Who Remembers That There Ever Even Was A Referendum?

In very stark contrast to the ongoing collapse of UKIP, the revival of the Lib Dems is a repudiation of the referendum result.

But the exponential growth of Labour under Jeremy Corbyn is not even that.

It includes people on both sides of that debate, and people who do not care.

It would have happened in exactly the same way, not only regardless of the outcome, but even if there had never been a referendum at all.

That is quite a thought.

Moreover, it is perfectly possible that the same is true of the coronation of Theresa May.

If there had been no referendum, or if the other side had won, then that coronation would have happened later in this Parliament.

But it would still have happened.

Referendum? What referendum? Who remembers that there ever even was a referendum?

No One Else No More

Anti-Corbyn MPs might be able to get themselves recognised on a parliamentary technicality as "the Official Opposition" or "the Shadow Cabinet".

But that would be the most hilarious thing to happen in British politics in living memory.

Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition? More like Her Majesty's Parallel Universe.

They have no idea how long or how loud the electorate at large would laugh at them. And we would. Oh, how we would.

Owen Smith is every second or third generation right-wing Labour councillor that those of us who grew up in the Labour heartlands have ever met.

His too cosy relationships with Big Pharma and with arms dealers correspond to theirs with private service contractors and with property developers.

He has their sneering face. He has their tone of voice. He has their style of delivery.

His and theirs is the motto of the tiny, largely elderly, and overwhelmingly inactive Labour Party of the pre-Corbyn years: "You're stuck with me, because there's no one else."

It is impossible to imagine any higher pleasure than that tendency's complete and utter crushing.

70 per cent for Corbyn, they say? Make it 80, say I.

Will Straw CBE?

Why not? Did he lose? I don't see any sign of Britain's leaving the EU.

No Article 50, and no one seems to care. UKIP in meltdown.

Gove pretty much out of politics. Leadsom not even allowed on the ballot for Leader.

May crowned without a contest. Fox's crooked ways about to catch up with him again.

Johnson set up by May to be laughed out of office by the whole world.

Davis likely to resign on some point of principle soon enough.

Define winning. May is just getting on with politics as usual.

I voted Leave, and I would vote Leave again.

But simply in point of fact, it is not happening, and almost no one seems to have noticed, still less do they mind.

It could happen, at some future time.

But anything more than a year after the last referendum, and they would insist on another one, which Remain would certainly win.

As for the argument that the EU will soon collapse, that may very well be true.

But we'll be in the thing until the bitter end.

Astonishing and Costly

Dan Bloom writes:

The Tory government has been forced to reveal a vast list of firms that hoovered up free labour from benefit claimants after spending four years trying to keep it a secret. 

Poundstretcher, Tesco, Asda and Morrisons are among more than 500 companies, charities and councils named as having used Mandatory Work Activity. 

Others on the list from 2011 included payday loans firm Cash Converters, chicken diner Nando's, WH Smith, Superdrug and DHL. 

More than 100,000 jobseekers were put on the hated 'workfare' scheme, which forced them to work 30-hour weeks unpaid for a month each or have their benefits docked. 

Yet the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) mounted an astonishing and costly legal battle to keep the firms' names a secret. 

Officials claimed revealing those involved would hurt their "commercial interests" because protesters would boycott them. 

The DWP stood its ground for nearly four years despite being overruled by the Information Commissioner (ICO) watchdog in August 2012. 

The saga finally ended at the Court of Appeal on Wednesday - where a trio of top judges threw out the DWP's argument by a 2-1 vote. 

Campaigners and Labour condemned the vast cost of the cover-up - in which taxpayers had to fund lawyers for both the DWP and ICO. 

Neither party told the Mirror what they spent, but court fees they racked up in previous cases suggest the bill could run into tens of thousands of pounds.

Labour leadership contender Owen Smith, a former shadow work and pensions secretary, told the Mirror: "Under the Tories there's a culture of cover-ups at the DWP that needs to end.

"Whether it's cuts to Universal Credit, the Bedroom Tax or Work Capability Assessments, the Tories always try to hide the true effects of their cruelty and incompetence." 

Debbie Abrahams, who took over his job as Labour welfare chief, said: "This scheme truly reflects the Tories' skewed view of the world. 

