The politics of the left in the UK

[P. G. Tipps]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that; could you explain more clearly?

Certainly, I'll try to be as clear as I possibly can be ...

Many large companies have now discontinued final-salary schemes to new (and sometimes even existing) employees because they describe them (the schemes) as 'too costly' ... their words not mine.

I have never worked in the public sector but I understand that many public sector workers are complaining that their pension benefits are being reduced by Government. Spokespersons for the Government say this has to be done because some of these pensions are now 'too generous' and 'can no longer be afforded' ... again their words not mine.

Of course the Government has a financial deficit to consider though I'm not sure that cutting the value of pensions sometimes built up over a lifetime is a particularly fair and suitable way of reducing that deficit, and, in any case, will only create more financial problems in the future.

As for the large corporates I'm not entirely convinced that they are now so poor they cannot pay their staff a decent pension on retirement. More likely it's just an easy and quick way to boost the profit line by reducing the cost of the pension fund and thereby pleasing the shareholders!

[Serial_Apologist]

That's largely true and needs to be said over and over again; I wouldn't go quite as far as you do in describing money as a "secondary" issue in those days, not least because none of that homebuilding, SSSI creation and maintenance, setting up and running of the NHS and all the other things that you mention would have been possible without a great deal of it, but where you are right is in that money was not treated as the only thing that mattered in life as is so often and so widely the case today.

Admittedly I was making a nebulous, rhetorical comment when I wrote what I did, and usually people say, well that's just being idealistic whereas what we need is someone with pragmatic, practicable suggestions. In the end I still maintain that solving these problems comes down to a matter of matching available sustainable resources to creating resources, services and products everyone can afford. If someone can come up with an alternative to the idea I've been promulgating for quite some time that the money has to be taken out of the hands of rich powerful bussinesspersons and speculators and placed in the change of people and institutions that can be trusted by being made acountable and affordable in every sense, then I'll do my best to go along with whatever they come up with.

[Serial_Apologist]

Certainly, I'll try to be as clear as I possibly can be ...

Many large companies have now discontinued final-salary schemes to new (and sometimes even existing) employees because they describe them (the schemes) as 'too costly' ... their words not mine.

I have never worked in the public sector but I understand that many public sector workers are complaining that their pension benefits are being reduced by Government. Spokespersons for the Government say this has to be done because some of these pensions are now 'too generous' and 'can no longer be afforded' ... again their words not mine.

Of course the Government has a financial deficit to consider though I'm not sure that cutting the value of pensions sometimes built up over a lifetime is a particularly fair and suitable way of reducing that deficit, and, in any case, will only create more financial problems in the future.

As for the large corporates I'm not entirely convinced that they are now so poor they cannot pay their staff a decent pension on retirement. More likely it's just an easy and quick way to boost the profit line by reducing the cost of the pension fund and thereby pleasing the shareholders!

Yes, but this is just divide-and-rulespeak, designed to make employees in the private sector envious of those in the public sector. Don't you see there's a much more cynical interpretation of what is going on? - namely that in times of plenty people are told that not only are they fulfilling their public, if not patriotic duty, by buying stuff which keeps other people in jobs, but they are fulfilling their inner desires for self-enrichment; and that in times when capitalism goes into inevitable recession, they have been too greedy and now must pay for out-pricing themselves from the market?

[ahinton]

Certainly, I'll try to be as clear as I possibly can be ...

Many large companies have now discontinued final-salary schemes to new (and sometimes even existing) employees because they describe them (the schemes) as 'too costly' ... their words not mine.

I have never worked in the public sector but I understand that many public sector workers are complaining that their pension benefits are being reduced by Government. Spokespersons for the Government say this has to be done because some of these pensions are now 'too generous' and 'can no longer be afforded' ... again their words not mine.

Of course the Government has a financial deficit to consider though I'm not sure that cutting the value of pensions sometimes built up over a lifetime is a particularly fair and suitable way of reducing that deficit, and, in any case, will only create more financial problems in the future.

As for the large corporates I'm not entirely convinced that they are now so poor they cannot pay their staff a decent pension on retirement. More likely it's just an easy and quick way to boost the profit line by reducing the cost of the pension fund and thereby pleasing the shareholders!

