Member News
By Harriet Harman MP - 24th September 2010
Media commentators predicted that after an election defeat Labour would turn inward and be riven by disunity. The opposite is the case
Harriet Harman MP
It may have lost the election but Labour has no reason to be downhearted, says Harriet Harman, with a new leader, growing membership and a high-calibre crop of new MPs who will lead the fight against Tory cutters and Lib Dem collaborators.
It was a daunting responsibility taking over as leader of the Labour Party when Labour left office after 13 years in government. But it is gratifying to hand over to the new leader after a vigorous and searching leadership election, with the party invigorated by more than 30,000 new members, as our fightback in local council by-elections has seen us pull level with the Tories, and with Labour in Parliament already proving ourselves to be an effective and responsible opposition.
We did much, but there’s more to do
There is no doubt that we are dismayed to be out of government. This is a difficult time for the country. The economy is only just growing again after it was hit by the global economic crisis. Our schools and hospitals are greatly improved since Labour came to office – but there is still much further to go. Many children and pensioners have been brought out of poverty – but there are still too many families who have to struggle to make ends meet.
The very worst thing for both the public sector and the private sector is the extent to which the government is cutting back public investment. In the wake of the global recession, unemployment is still too high. Axing the Future Jobs Fund, which guarantees work or training for young people, is heartless and short-sighted. It abandons young people just when they are starting out. Some will find it hard ever to get on to the career ladder.
There is no justification for the Tory-Lib Dem government ending our patient guarantees about maximum waiting times. Our guarantee that those suspected to have cancer will see a specialist within one week and have their test result within two weeks was important, not just to help alleviate patients’ anxiety, but also because we know that the sooner cancer is diagnosed and treatment started, the better the outcome.
In government we set up the Building Schools for the Future programme – in opposition we are campaigning vigorously alongside local councils, parents and teachers to protest against more than 700 new school building projects being axed.
We will fight alongside local communities
So we will stand alongside local communities as they fightto protect their schools, we will stand alongside those in manufacturing who fight to protect jobs, and we will expose the unfairness of the Tory-Lib Dem government as it makes those who can least afford it bear the brunt of the recession caused by excess in the financial services sector.
Exposing the Tories’ ideological cuts
Labour will also persistently expose the ideological approach on which the Tory-Lib Dem cuts are based. The government says that the cuts in public spending are necessary because of the position of the public finances when Labour left office. Of course, the public finances had to take the strain when the recession hit. When people lost their jobs in the recession it meant more unemployment benefit being paid out and less income tax coming in.
Corporation tax receipts fell and, with fewer houses bought and sold, there has been less money coming in to the Treasury in stamp duty. But above all it was necessary to draw on the public purse to carry on with the building projects which provide jobs and keep local companies afloat, and to provide the vital funds which businesses, big and small, needed to tide them over.
The government has announced cuts £40bn higher over the life of the Parliament than the deficit-reduction plan in Alistair Darling’s last Budget. But these cuts are not “unavoidable”, and they are not an economic necessity.
They are an ideological choice from the Tories who have always been hostile to public investment and public services. The proof that the cuts are ideological is that they refuse to change their plans even when the economic evidence shows they are cutting too deep and too fast.
And we will expose the broken promises and unfairness of the Tory-Lib Dem government. Before the election, the Tories denied that they would increase VAT and the Lib Dems campaigned against it. Yet they have put up VAT and, when it takes effect in January, it is pensioners and the unemployed who’ll be hit hardest. The chancellor promised that he would not “balance the Budget on the backs of the poor”. That is another broken promise. The Budget measures will hit the poor hardest – particularly families with young children. We will measure all the government’s actions by our test of fairness and equality.
The Big Society pretext for cuts
The Tories have a twin-track approach to justify spending cuts: blame Labour’s management of the economy, and argue that the vulnerable can be supported by a ‘Big Society’. The reality is that good public investment, grants and services help support the fabric of communities. Spending on public services does not ‘crowd out’ neighbourliness and community spirit any more than public investment to back up business ‘crowds out’ private investment. The reverse is true. Communities need the support of public services, and industry thrives when government is on its side.
Threat to democracy
If the biggest threat to the economy is the cuts, the biggest threat to our democracy is the plan the government is driving through Parliament to change constituencies. This is blatant gerrymandering designed to give more seats to the Tories. We are vigorously fighting these plans which would redraw the boundaries, with three million people excluded from the electoral register. The people most likely not to be registered are young people, tenants, black and minority ethnic people and those who live in cities.
The Tories want to redraw the constituency boundaries using the electoral register of December this year which will still exclude them. You cannot have a fair drawing of constituency boundaries on the basis of unequal registration, and the government should sort that out before it changes the boundaries. We propose that should happen through a ‘presumption of registration’, which would mean that even if people don’t apply, they will still be registered to vote. If the Tories have any democratic principles, that is what they should agree to.
Tories did not win as big as they expected
This time last year, the Tories crowed that they were on course for a landslide victory. They did not achieve it. Our candidates, party members and supporters up and down the country and in Scotland and Wales campaigned to prevent them forming a majority government. This time last year the Lib Dems posed as a progressive party. Now their leaders are exposed as prepared to break all their promises and abandon all their principles in order to gain a handful of ministerial posts in a Tory government. They are being cynically used as a fig leaf for Tory ministers setting about a right-wing Tory agenda.
In the face of the Tory cuts, and the Lib Dem u-turns, perhaps it is no surprise that Labour members throughout the country are campaigning energetically and making progress. Our campaigning is boosted by the fastest increase in our membership that Labour has ever recorded: 32,411 new members joined Labour in the four months after May 6. Half of them are long-standing supporters who now feel that ‘voting is not enough’, and they are joining us to help get rid of the government. A third of our new members are former Lib Dem supporters who voted Lib Dem because they believed they were a progressive anti-Tory party, and are now dismayed to find that they are backing the Tories in government. And we are keeping the party finances on track. The party has brought in more money than it has spent in each of the last three years, and we have halved our debts over the last five years. We are still paying back the loans taken out before the 2005 election, but the party finances are stable and strengthening.
New leader
Media commentators predicted that after an election defeat Labour would turn inward and be riven by disunity. The opposite is the case. Though we lost some excellent MPs at the election, we are invigorated by the arrival of nearly 70 talented new Labour MPs, with the highest percentage of women ever. They are a dynamic and determined voice in Parliament and, together with the shadow cabinet, have stood united against the Tories and Lib Dems. And the leadership campaign has enabled thousands of members to meet and question our five leadership candidates.
The new leader takes over a party which is growing, determined, united and looking to the future. After five months of leading our party, it will be my privilege to serve the party once again in the role of deputy leader.
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