"First they thought it was acceptable to force people into unpaid, poor quality work and couldn't see why there was an outcry against the scheme. 

"To then use public money to try and keep the list of companies taking advantage of this a secret is beyond the pale." 

Anti-workfare activist Frank Zola, who made the original Freedom of Information request, said: "These workfare schemes cost the public billions. 

"Why should employers be able to hide behind the DWP's cloak of secrecy and legal shenanigans?" 

All 534 organisations on the list were named as "placement providers" for Mandatory Work Activity in a narrow six-month period between July 2011 and January 2012.

The list also featured well-known charities and councils including Scarborough, Essex, Hartlepool, Fenland, Leicester, Rochford and Thurrock.

Many of those named on the list left the scheme long before it closed down in April this year.

A tide of charities - including Cancer Research, Scope, Age UK, the British Heart Foundation, the Red Cross, PDSA and Sue Ryder - pulled out of the scheme after protests against it grew.

Some - including Barnardo's - said they had been included on the list in error.

Others - including MIND - voiced concerns about the scheme and said they upheld the highest standards.

Defenders of the scheme, which ran for five years, said it was designed for community benefit and firms funded all training and induction themselves.

A DWP spokesman said: "Employment programmes help thousands of people every year gain new skills and experience to get into work."

There then follows the complete list.

The BBC Has Questions To Answer

Tom Mills writes:

Last week the Media Reform Coalition published research into the news media's treatment of Jeremy Corbyn. It was the third such report to have been produced in recent months.

The first, published by the Media Reform Coalition late last year, examined newspaper reports during Corbyn's first week as Labour leader, which it found to be overwhelmingly negative.

That was followed by a much more extensive piece of research carried out by academics at the LSE's Department of Media and Communications, published last month.

That research affirmed those earlier findings and concluded that "most newspapers [had been] systematically vilifying the leader of the biggest opposition party, assassinating his character, ridiculing his personality and delegitimising his ideas and politics." 

The latest report, produced by the Media Reform Coalition jointly with the Department of Film, Media and Cultural Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, focuses on the coverage of the attempted "coup" against Corbyn which followed the Brexit vote.

It reported similar findings on the press, but is particularly notable for being the first systematic examination of television coverage of Corbyn and his supporters.

Its most striking findings relate to the BBC.

The researchers' quantitative analysis of BBC News at Six shows that critics of Corbyn were given twice as much airtime as his supporters, and that the issues mobilised by his critics were given much greater prominence.

The researchers also noted the pejorative language BBC reporters used to describe Jeremy Corbyn, his team and his supporters.

Allegations of BBC bias are so ubiquitous that it is easy to become cynical about such claims.

But given the centrality of the news media, and the BBC in particular, to British political life, it is important that such debates do not collapse into nihilism.

It is true that any political party or movement will seek advantageous media coverage.

Similarly, it will likely detect "bias" when the news media offers a platform to alternative or opposing views, or reports on events or statements which are likely to be to its disadvantage.

It is also important to recognise that even if all parties perceive the BBC to be biased against them, or at least claim as much, it does not follow that all such claims are equally valid and accurate.

Defenders of the BBC often note that the Corporation gets attacked from "all sides". But they then tend to treat this as though it were evidence of balanced reporting.

This argument is misconceived.

It is rather like claiming that if two people who disagree with each other both say you are wrong, then you must be right.

One of the problems here is that more powerful political actors have far more resources at their disposal to mobilise claims of "bias". 

Perhaps more fundamentally, they have more ability to shape the political climate against which balance and impartiality are assessed. 

This is why it is important for any serious discussion of "bias" to be informed as far as possible by evidence. It is why academic research is so crucial.

This latest report should be viewed in the context of decades of scholarly research, which has consistently found that BBC reporting favours the interests of powerful groups in society.

Regrettably, the latest evidence of this has been treated in a remarkably dismissive fashion by the BBC.

A spokesperson describing the Media Reform Coalition as a "vested interest group". This is not acceptable.

The Media Reform Coalition, with which I have been rather loosely associated (I once co-edited a partner website), campaigns for a more pluralistic media and for more ethical journalism.

