Sunday 25 September 2016

An Open Letter to the Parliamentary Labour Party

Dear Comrades, yes I address you as such as that is what we are, comrades in the Labour Party, despite the uncomradely behaviour of some of you over the past twelve months. I realise that the election of Jeremy Corbyn as party leader in September 2015 was a huge shock to some of you - but then so many of you have only ever known New Labour, not the real Labour Party of previous generations. Those few older MPs who were seduced by NeoLiberalism, and who moved away from the Party's founding principles as outlined in the original Clause IV, seem to have become entrenched in a mainstream media driven scenario that Labour is a party of middle-class, comfortably off, aspirational business folk in suits served by career politicians whose interest do not coincide much with those of the grassroots members and the electorate.

Younger MPs can almost, in a way, be forgiven for believing this as they have hardly known the Labour Party to be any different. How could they? After the emergence of Neil Kinnock as leader in 1983 the party began its move to the centre right, losing the 1987 General Election in the process and, after abandoning Labour policy on trades union closed shops in 1989 and the following the witchhunt and subsequent expulsion of the left-wing Militant Tendency from the Labour Party in 1991, it lost yet another General Election in 1992.  This led to a change of leadership with the late lamented John Smith whose premature death, less than two years later, precipitated the rise in fortune of Tony Blair, whose landslide General Election victory of 1997 lead to the party moving even further to the right.

Throughout the Blair and subsequent Gordon Brown years the party lost touch with a large number of its traditional supporters. Notice that I say supporters not members, as many of us who were members left the party as a result of that shift to the right. We no longer felt comfortable in a party where special advisors held sway, and where the majority of party funding was coming from rich businessmen and champagne socialists, where the voices of the trades unions who had been our traditional supporters were dismissed, and where a decision to go to war was made on spurious and unsubstantiated evidence. Where the voices of members were over-ruled by those of the Leader's Office, and where decisions such as selecting prospective parliamentary candidates were taken by the NEC instead of at local level by the membership in their constituency parties. In just 13 years the Labour Party membership dropped from over 400,000 in 1997 to just 150,000 by 2010, alongside that the party lost around 5 million voters. Hardly a success story was it? Did you ask yourself why?


Did you notice? Did you, as MPs ask yourself why that might have happened? Did it occur to you to go and talk to members about why we felt disengaged from the party? Did it occur to you to go out and and talk to electors about why they had walked away en masse from voting Labour? Did you assume it was just a blip and all would soon be back to normal? Well, that didn't happen did it?

Yet twelve months ago you had the chance to make a difference, with a new party leader, and a resurgence of support for socialist policies - so-called radical stuff, like decent housing for everyone, a properly funded NHS free at the point of use, nationalisation of the railways, improved public services, sorting out the mess that is education, making sure that our elderly and disabled do not have a daily struggle to exist, that people are not reliant on food banks to survive - food banks, in 2016! If that is not a national disgrace I don't know what is! What did many of you do? 172 of you voted within the PLP to undermine the democratically elected leader and force a leadership challenge, which is effectively spitting in the face of the 59.5% of the membership who voted for Jeremy Corbyn - those are the people who also helped to get each of you elected as MPs, so perhaps you might like to show them a little respect? You also leaked stories to the media, which being owned by hugely rich individuals with vested interests in the status quo, is hostile to the idea of a socialist government, and you worked against him and his team in more ways that we the membership will ever be able to know - but let me tell you this, we may not know the detail but we know the fact that it happened and we have long memories.


Now comrades, you have a second chance. The Labour Party membership has overwhelmingly re-elected Jeremy Corbyn as leader, this time with a bigger majority than a year ago - some 61.8% of the vote for him - and he had over 50% of the votes in each category of membership, so you cannot deny that he has a mandate from the membership. The members will also expect each of you to accept and respect that mandate and not to work against the leader we have chosen. In case you have forgotten, this is called democracy and we in the Labour Party espouse it - as it says on the back of our membership cards - The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. You are also expected not to leak information to a hostile media, nor to work to overthrow the elected leader. If you can't manage to do that then you might also find that we, the members, can't find it within our hearts to forgive your betrayals and we may also not be too happy, when it comes to election time, to give up our precious free time to help you get re-elected to carry on undermining him.


Please comrades, do not take this as a threat, it is simply a statement of fact. There is a huge amount of anger amongst party members at what we perceive as treachery, disloyalty or just disingenuity and you have a lot of work to do to put things right and regain our trust. And it is all about trust and loyalty. It's about respect for members and for the democratic mandate which has been given to the leader. It's about decency and honesty. It's also about understanding that the Labour Party is a democratic socialist party and if you are not a democratic socialist then you do not belong in it!

