Southchurch Tories - A changing of the guard?

I am grateful to my blogging colleague Matthew Dent for the news that the Conservative Party in Southchurch will be fielding a new candidate in the 2016 Borough Council elections rather than veteran Councillor David Garston.

Having served as a Southchurch Ward councillor since 1970 (although I do believe he was defeated by the Independents in the Noughties), I would hope that the Tories will arrange for him to receive an OBE or a similar gong for his services to local politics.

I believe this may well be a gift to the Independents. In 2014, the Independents won the council seat in Southchurch Ward when the Conservatives ran a new candidate in the elections. As last year's Independent candidate, Keith Sharman, has announced that he will be standing again, in my view he has a very good chance of winning.

As the Independents are currently the largest grouping within the administration on the Borough Council, I think it is worth examining how they hold themselves accountable to their electorate. I did read in the Echo newspaper, earlier this week, that the Leader of the Council Ron Woodley will be attending a series of meetings to consult on the future direction of the Borough. My political antennae started to twitched, when the article reported that attendance at these meetings will be by invitation only. My initial suspicion is that the invitees will be drawn from local residents associations, from whom many of the current Independent councillors sprung forth. This caused me to look up the word tendentious in my dictionary, and its meaning is "calculated to promote a particular cause or viewpoint".

I suppose that as Councillor Woodley doesn't have a diverse group of people behind him, or dare one say a political party, he is forced to embark upon these meetings. However, simply consulting a narrow range of vested interests hardly makes for good politics and even worse policy-making. For instance, will a residents association offer any constructive advice on the crisis of homelessness within the Borough?

It is my dearest hope that following the conclusion of the leadership election, a reinvigorated Labour Party will be able to sweep away both the Independents and Tories, in Southchurch Ward and throughout the Borough of Southend.

Vote Jeremy Corbyn!

  

Labour has lost its electoral base in Scotland and stands to lose up to 50 seats in boundary changes before the general election in 2020. Against this background any Party Leader is going to face a massive uphill struggle to beat the Tories.

I don't believe that the New Labour approach of trying to appeal to middle-class, floating voters in marginal constituencies can succeed. This is the reason Ed Miliband failed to win. It is now time to move away from policies based on the views of "focus groups" and news management (spin).

I believe the policies advocated by Jeremy Corbyn can reach out to those disaffected from our political process. The Labour core voter, so long taken for granted by the Party's establishment, will be reconnected by a shift to progressive policies.

You don't have to agree with every single political position Corbyn holds, or every statement he has made in the past. His opponents attempt to deride his attitudes to foreign policy, but then they do not put any alternatives forward in response.

Despite the interventions from the relics of the party's past and the fear mongering by the other candidates, it is time for all those who want Labour to be a moral crusade once more to support Jeremy Corbyn. Vote for hope over fear and cynicism!

The 2016 Council Elections have begun ....

A few weeks ago, the prospective Independent candidate distributed leaflets announcing his intention to run again for Southchurch Ward in 2016. He wishes to build upon the work he started this year.

To be fair to Mr Sharman, he was disadvantaged by the council and general elections being held on the same day. The heightened political atmosphere benefits the national political parties. Why would you vote differently in the general election to the council election? The Independents did lose seats to the Tories in other wards, notably the Shoeburyness Ward, for this reason.

I suspect that Mr Sharman rates his chances of being elected in Southchurch in 2016. I hear rumours of in-fighting within the Southchurch Conservatives, which are likely to hamper the re-election of the veteran Councillor David Garston.

Despite being an "independent", Mr Sharman is actually representing the current administration on the Borough Council and nails his colours to their mast. His leaflet contains the obligatory photo of him with Council Leader Ron Woodley.

I am forced to ask how much longer the self-proclaimed "independents" can maintain that they are not a group with common cause or in other words "a party"? Surely participating in the administration, and the grubby business of Civic Centre politics, denies them the assumed virtue of not being "politicians".

UKIP - Poujadistes or Fascists?

Up to now, I taken the view that to talk about UKIP in public or on social media gives them an oxygen of publicity that they don't deserve. As we come closer to the 2015 General Election, with the real possibility of them winning 10-15 MPs in Parliament, it is perhaps time to lift the stone, shine a light into the politics of UKIP and see what comes crawling out.

In the last few years, UKIP have been able to make an entry into the mainstream domestic political scene. They have received considerable success in recent European elections, and have MEPs in each Region. Following the local elections, UKIP now have 5 councillors on Southend Borough Council which puts them on level pegging with the Liberal Democrats. At an early stage the Tories ruled out working in an administration with UKIP, this perhaps shows their toxicity when the main party of the democratic right cannot or will not work with them.