OK, I understand better what you wrote now; you're referring to complaints by public sector employees at Government's reduction in their pension benefits on the one hand and private sector employers ceasing final salary schemes on the other, each on cost grounds.

What Government thinks or claims that it can or cannot afford is down not only to deficit issues but also to funding ones - in other words, if it's to maintain or even improve the pension benefits of public sector employees, it's going to have to meet the costs of so doing from taxation, with the result that all taxpayers, including those whose incomes are derived from investments, those with taxable pensions already in payment and those who work in the private sector - not to mention those public sector employees themselves - would each have to contribute to the cost of those benefit improvements.

If employers cannot sustain final salary pension schemes because they claim to be unable to afford to do so, I don't see what can be done, whether such claims are right or wrong; Government cannot force employers to maintain particular types of pension scheme and, in any case, one factor that can adversely affect all types of pension scheme is the longevity of pensioners in payment - the more centenarians there are who draw their pensions for as long as or longer than they ever worked, the more the schemes' affordability becomes questionable.

I agree in principle with your penultimate paragraph.

I do think, however, that it's important to remember that pensions are just one form of investment and that, whereas in days gone by, their purpose was to provide, as far as possible, a comfortable retirement, the situation now is quite diffeent with the vastly increased mobility of the employment market and the fact that many pensions can still be vested at age 55 despite the gap ever widening between that age and state retirement age; more and more people now think of pensions as investments that may not necessarily be tied to retirement and there have never been so many people in receipt of pensions who continue to derive earned incomes from employment, self-employment or, in a few cases, even both.

Gone are the days when pension plans, be they employers' schemes, private pensions or whatever are seen as the only way to save for retirement, just as gone are the days when people hold no more than a few employed positions and then retire altogether because the employment market is so much more flexible and mobile and the entire business of "retirement" is viewed quite diffeently nowadays, not only by those who can't afford to give up work if they can find enough but also by those who do not wish to give up work even if they can afford to do so.

[ahinton]

Admittedly I was making a nebulous, rhetorical comment when I wrote what I did, and usually people say, well that's just being idealistic whereas what we need is someone with pragmatic, practicable suggestions. In the end I still maintain that solving these problems comes down to a matter of matching available sustainable resources to creating resources, services and products everyone can afford. If someone can come up with an alternative to the idea I've been promulgating for quite some time that the money has to be taken out of the hands of rich powerful bussinesspersons and speculators and placed in the change of people and institutions that can be trusted by being made acountable and affordable in every sense, then I'll do my best to go along with whatever they come up with.

I understand the rationale behind what you were writing and agree in principle with much of the first part of what you write here, but what you refer to here as "trustworthiness" is, I think, a vital issue; one of the most notable issues thrown up by the Scottish referendum is discontent with Government (in Westminster, at least) and that discontent has in large part arisen as a consequence of a widely held (not just in Scotland, of course) perception of the untrustworthiness of government.

I do not think that the principle of trying to shift financial goalposts by attempting to divert funds from wealthy business people and speculators to governments (even if it were achievable, which is of course in grave doubt) could bring with it any kind of guarantee of "trustworthiness" in terms of the allocation of the funds so removed; this is one of the areas in which I find myself at constant odds with many of socialist persuasion, because I cannot bring myself to share their apparent perception that wealthy persons and corporations won't ever spend money in ways that might benefit society whereas governments always will just because that's what they've been elected to do - it just doesn't work like that, whether or not one might like to think that it ought to do so.

[ahinton]

Yes, but this is just divide-and-rulespeak, designed to make employees in the private sector envious of those in the public sector. Don't you see there's a much more cynical interpretation of what is going on? - namely that in times of plenty people are told that not only are they fulfilling their public, if not patriotic duty, by buying stuff which keeps other people in jobs, but they are fulfilling their inner desires for self-enrichment; and that in times when capitalism goes into inevitable recession, they have been too greedy and now must pay for out-pricing themselves from the market?

Indeed - and, even today, far too many people fall for that shallow and specious "argument" hook, line and stinker!

