Blair's spell of deceit — the British Labour Party conference

The Labour Party conference in Bournemouth at the end of September 
marked the British Party's centenary with a dazzling array of promises: an 
end to poverty, full employment, visions of going forward to a land of 
truly equal opportunities and freedom for all.

It was probably quite intoxicating for all except those who are still 
fighting cuts to local services, cuts to schools, cuts to hospitals, those 
waiting for buses, trains, hospital appointments, jobs, for full trade 
union rights and so on.

Behind the scenes, a few real gains were made in hard bargaining by union 
leaders and a Labour leadership that wanted at all costs to avoid a defeat 
for Tony Blair on the floor of the conference.

The government White Paper on plans to reduce the monopoly of the Post 
Office on letter delivery will be submitted to the new Post Office 
regulator, instead of coming into force immediately, and the European 
working time directive will be extended to most white collar workers.

And the Government was forced to negotiate with BALPA, the airline pilots' 
union, which is resolutely opposed to the proposed privatisation of air 
traffic control.

On the conference floor itself, although the Labour leadership tried to 
rule out debate on the many branch resolutions about the Private Finance 
Initiative, a debate was forced and the vote was firmly against PFI*.

Several thousand protesters, who marched on the conference centre after a 
rally in a local park on Sunday, demanded the restoration of full trade 
union rights, the raising of the minimum wage to L5 an hour with no 
exemptions and the restoration of the link between average earnings and 
pensions.

Chancellor Gordon Brown pledged a big increase in the New Deal scheme which 
forces the unemployed to accept jobs with poor wages and conditions or face 
losing benefits.

In fact the scheme has not created a single new job. In areas where cuts to 
traditional heavy industries like mining and shipbuilding have destroyed 
thousands of jobs and hundreds of communities, the New Deal has had hardly 
any impact on joblessness.

The only prospects for young people in these places is to leave their homes 
and join the army of burger-bar and pizza-joint waiters in London and the 
south-east.

The press made much of Mr Brown's slapping the banks on the wrist over 
their increases in charges to customers. This is hardly going to worry the 
banks.

Barbara Castle, a Labour Cabinet Minister in the 1970s, pointed out that a 
single pensioner has lost the equivalent of L30,000 since the link between 
average earnings and pensions was scrapped 20 years ago.

She said that this year, pensioners will see only a 72 pence-a-week rise — 
"a fair price for a bag of peanuts".

She warned Labour against continuing with Tory policies that will create 
two tiers of pensioners and urged delegates not to vote for the welfare 
package being presented by Social Security Secretary Alistair Darling — 
but in vain, it was passed anyway.

But Mr Darling is calling for yet another national debate and overhaul of 
welfare services — more cuts to the most vulnerable from the government 
that "wants to end poverty".

Education Secretary David Blunkett called for more action against truanting 
and against the exclusion of some pupils from schools.

But at the same time the Government is continuing to make cuts to staffing 
levels so that schools cannot give fair treatment to both ordinary students 
who want to study and to the minority who are disruptive and need special 
attention.

The Party's promises on class sizes now, it seems, only apply to infant 
classes.

In its 100th year, the Labour Party is proposing yet more changes to its 
branches in a renewed attack on its own activists and foot soldiers.

They are accused of being small bands of left-wingers who exclude others, 
who fail to recruit because of over reliance on jargon and being overly 
bureaucratic, of being poor at fundraising and incompetent at 
electioneering.

A consultation document has been produced by the Blairites arguing for an 
increased membership base as the key to the "21st Century Party".

* The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) allows private capital to construct 
or renovate public works such as hospitals or schools, and then to operate 
them for private profit for a set term (say 15 years) at the end of which 
time they revert to the government. During the period of private operation, 
the private financiers must gouge maximum profit from the enterprise as 
they only have it for a set term.

* * *

Adapted from an article by Daphne Liddle in the New Worker

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