Referring to it in this way is rather like dismissing Oxfam research on poverty, or Greenpeace research on environmental abuses, on the basis that those organisations campaign on these issues.

Evidence needs to be taken seriously. The findings of this latest report are a real cause for concern. 

Had the research solely examined BBC News then the Corporation might have been able to respond that its negative treatment of Corbyn simply reflected what was going on; that accurately reporting on the vote of no confidence by Labour MPs and the wave of resignations naturally meant its output would appear "biased" against Corbyn.

But crucially, the research compared the BBC's reporting with that of ITV's evening news, where the airtime allocated to critics and supporters of Corbyn was broadly balanced, and the prominence given to particular issues was less dramatically weighed against Corbyn.

Further research may reveal how far these patterns of reporting hold across other programmes, and other reporting periods.

But as things stand, the BBC has questions to answer.

Who Are The Real Bullies Here?

John Lynch writes:

To all those working on the ‘Get Corbyn’ strategy at The Guardian, do you remember all those articles you were running a few years back on how people were apathetic and disillusioned with politics in the UK?

So much so that they could scarcely be bothered to vote.

Here let me remind you: 

Apathetic and disaffected: the generation who may never vote

Politicians must tackle voter ‘apathy’, David Blunkett warns

The Guardian has a whole section devoted to voter apathy, in fact. If we go further back do you recall how trust in politicians was at an all-time low? That’s what you told us:

Trust in politicians hits an all-time low. Even the politicians said they had to listen.

Labour’s challenge: ‘Four years to find two million votes. We must listen’.

Something must be done you told us, something must change.

Well something has changed, I have never seen a period when so many people have been passionately engaged with politics.

Perhaps the referendums on Scottish Independence and EU membership are partly responsible, but the main reason is Jeremy Corbyn.

Now, we all know that the Parliamentary Labour Party never had any intention of allowing Corbyn to lead the party.

It was a mistake. They underestimated the hunger so many people have for an alternative to the neoliberal consensus.

But Corbyn was elected with a huge mandate and his leadership of the Labour Party has seen meeting halls packed out, a huge increase in membership and most hearteningly a groundswell of enthusiasm from younger voters.

I would have thought you would be delighted with this new energy pouring into the democratic process. But instead of celebrating, you seem hell bent on destroying it. Why?

Why do you keep telling lies about Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters?

Why do you have a merry-go-round of paid columnists rubbishing, smearing and distorting his every word and action?

Why are you manufacturing news articles on a daily basis to cast his leadership and legitimacy into question?

Let me tell you what your readers say about you now – comments posted on our own humble blog:

"I actually have to thank The Guardian for it’s extreme anti-Corbynism stance – if I hadn’t been so disgusted at their non-journalistic lie, smear and spin campaign, I might never have investigated further – and joined the Labour Party!"

Not quite the result you were looking for I guess – here’s another:

"The Guardian HAS become part of the establishment and I wonder whether newspapers as a whole are on the way out.

"The Internet provides far more up to date information and I have only a passing interest in reading what happened yesterday, unless the journalism is high quality which it rarely is.

"I am more likely to read more specialised magazines or simply rely on social media for my news and info."

These comments rank as generous tributes compared to what your online readership thinks about you – doesn’t that concern you?

Don’t you have a moral duty as journalists to report the truth? Isn’t that the basis of your position and status within society? Isn’t that what you were trained to do?

To list all the instances of your ‘Get Corbyn’ strategy is beyond the scope of a letter (we would need a book or perhaps a new online encyclopaedia) but here are a few. 

You lied about Angela Eagles office being vandalised. 

You lied about the abuse supposedly surrounding the petition to censure Laura Kuenssberg. 

You lied about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.

Added to these blatantly false stories are the hundreds of deliberately slanted and wilfully misleading articles whose sole aim is to undermine and bully Corbyn and his supporters.

The focus of your ‘Get Corbyn’ strategy is to smear his supporters as abusive, racist, bullies – what a way to encourage people to participate in politics! 

All of the people who have recently joined the Labour Party, the Momentum movement and who have attended rallies up and down the land don’t have the advantages you have. 

They don’t have comfortable salaries, a secure job or the resources of a multi-million pound media behemoth to speak for them.

So we have to wonder, who are the real bullies here? Perhaps you are.

