Jeremy Corbyn's Question to the Prime Minister, calling for statutory rent control, ties in with work such as that of Stella Creasy, a 35-year-old 2010 entrant, on pay day loans. It ties in with Friday's letter to The Guardian calling for tighter controls on the proliferation of betting shops, signed by 13 Labour MPs from across the party.
The whole issue of Housing Benefit, perhaps especially in London but nevertheless throughout the country, exposes the fallacy that Britain is not One Nation, since it demonstrates starkly that working, taxpaying Britain and the Britain that depends on State benefits are one and the same place, inhabited by one and the same people. The British People. One Nation. Please, please, please, no illiteracy and innumeracy about "Why don't you cut their taxes, then?" You would only be making yourselves look silly by attempting to post such comments.
Rent controls, action on pay day loans, greater restrictions on gambling and on its outlets, a land value tax, strong statutory regulation of interest rates, a massive programme for the building of council and affordable homes, the requirement of planning permission for change of use before a main home could be turned into a second home: the only thing more important than electing a Government with such commitments will be electing a body of friendly but critical MPs from areas far beyond the Labour heartlands and even the Labour targets. MPs who were determined to hold that Government to those commitments in the name, and in the interests, of this One Nation.
Rumour has it that Corbyn
turned down a knighthood in the New Year's Honours List. That seems a
shame: alongside the DBE for a Campaign Group veteran and for a
Cornerstone Group stalwart, Sir Jeremy would have balanced and
complemented Sir Richard Shepherd. Two old anti-Maastricht warhorses
together, one of whom later cast one of the 44 Labour votes against the
European Finance Bill when the other had the Whip withdrawn for being
among the mere eight Conservatives who had joined the Labour front bench
in abstaining.
No
Labour MP joined the Major Government and voted in favour of that Bill.
Every Labour MP without exception now demonstrably agrees with the
then-44, a surprising number of whom are still there, about European
Finance. Whereas the number of Conservatives who now do so is
demonstrably smaller than the number of Lib Dem MPs.
Ah, good old Stella Creasy, so typical of the NuLab influx.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed her performance on BBCQT in which her contribution included telling P.Hitchens that mass immigration was marvellous, and that people who didn't like gay marriage "shouldn't propose to a gay man".
What an intellect.
But she's right about pay day loans. And that puts her well within the mainstream of One Nation Labour. This is what the last days of Alec Douglas-Home must have felt like.
ReplyDeleteIt is, a bit. Or even a lot.
ReplyDeleteIs Creasy very slightly older than you, or very slightly younger? You were born in the same year.
Like all Labour MPs, she was always going to have a free vote on gay marriage. She never said what has been suggested about immigration and could not have kept her frontbench position under Ed if she had. Anon @21:03 must have thought that she was a member of the Coalition backed by the City.
I'd have to check Who's Who, I can only find the year online. So we might have been born on the same day. There is a one in 365 chance of it.
ReplyDelete"The NuLab" influx, indeed! She was born in 1977 and first elected in 2010.
I call Ed Miliband's party Nulab because they are the same as Blair's formation in every way.
ReplyDeleteEd Miliband exploded any delusions of new-found "euroscepticism" in his latest Andrew Marr appearance.
And, well, anyone who believes their fake concern over immigration deserves everything they get (notice they have no actual policies for dealing with it).
And, to Anonymous at 21:44; Creasy defended mass immigration when Hitchens condemned it.
She suggested he was "frightened" of immigrants and should visit Walthamstowe to witness the wonders of "diversity".
All very NuLab, wouldnt you say?
No.
ReplyDeleteHow is life in the Nineties? Not that you'll be enjoying the music.