In recent months, two Tory defectors - Carswell and Reckless - were elected as MPs in by-elections. There is now a general acceptance on the part of the media that UKIP are part of the "political establishment" with their Leader, Farage, and seemingly accorded equal status as Cameron, Clegg and Miliband. However, their entry onto a national political stage has been accompanied by seemingly never ending reports of homophobic, racist and sexist outbursts by members of their Party. It is incredible that UKIP can shrug these incidents off or play them down as mere eccentric behaviour on the part of the activists.

In a time of austerity, and history shows, parties espousing right-wing populism gain support for their simplistic messages of blaming immigrants or the political establishment. A case in point, was in France in the 1950s where the party led by Pierre Poujade UCDA (or Poujadistes) (1) gained support by opposing taxes and price controls. As time went on their platform included both xenophobia and anti-Semitism. Like UKIP their rhetoric was against the political classes and the establishment. It can be argued that such right-wing populism does act as a gateway to fascism, Jean-Marie Le Pen started out as a UCDA member of parliament before becoming the leader of the fascist National Front. Farage's recently reported comment about being delayed on a motorway due to the number of immigrants in the UK is more in keeping with Le Pen than "Top Gear" humour.

This week UKIP appears to have got into hot water over the selection of a parliamentary candidate in the South Basildon constituency. I fail to find any sympathy for Natasha Bolter, and her allegations against the UKIP General Secretary. Her party hopping notwithstanding, she seems to be a "Walter Mitty" character whom Oxford University have no record of being a student there (2). Even more damning is the involvement of the disgraced former Tory MP Neil Hamilton. Given UKIP's anti-political stance and condemnation of the antics of MPs, it is astonishing that an individual who was at the centre of the sleaze scandal that brought down John Major's Government can be a prominent member of their party. It seems the UKIP leadership leaked details of Hamilton's expenses to scupper his attempt at being selected.

It is now the time to seriously challenge UKIP and their policies, particularly as the media are relatively soft on them as to where they stand politically. The question we need to ask is, are they a fascist wolf in the sheep's clothing of right-wing populism?

1. Wikipedia
2. Huffington Post

State of independence?

The Borough Council election for the Southchurch Ward, on 22nd May, would seem to be a two-horse race between the Tories and the Independent candidate.

The independent candidate, Derek Kenyon, was the first to issue campaign literature. Of course there is there is the obligatory photograph of Southend's very own Man Who Would Be King - Councillor Ron Woodley. Interestingly, Mr Kenyon is a former Council official who is now retired. As he was an officer from 2000 until retirement, he has worked solely under Conservative adminisatrations, so I wonder how far he supports the Tories' "way of doing things".

There was a time when elected Councillors saw the Officers as "the fourth party" on the Council, and sought to hold them accountable for their actions. More recently the Councillors and Officers have wanted to be seen as being on the same team. I would hesitate to describe Mr Kenyon as a gamekeeper turned poacher, as there is still a chance he stills sees himself as the former.

The Conservatives are fielding a first-time candidate, Sue Abrahams, so they may be feeling nervous about holding the seat against the Independents. This is very much the case in many Wards across the Borough. If the independents out-poll the Tories, they could then seek partners fom other parties to form an administration. I wouldn't rule out them forming an administration with the Tories, despite their seemingly anti-Tory rhetoric. Councillor Woodley may well emerge as the king-maker or even the King himself.

PCS at the crossroads?

The Annual Delegate Conference of the Public & Commercial Services (PCS) held in Brighton between 20^th and 22^nd May will see a watershed in both the union’s history and that of the movement. It may well be the final Conference of the Union as we know it. The National Executive Committee (NEC) has tabled a motion, if passed, will ultimately lead to a special conference and a membership ballot to agree a merger with UNITE.

The background is somewhat ironic, in that PCS led the way and dragged along other more cautious unions in campaigning, both politically and industrially, against the Government’s austerity agenda, has ended up becoming another victim of those policies.

The Union’s long-term viability has been undermined by job losses and redundancies in the key Civil Service departments, resulting in the loss of 50,000 members in the last 4 years. The government intends to reduce the size of the civil service to the equivalent of 380,000 full-time staff by 2015. The subscriptions base on which PCS has to operate is diminishing by the year. At the same pension liabilities for PCS, and for its predecessor unions, have created “a black hole”, which could be addressed but would leave PCS a much weaker union. PCS has also put in place plans to reduce the union’s own staff from 255 to 230 by January 2015.

