Labour leadership contest - why can't we vote for hope?

In a recent article on the Guardian's 'Comment is Free' section, comedian Frankie Boyle suggested that following the decision to abstain in the recent welfare bill vote the Labour party was now so passive it could be "led by an out-of-office email".

It was indeed, a pathetic move by Labour.  Even if you agree with the tactics that Labour should attempt to fight the 'middle ground' with the Tories, this was still spectacularly unnecessary.  That bill will hurt the worst off in society, exactly the kind of people that you expect the Labour Party to want to protect as part of it's DNA.

This is the background to which the Labour Party leadership election is being fought.  And, I get to vote.

I'm not a member of the Labour Party for many reasons - I'm a revolutionary Socialist rather than a reformist.  However my Trade Union, the GMB, is a major backer of the party.  Personally my belief is that the political fund should be democratised, and MPs should be given backing on an individual basis, irrespective of party.

However, that is not an argument that has been won within the union, so whilst it continues to give part of my subs to the Labour party, I believe that I have a right to exercise my democratic rights in voting in this election.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why people do become members of the Labour Party, despite everything that it has done wrong.  People are pragmatic.  They don't expect perfection, but they know they have to fight for what they can.

When I lived in Bolton I knew a group of trade union activists who worked within the council who collectively joined the Labour Party because they were tired of being 100% ignored by the elected councillors.  Now they are only ignored 90%.

Why do people bother with Labour, when it is so 'top down' in it's 'democracy'?

I was talking to two Labour Party members on the TUC anti-austerity demo in October 2012.  Both were ordinary trade unionists who had joined Labour to continue the struggle from beyond their workplaces out in to the wider world.  Both had voted for Ed Milliband because he had been the only mainstream candidate who spoke about the need to correct Labour's mistakes (and he wasn't vague about those mistakes - he attacked the New Labour ethos and said that the invasion of Iraq was clearly wrong), and both now wished they had voted for David Milliband instead.

That wasn't because in hindsight they decided that the political agenda he put forward was now the correct one.  No, it was for one reason - they were frightened that the Tories would get re-elected.

Everything was driven by that fear.  That's why ordinary party members may look towards Yvette Cooper or Andy Burnham (or the sadistic towards Liz Kendall).

But now we have a candidate worth voting for in Jeremy Corbyn.  He is pretty much spotless.  Not only has he always stood up for the right causes throughout his political career, he has also managed to do so without being a crazed ego maniac (oh George Galloway, I remember the hope we had only for you to smash that to smithereens).

The Daily Mirror has reported that Jeremy Corbyn is way ahead in the leadership contest so far with a 42% poll rating (Yvette Cooper currently second with 22.6%).  Hardly surprising, this is what the ordinary activists, both inside and outside of the Labour Party, actually want in a leader.

Who is voting against Corbyn?  Well, some activists who still have that 'pragmatic' fear of losing to the Tories, but also the 'professional' political figures within the party.

MP's make a good living from their position.  As such, it is a position they want to protect.  I'm not saying that none of them care about politics, but it makes a big difference when your income depends on winning elections.  In that position, you are desperate to keep your seat.  This is not a gravy train they wish to disembark from.

It certainly explains the tendency to lean to the right in such arguments.  The same goes for full time, unelected trade union officials.  They don't want to rock the boat with employers any more than they have to, because they have their own income to protect.  Again, it's not to say that none of them care about the workers they represent, it's just that it does explain the tendency to want to avoid fighting for what is right.

All union officials should be workplace based and elected by the members.  That way, if the members do not agree with their actions they can be removed from the post and go back to their job.  If that job is there, and their income doesn't change when elected, they will be a lot less likely to take the side of the bosses.

But still, is there any point in striving to elect a leader like Jeremy Corbyn if no-one will vote for Labour in a general election?  Well, it turns out that the general public actually agree with most of his policies, with a significant majority willing to support moves to renationalise the railways, bring in rent controls, etc.

