Sunday, 27 August 2017

The Acceptable Face?

Purely because Jeremy Corbyn is the Leader of the Labour Party, and not for the first time, Theresa May talks a good game on tackling corporate greed and irresponsibility. Believe her when she does anything about it, and not before.

Not very long ago at all, hers were the agenda of workers' and consumers' representation in corporate governance, of shareholders' control over executive pay, of restrictions on pay differentials within companies, of an investment-based Industrial Strategy and infrastructure programme, of greatly increased housebuilding, of action against tax avoidance, of a ban on public contracts for tax-avoiding companies, of a cap on energy prices, of banning or greatly restricting foreign takeovers, of a ban on unpaid internships, and of an inquiry into Orgreave. 

Every point of which she had only ever adopted because Jeremy Corbyn was there. But even so. Oh, well, if you want any of those things, then you are just going to have to vote for him after all.

May could only have got this programme through with the votes of Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, the DUP, Plaid Cymru, the SDLP (which had MPs at the time), the UUP (likewise), Caroline Lucas, and Sylvia Hermon.

But she could have got it through. And it still needs to happen. Labour, in particular, still needs to find ways of proposing each of these measures in order to invite all MPs to vote on them. It also needs to bring the matter of arms sales to Saudi Arabia back to the floor of the House of Commons.

1 comment:

  1. But who is there in the Commons to push these things without fear or favour? The star backbenchers of this Parliament should be you and George Galloway but instead we get Jess Phillips, Laura Pidcock and Jacob Rees-Mogg.

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