Jon Cruddas ebook launched – download it here

I am not a Labour supporter although I can say I would vote for Labour if the policies were right. I do however want to hear what you have to say otherwise I could not make an informed choice. I have briefly looked over the document but will read it properly later. There is a glaring omission (or I haven’t found it yet) is that there is no mention of the European Union which has surprised me.

Is any of this meaningful?

For example the much vaunted compulsory Job Guarantee seems to be very much less than meets the eye. Apparently young adults under 25 would be provided paid work for 25 hours a week coupled with so called on-the-job “training” by their “employer” for a further 10 hours a week or face tough benefit sanctions. It is unclear whether such conscripts will actually be paid for the 10 hours earmarked for “training”. Being a ex-Labour voting cynical simian I suspect that the “training” may well turn out to be nothing more than wringing 10 hours of unpaid labour out of these poor people for the benefit of a private “employer” probably already paid a healthy stipend by the government to make use of the draftees in the first place. What is clear is that One Nation Labour hope that the vast majority of these Job Guarantees will involve handing citizens over to private profit making businesses rather than placing them in positions in the public sector or with charities.

But then it was the Labour Party which pioneered modern British workfare.

And abysmal Liam Byrne is Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

Miliband’s One Nation Labour Party looks set to give billions of pounds of taxpayer’s money as subsidies to big private businesses like A4e and ASDA to help them to drive up their profit margins, undermining real job vacancies as companies replace job roles with subsidised compulsory short-term placements with no worker’s rights. I believe that “reciprocity” is the new euphemism for “forced labour” in vogue these days.

The Job Guarantee looks set to boil down to nothing more than 25 hours a week on the minimum wage, coupled with 10 hours attendance at the employer’s premises without pay, for six months, with no worker’s rights under threat of destitution if you fail to toe the line.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/milibands-guarantee-on-jobs-for-young-7574459.html

As far as demonising benefit claimants goes One Nation Labour seems intent on setting the pace if (dis)Honest John Mann is to be believed.

https://twitter.com/JohnMannMP/status/284424113232162816

(I’m hoping that this particularly malicious idiot will be proven to be a mouthy liar.)

It’s going to be hard for those of us with a conscience to vote for cr*p people and cr*p policies like this. I think I’ll just stay up my tree and abstain from voting indefinitely.

Eeek.

I really wish Ed Milliband would drop the resurrection of a conservative slogan and rhetoric of One Nation. Where are the Labour values, where are the reasons why the Labour Party was created and why are our Labour Parliamentary MPs distanting themselves from those values? Britain is 3 and a bit countries united and part of a a European and International global economy. Jingoism, nationism and centre politics is not what Labour was created for and definitely not why I joined the Labout Party. Labour Party founders championed equality and improving the lives of those who were not fortunate to have inherited wealth. Is quoting David Camerons favourite Conservative MP really the way forward. Keir Hardie is probably turning in his grave every move towards One Nation rhetoric and populism.