Conservatives: Here we go again, 1980s déjà vu…

David Cameron’s true colours shined through during his interview with Jeremy Paxman tonight. He made it pretty clear that he believed the 1980s inequality was justifiable and tolerable in order to achieve a ‘sustainable’ economy and growth. However, he then tried to claim that if he became Prime Minister now it would be somehow different when the Tories attempt to ‘sort’ the economy out. Let us unpick the illogicality and total inaccuracy of this claim.

Cameron’s emphasis in terms of improving the economy is growth, and it is clear he would do whatever it takes to reduce the deficit. He blamed the 1980s inequality on the legacy of Labour, but in the same interview, he referred to how we have borrowed more in this current recession than we did in 1976 when we went to IMF, part of what he has attributed as the reason for the massive inequality within the 1980s.

So what is the difference? It is exactly the same situation, if not worse. Like in the 1980s the Tories neglected inequality for their ideological aims to an unfair neo liberal economy, they will do it again if they are elected. All their policies are inherently unfair and do nothing to promote inequality, as Paxman cleverly highlighted.

Take marriage tax, Paxman enlightened me further about the inequality and out of dated nature of that policy. I was unaware that when one of the partners stays home they are able to claim the tax benefit. This is Thatcher 2. Whilst furthering the economy through unequal aims, they also want to promote some ‘ideal’ nuclear family.

There is very little that has changed from the 1980s Conservative party and the ‘modern’ day Cameron party. If we elect Cameron, we will be greeted with a great deal of inequality that will destroy the lives of many. Let us not make the same mistake we made in the 1980s…

Lib Dems are wrong about school league tables…

The Lib Dem’s plans to divide league tables up so middle class dominated schools are ‘shown up’ more when they are ‘failing’ is hardly going to help improve the quality of state education. I oppose league tables anyway: they encourage schools to use selection and exclusionary practices so that they ‘look’ better, but when in reality there are substantial issues of inequality and discrimination. These policies will not help the state sector improve, it will just lead to more schools preventing children taking GCSE’s (etc.) because of their class status, race, gender or whatever. It will just increase the inequalities within the school system, that are cleverly hidden under the existing league tables.

It promotes a ‘you’ and ‘them’ attitude, with the BBC describing the proposals as the equivalent to football league divisions. It will, as many have rightly claimed, lead to labelling of schools – as schools will be categorised into ‘poor’ vs. ‘rich’ schools. This will only further undermine the attempts to try to reduce the discrimination in university applications – universities would be able to use these tables to judge with even more detail what ‘type’ of school you came from.

Separate league tables will create more divisions between the schools, where schools within the ‘poor’ and ‘rich’ league tables start competing more with each other to be the ‘best’. This whole market ethos is so wrong when we are talking about education. There should be a move to creating a more universal standard of education, not a move to segregate schools that are supposed to have a certain ‘background’. It will not help improve the state education quality, it will just add to the already existent discrimination and elitism that exists in the schooling system.

For once, the Lib Dems are actually incorrect when talking about equality and education, these proposals will not help with the much-needed improvement of the state system – it will only further inequality and exclusionary practices.

Tobin or not Tobin…

Update: It has come to my attention (via the Social Liberal Forum’s signposting towards a blog by the Robin Hood Tax campaigners) that a Tobin Tax and a Robin Hood Tax are not the same thing in terms of their end objective. However, even though the taxes sets out to achieve different things, the actual way of achieving it does not differ. So the means are the same, the ends are just defined differently, and to be honest I prefer the Robin Hood Tax’s to the Tobin Tax’s end values. Furthermore, the impressive range of financial transactions that the Robin Hood Tax has increased onto the Tobin Tax is important, this relates to the inter-changeable use of the words Transaction Tax and Tobin Tax in the media, as the former refers to a broader range of financial transactions (so shows how therefore there is some difference in terms of means, but not a substantial difference in terms of the actual method). Hence this is important to remember when I use the terms Tobin Tax and Robin Hood Tax within the blog, I am referring to Robin Hood Tax, but as stated the method of the tax is based on the Tobin Tax.

Firstly, apologies for the length of time since my last blog; it is suffice to say, it has been a busy week. Secondly, onto the blog.

It is a pleasing development to see a growing desire amongst the mainstream and non-mainstream political sphere for a Tobin Tax on banking transactions. To me, this is something that is so crucial and so simple to put in place; it would  help alleviate so many from the social, economic and environmental hardship  they face due to social relations and power structures within society. With the bankers resuming ‘back to business’ techniques, there is the growing need of a simple but substantial policy like the Tobin Tax.

The Independent report the growing mobilisation amongst social activists for the Tobin Tax, or what they are referring to as the ‘Robin Hood Tax’:

“A coalition of charities, unions and aid agencies have called on the UK’s political parties to support a global “Robin Hood tax” on financial transactions that could raise up to £250bn every year to fight poverty, protect public services and tackle climate change.”

An impressive 50 organisations so far support the ‘Robin Hood Tax’. This is such an important development; any political party serious around banking reform really cannot deny the rightful voice of so many powerful equality fighting organisations such as Oxfam and Barnardo’s and how prevailing their argument that the money raised from the tax should be used to tackle the inequalities within society such as poverty is. To be fair to Brown, he has been fairly supportive of the Tobin Tax of late, however, Labour were of electoral reform in 1997 (and before), that still hasn’t happened. However, maybe with the TUC supporting the campaign, Labour’s heartstrings may be pulled a bit more than they have thus far. Furthermore, this campaign for a ‘Robin Hood Tax’ is part of a growing international movement to reform the banking sectors. People are rightly fed up of the bankers acting as though they are somehow above the law (which incidentally is rightly why parliamentary privilege should not be used to help frauds).

This tax wont drive the bankers out of business, it will help tackle social hardship with hardly touching the banks balances. It is ironic really that such an inequality-riddled industry could actually help tackle hardship within society. Importantly, these are the type of policies we have to fight for; the economic recession offered us a chance to make important changes. Other banking reforms are key too such as breaking up the investment and retail banking and closing loopholes. On the latter point, to give the treasury credit, they are appearing to wake up a bit more recently, as illustrated by their closing of a £1bn loophole last Tuesday.

Policy action is needed, however, we have to recognise how important and exciting the growing international recognition of reform is. There is an increased desire for more meaningful political, economic and environmental reform. Nevertheless, there are still those dinosaurs politicians who try and prevent change; however, their reactionary response can be dissolved via continued collective mobilisation of an economic and social equality vision, as shown by the ‘Robin Hood Tax’ campaign.