Vot e Labour in the General Election

In this general election, the British people face a choice, a choice between the same old reactionary Tory Party, a dedicated partisan of the interests of the powerful, the rich and the greedy, and a renewed social democratic Labour Party that has a plan to secure economic recovery and make Britain a more socially just and humane society.

A worldwide financial crisis, triggered by the US housing market, has engulfed the world in the past few years, causing a global recession. Labour did not, contrary to what the other parties might say, ‘cause’ the recession – unlike previous recessions under the Tories in the 80s and 90s, it was the result of the interdependence of the world economy, not domestic economic policies.

Labour’s response was bold and prevented the financial crisis from triggering a second Great Depression. The plan to stabilise the world financial system and re-capitalise the banks was Gordon Brown’s plan, which lead Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman to say that the Labour government acted with a “combination of clarity and decisiveness hasn’t been matched by any other Western government”. The Tories opposed this bold interventionist approach and would have let the financial system sink, the consequences of which would have been catastrophic.

During the recession that nonetheless followed, Labour took crucial action to ameliorate the effect of the recession. Help for families facing repossessions, billions invested to ensure that young people are ensured jobs or training, help for businesses in terms of deferring tax, the car scrappage scheme, increasing benefit and tax credit payments, the VAT cut; all are Labour policies that gave a boost to the economy and helped the UK return to growth. This has meant that house repossessions and unemployment stayed far lower than in previous recessions despite the recession being a deeper one this time, and all of it was opposed by the Tories, who don’t care about the social consequences of recessions.

We will continue to boost the economy and protect people from unemployment by creating 200,000 new jobs through the Future Jobs Fund, of which at least 120,000 will be targeted at 18-24 year olds. We will guarantee a job or training place for all 18 to 24 year olds out of work for six months. We will also invest in Green Jobs, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in the industries of the future that will help us combat climate change.

We will ensure that the costs of the recession and paying off the debt fall on those with the broadest shoulders, through measures such as the 50% marginal income tax rate on high earners, the bankers’ bonus tax, closing down tax avoidance schemes, and cutting tax benefits for the rich in terms of pensions. This is in contrast to the Tories, who want to give tax breaks to their rich friends via changes to inheritance tax and tax relief for fat cats’ pensions.

We will stay relentlessly on the side of ordinary working people, children, pensioners, and the vulnerable, by increasing the minimum wage at least in line with earnings, increasing child benefits, protecting the network of Sure Start centres giving children the best start in life, introducing a new tax credit for toddlers, introducing a new National Care Service to look after the elderly in their homes, and re-linking the state pension to earnings. We will introduce a Living Wage for all government employees and contracted-out workers. Outrageous interest from doorstep loan sharks will be capped. We’ll make the Post Office a ‘People’s Bank’ to ensure that all have access to affordable financial services.
We’ll also ensure that the economy becomes more responsive to the long-term needs of society and its people by a raft of legislation designed to bring about mutualisation in the public and private sector, so that both enterprise and public services are democratically accountable to society, taking social objectives and long-term stability into account above short-termism and private greed. We will, for example, mutualise Northern Rock and the British Waterways, and legal and tax barriers will be removed to make it easier to create new John Lewis-style mutuals with employee buyouts of public companies. We’ll also make it easier for local communities and supporters to take democratic control of football clubs and pubs.

We also care passionately about Climate Change. This Labour government has introduced the most radical legislation on Climate Change in the whole world, committing government to 80% cuts in carbon emissions by 2050. It is also implementing a national plan to make these cuts a reality, by huge investment in renewable energy directly and via a Green Investment Bank, by improving the energy efficiency of homes and businesses, by installing smart-meters in every home, and many other practical policies.

Our social record on things like gay rights speaks for itself; we have enacted a legal and social revolution in favour of tolerance by repealing the hated section 28, introducing civil partnerships and equalising the gay age of consent. Labour MPs have the best voting record on gay rights. Given that the man who will be Home Secretary if we lose the election is a man who thinks it’s OK for B and B owners to turn people away for being gay, this is not a small deal; it’s a huge deal and it’s a Labour achievement, and it’s a legacy that only Labour will defend in government.

