Brown Interview, Not in the Real World, Retreat from Basra.

This morning in his interview on BBC Gordon Brown gave the impression of someone living in a different world from the rest of us. Defending the international markets, ignoring the prospects of a potential world economic downturn and refusing to condemn the grotesque greed exhibited by the recent huge city bonus payouts demonstrated a politician living in a political bubble of electoral tactics rather than appreciating the real threats of climate change, world economic and political instability and growing inequality. Nothing better illustrated this divergence from the real world than his references to Iraq.

Gordon Brown and the Downing Street spin machine are desperately trying to present last night's evacuation of 500 British troops from Basra Palace as part of a planned process of withdrawal from Iraq.

Let's be absolutely clear. The British troops are being drawn back to the base at the airport because it became increasingly impossible to sustain them in central Basra in the face of continuous attacks by insurgents as they lay siege to the British positions. As one Labour member of the Defence Select Commiittee put it, the Palace could only be kept supplied by the British by "nightly suicide missions."

By any military standards this withdrawal is a humiliating defeat for those politicians, including Gordon Brown and his cabinet colleagues, and the military that dragged our country into Bush's invasion of Iraq without due regard to the consequences for both the Iraqi people and serving British troops. It should not be forgotten that the price of their arrogant folly has so far been the lives of 160 British personnel and at least 650,000 Iraqis. When questioned about the next stage of his policy for Iraq, instead of acknowledging that the only option is urgent withdrawal altogether Brown went into a bizarre promulgation of the need for an economic development forum in the area as though he was dealing with the need for economic development in the North East of England and not in a country that to most observers and the Iraqi people themselves is little short of experiencing a civil war.

Get real Mr Brown. Stop pretending that this is anything other than a retreat and withdraw the troops now altogether.

New web address

This is just a quick note to let you know that the web address of this blog is now: www.johnmcdonnell.org.uk. If you've got a website, I hope that you'll consider linking to the website.

If you want to get in touch with me, my email address is mcdonnellj@parliament.uk.

I'm looking forward to reading your comments and contributions!

Brown's Pay Policy: "Pay Discipline" for Public Sector Workers, Bonuses for Financiers and Chief Executives.

The Prison Officers have led the way in expressing the frustration of public sector workers at the way they have been treated by the Brown administration on pay, working conditions and privatiastion. The Government's pay policy has been dictated by Gordon Brown throughout the last ten years. Brown has based the latest pay round on effective pay cuts for public sector workers wiith below inflation pay awards whilst at the same time turning a blind eye to the excesses of gigantic pay rises and bonuses for chief executives, directors and city speculators.

This morning as the strike by prison officers forces pay talks with Jack Straw, Gordon Brown has demanded "pay discipline" by public sector workers. At the same time the Guardian earnings survey exposes the huge gap between the income of chief executives and the wages of their workers which has opened up under Brown's supervision of the economy.

Take just a few examples: Giles Thorley, chief executive of Punch Taverns, now has a salary package of £11,276,000 which is 1,148 times the average wages of his workers of £9,821. How about Tesco's chief executive whose salary is £4.6 million which is 415 times his average worker earning £11,000.

The Brown pay strategy for the coming period is fairly obvious. The aim is to control any inflationary pressures in the economy by restricting public sector pay overall and where there is union resistance to buy off individual unions with minute concessions, particularly to unions where Brown sees soft leaderships or where a strike would be impossible for the Government to withstand.

Above all else Brown sees that he must prevent a united front from building across the unions on pay because this could demonstrate what co-ordinated action could do on other issues such as privatisation and trade union rights. That is why everything is being done both to work with the UNISON leadership to deter UNISON members from supporting industrial action and also to prevent a policy of effective co-ordinated action across the public sector being achieved at the TUC in a fortnight. It is a classic divide and rule strategy, with the added objective of seeking to isolate PCS, the largest civil servants union.

The lessons for the trade union movement are obvious. The POA has shown the way. Strength, determination and solidarity are what is needed now.

John McDonnell MP

Prison Officers' Dispute is Tip of Iceberg of Public Sector Workers' Discontent.

The industrial action taken by members of the Prison Officers Association should come as no surprise to anybody familiar with the dire straits of industrial relations in the prison service. The trigger for today's dispute is the Government's decision to refuse to honour the Pay Review Body's pay award of 2.5% and instead to insist that the payment be staged resulting in prison officers receiving less than the rate of inflation and significantly less than other assessments of the real rise in the cost of living.

The depth of anger amongst POA members can be gauged by the 87% vote in favour of the industrial action in its recent ballot. It is completely understandable why are they angry.

In 1993 the the Tory Government took away the POA's right to strike. Despite commitments from Labour in opposition that this issue would be addressed, the New Labour Government refused to restore the right to take industrial action to the POA and instead established the Pay Review Body process to determine future pay awards. Any attempt by the POA to take industrial action remains outlawed under this Government and the President and General Secretary of the POA have regularly found themselves being threatened with legal action for what in other sectors of public service would be seen as normal trade union activities.

Hounded by further rounds of privatisation, under pressure from a dramatic increase in the prison population and with a £60 million savings exercise threatening less staff to cope, morale amongst prison officers is reported to be at rock bottom. Warnings are being made that the prison service is under the same pressure that resulted in the riots that saw prisons burning in 1990.

The Government has refused to meet with the POA to discuss its concerns and to resolve this dispute. As Secretary of the Justice Unions'Parliamentary Group I have emailed Jack Straw's (Secretary of State for the Ministry for Justice) office today to urge him to meet the POA to listen to their worries and seek a settlement to this dispute. The POA just want justice for its members.

The POA's dispute is just the tip of the iceberg of the discontent that there is amongst public sector workers at the way they have been treated on pay, pensions, and privatisation by a Government most of them voted into office.

The Brown Bounce:The Rich Get Richer and Vietnam Style Retreat in Iraq.

There should be an outpouring of anger within the Labour Party and trade union movement at next month's TUC and Labour Party conference and within our wider society at the headlines in our papers this week.

It was revealed today that city bonuses have hit a record £14 billion, an increase of 30%. Most will go to a small number of City speculators, with one group of hedge fund managers receiving £200 million to £250 million each. To ensure that the super rich can maximise their incomes Gordon Brown cut corporation tax in his last budget and still refuses to tackle tax avoidance by the so-called non domiciles.

Under Brown's tax regime the Tax Justice Campaign estimates that every year between £90 billion and £150 billion is not collected as a result of tax avoidance and new figures published today report that nearly one third of companies are not paying any corporation tax at all.

Is it any wonder that under the financial management of our economy by Gordon Brown inequality has increased and social mobility has ground to a halt?

Whilst in London the financial speculators are able to pursue a life style of obscene conspicuous spending, working class young men and women continue to lose their lives and shed their blood in a Vietnam style retreat on the roads of Iraq simply to save the faces of the politicians and generals who placed them in this danger.

I was asked the other day why I was so angry at the political situation when we were experiencing such a Brown bounce in the polls. Angry, yes, I am angry. Angry at every death in Iraq and Afghanistan. Angry at the super rich getting richer when we still have 100,000 of our families homeless, when 3 million of our children and 2 million of our pensioners still live in poverty and furious that the Government denies treatment costing £2.50 a day to Alzheimers sufferers when we learn that city bonuses have meant that there is a 5 year waiting list for Rolls Royces and the super rich are experiencing the trauma of not being able to recruit sufficient crew for their yachts.

It is about time more of us got angry.