This week in politics

It has been a strange old week in politics.

Those of us in the Labour Party are eagerly awaiting the result of the leadership ballot and wondering if our agonising over which of the earnestly fraternal candidates to support has had the impact we desired.  The entire contest was variously billed as ‘historic’, ‘vital’, and ‘an opportunity for renewal’, at which point the candidates differentiated themselves by placing different emphases on their degree of support for the New Labour project, with little substantive debate on any meaningful restructuring of the party. Lip service was paid to democratic processes yet none of the candidates felt able to even hint that the complete emasculation of Party Conference that paved the way for the metropolitan dominance of the Party needed to be reversed. In a broader political sense the candidates line up from all perspectives within the party from just right of centre to just a teensy weensy but left of centre.

First, there is the bookies, arms dealers and media moguls favourite, David Miliband, whom I had the misfortune to hear speak at an event last month. A more anodyne and meaningless political performance I have yet to witness. His speech was notable for lasting around thirty minutes and in that time the word ‘socialism’ was never mentioned, neither was the phrase ‘social democracy’. In stark contrast the nebulous word ‘progressive’ seemed to pop up in every second sentence, as did the phrase ‘responsible opposition’; not exactly rousing and banally prosaic. This is not to single out the older Miliband, rather it is to recount my experience of the only candidate I heard without the mediation of radio or television.

The second favourite is his younger brother, Ed. Now Ed wrote the Labour election manifesto so one would assume he took some pride in it. He seems, however, to have taken more pride in distancing himself from its contents the longer the campaign has gone on. He has, however made lots of new friends in the Trades Unions, and one wonders if any deals have been struck to secure some key votes. If they have it will interesting to see if Ed sticks to his side of the bargain should he be successful. He also seems to delight in not being an MP when we went to war with Iraq, so it isn’t his fault. Though differing in their emphases it does seem that filial affection outweighs sibling rivalry with the Miliband brothers; they are essentially Blairites with Ed leaning a tiny bit more towards a slightly more traditional Labour position.

Next we have the pugnacious yet disarmingly domestic Ed Balls. Ed aligns himself more closely with the Brown government than any of the other candidates and has made a much greater point of re-stating Labour’s achievements in office, associating himself extremely closely with Labour’s flagship achievement; Sure Start. In many ways he has appeared the most honest of the candidates and possibly the best equipped to creatively oppose the government. He is, nonetheless, like the Miliband brothers trapped in the past and is not critical enough of New Labour.

Then comes Andy Burnham. He is the most earnest of the lot, yet he has run a lacklustre campaign with no real coherent theme other than constant reference to his localness to his constituency and the need to ‘get back to core values’ without ever spelling out exactly what they are and how we should get back to them. He also, in agreement with the other male candidates has bought ‘hook, line and sinker’ into the concept of the need for the cuts, demonstrating the one really worrying aspect of the whole leadership election; the candidates lack of understanding of macro-economics.

Finally we have Diane Abbot, who is distinguished from the other candidates in several areas; notably in that she is a woman, she is black, and she was a constant opponent of the War in Iraq from the very beginning. Her campaign held the promise of a genuine voice from the Left that in the end failed to materialise. She has consistently showed a great deal more solidarity with the Trades Unions and a greater understanding of the problems that will face families in the wake of the coalition cuts than any of the other candidates, but has not made any viable proposals as an alternative. She has also been dogged in her attempt to represent Left thinking within the Party by the fact that she sent her child to a private school. Right or wrong her rationale that she was doing as all parents do, ‘her best for her child’, betrays her middle-class reality. A genuine person of the Left, especially a working-class single parent of the Left would NEVER use private education.

So, there we have it and our choices have been made. Make no mistake, any of them would make an infinitely better Prime Minister than David Cameron, but the Labour Party has missed a huge opportunity to revive itself. The Labour Party as a real voice for ordinary people is now but a distant memory. We will continue to work and support them but not with the enthusiasm and hope of decades gone by.

On the wider political front the Liberal Democrats have apparently been having a Party Conference. For the life of me I can’t see why. Head Boy Nick Clegg arrived with his trouser legs tucked into his socks for no apparent reason, gave a keynote speech in which he talked forever and said absolutely nothing, and then changed his suit and left. Vince Cable later talked of bankers as ‘spivs’ but was only allowed by George Osborne to do so by ‘balancing’ it by referring to some Trades Union officials as ‘Trotskyites’. He had been introduced to the gathering of the ‘radical centre’ as ‘our own economic guru’. As Alistair Darling noted in May “Vince has predicted ten of the last two recessions”. If Dr Cable is an economic guru, then I am fried egg. It transpires that any motions passed at Liberal Democrat conference become Party policy (Labour Party take note), but prior to the conference the leadership had said that the coalition agreement takes precedence over Party policy. Given this fact and the fact that they are the Liberal Democrats and therefore utterly meaningless, I took no further interest and have no idea what motions were passed and care not a jot.