[Serial_Apologist]

I do not think that the principle of trying to shift financial goalposts by attempting to divert funds from wealthy business people and speculators to governments (even if it were achievable, which is of course in grave doubt) could bring with it any kind of guarantee of "trustworthiness" in terms of the allocation of the funds so removed;

Governments would have to provide evidence of their trustworthiness, and this is where common experience would be the learning curve that I believe the elctorate would have to undergo before the institutions proved themselves adequate and the government spokespersons trustworthy enough. One reason for suspecting the institutions is the top-down way in which a misnamed "socialism" has hitherto been practised, whether as the mixed economy capitalist prop it was here in the period roughly between 1945 and 1979, or the even more top-down dictatorial form it asumed under Stalin and thereafter in the Communist East until its collapse by 1992. Leaving aside the misnomer for both top-down forms of "leave it up to us" authoritarianism were two facts which totally discredited either model: the unelectedness of the decision-makers and their self-election into positions of privilege, and of unquestionable power in the second case.

this is one of the areas in which I find myself at constant odds with many of socialist persuasion, because I cannot bring myself to share their apparent perception that wealthy persons and corporations won't ever spend money in ways that might benefit society whereas governments always will just because that's what they've been elected to do - it just doesn't work like that, whether or not one might like to think that it ought to do so.

With the proviso that managers were elected to their posts under a system of periodic recall and paid at salary rates commensurate with the extra time needed for retraining for such, in the same way as a skilled machinist or scientist, the people standing and getting elected would be (a) representative of the electorate's view of the kind of person they wanted as leading policy and decision-makers; and (b) not motivated into candidacy in the first place by need to lord it over other people. We're talking a different mentality of peer-group pressure here: one that wants to devote itself to society's good, and might otherwise be a social worker, charity worker, artist or priest in current circumstances. The people currently attracted to high positions are of course not generally thus motivated, thinking themselves doubly deserving by dint of having stepped on the bodies of others moving up the greasy pole by virtue of privileged birthright, family connections, or maybe some early slight that makes them want to get one over on the rest of humanity. The few philanthropists who have used capitalism to improve the lot of others have indeed been few and far between, and - I'm thinking right now of Carnegie's legacy in the nearby Herne Hill Library - their gifts have either been left to deteriorate or taken over by your more usual brand of capitalist, to be run in the usual way.

[P. G. Tipps]

Yes, but this is just divide-and-rulespeak, designed to make employees in the private sector envious of those in the public sector. Don't you see there's a much more cynical interpretation of what is going on? - namely that in times of plenty people are told that not only are they fulfilling their public, if not patriotic duty, by buying stuff which keeps other people in jobs, but they are fulfilling their inner desires for self-enrichment; and that in times when capitalism goes into inevitable recession, they have been too greedy and now must pay for out-pricing themselves from the market?

Do people really take much notice of what any Government minister says about anything? I very much doubt it. However, I think most people do realise that there is such a thing as a economic cycle and there will be good and not-so-good times, and maybe on occasion one or two very bad times. However the good times for most people do tend to dominate whether we realise it or not. Accordingly, pension funds have always been able to ride these ups and downs and, after several decades of investment, have up until now provided good value for those who retire. When the stock market collapsed in 2008 we were told this was bad for pensions. When it is now at a virtual all-time high we are told decent pensions can no longer be afforded. Something doesn't quite ring true there.

It's a bit like the energy companies increasing prices, blaming it on oil-price rises, and still continuing to increase charges when the oil-price falls back again, and this time blaming it on the weather?

[ahinton]

Governments would have to provide evidence of their trustworthiness, and this is where common experience would be the learning curve that I believe the elctorate would have to undergo before the institutions proved themselves adequate and the government spokespersons trustworthy enough. One reason for suspecting the institutions is the top-down way in which a misnamed "socialism" has hitherto been practised, whether as the mixed economy capitalist prop it was here in the period roughly between 1945 and 1979, or the even more top-down dictatorial form it asumed under Stalin and thereafter in the Communist East until its collapse by 1992. Leaving aside the misnomer for both top-down forms of "leave it up to us" authoritarianism were two facts which totally discredited either model: the unelectedness of the decision-makers and their self-election into positions of privilege, and of unquestionable power in the second case.

As usual, you can be relied upon to dispense escellent and well considered good sense, for which many thanks!

Yes, one could set up means of "auditing" prospective candidates for MP positions and I agree entirely with what you write about the two types of "top-down" scenarios - but see below...