In terms of Cambridge locally, voting Lib Dem will not make a Tory government one iota less likely. The Lib Dems won’t come clean on what they will do in the event of a hung parliament; they have not ruled out a coalition government with the Tories. The fact is that the Lib Dems will go with whichever party has most MPs in a hung parliament. The balance of forces between Labour and the Tories will determine the complexion of the next government. The Lib Dems will go whichever way is suggested by the balance of these forces. The question: what would you do in a hung parliament? is one that the Lib Dem candidate for Cambridge CANNOT answer, because he knows that its answer could involve him becoming lobby fodder for a reactionary Tory-Lib Dem government. The brutal fact is this: vote Lib Dem, get David Cameron. The only way to keep the Tories out and enact a bold programme of social democratic reform is to vote Labour.

Ultimately, we can list all of our policies until we are blue in the face, but in the end it comes down to basic values. If you believe in a fairer deal for the working man and woman; if you believe in compassion, social justice, a society in which the rich pay their fair share to fund world-class public services and help for the less fortunate; if you believe in a society where social objectives such as full employment, dignity in retirement, greater equality and democratic accountability to the needs of local communities are put before private profit; if you believe that there’s something bigger than greed and that the underdog needs sticking up for, do the right thing. Vote Labour.

Victory! Marshall to Keep Flying in Cambridge

Labour's campaign to keep Marshall in Cambridge was vindicated today by an announcement by Marshall that they will stay in Cambridge for the foreseeable future, or, as Marshall put it itself in a press release, "in the immediate future, there are no suitable relocation options open to it". This is because the last site considered for relocation, Wyton, has been ruled out.

This is good news for Abbey. Many residents are employed by Marshall. Many apprenticeship opportunities at Marshall are provided to Abbey residents. These jobs and apprenticeships are now, at least for the time being, secure. Furthermore, the east side of the city, particularly Newmarket Road, will be saved from the extra traffic that would have been generated by 12, 000 houses. How the Lib Dems ever thought the east side of the city could take all of those extra homes with no corresponding investment in transport infrastructure and the like passes all understanding.

Consistently, Labour has supported keeping Marshall in Cambridge and opposed the crazy Lib Dem housing development plans for the east side of the city, unlike the Greens, who have never supported any Labour council motions supporting keeping Marshall in Cambridge and have always supported the idea of building on the Marshall site. I myelf have knocked on hundreds of doors in Abbey gathering signatures for the 'Keep Marshall in Cambridge' petition organised jointly by Labour and local trade unions. Support for Labour's campaign has been overwhelming in Abbey.

The big question thrown up by all of this is: where does this leave the Lib Dems housing plans? The answer is: in total disarray.

Since David Howarth, the then-leader of the council, announced back in 2000 the Lib Dems intention to use the Marshall site for the extra housing Cambridge needs, Lib Dem housing plans have been entirely predicated on the assumption that Marshall would move and make this possible. This is despite the fact that the council never had the power to force Marshall out. As a result of this misguided policy - a classic example of putting all of your eggs in one basket - the Lib Dems have no alternative plans for providing for Cambridge's housing needs. There is NO plan B. This is in the context of ever increasing council housing waiting lists.

The Lib Dems have turned around and accused us of not having a policy on housing (when of course they have no policy of their own now either, and they actually run the council!). They claim that because we oppose building on the Marshall site, we have no plans for providing affordable housing - but it is quite possible to reject the validity of using the Marshall site while supporting other development plans to provide affordable housing.

This is what Labour are doing. The Labour group wants development to happen organically around Cambridge, rather than dumping the majority of housing in one place with no provision for its infrastructural needs . We particularly favour development at Waterbeach, where existing transport links are good, and towards the North-West of the city near Girton, among other places.