Finally, and this for me has been the burning political issue since the election and Alistair Campbell’s hilarious wind-up of the execrable Adam Boulton, is what is to become of New Labour’s feuding superegos, Campbell and Mandelson. They appear to have competing memoirs or diaries out at the moment making excessive claims to being the power behind the throne in the Blair years. Quite why they would want to ‘cough’ for crimes against the Labour Party I am not sure, but so be it. Campbell seems to be of a mind to run for Parliament, but one would think he is already yesterday’s man, whilst Lord Mandelson has no need of voter approval, unless and until we get a democratically elected second chamber. If and when that point is reached I feel eventually his star will wane; and not before time. He does, however intrigue me. How does he always mange to keep his hair in place, and how does he manage to simply ‘glide’ over the ground without ever appearing to move any of his limbs? He even glides up and down stairs and in and out of scandal with never a blot on his character.

Continuing Inequalities

Over the past few days I have been thinking about how far we have travelled since the 1960s and how far we still have to go, so I have put together a quick snapshot of some of the areas that still need to be confronted.

If we look at the classical areas of inequality we could at first glance feel we have made great strides in this country and beyond in terms of the great inequalities of gender, ethnicity and disability. After all, along with other western democracies we have had equal opportunities legislation and it would be a rare thing indeed to see words like ‘Paki’, ‘Nigger’ and ‘Yid’ be used in even the most gutter of journalism. Nor would any woman anticipate being called ‘Dear’ at a job interview or a person in a wheelchair be patted on the head in a similar situation. However, if we dig a little beneath the surface less has changed than we might wish.

Let us look first at the position of women in our society. The latest NOMIS (July 2010) figures show that 7.8% of people aged 16 to 65 are unemployed and seeking work. Broken down by gender the figures are 8% of men unemployed and 7.5% of women unemployed. This seems to indicate equality, but it only includes those registered for work and claiming benefit. If one looks deeper at actual economic activity a very different picture emerges. Once one takes into account those people on sickness and disability benefits, full-time carers and those people running a household full-time and not seeking paid employment it reveals that 23.2% of people aged 16 to 65 are economically inactive. This breaks down to 17% of men and 29.3% of women. Those who are economically inactive are financially dependent upon either the state or on other individuals. In other words they are in receipt of non-JSA state benefits (e.g. disability, DLA etc) or are dependent on another individual (such as a husband or partner).

A picture begins to emerge of continuing female dependence and lower earning capacity. The July 2010 NOMIS figures also show s that women that work are significantly more likely than men to be employees. Whilst 12.7% of working men are self-employed, the self-employment rate for women is only 5.2%. A BBC report of 8^th March 2010 also highlights the dearth of women in senior positions, with less than 5% of CEO level positions in the UK being held by women.

In the wider community the inequality persists. Annually 2% of men are subject to domestic violence, compared with 4% of women. (British Crime Survey 2007), whilst the lifetime figures show that 7% of women had suffered a rape or sexual assault between the ages of 16 and 45, as opposed to only 1.5% of men (British Crime Survey 2007). These figures are disputed by some academics, who put the lifetime figure of sexual assault against women as high as 50%., highlighting the problem of underreported violent crime. Further the British Crime Survey (2007) indicates that 54% of rapes of women by men are perpetrated by someone well known to the victim (28% being the husband or partner of the woman).

All in all, we can see that there remains a significant variation in economic and other expected life experiences for men and women, with women routinely faring worse than men.

The latest ONS figures (2004) show an ethnic divide in unemployment and economic activity.

Unemployment rates for people from non-White ethnic groups were generally higher than those from White ethnic groups. However, Indian men had a similar level of unemployment to Other White men, at 7 per cent and 6 per cent respectively.

In 2004 Pakistani women had the highest unemployment rates in Great Britain, at 20 per cent. The next highest female rates were among women from the Black African or Mixed ethnic groups (each 12 per cent). These rates were around three times the rates for White British and White Irish women (4 per cent each). The unemployment rates for Black Caribbean (9 per cent), Indian (8 per cent) and Chinese (7 per cent) women were around twice the rates for White British and White Irish women.

Among men, those from Black Caribbean, Black African, Bangladeshi and Mixed ethnic groups had the highest unemployment rates (between 13 and 14 per cent). These rates were around three times the rates for White British and White Irish men (5 per cent in each case). The unemployment rates for Pakistani and Chinese men, 11 and 10 per cent, were around twice the rates for White British men or White Irish men.