With the proviso that managers were elected to their posts under a system of periodic recall and paid at salary rates commensurate with the extra time needed for retraining for such, in the same way as a skilled machinist or scientist, the people standing and getting elected would be (a) representative of the electorate's view of the kind of person they wanted as leading policy and decision-makers; and (b) not motivated into candidacy in the first place by need to lord it over other people. We're talking a different mentality of peer-group pressure here: one that wants to devote itself to society's good, and might otherwise be a social worker, charity worker, artist or priest in current circumstances. The people currently attracted to high positions are of course not generally thus motivated, thinking themselves doubly deserving by dint of having stepped on the bodies of others moving up the greasy pole by virtue of privileged birthright, family connections, or maybe some early slight that makes them want to get one over on the rest of humanity. The few philanthropists who have used capitalism to improve the lot of others have indeed been few and far between, and - I'm thinking right now of Carnegie's legacy in the nearby Herne Hill Library - their gifts have either been left to deteriorate or taken over by your more usual brand of capitalist, to be run in the usual way.

The problems with trying to ensure consistently reliable and trustworthy repesentation in HoC are various.

First of all, not every member of the electorate shares a view on what represents everyone's best interests.

Secondly, not everyone believes that the best interests of all citizens can even be served in the first polace in every particular and every walk of life; yes, some will litarelly be agreed as being representative of "the common good" (clean, potable water, a certain standard of housing and availability of decent food, healthcare, education and so on) but others won't and, even in the cases of those where such agreement does pertain, not every voter will share an identical view on the details of the provision of the right to any of these or on how they should be funded.

Thirdly, there's no guarantee that anyone who satisfies agreed credentials in this regard in the run-up to a General Election will maintain their trustworthiness when in the position of power conferred upon them by their status as elected MPs.

Fourthly, the current party political system determines that there are numerous possible alternatives for which party or coalition of parties might achieve a majority at a General Election and, given that some of what an electorate might want to trust MPs to do will take longer than a maximum term of office to achieve, those "guarantees", such as they are, risk being further undermined each time there's a change of government.

Fifthly (and this is perhaps even more pertinent now than it's been in living memory), all the trustworthiness in the world will not of itself guarantee the possibility of the formation of a majority government that would have the clout to carry out such measures; we've had (in England, at any rate) a two-party coalition in a largely three-party race for the past five years but this time around it looks set to be a four-party one with an inevitable uncertainty that any one party or even coalition of two such parties will achieve a majority so, given that the likelihood that three parties could manage - and agree - to form a coalition is as remote as could be, it's hard to see what value such trustworthiness is likely to have in the foreseeable future in any case.

[Serial_Apologist]

The problems with trying to ensure consistently reliable and trustworthy repesentation in HoC are various.

First of all, not every member of the electorate shares a view on what represents everyone's best interests.

Not right now, true; maybe not ever; but the issues upon which people differed would be different in circumstances one could easily envisage should conditions continue to deteriorate - which I predict they will, sadly, because I think capitalism's apoloigists are running out of ideas about how to keep it running in ways that promise better lives for the majority.

Secondly, not everyone believes that the best interests of all citizens can even be served in the first place in every particular and every walk of life; yes, some will literally be agreed as being representative of "the common good" (clean, potable water, a certain standard of housing and availability of decent food, healthcare, education and so on) but others won't and, even in the cases of those where such agreement does pertain, not every voter will share an identical view on the details of the provision of the right to any of these or on how they should be funded.

With the help of e.g. new social media, people would see through artifically orchestrated divisions perpetrated by politicians and the press in much larger numbers than at present, and get together to prioritise organising society to meet those basic needs of which you speak in the context of generalised public debate on broad areas of common agreement, since people tend to start by generalising before getting down to details. This may be forced on communities if everything is not to descend into chaos and lawlessness.

Thirdly, there's no guarantee that anyone who satisfies agreed credentials in this regard in the run-up to a General Election will maintain their trustworthiness when in the position of power conferred upon them by their status as elected MPs.

They would if the criteria I recommended earlier were followed through!

Fourthly, the current party political system determines that there are numerous possible alternatives for which party or coalition of parties might achieve a majority at a General Election and, given that some of what an electorate might want to trust MPs to do will take longer than a maximum term of office to achieve, those "guarantees", such as they are, risk being further undermined each time there's a change of government.