The Lib Dems have also, unbelievably, tried to blame the Labour government for having some mysterious role in Marshall failing to gain permission to move to other sites, such as RAF Mildenhall. This is fantasy - there are a range of reasons for the other sites not being available for Marshall, but some Labour conspiracy is not one of them; as if a matter of planning and national security would have been decided to frustrate Lib Dem housing plans in a town miles away.

The fact is that the Lib Dems stupidly based their entire policy on an assumption they should never have taken for granted. While they have pursued the fantasy that the Marshall site would definitely be available for their housing plans, nothing has been done to address Cambridge's pressing need for more affordable housing in the past 10 years. Hence why Shelter's latest housing league table ranks Cambridge City Council 242nd out of 323 in terms of providing afforable housing, a dismal performance.

And so the Lib Dems flail around for excuses and attempt to blame anyone or anything other than themselves and their own stupidity for the situation; it's pathetic. For god's sake, let's throw these incompetents out in May and elect more Labour councillors, so that the city council can start to implement a realistic strategy for delivering the affordable housing Cambridge needs.

Owers for the Co-operative Party

I am pleased to announce that today I was selected as the Co-operative Party candidate for Abbey ward. This is in addition to being the Labour candidate; the Labour and Co-operative Parties are sister parties, and an electoral agreement exists by which we never stand candidates against each other and one can be the official candidate of both parties.

I am a proud member of the Co-operative Party and believe that their ethos and principles are perfectly suited for the current economic climate, in which it is widely acknowledged that the short-termist, socially irresponsible neo-liberal model of capitalism that has dominated the world in the last 25 or 30 years has been fatally discredited. Co-operative solutions work on the principle that businesses and institutions should be democratically accountable to their workers and/or consumers, and should work on the basis of collaboration and concern for the wider community rather than cut-throat competition. We need to have an economy that works for people, rather than people working for the economy, and co-operative enterprises, which can be run according to principles other than single-minded dedication to profit regardless of the social cost, are the perfect way of making this a reality. Rather than just being focussed on the accumulation of material wealth, co-operatives can take into account social, cultural and even spiritual objectives because of their democratic structure. This is exactly what we need to inject an ethical socialist outlook into the economy.

Also, because co-operative enterprises are subject to the democratic control of consumers and workers who have an interest in the long-term prosperity and stable flourishing of the enterprise, co-ops, particularly in the financial sector in terms of building societies, tend to be more stable and less liable to collapse.

For these reasons and more, I urge everyone to become a co-operator and also join the Co-operative Party - their website is here: http://www.party.coop/

On a local level, I want to make sure that, if elected, the city council makes more use of co-operative solutions in its approach to policy problems. As we all know, one of Cambridge’s biggest problems is the shortage of affordable housing and the need to construct thousands of new homes. I would try to ensure that housing developments are encouraged, as much as is feasible, to look at and utilise co-operative blueprints of ownership and management, such as the ‘community housing mutual’ model that is being pioneered in parts of the country. I would also want to push the City Council to adopt a ‘Co-operative Development Strategy’.

In addition, I would like to make sure that the council and local community make use of the opportunity to use government funds to help them buy out local pubs and run them on a co-operative basis.

However, I can only bring these ethical socialist and cooperative principles to bear on our community if I am elected on May 6th - so please remember to vote for me!

We need a unitary council!

Increasingly as I talk to Abbey residents, I become frustrated at our system of local government.

Abbey residents have many eminently reasonable concerns. Some are worried about the lack of local leisure facilities for teenagers. Many have pointed out that football fans use roads in Abbey as parking space when Cambridge Utd play at home, which makes life difficult for residents. Others have expressed their concerns about the Rat Run around the Keynes Road area. Many other concerns have been raised.

However, again and again what occurs to me is that most of these issues are the responsibility of the County Council. City councillors can press the County Council to act on issues such as transport, adult and youth services, education, libraries and so on, but ultimately the City Council is largely powerless in many crucial areas. Even if elected, in many of these areas I, as a city councillor, would have little more than lobbying power.