There have been a number within the Labour Party who have complained about 'Communists' and members of other left wing groups 'infiltrating' the party.  Well, I'm a member of the SWP and I've not joined, nor has there been any call to do so.  Has it occurred to them that Corbyn might simply be attracting activists to join?

And that's the thing that could make a real difference.  When Tony Blair was elected with a massive majority one of the reasons he was able to do so was because he had over 60,000 activists campaigning on the streets.  He offered a vision that was clearly different to what the Tories had to offer.

Yes, he was a fucking abomination, but beyond that, this was why he was able to win so convincingly.  In the years that followed, the more he moved the party to the right, the more it appeared to be similar to the Tories, the more his majority fell.

Jeremy Corbyn stands up for policies that are right, and are what the mass majority of Labour members and supporters actually believe in, but have been too afraid to express in fear of losing the 'middle ground' to the Tories.

He is also someone who can carry forward arguments with the general public in a convincing fashion, and can attract a mass activist base to the Labour Party.  Yes, they are up against the right wing press, and that is the biggest problem by far.  Who gets to control the arguments for our political future, that which becomes seen as 'common sense'?

It will be a huge battle, and one that may well be lost in a coming election, but by God I'd rather it was lead by someone actually trying to fight than a party simply resigning itself to perpetual defeat.

I won't be joining the Labour Party, but I am part of the wider labour movement.  As such, I will be voting for Jeremy Corbyn, I'll be voting for hope.  But I won't be leaving it to him to do, I'll keep working with everyone in the movements from below to try and bring about real change.

Friends on benefits

Fingers crossed I'll snare some people in to reading this blog with its almost sexy sounding title.  It's fair to say though that 'friends on benefits' is a lot different to 'friends with benefits'.  Simply, having a 'friend on benefits' means only one person is getting fucked.

That simple, not to mention crude, joke could still be taken more than one way.  Which in itself is another double entendre.  Ding.

My suggestion is that if you're on benefits you are going to be having a hard time, thus the use of the term saying that they're getting 'fucked'.  But, whilst to me that would be bleeding obvious, I cannot assume that is how everyone would understand it.

Many, it appears, would assume that by being the one not on benefits that you're the one getting 'fucked'.  That you are a 'striver' as politicians like to say.  You are working hard, and paying taxes, and it's actually the nasty, horrible 'spongers' on benefits who are living the life of riley.

This is the argument perpetuated by the Tories and their allies in the right wing press.  We are being told that people on benefits are a drain on the national resources, meaning less for everyone else.  Furthermore, there are many people who do not need to be on benefits.  What absolute bastards!

In fact the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) calculate that benefit fraud amounts to around £1.2 billion, or 0.7% of the total costs of benefits (which include pensions) each year.  Sounds like a lot, but by comparison HMRC (Revenue and Customs) themselves say that tax evasion means we lose out on around £4.1 billion pounds each year!  Well over three times more.  Even then, there are others who suggest the tax gap is in fact £120 billion!

It seems so strange to obsess over people on benefits when there are incredibly rich people not paying the tax they owe, and the money they owe is many times more.  In the world of stand up there are a lot of professional comedians who are owed tens of thousands of pounds from big clubs that are not paying their debts to them.  It would be like a comic spending all their energy getting annoyed at a friend asking to borrow £5 rather than the clubs who haven't paid their invoice from 6 months ago.

Spongers

Why then are we so obsessed with benefit fraud?  I think the truth lies in a couple of factors.  One, it's much easier to relate to the concept of individuals 'sponging' benefits, because they will be people who live lives like ourselves - on similar incomes, in similar homes.

The second factor is that the right wing press is ramming it down our throats.  When you hear something like benefits being referred to as such a problem so much, you believe it.  It becomes 'common sense', like believing that immigration is a massive problem when clear evidence suggests that it is not.

Working people are not idiots, but they are people who work hard and have clear limits placed on their time.  Every person cannot spend hours reading up on statistics to inform their opinion - that's why tabloid papers are so popular.  For a small payment each day they let you know what's going on in the world, and also take time to entertain you on your break times as well.