Well, that would apply to any period election system, in good times or bad. Changing the criteria for remaining in office would help obviate this, but only if backed up by radical change of power relations in society as a whole, starting from the grass roots.

Fifthly (and this is perhaps even more pertinent now than it's been in living memory), all the trustworthiness in the world will not of itself guarantee the possibility of the formation of a majority government that would have the clout to carry out such measures; we've had (in England, at any rate) a two-party coalition in a largely three-party race for the past five years but this time around it looks set to be a four-party one with an inevitable uncertainty that any one party or even coalition of two such parties will achieve a majority so, given that the likelihood that three parties could manage - and agree - to form a coalition is as remote as could be, it's hard to see what value such trustworthiness is likely to have in the foreseeable future in any case.

As said before, the problem has consisted in well-meaning reformist governments seeking to challenge the hegemony of the rich saying, leave it to us the elect - just carry on making and buying stuff. The clout of which you speak would come from a government really committed to what has been tagged "people's power", and elected to a majority in the usual way, mobilising the populace from its position of legitimacy in the public mind to enact the radical policies encrypted by legislation.

[Serial_Apologist]

Do people really take much notice of what any Government minister says about anything? I very much doubt it. However, I think most people do realise that there is such a thing as a economic cycle and there will be good and not-so-good times, and maybe on occasion one or two very bad times. However the good times for most people do tend to dominate whether we realise it or not. Accordingly, pension funds have always been able to ride these ups and downs and, after several decades of investment, have up until now provided good value for those who retire. When the stock market collapsed in 2008 we were told this was bad for pensions. When it is now at a virtual all-time high we are told decent pensions can no longer be afforded. Something doesn't quite ring true there.

It's a bit like the energy companies increasing prices, blaming it on oil-price rises, and still continuing to increase charges when the oil-price falls back again, and this time blaming it on the weather?

I wasn't thinking so much of government as what we get fed constantly by the meedja. I think that in combination with upbringing, most people are trained by constant reiteration from such "objective", "even-handed" propagandists as the BBC, to see overproduction and the subsequent devaluation of product, along with mass unemployment, as like the weather - about which little can be done , and this as all fatalistically seen as being, as Pangloss put it in Voltaire's "Candide", "the best of all possible worlds".

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Never mind the politics of the left. What about today's announcement from the extremely nasty man of the right.

[Serial_Apologist]

Never mind the politics of the left. What about today's announcement from the extremely nasty man of the right.

If you mean George Osborne's speech to the Tory conference stating their intention to hit benefits yet again, quite clearly they are unashamedly still beholden to their mission to hit the poorest hardest: in this case either by impoverishing them while on benefit to force them to get non-existent jobs to pay for their fast becoming unaffordable rents and mortgages, or to take non-unionised jobs now said to make up the growing jobs market in what is fast becoming a low-wage economy. Either way we shouldn't be surprised that capital, having caused the crisis in its banking sector, is doing what it always does in a crisis, protect the rich and powerful and make the working class carry the burden; what's more depressing is that Balls seems intent on pursuing the same line of speeding up reduction of the deficit.

[P. G. Tipps]

Never mind the politics of the left. What about today's announcement from the extremely nasty man of the right.

They certainly all seemed particularly nasty towards the Scots.

For a party that constantly refers to preserving 'our United Kingdom' the naked English nationalist rhetoric from some speakers was quite something to behold.

No wonder poor Michael Gove looked distinctly uncomfortable at times! <winkeye>

[ahinton]

If you mean George Osborne's speech to the Tory conference stating their intention to hit benefits yet again, quite clearly they are unashamedly still beholden to their mission to hit the poorest hardest: in this case either by impoverishing them while on benefit to force them to get non-existent jobs to pay for their fast becoming unaffordable rents and mortgages, or to take non-unionised jobs now said to make up the growing jobs market in what is fast becoming a low-wage economy. Either way we shouldn't be surprised that capital, having caused the crisis in its banking sector, is doing what it always does in a crisis, protect the rich and powerful and make the working class carry the burden; what's more depressing is that Balls seems intent on pursuing the same line of speeding up reduction of the deficit.

I suspect that they're taking - albeit unwittingly and unknowingly, to say nothing of uncomprehendingly - Hugh MacDiarmid at his word when, in response to the question, "what do you want to do about the poor?", he replied "I want to get rid of them"...