However, because Cambridgeshire County Council is dominated by councillors from the predominantly Tory, rural areas, many crucial services and areas of policy in Cambridge city are simply dictated by people who have no interest in the wellbeing of the people of Cambridge. The Tories do not have a single county councillor from the Cambridge city area, yet they run most important services in the city. Unsurprisingly, areas like Abbey that are never going to elect a Tory councillor are very low down the priority list when it comes to allocating resources - the Tories have no political interest in doing anything else. Labour councillors on the City Council, and indeed the City Council in general, therefore get the blame for Tory neglect and incompetence without, in many areas, being responsible. This is not to say that the City Council doesn't have important areas of responsibility, in terms especially of housing and planning. However, in many crucial areas, the services of ordinary working people are run by a bunch of right-wing Tories from the sticks who have no interest whatsoever in doing anything other than neglecting estates in Cambridge.

The solution is to make Cambridge City Council a unitary council and allow Cambridge Councillors to run Cambridge services and make Cambridge's policies in areas currently the responsibility of the County Council. This way councillors in Cambridge would have the actual power to stand up for the interests of their constituents, and resources could be prioritised at the relatively impoverished areas in Cambridge city rather than squandered by Tories who have no support or interest in the city.

But, lo and behold, the Lib Dems refuse to apply for unitary status! They are content with the status quo of being ruled by a load of Blimpish Tory Thatcherites from the Fens and elsewhere in rural Cambridgeshire, while Cambridge suffers. Why? It's crazy. Only Labour has consistently argued for a unitary council that will allow Cambridge to have meaningful control over its own destiny, and only Labour councillors will fight for this if elected.

Lib Dems clueless, Greens conspicuously silent on housing plan 'b'

On Thursday I went as a public observer to the City Council East Area Committee, which covers Abbey Ward, in order to see if any issues arose that might affect Abbey, and to question the Lib Dems over their plans to dump 12,000 houses on the Marshall site.

I asked the following question: "Since it is now 10 years since Liberal Democrat city councillors and Tory county councillors first got together to propose that Marshall Airport should become a housing site for 12,000 homes; since those proposals seem not to be bearing fruit; and since waiting lists for homes, and house prices in Cambridge, both continue to rise, can we be told what 'plan B' alternatives to the Marshall proposals are now being considered?"

Catherine Smart, Lib Dem Deputy Leader of the Council and Executive Councillor for Housing, was at the meeting and spoke for the Lib Dems. Her answer, was, despite attempting to duck the question, that there is NO PLAN B!! The city council's plan to meet Cambridge's housing needs is entirely predicated on Marshall moving. Since Labour's campaign to keep Marshall in Cambridge is gathering steam and looks like it could succeed, we have a situation where the Lib Dems' ill-thought out plan to provide for Cambridge's housing needs may not be practicable, and yet they have no alternative plans at all! They really are a bunch of incompetents. I would trust the Chuckle Brothers with running Cambridge City Council over these jokers.

The Greens were also conspicuous by their silence on the issue, since they also support the disastrous Marshall plan, which would dump 12,000 new homes on the Marshall site with no provision for investment in transport, thus making existing congestion problems on Newmarket Road etc far worse.

Yes, Cambridge needs more affordable housing - the Labour Government is leading the charge towards building the new affordable homes that we need. However, this does not mean that we should support a poorly thought out scheme which will be a disaster for transport, infrastructure, and the local economy and jobs. The Lib Dems need to accept that their plan is a disgrace, and start thinking about a plan b, for the sake of Abbey and Cambridge generally.

Labour listens, while Sedgwick-Jell gets his facts wrong on Abbey Meadows

I notice that this week Simon Sedgwick-Jell, Green County Councillor for Abbey, has been his usual high-handed and misleading self concerning the issue of the future of the Abbey Meadows School.

Sedgwick-Jell claims that plans to build a new primary school in Abbey have been 'shelved' and that this is a 'potential disaster' for the people of Abbey. This is a gross misrepresentation. I have spoken to the chair of governors of Abbey Meadows (I hope to speak to the headteacher as well soon), and he is extremely puzzled by Sedgwick-Jell's hyperbole.

