This is the first response to the Government's Pre Budget Report I put out yesterday afternoon and which appears on the New Statesman's online edition. A further article should appear on the Guardian's Comment is Free website early this morning. My overall theme is that I can't see what the Government's agenda is for the future except shadowing the Tories and continuing with the neo liberal consensus.
New Statesman Online Published 09 October 2007
Mixed reactions to Alistair Darling's first Pre-Budget Report from John McDonnell, Martin Salter, Jo Swinson, Derek Wall and Frank Field
We asked UK politicians with a variety of perspectives to react to Alistair Darling's first Pre-Budget Report
John McDonnell, former Labour leadership hopeful and MP for Hayes and Harlington
Electioneering for an election that never happened dominated both the Chancellor’s pre-budget statement and the Tories’ response. The knockabout farce that comprised the debate had less to do with real needs of our community and more to do with political positioning by the Government in response to the Tories' party conference policy announcements.
The good news is that after the vigorous campaign by trade unions and tax justice groups for the past two years to end the tax loopholes being exploited by private equity companies, the Government has at long last taken action. The bad news is that the Government has bottled it when it comes to addressing similar tax avoidance by mega rich non-domiciles. Instead of action after four years of a Treasury review the best the Chancellor can offer is yet another consultation with proposals to let the rich off the hook yet again..
Inequality is still the elephant in the room, and there was nothing in these statements which will effectively tackle poverty or reduce inequality.
7 Comments:
"Children from low-income families risk being isolated, stigmatised and bullied at school - simply because their parents cannot afford the cost of uniforms and ‘optional extras’ like school trips. Citizens Advice Bureaux report many parents being forced to borrow money to pay for uniforms, pushing families in already difficult circumstances into debt. Bureaux also report that children have been disciplined or ‘internally isolated’ for going to school without the correct uniform, even when the reason for this was that their parents could not afford to buy the required items."
"The Family Welfare Association, a charity that provides school uniform grants, has seen a year on year increase in the number of parents applying to them for help."
http://tinyurl.com/28a77v
These poor families cannot afford to give money to the New Labour party like rich people do to gain influence and set New Labour policies.
Brown is in a deep trough I think. He seemed indecisive and weak over the election and even worse reactionary to Tory policy over the pre-budget report. We need an isnpirational leader who can breaj with the New Lbaour past and destruct inequality to deliver social justice.
I'm still recovering from Monday's late night programme on torture in Abu Ghraib etc; all authorised by Bush and Rumsfeld who have someho wevaded the relevant Geneva conventions drawn up to stop the sort of tortures committed during the holocaust haapening again. The Americans may not have gassed people but they have committed homicide by various horrible means of torture of which I'll spare you the details here but it was the sort of thing the Nazis did and of course there is the pictorial eveidence as well which the world has already seen. I hope they do get prosecuted for war crimes which is what they are trying to avoid. we must diassociate ourselves from this regime ( I mean New Labour must).
To end on a more cheerful note I found out at an eco-schools committee meeting yesterday that all schools must made be "sustainable" Eco-friendly, accessible etc and they must all start working on this now if they haven't already but they only hve to have all this in place by wait for it -2020!! I don't think New Labour will be around to check if their policies worked by then!!
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