I go on about the evils of the 'right wing press' like it's a conspiracy.  Is it?  Well, yes and no.

The Sun will mirror the opinions to a degree of it's ownership, which is ultimately Rupert Murdoch.  Whilst generally an unpleasant guy (to say the least), I don't actually believe he sits down and purposefully engineers propaganda to keep the masses down.

As one of the richest people in the world, as a capitalist it is in his interests to believe that the problems in society are not connected to rich people like himself, but rather people at the bottom end.  People on benefits, trade unionists fighting for better working rights, etc.  I think he genuinely believes that.

The most horrifying thing is that it's in his interests to believe that people on benefits are a problem but it is absolutely not in the interests of working class people, who are by far the majority of the population.

But again, we take it as common sense because it's the super rich like Rupert Murdoch who control the media and get their point of view accross that way.  It's not a conspiracy, but it is the system.  Therefore, the system itself is corrupt.

I had a friend on Facebook post a status saying that a guy she works with told her that his sister doesn't work, has 5 kids, and is on £28k a year.  Her partner also doesn't work.  Needless to say, apart from a few exceptions, most comments following that were ones of disgust and horror.  They agreed she was getting too much.

Now, from that information, do we actually know much about her circumstances?  Do we know if she is registered disabled and receiving benefits for that?  That aside, lets look at £28k as an income.

Me and my partner probably earn a similar amount per year between us.  With that we live a comfortable, but by no means extravagant, lifestyle.  However, that 'comfort' means living in one room together in a shared house with four other people.  Some would allow that to fuel their anger that someone else could earn the same by not working, but instead I can use that to put in to context how much £28k actually is.

We live ok, but I cannot even begin to imagine how on earth I would be able to clothe and feed five children.  Aside from the rights or wrong of having that many children, you cannot get away from the simple fact that bringing up children, even badly, costs a lot of money.

And time.  Making dinner and packed lunches for five kids.  Doing the school run back and forth each day for five kids.  Sounds exhausting.

Also, don't forget, children grow up and become adults.  You know, adults - people that work and pay taxes.  No doubt cynics would expect that they would continue a cycle of never working, but we don't know that.  Is it really likely that all the children from that relationship would never work?

Needless to say, I don't think people on benefits are the problem.  Whatever this woman who is getting £28k from benefits is like, I simply do not care.  Lets get angry about how many big companies and super rich individuals get to avoid paying tax.

People on benefits are not the enemy.

Women make watching England in a World Cup actually worth while!!

England women's football team celebrate

I can't say I've had a particularly productive day today, I slept in until past 11am this morning.  But I do have my reasons for needing sleep as I'm still recovering after watching the England Women's World Cup match against Japan on Wendesday night.

Well, I say Wednesday night.  As it started at midnight it was actually Thursday morning.  And I had to be up early for work in an office the next day, so I was exhausted.  Was it worth it?

Well, they did lose.  Even so, I'm happy to have stayed up and watched them, and indeed have enjoyed watching the whole women's World Cup.  England have not been the best technically, but they have fought and pushed themselves to their limits, and that effort took them all the way to the semi finals, the first time they have reached that stage.

Before this World Cup my attitude towards womens football is that I felt like it was something I should support, but actually doing so was a different matter.  Like many who are not convinced by the game, whenever I did watch it, it just seemed so off the pace compared to the mens game - why watch a sport if it's just plainly worse than what else is on offer?

But, I have changed my mind.  The starting point for enjoying women's football is, simply, to accept that it is a game in its own right and that it is not necesarily better or worse than the mens game, it is simply different.

The physical differences between men and women mean that it is not played with the same pace, but once you accept this you can learn to enjoy the game in its own right.  There is more close control on show in the womens game, and in many ways more battles of sheer strength as well.

A good comparison for me is like trying to compare the mens game of today compared to what it was like 60 years ago.  Englands greatest triumph in the game was winning the 1966 World Cup (not that we like mention it much... ahem).  But for anyone too young to have watched it first time around if you watch the footage of the matches they seem... bizarre.

