From Student Direct, April 24th 2009
CRUNCH! THAT’S the sound of HMS New Labour crashing spectacularly into one of the many icebergs currently plaguing the waters of the financial world. The jaw-dropping revelation that former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Sir Fred Goodwin is set to receive a whopping £650,000 pension has sparked a furious debate in political circles, with allegations of greed and corruption flying left, right and centre.
In a desperate effort to recover lost ground after its supposedly successful management of the economic crisis, Labour set all guns ablazing and boldly announced it would attempt to claw back some of Goodwin’s extortionate pay packet.
So far, so good. But the Goodwin episode is not as simple as it might at first appear. In a shameless effort to grab public attention and plant Labour firmly on the side of the poor, the Government has tried to play up a farcical conflict between itself and the banking industry that has made so much money out of this economic catastrophe. Aware of the impending electoral disaster were it not to intervene, Labour sent in Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Equality, announcing that Goodwin’s pension was not acceptable in the “court of public opinion” and that she – saviour of the poor – was to right this wrong.
This is shameless hypocrisy, plain and simple. Just two months ago Harman herself proposed a parliamentary order that aimed to exempt MP’s expenses from being subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The result was thousands letters and emails of objection from the public and pressure groups alike. The fact that the Labour ministers’ breathtaking double standards – attempting to hide their own criminally exorbitant pay packets while hitting out at others’ – are now common knowledge has been a key catalyst in the party’s desperate attempts to “help the poor” and backtrack on a decade of economic policy. The reason Goodwin’s pension is so exorbitant is affected less by his personal greed – no doubt a factor – but far more by New Labour’s philistine economic agenda that has seen the gap between rich and poor skyrocket since their first election win in 1997, which was preceded by Peter Mandelson’s infamous announcement that his party was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”.
If Tony Blair was Thatcher’s child, then she must be at the front of the queue to adopt Gordon Brown. Blair did open the dam to the contaminated floodwaters of privatisation and neoliberal economics flowing into the education and healthcare system, forcing already hard-up voters to settle for second-class services unless they had plenty of money stashed in the bank. But Brown went one step further and cut out the 10p tax band upon which so many poorer families relied in order to scrape by on already criminally low wages. This, he assured sceptics, would help keep “middle England” aboard the dangerously floundering New Labour ship. The truth is that in Labour’s attempt to shape itself as a “Third Way” party, representing everyone’s interests, the poor are the ones made to walk the plank.
If the economic crisis has proved a point, it is that the main political parties in Britain are being held hostage to a perverse economic agenda in which the rich, such as Fred Goodwin, benefit as the worst off sections of society are pauperised still further.
Labour’s tentative announcement that it will raise the top income tax band to 45% for those earning over £150,000 if it wins the next election is a promising sign – but it is too little too late. Having prioritised the interests of the well off with massive tax breaks and profligate spending on military projects such as renewing the Trident nuclear submarine system, Brown is now realising that the very voters Labour is supposed to represent are turning to other parties in droves. Shaming Frank Goodwin is the decent thing to do, but Labour will sooner or later have to accept that in doing so it is only shaming its own decade of economic irresponsibility.
In a desperate effort to recover lost ground after its supposedly successful management of the economic crisis, Labour set all guns ablazing and boldly announced it would attempt to claw back some of Goodwin’s extortionate pay packet.
So far, so good. But the Goodwin episode is not as simple as it might at first appear. In a shameless effort to grab public attention and plant Labour firmly on the side of the poor, the Government has tried to play up a farcical conflict between itself and the banking industry that has made so much money out of this economic catastrophe. Aware of the impending electoral disaster were it not to intervene, Labour sent in Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Equality, announcing that Goodwin’s pension was not acceptable in the “court of public opinion” and that she – saviour of the poor – was to right this wrong.
This is shameless hypocrisy, plain and simple. Just two months ago Harman herself proposed a parliamentary order that aimed to exempt MP’s expenses from being subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The result was thousands letters and emails of objection from the public and pressure groups alike. The fact that the Labour ministers’ breathtaking double standards – attempting to hide their own criminally exorbitant pay packets while hitting out at others’ – are now common knowledge has been a key catalyst in the party’s desperate attempts to “help the poor” and backtrack on a decade of economic policy. The reason Goodwin’s pension is so exorbitant is affected less by his personal greed – no doubt a factor – but far more by New Labour’s philistine economic agenda that has seen the gap between rich and poor skyrocket since their first election win in 1997, which was preceded by Peter Mandelson’s infamous announcement that his party was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”.
If Tony Blair was Thatcher’s child, then she must be at the front of the queue to adopt Gordon Brown. Blair did open the dam to the contaminated floodwaters of privatisation and neoliberal economics flowing into the education and healthcare system, forcing already hard-up voters to settle for second-class services unless they had plenty of money stashed in the bank. But Brown went one step further and cut out the 10p tax band upon which so many poorer families relied in order to scrape by on already criminally low wages. This, he assured sceptics, would help keep “middle England” aboard the dangerously floundering New Labour ship. The truth is that in Labour’s attempt to shape itself as a “Third Way” party, representing everyone’s interests, the poor are the ones made to walk the plank.
If the economic crisis has proved a point, it is that the main political parties in Britain are being held hostage to a perverse economic agenda in which the rich, such as Fred Goodwin, benefit as the worst off sections of society are pauperised still further.
Labour’s tentative announcement that it will raise the top income tax band to 45% for those earning over £150,000 if it wins the next election is a promising sign – but it is too little too late. Having prioritised the interests of the well off with massive tax breaks and profligate spending on military projects such as renewing the Trident nuclear submarine system, Brown is now realising that the very voters Labour is supposed to represent are turning to other parties in droves. Shaming Frank Goodwin is the decent thing to do, but Labour will sooner or later have to accept that in doing so it is only shaming its own decade of economic irresponsibility.
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