If you succeed in your aim to silence Corbyn and the alternative political narrative he represents, will you be proud of yourselves? Well?

Proud that you stood shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in Britain so you could brow beat a popular movement for change amongst ordinary voters?

Proud that you managed to subvert real engagement in democracy amongst the young people who will spend their lives clearing up after our mistakes?

Proud that you betrayed the ethics of your profession so you could defend your own cosy relationship with the establishment?

I don’t expect that you will answer this letter – it seems The Guardian floats above the despair and disgust of its readership these days.

But at least do one thing – spare us the sanctimony.

Spare us the hand wringing about the collapse of the wages of British workers, the privatisation of the NHS, the rise in food banks, the rise in homelessness, the rise in child poverty, the chaos in the Middle East and the terrorism that we have helped to foment, the destruction of the environment and the insidious extension of corporate power over all aspects of our lives.

But most of all, please spare us the abject hypocrisy of whining about British apathy towards politics.

Let it never be forgotten that when masses of people of all ages tried to get involved in politics, to have a voice, to have a vote and to make a meaningful difference – your role was to try and bully them back into silence.

You continue to misrepresent the views of this new political engagement, to smear their peaceful protests and to glowingly promote the frantic and ugly scramblings of the neoliberal consensus to retain control.

You have let us and yourselves down. You do not deserve to inherit the credibility, respect and authority that The Guardian’s proud history has bequeathed to you.

But consider yourself warned.

A whole generation of bloggers, commentators, independent journalists and free news websites is filling the space that you have vacated.

We won’t let you squash this new democratic impulse without a fight.

If The Guardian simply runs out of supporters and money one day soon then don’t blame social media for your demise.

Your lack of integrity and relevance is all your own work.

Those Most In Need Will Lose The Most

The splendid Angela Rayner writes: 

Today Theresa May's Tory Government scrapped maintenance grants.

Unlike Hinkley, there is no room for a pause for thought when it comes to the future of the next generation. 

Maintenance grants, a proud Labour achievement which made it easier for children from lower and middle income families to go to university, have been abolished in one fell swoop. 

To be replaced with loans. Never mind that student debt in Britain is already amongst the highest in Europe. 

Forget that the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies calculates that the average student will graduate an astronomical £44,000 in debt.

They will be paying this off well into their fifties, just as their own children might be considering university courses. 

This is inconvenient evidence, that can be easily ignored by the Tories.

After all, they have already trebled tuition fees and frozen the repayment threshold for student debt at £21,000, going back on their word to students, who were told that the threshold would rise in line with average earnings.

This means that students will have more and more debt, and spend longer and longer trying to pay it off.    

Now another hammer blow to opportunity by scrapping grants.

It adds up to a triple whammy which means that the very people we should be encouraging to attend universities, will be saddled with more and more debt, simply for having the nerve to try and get the education to which they are entitled.

So for all her fine words about "One Nation" Britain on the steps of Downing Street, Theresa May has put yet another latest cap on social mobility.

Additional debt will fall entirely on the shoulders of children from low and middle income backgrounds, while more affluent students will be mostly unaffected.

Currently, full-time students with a household income of £25,000 or less can get £3,387 a year in a maintenance grant.

There are also smaller grants available for students in households earning less than £42,620 a year.

Students who would have previously been able to rely on maintenance grants will simply see their debt continue to skyrocket, which will leave them facing a huge debt burden for the rest of their working lives. 

This is a policy that the Tories were so ashamed of that they pushed it through without proper scrutiny, sneaking it through as delegated legislation so that it wouldn’t face the full scrutiny that our democracy demands.

It took the Labour Party holding an Opposition Day Debate in January, in which we all condemned these regressive changes, to make sure this shameful policy was debated on the floor of the House. 

The timing for abolishing maintenance grants could not be more absurd.

Only yesterday a study from the Intergenerational Foundation found that, unless you’re one of the few who goes to Oxbridge, or studies one of a very small number of subjects, as a graduate, your earnings, in real terms, will not be substantially higher than if you simply didn’t go to university.

The graduate earnings premium, used by the Tories to justify many of their regressive higher education policies, is fast becoming a myth.

And why?

