English Labour are offering nothing but crumbs to Scotland
Have your say by emailing letters@thenational.scot
RACHEL Reeves has told Laura Kuenssberg that an English Labour government’s economic inheritance “will be the worst since the Second World War”.
Reeves should study how the 1945 Labour Attlee government dug itself out of the fiscal hole it inherited. It launched a massive public spending programme that created the NHS, brought coal mines, power companies and railways into public ownership, and invested in education, social services and housing.
The economy flourished with full employment and no inflation. The people became the owners of public assets that were foolishly sold to private companies under Margaret Thatcher, robbing the people of trillions of pounds.
The post-war economic miracle was possible because John Maynard Keynes, Attlee’s advisor, knew that cutting spending during an economic slump would only deepen it. He understood that because the government creates all the money, it can never go broke. He knew that government spending priorities signal to the private sector where it should invest, eg in new hospitals, schools, energy-efficient homes. Public, not private, spending drives growth.
The last 15 years demonstrate that spending cuts don’t grow the economy. The UK’s in recession, unemployment is up, businesses are failing and inequality is worsening. Yet Reeves promises more austerity.
English Labour have also reneged on their pledge to renationalise energy, rail, mail and water (in England). They need only look to Norway, France and Denmark, who fully or partially own their energy companies and are part-owners of UK energy where they make significant profits. If they can see the benefits in public ownership, why can’t Labour?
Reeves bragged to Kuenssberg that leftover croissants from meetings go to her staff. Crumbs are all that English Labour offers Scotland. It’s time to end the failing Union.
Leah Gunn Barrett Edinburgh
AFTER the UK election we will be under either the current Tories – surviving in power by skin of their teeth, which I have to admit is currently a remote possibility – or an incoming Labour government who have publicly stated they will not make any promises to voters before seeing “the books”.
Rachael Reeves, the chess-playing future chancellor, came through the recent political elite route: philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford then on to London School of Economics for an MSc, on to Bank of England and Halifax/Bank of Scotland. Should we, the Scottish public, expect radical monetary policy changes that support the “many not the few”?
I doubt it, as Starmer and Reeves are wedded to saying not much other than apparently performing Theresa May’s “strong and stable” dance. I can predict that within the month of taking power they will go on TV and tell us all that there really is no money left, and we will have to keep our belt tightened for another few months or possibly years.
Many folks will not make it due to the effect of “trunk strangulation” caused by extended austerity.
The Starmer party had to be dragged into speaking about the Gaza conflict, for fear of undoing all of the membership surgery he has undertaken since taking over his party by risking being called antisemitic himself. If the Starmer party is feart to condemn the unjustifiable retribution of the IDF and Israeli government against the Palestinians, is it likely we as voters will get any detailed plan on the economy from which we can judge their direction and competence?
Unlikely. They won’t want to scare the horses by saying five more years of austerity.
Alistair Ballantyne
Angus
JOHNSON got Brexit “done”. Now Tory MPs want him to front a right-wing move to get the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) “done” – that is, removed from UK law. How? By having another referendum, this time on the human rights issue, attached to the coming General Election.
How many times has Scotland tried to include a referendum on its independence as attached to a Scottish election, only to be usurped by the Westminster
government telling Scotland “now is not the time”? Ironically, it was Theresa May who gave us that infamous phrase, as well as being the advocate for getting rid of the ECHR. It’s not a small co-incidence that she will no longer be standing as an MP whenever the election happens.
To get rid of the ECHR from UK legislation would leave Scotland at a greater mercy from this Tory government if it wins the next election. As a part of this now unjustifiable United Kingdom, Scotland would lose access to the ECHR where immigration is concerned, for example, or when justice needs to be seen when anyone’s human rights might be in jeopardy.
The convention has had a significant influence on the law in Council of Europe member countries and is widely considered the most effective international treaty for human rights protection. Oddly enough, the United Kingdom was one of the states that drafted the ECHR, and was one of the first to ratify it in 1951. The convention came into force in 1953.
Now, 71 years on, a right-wing faction of the Westminster Tory government wants to rid the UK of the European Convention on Human Rights because it interferes with its notion of a “once upon a time Great Britain”, devoid of immigrants from other countries. Never mind the fact that several members of the government are sons and daughters of immigrant ancestry themselves. They are simply not concerned with the fact that racism might be a factor in their considerations, including Islamaphobia, and even perhaps antisemitism.
Alan Magnus-Bennett
Fife