Privatisation of Civil Service functions is an ever increasing threat, in which members’ jobs are sold off to private sector service suppliers. The Commercial section within PCS has grown larger over recent years as a result of out-sourcing. I believe it is in this area where the industrial logic for any merger is found. The experience of UNITE in organising workers in private sector companies, could be said to benefit PCS members facing privatisation of their jobs.

At this time, PCS is facing many challenges from the Government, designed to hamper activists’ ability to represent members in the workplace. The Cabinet Office has instructed departments to restrict paid time off (facilities time) for all elected trade union posts. The impact has been severe, with representatives having to choose between the activities they were elected to carry out, due to the restricted amount of time available to them. Also the use of dedicated trade union rooms and noticeboards are under threat. The most damaging is the demand by Ministers such as Maude, Pickles and Duncan-Smith that departments end the long established system of payment of union fees through the payroll, known as check off. PCS is urgently asking members to sign direct debit mandates, to head off another potential financial crisis for the union. All of these attacks have originated form right-wing groups, such the Taxpayers Alliance, who have the attention of Tory Ministers and dearly wish to remove trade unions from the public sector.

Activists within PCS have become polarised in the responses to the Merger, with many calling for a “NO” vote. There is a feeling that the “membership led” culture of union organisation developed in PCS is under threat from the hierarchical and full-time officer led structure of UNITE. One issue that is causing some concern is UNITE’s relationship with the Labour Party. The hard left want to defend PCS’s, as yet untested, policy of standing or supporting “independent” candidates in elections. UNITE have already stated that in talks on the merger, that no change in their political affiliations will be considered.

PCS’s NEC is at pains to stress that there is no done deal with UNITE, but their statements then go on to advocate what a “force against austerity” the new union will be. However, once the grounds for a merger have been established, especially where finances and the jobs of full-time officers are at stake, the case for a separate PCS diminishes. A merger will also allow the problems and restrictions in union representation in Civil Service workplaces to be addressed by the deployment of full-time union officials.

Activists will have to consider the terms of the PCS – UNITE merger with the utmost of care, as we stand to lose a great deal in terms of being activists in a democratic, membership-led union. However, in view of the dire threats facing PCS we may have to adopt a pragmatic view on merging with UNITE. 

Time for an End to Zero Hours Contracts

In these times of austerity, one of the most blatant forms of exploiting workers is the zero hours contract.

ACAS (1) defines a zero hours contract as:

The term 'zero hours' is not defined in legislation, but is generally understood to be a employment contract between an employer and a worker, which means the employer is not obliged to provide the worker with any minimum working hours, and the worker is not obliged to accept any of the hours offered.
It is important that both the employer and worker are aware of the fact that a zero hours contract can make their relationship different to other employment contract arrangements.

On the surface an employer could claim that these contracts allow them flexibility to bring in extra staff in busy periods. However, in the main they are an abusive practice, which allows employers not to pay their workers when business is slow. I am sure that we have all heard stories of workers, travelling in to work having paid their transport fares, only be told by the boss that there's no work for them today so they have to go home again without any pay for their trouble. How can this be fair, to lone parents and others struggling to earn a living wage?

It is very convenient to employers that zero hour contracts do not contravene national minimum wage legislation or living wage policies. These rates of pay only apply to hours that are worked. A very neat dodge for the modern Scrooges in the employer class.

As part of the TUC's campaign Fair Pay Fortnight from Monday 24 March to Sunday 6 April the scandal of zero hours contracts will be highlighted. The TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady has said:(2)

“The government is failing to address many of the abuses experienced by workers on zero-hours contracts. That’s why we need urgent legislative action to stamp out the growing abuse of workers on these contracts and in other forms of insecure work.

“Individuals working regular hours should be offered a contract containing fixed hours, but they should not have to wait 12 months for increased job and income security.

“The TUC would like the government to go further and ensure that staff on zero-hours contracts are properly rewarded for the flexibility they offer employers and that they get the same basic workplace rights as employees.

The Labour Party is campaigning on what it calls "Britain's cost of living crisis". Those workers on zero hour contracts bear the brunt of this crisis. I believe that Labour should make an unequivocal manifesto pledge to outlaw this cynical employment practice. In this way, they could win back millions of votes from working class people.

But beyond Labour and the TUC, there is action that we can all take. It is no secret that many well-known retailers and shops on the High Street employ staff on zero hours contracts. Supposedly, in the free market we are all customers and therefore have the choice to patronise those businesses with fair employment policies. It is now the time to name, shame and boycott those who don't!

(1) http://www.acas.org.uk
(2) http://www.tuc.org.uk/industrial-issues/tuc-calls-tougher-action-zero-hours-contracts