Because this government has saddled students with ever-mounting debt without providing the high-wage jobs that they need to pay them off.

This move is simply the latest Tory tax on aspiration.

It's likely now that many potential students, who previously relied on grants for access to university, will simply not apply now due to the life-long debt they will face.

This from a Prime Minister and Education Secretary who pledged to put social mobility at the heart of their agenda.

Yet Theresa May and Justine Greening have done nothing to reverse this regressive policy. No room here for second thoughts.

Meanwhile, those students who gain degrees, despite the debt they face, will lose more and more of their income to pay for it.

Making it more and more difficult for students to find the money to pay the bills, to get a mortgage, to start a family, to do everything this government claims to be encouraging. 

We need a sustainable system of student finance that promotes opportunity, encourages aspiration, increases social mobility and is governed by fairness. 

But all the Tories can offer is unsustainable, mounting debt, punishing students for wanting an education.

And discouraging thousands of young people from climbing the ladder to a better life.

And:

Last month, Tory-controlled Hampshire County Council announced the closure of 43 of its 54 Sure Start centres.

It was a record-breaking event, because their decision took the total number of Sure Start centres lost under this Tory Government, and the Coalition before it, to more than 800.

What a record for the Tories.

Hampshire County Council’s own report into the closures said that in 2010 there had been 83 children’s centres provided “across the whole of Hampshire.” 

Government cuts have meant that the number of those centres has now fallen from 83 to 11 in just six years. 

Thousands of parents will no longer have access to a local children’s centre and the vitally important start in life they provide for the next generation. 

I am proud that I was a recipient of wrap-around services such as Sure Start, when I was a young mum.

They gave me, and many of my friends, much needed support, a hand-up in difficult times. 

So I know how it feels for mums in Hampshire to be denied that help. 

Often, Tory closures of Sure Start centres have been justified simply on the basis of money. ‘We cannot afford them anymore’, they say. 

Sometimes, closures are justified by claims that children in greatest need will be given priority. Both are wrong.

Protestors against the latest Hampshire closures were concerned that focussing on those in the greatest need “would lead to families feeling stigmatised and therefore less likely to access the services that would remain available to them.” 

When Labour founded Sure Start in 1998 a key objective was to stop parents being stigmatised for seeking help with their families. 

It worked – by the end of the last Labour Government, there were 3,633 Sure Start centres, which provided services for nearly 3 million children all across the country. 

But then came austerity, when short-term Tory thinking was revealed in all its glory. Cut and run. And the devil take the consequences. 

By the end of 2015, there were only 2,605 main Sure Start centres. Services and centres shut-down, lost or ‘restructured’ in the name of cost and so-called ‘consolidation’. 

Meanwhile, real terms spending, per child, on early education has been consistently falling. 

The Government’s own research from earlier this year has shown the impact of funding cuts on children’s centres. 

It shows that the cuts have had a direct impact on outcomes for children and their parents who used these services.

Children who have been hit by these cuts have the most mental health difficulties and the most dysfunctional relationships.

Their life chances are the least. And, as always, it is the most deprived areas that suffer the most.

The Labour requirement for Sure Starts to be centred in the most disadvantaged 30 per cent of areas was cynically scrapped under the Tories. 

It has held back children from poorer areas who already start school almost a year behind their better-off peers. 

The gap grows as they go through the education system. They are being stunted before they can properly develop.

It is a national scandal that, under the Tories, where you are born and who your parents are, still sows the seeds of disadvantage for too many people in Britain today.

All the evidence shows that a relentless and holistic focus on the early years will improve the life chances, well-being and economic health of the entire nation.

But what about the cost?

The Early Intervention Foundation has found that improving early intervention to help especially vulnerable children much earlier in their lives, could save the Government almost £17 billion.

Increasing female participation in the UK workforce, through improved childcare, could add a rocket-fuelled injection of £170 billion into our economy.

That’s because childcare plays a critical role in supporting the economy and helping more women who want to work to get back into the labour market.

The dozens of children’s centres closing in Hampshire are a tragedy.

It will hamper children’s progress, women’s progress, and society’s progress. Those most in need will lose the most.

But Hampshire is only the latest in the long line of such closures by the Tories, who are failing children, families and our communities.