Articles by Michael Meacher MP
Michael Meacher MP
WILL NEWS INTERNATIONAL SURVIVE?
It is scarcely possible to overstate the gravity of the charges against Murdoch’s organisation over the criminal offence of phone hacking. There is undoubtedly a great deal more to be exposed, but we already know that phone hacking was rife at News International (N.I.) on an almost epidemic scale, that [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
IT’S POLITICAL UNION OR EUROZONE BREAK-UP
For the third time in a row – Greece, Ireland and now Portugal – the continuing Eurozone crisis is being handled badly. A Portuguese bail-out will shortly be arranged among the EU countries, but in practice dominated by the conditions laid down by the most powerful country, Germany. This [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
OSBORNE’S ‘BUDGET FOR GROWTH’ EVAPORATES BEFORE OUR EYES
Rarely can a Budget have disintegrated so quickly. Dixons have just announced sales falling by 11% over the last 11 weeks, and are now cutting capital expenditure by 25%. Oddbins goes bankrupt. The former Asda boss has predicted a “long-term trend of trading down”. HMV has just issued its thrid [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
We should end socialism for the banks
As has often been said, the banks have a policy: privatise their gains, socialise their losses. However we should have a different policy: make the banks pay for what they have done and restructure them so that they can never do it again. Fat chance of course that anything like this [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
The labour market scam gets under way
As the first pilot schemes for getting claimants off Incapacity Benefit and into work have judged that 70% were fit for work, the real attitudes of the Tories towards unemployment is becoming painfully clear. Their Work First model of active labour market policy is defined by increasingly punitive approaches to conditionality [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
Osborne in Wonderland
The internal contradictions in Osborne’s economic policy multiply. Before the election he complained quite rightly that the nation’s private debt was far too high – in the bubble years it reached £1.35 trillion, only slightly less than the nation’s entire GDP which was £1.45 trillion. It is now £1.56 trillion, [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
Another financial tsunami: the massive shift from wages to profits
Unnoticed in the austerity-driven travails following the financial crash lies another tectonic shift. According to research by the US bank Morgan Stanley, since the start of the ‘recovery’ in 2009-10 total real wages have risen by £105bn, but profits have soared by £330bn. This is the first time that profits [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
Labour should go for the jugular on Osborne’s fundamental fallacy
It’s worrying that Ed Miliband in launching Labour’s local election campaign seemed so defensive and uncertain about his economic case, when it is actually very powerful. Economic growth by itself, on the Government’s own forecasts, will halve this year’s Budget deficit within 5 years without a single public expenditure cut [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
The Left is not in retreat continent-wide; the Right is
One of the perils of politicians is that no sooner have they made a grand pronouncement on the sweep of history, as they perceive it, than events immediately conspire to prove that they had totally misread the runes and that the opposite is true. That seems the fate of David Miliband [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
Govean educationomics
Gove has established quite a reputation for turning all he touches, not to gold, but to dust. His Big Idea of course is to raise standards by spreading Academies all over the country and providing incentives for parents to set up Swedish-style so-called ‘free schools’. It’s true that UK educational [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
One and a half cheers for AV
It’s difficult to get excited about the AV referendum. It will probably be won not because of the merits of the AV system, not even because most people necessarily understand what it means, but because by 5 May the Tories, who are campaigning hard for a ‘no’ vote, will be very unpopular. However, [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
What Osborne didn’t say in the Commons Budget debate
It emerged in the Budget debate which ended today in the Commons that the need for spending cuts is far from the inevitability that Osborne has always claimed. The independent OBR estimates of growth for the next 5 years, albeit recently scaled down, are still 1.7% this year, 2.5% next year, [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
Gross police negligence or malpractice should be severely punished
Today is the start of the inquest into the death of Ian Tomlinson in the G20 protests last year. The kettling tactics used by the police to squeeze protestors against the tripling of student fees a few months ago could easily have caused further fatalities, and certainly caused immense discomfort [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
When are the banks going to be reformed?
It is astonishing that the banks, having cost the country £68bn in bailouts plus an additional £850bn in loan guarantees, asset protection schemes and enhanced liquidity, have not been reformed in any way in structure, pay, bonuses or lending. True, the Vickers Commission is due to report later this year and [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
This march was undoubtedly a success
Having come down from my Oldham constituency this morning, I joined the march in ‘Whitehall at at 1.15pm, about an hour and a half after the vanguard had begun the march to Hyde Park. After hearing the speeches I returned along Piccadilly where people were still marching towards Hyde Park [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
RPDI pointing south
If there is one single indicator illustrating the political health as well as the economic health of a government, it is RPDI (real personal disposable income). Year on year that tracks changes in the value of household income after taking account of inflation. For 20 years till 2005 it rose [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
The grin on the Budget Cheshire cat is already evaporating
Two sound bites will come back to haunt Osborne: a budget for growth and “this is the greenest government ever”. All the evidence points to its being a budget for decline. The economy was recovering well just before the election with a 1.1% growth in the second quarter of last [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
Budget: a vehicle for growth with the engine missing
As is usually the case, this is a very political Budget. It will change the economic future of this country hardly at all. The purpose of this Budget is camouflage to distract attention from the Great Axe that is about to fall within the next two weeks and to give [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
One big reform that won’t be in the Budget
The energy market is one of Britain’s biggest scandals. A report out today finds the Big Six energy companies are ‘greedy’ and ‘bad’, according to the industry regulator Ofgem which says they profiteer and ruthlessly exploit the vulnerable. As a result a fifth of all households are now in fuel poverty [...]
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Michael Meacher MP
Commons passes Libya resolution with regret and reservations
The mood in the Commons was sober, worried, passive and resigned – not welcoming the dawn of a new era in the Middle East, but fearful that this could be the start of a third, long Western war against a Muslim state. A bloodbath in Benghazi had been avoided in [...]
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