I sincerely hope that you all will take some time to search your consciences and consider your positions. Members do not want to see MP deselections or a split in the party, we want to see a united party that is taking on the Tory government and defending those whom the party was founded to represent. We are not Tory-lite, we are not a party of austerity, we are not a party that should be funded by, and in the pockets of, businesses. We are Labour, together we are strong. Be with us now, or go.

Friday 23 September 2016

Grammar schools: what's all the fuss about?

If, like me, you are at the almost-a-senior-citizen end of the age-range and, again like me, attended a grammar school over 40 years ago, you might wonder what the political fuss about grammar schools is all about... after all, it didn't do us any harm, or did it?

Thinking back to my time at two different grammar schools made me realise that although I had the privilege of a grammar school education I was, coming from a not-well-off family, unable to take advantage of many of its benefits. My parents had to struggle to find the money for a compulsory trip to Wembley for the All England Women's Hockey Final. I could not go on any of the optional school trips or exchange visits as they simply could not afford it, whilst even buying the ingredients for our weekly cookery lessons made a significant hole in their food budget for the week. Buying expensive items of uniform each year for a girl who grew so fast was always a challenge - skirts could be run up on the sewing machine at home, but blazers, gaberdines, gym knickers, hockey shorts etc all put an inordinate strain on a household with one regular-but-low income earner and one who was frequently out of work.

Did I benefit from the grammar school teaching? Probably, as I was a bright and able pupil according to my school reports, and spent my school years in the A-stream for each subject I took which resulted in 6 "O" Levels as they were in those pre-GCSE days. I recall the shock expressed by the headmistress when I told her I was leaving at the end of the 5th form to go and find a job. "But what about "A" levels and university?" she asked, it being expected that all A-streamers at least should be following that path. I tried to explain that my parents were on the brink of separation, that my family life was falling apart around me, and that my mother (who was a low-earning State Enrolled Nurse) could not afford for me to stay on at school any longer as my brother (seven years younger than me) was still going through school too. So I quit and started work at 16, as did many of my peers who attended the local secondary modern school along with those from the C and D streams at the grammar.

Any benefit I gained from the grammar school education was negated in the short term by effectively having to go and get a job to help keep a roof over our heads. I was able in later years to go back into education, enrolling with the Open University, and subsequently undertaking further courses at various colleges. But my £12 a week pay on leaving school almost doubled our weekly family income, so for me it was not a choice but a necessity. My brother, who attended the secondary modern, was never academically gifted but, as his teachers said at the time, he had a good practical mind and worked well with his hands, he would never struggle to find work. How right they were! He joined the RAF from school, trained in electronics and became a highly skilled radar technician, spending 25 years with the RAF before moving onto BAe Systems.

I think that the furore over bringing back grammar schools misses the point that education should be available to everyone, irrespective of their academic ability or financial situation. We should be providing schools that fulfil the needs of all children - and that can recognise and provide both for those who have academic ability and those who are of a more practical or artistic nature to whom maths or grammar can appear to be an alien language. We need to recognise that a national curriculum based on a narrow range of subjects and monitored by tests at 7 and 11, and GCSE's and A-levels, does discriminate against large numbers of children who do not have traditionally academic skills but who are more than capable of working with their hands, of being creative in the arts and crafts, in music and drama, as photographers or carpenters, plumbers or car mechanics. A one-size-fits-all policy does not work!

But every child deserves the same opportunity to learn without the worry of cost, so we need to sort out the mess that is education in the UK. Private schools, faith schools, public schools, grammar schools, comprehensive schools, what a total mish-mash it is! Questions such as, "Can you afford the fees or the uniform or the extras like trips?" "Did you move to an area because a school provides a 'better' education than another one?" "Did your children endure selection at 11+?" all highlight problems within the current educational system. Bringing back grammar schools will not help solve the problem facing education in the UK.

We need to reconsider how we offer and provide education. We need to look not just at the schools themselves but the whole issue of the school year and holidays, such as the summer break which was based on the now-defunct needs of a mainly agricultural society where the kids were needed through the summer to help on the land with harvesting. We need to consider whether school attendance hours are still appropriate for modern society. So much has changed in the last 70 years yet it seems that they way we provide education has not really moved on very much. Yes, various governments have tinkered with things, made small changes, allowed schools to opt out to become academies etc., but the core education system is still the same for the majority of children as it has been since the 1944 Education Act, and it does not work to the benefit of all children.

We need to ensure that education is fully funded by the state, not by religious groups, private capital or fee-paying parents. We need to reconsider the wisdom of academies being removed from local education authority supervision. We also need to review how we can offer real opportunities for all children to explore and develop their potential and skills, and provide them with the support and training that will help them as they grow into adulthood so they have a good solid base on which to build their futures, be it in industry, science, business, the creative arts, the service and tourism sectors, or as inventors of wacky objects!