The truth is that there are well-advanced plans to vastly expand Abbey Meadows, to almost double its capacity, in order to cope with the extra demand for school places. Sedgwick-Jell hasn't bothered to talk to governors or staff at the school about these plans, and seems to be ignorant of the truth, which is that the extra demand for school places cannot be met quickly enough if a whole new school is built from scratch. So, expansion for Abbey Meadows is probably the best short-to-medium term answer. This has been the plan for some time - there was no 'shelving' of a plan to build a second school - such a plan never existed.

Sedgwick-Jell should consult and check his facts before firing off ill-informed press releases to the Cambridge News. It might get him a few cheap headlines, but it does not constitute a sensible or constructive contribution to the debate about school provision in the Abbey area.















Labour listens on Abbey Meadows, whereas the Greens go for ignorant, cheap point-scoring

Owers and Labour for Abbey Ward

Last week, I was selected to be the Labour city council candidate for Abbey Ward in Cambridge. This is a great privilege.

I have been knocking on doors and campaigning in Abbey since 2008, listening to the concerns of local residents on issues such as local drain blockages, local public services, the plight of Cambridge United, and anti-social behaviour.

The political context is that Abbey is a Labour-Green marginal. Currently, it has 2 Labour city councillors, 1 Green city councillor and 1 Green county councillor. Until recently a rock-solid Labour ward, the Greens have been making inroads since 2008, when the Greens beat the incumbent Labour councillor John Durrant.

Now, many on the Left may be a little sceptical, since the Greens have developed an (often undeserved) reputation as being a somewhat left-leaning alternative to the big parties. However, in Cambridge the Greens have positioned themselves in a deeply reactionary position on one of the biggest local issues. This issue is that of Marshall, the local aerospace company. Marshall provides a great deal of local skilled employment, and is crucial to the local economy.

Despite this, the Lib Dem city council and Tory county council in collaboration have developed a plan to force Marshall out of Cambridge and use the site currently occupied by Marshall to build 12, 000 houses in its place. They have done this with the full backing of the local Green Party.

The problems with this plan are numerous. Firstly, it will involve a huge loss of skilled jobs in Cambridge, many of which provide valuable employment to local working class people. Secondly, the development is unsustainable. It will involve placing a huge strain on the local infrastructure with no investment to back it up. Local traffic problems, which are already acute, will be exacerbated even further. For example, traffic on Coldham’s Lane and Newmarket Road, already terrible, will draw to a standstill. The effects on the carbon footprint of Cambridge would be extremely detrimental.

Green Party support for this despicable plan is unfathomable. It is indefensible on the grounds that it is a betrayal of local working people, on the grounds that it will exacerbate climate change, and on the grounds that it will be disastrous for the local economy. In my campaign, I will incessantly point out the Green hypocrisy and cant on this issue.

Furthermore, the point is that the Green vote is a protest vote that cannot be afforded in the context of the next General Election, which will fall on the same day as the city council election. I have my problems with the government and am very much on the Labour Left, but voting for fringe parties like the Greens rather than Labour candidates, especially progressive, dare I say it socialist, Labour candidates, will lead to nothing but the election of a dangerously reactionary Tory government, or in Cambridge a Lib Dem MP who will fall in line with Nick Clegg’s neoliberal, quasi-Tory agenda.

I am a socialist. I believe that the purpose of politics is to tackle the underlying inequalities and injustices faced by people disadvantaged by social circumstances so that their full potential can be realised. However, I am also a pragmatist, and I realise that the only vehicle for actually effecting progressive changes in this country, rather than talking about them, is, both nationally and locally, the Labour Party, and has been since its creation. In this election, it is the practical concerns and real action of ordinary residents that I and my Labour team will focus on. In this election, we will be fighting the corner of the working people of Abbey, whatever their class. We will be fighting to defend their local Sure Start centre, to take up their local housing issues, to defend their jobs, to tackle local anti-social behaviour and to fight for investment in their local football club. We will also be fighting on the behalf of their ethical and environmental concerns. In short, we will show that the true socialist force in Cambridge and British politics is, and can only be, the Labour Party.