The unemployment rate for Indian men (7 per cent) was similar to those for White British or White Irish men.

Working-age men and women from non-White ethnic groups were generally more likely than those from White groups to be economically inactive, that is, not available for work and/or not actively seeking work. Reasons include being a student, being disabled or looking after the family and home. Within each ethnic group, women were more likely than men to be economically inactive.

In 2004 Bangladeshi and Pakistani women had the highest working-age economic inactivity rates in Great Britain (75 per cent and 69 per cent respectively). These rates were up to three times the rates for White British, White Irish and Black Caribbean women (between 25 per cent and 26 per cent). The majority were looking after their family or home.
Chinese men had the highest male economic inactivity rate, at 37 per cent, more than twice the rate for White British men (16 per cent). The vast majority of economically inactive Chinese men were students.

Further around 8% of the population of the UK are people from Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Backgrounds, yet of senior positions in the public and private sectors only just over 3% are from BME backgrounds.

A report by RADAR, published on 31 March 2010, has found that non-disabled people are three times more likely than disabled people to earn £80,000 or above and twice as likely to be Board-level directors.

So in terms of ethnicity and disability there is still a long way to go to reach anything like equality of life opportunity.

Perhaps the great classical area of inequality is that related to wealth, earning capacity and the family one is born into. Marxists and other socialists may refer to it as ‘Class’, Weberian sociologists as ‘Status’ and there are various other names that are given. Classical capitalist political economy makes such divisions invisible and constantly cites social mobility based upon talent and capacity. The reality is somewhat different. Firstly, the comparative economic capacity of individuals remains the same throughout their lives of over 95% of people, In other words those born wealthy are very likely to remain wealthy, whilst those born poor are likely to remain poor. Social mobility is a myth, made all the more powerful by a media that lionises the handful of ‘working-class boys made good’ such as Lord Sugar and Duncan Bannatyne.

The importance of this is made clear when one looks at that most misused statistic of all; average income.

The mean income in the UK in 2008 was £24,769 per annum. This is the average income of ALL persons in the UK. The modal (or most common) income earned in the UK was £10000 to £15000 per, annum, with 50% of the population earning £20000 per annum or less.

To some extent the income disparity is rectified through the benefits system.

 In 2008/09, original income, before taxes and benefits, of the top fifth of households in the UK was approximately 15 times greater than that for the bottom fifth (£73,800 per household per year compared with £5,000). After redistribution through taxes and benefits, the ratio between the top and bottom fifths is reduced to four-to-one (average final income of £53,900 compared to £13,600).

Some types of households gain more than others from this redistribution. Retired households pay less in tax than they receive in benefits and so gain overall. Among non-retired households, single adult households with children also gain. Most other non-retired households pay more in tax than they receive in benefits. However, households with children do relatively better than households without children due to the cash benefits and benefits in kind (including health and education services) which are received by these households.

Cash benefits such as Pension Credit, Income Support, Incapacity Benefit, and the State Retirement Pension play the largest part in reducing income inequality. The majority of these go to households in the lower part of the income distribution. Cash benefits make up 56 per cent of gross income for the poorest fifth of households, 39 per cent for the second quintile, falling to 2 per cent for the top fifth of all households.

With the exception of Council Tax and Northern Ireland rates, all direct taxes are progressive; that is they take a larger proportion of income from those households with higher gross incomes. In 2008/09, the top fifth of households paid 24 per cent of their gross income in direct tax while the bottom fifth paid 11 per cent.

Indirect taxes are regressive, taking a higher proportion of income from households with smaller incomes. Since direct and indirect taxes have opposite effects on the level of inequality, the tax system as a whole has a much smaller effect on inequality than cash benefits.

Final income includes an adjustment for the receipt of benefits in kind from the state, such as health and education services. Households with lower incomes tend to receive more benefits in kind from the state (£6,300 for the bottom fifth compared with £3,900 for the top fifth). Retired households are the biggest users of health services provided by the state, while households with children are the biggest users of education services. These two groups are more likely to be in the lower income groups.

This clearly shows that beyond the issues of ethnicity, gender and disability there are also significant issues of inequality of class continuing in the UK, with the UK having one of the highest GINI (income inequality) ratios in the European Union.

All in all this paints a fairly depressing picture, and one that would appear is set to get worse as the coalition government policies take root. Income inequality will surely grow with increased unemployment and benefit reductions, women’s safety will surely be compromised by reductions in funding to the police and social services and local authority grants to Rape Crisis Centres and Women’s Refuges, and unless proactive measures are taken to combat the increasing ethnic tension in some of our communities, income inequality will be the least of the problems experienced by our BME communities.