So much less pace.  Compared to today it is played at a pace where people seem to be barely jogging.  The reasons were that the kits and the balls were different, both much heavier, and the pitches were chewed up like Worthy Farm the Tuesday after Glastonbury.

But we are told that the likes of Charlton, Moore, et al, were 'greats' of the game.  Well, they are, but the game was very different back then, and so it is hard to compare.  And I'm not trying to say the womens game is backward.  Again, it wasn't better or worse, it was just different.

It also seems like such a weird thing to feel the need to compare anyway, because we don't do that with sports where the womens equivelant is already well established.  Nobody ever said "sure, Paula Radcliffe is good, but how would she do racing against Mo Farah?"

In fact, you could argue that some of the differences are not just ok, but are in fact a very good thing.  For a start, we have the media coined term WAGs, meaning 'Wives and Girlfriends'.  Top football stars are in such demand that the media want to know everything about them, including saucy pics of their partners at movie premiers and on the beach.

Ask yourself - do you know the name of any of the England women's partners?  I know I don't, and I think that is a God send!  If only I didn't know who Victoria Beckham was, wouldn't that be amazing?

WAGS - maybe now we have a new kind of role model for young women

Also, these are young sportswomen.  I'm sure, like the guys, they like to go out and party.  Have a fair few drinks, let their hair down and bond.  However, when the men do it they ellicit headlines such as "Premier League stars' racist orgy shame caught on camera".

I mean, seriously, that is some headline.  Throw in the term 'hippy crack' and we get a full house on 'arsehole footballer bingo'.

So I'm not going to pretend that the women are not fully capable of getting wasted and acting stupid on a night out.  What I am saying is that I doubt they would manage to be so utterly, soul destroyingly awful.  Racism, sexism and rape - male footballers can just take your breath away sometimes.

The fact that the womens game has less attention actually makes it significantly more pallitable, because of all the other things that come with that level of 'fame'.

However, I'm not going to pretend that the women's game is perfect.  Indeed, there are some areas where you could make comparisons to the mens game where it isn't just different - there is still work to be done.

England showed a lot of fight and determination, as I've already said, throughout the whole tournment.  However, they fought so much because they had to, because they kept giving the ball away so easily.

The passing side of the game, in England at least, clearly needs attention.  Against Canada the commentators were full of praise for Jodie Taylor, the sole striker.  She ran after everything and made half chances where non should have been available.  But that's because half the time the ball was just being pumped blindly upfield in the hope she could scrap something out of it.

Passing from defence through midfield was practically non existent at times.  Yes, they were the home side, but there was little reason why we had to be so route one.  It was like watching the Wimbledon side of the 1990s - getting a crick in your neck from looking up so often.

That said though, here is something to think about - We only had a professional league set up in England in 2011.  Yes, there had already been a women's league structure in place before that, but this was the first attempt to make it professional.  In this league, the WSL (Women's Super League), the top 4 stars at each club are paid between £20-30,000 a year.  Top stars in the mens game make several times that in a week.

We are only in the last few years getting in to a position where women can play football as a full time profession, meaning they can now train every day as well.  How can they be expected to perform to the same level of men without this backing?

The FA are part funding the wages in the WSL as the clubs themselves simply do not get the revenue from gate receipts and TV rights that would make it financial viable in its own right.  At this point of course, it is a matter of chicken and egg - what comes first, the standard of players that makes people want to pay to watch them, or a financial system in place to develop the players in the first place.

In that sense, funding from the FA and elsewhere makes sense - they need that foot up.

The World Cup will have switched many on to watching women's football - myself included.  There is plenty of skill and technique on show from these women, and where the game might still be lacking compared to the mens game, that will come with greater levels of training and coaching.

What you can guarantee is the game is played honestly, and with passion.  Seeing how the England women played makes you feel proud.  I know it's just a completely different game, but I wonder if they could perhaps give that a go in the mens game as well?