Dear Andy Burnham,
I admit I was one of those who remained sceptical, unconvinced that your premiership would differ substantially from your predecessor’s. But as ever the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The challenges are significant, but if they are not addressed with a principled determination – well, it’s all rather pointless isn’t it? I’m sure you wouldn’t wish your legacy to be: ‘he made it to UK PM, steadied the ship of state and enriched himself in the process’.
So let’s list some of the challenges you are facing:
- To rethink the criteria by which the strength and weakness of the UK economy is assessed. The appropriate criteria, conveniently overlooked, have to do with the material and psychosocial wellbeing of the citizenry as a whole, not of the global bond markets. We should not inhabit a casino in which a handful of self-serving rentiers fix the bets and cash in. The levels of wealth and income inequality are off the charts. You know this. You have made much of regional inequality. But so far you have merely thrown those suffering enduring poverty and a sense of hopelessness for the future a few ineffectual crumbs. Will you rethink taxation and state financial investment to meet people’s needs for worthwhile incomes, job security, welfare support, public housing, access to decent health, dental and social care? Mere talk and Starmer-like mission statements won’t cut it. Nor will fiddling with parking tickets.
- Since the awful days of Thatcher, governments, Labour as well as Tory, have satisfied themselves with a subservience to rent-based global markets. Privatisations which make no sense, are unpopular, and merely feed mouths already deep in troughs, have not been reversed. You seem reluctant to address even the scandalously exploitative contracts with water companies like Thames Water. Their owners laugh in our faces as you back off effective action. And the NHS is becoming a mere brand name for private providers. You are a Labour PM, remember, heir to Attlee and Bevin.
- Notwithstanding your insistence on your green credentials you have just given the okay to drilling for gas in the North Sea. You can’t have it both ways. Do you think the climate crisis is real, or not? Have you considered exerting a government influence on the energy sector whose current profits are at a record high? Or have you just given up for fear of offending those for whom capital translates into power to influence – no, make – government policy? I’m sure you don’t’ want to leave office with a reputation like that of multimillionaire Tony Blair.
- Talking of Blair, he has of course also been cast as a war criminal for joining Bush in an illegal invasion of Iraq. Turning to war, people are confused about why you are privileging finance for Ukraine over mitigating the effects of the cost of living crisis at home. Maybe you see promoting war as a way of boosting the economy? After all, it wouldn’t be the first time governments have resorted to warmongering and warfare for this reason. Do you really think Putin is an imminent threat the UK? Of course you don’t. Russia has its spies and ‘interferes’ in other nations, but so does the UK, EU and US. It’s all rather Orwellian isn’t it? Talking of interfering in other nations, are you going to call out Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the West Bank? Do you intend to keep arming them? Why, people want to know, are you in thrall to Israeli lobbyists? Its transparent and people are confused.
- A related point, do you intend to keep on privileging antisemitism over all other forms of racism? Diane Abbot was kicked out of Labour for complaining – quite rightly – that there should be no hierarchy of racisms. All forms of racism are unacceptable. You come over once more as in hoc to Netanyahu and his war criminals in the Knesset.
- And what about the state’s crack down on people’s right to protest? Why have you not yet de-proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation: an absolutely nonsensical – autocratic and oppressive – governmental assault on the freedom of the citizenry to protest. You are giving pro-Israeli protesters a free pass while locking up ordinary people with placards protesting an ongoing genocide. Are you happy with the common perception that Netanyahu and his homicidal cronies are setting UK policy?
- ‘There was nothing I could do’ won’t sit well on your final report as PM. Realpolitik is a challenge to be overcome not a rational for sanctioning the status quo. And it’s a status quo formed by Thatcher’s neoliberal ideology. Labour as neoliberal? Really? But that’s how things currently are. Starmer didn’t just fail because he lacked charisma. He failed because he was an amoral disciple of the status quo, more interested in attaining high office – and the rewards that went with it – than in effecting progressive change. At the moment you seem only to be appending a touch of charisma to your predecessor’s brief. If that remains the case, history will do you no favours.
I could say much more, but the drift of the points made here point to the need for a willingness to reject present drifts to increasing inequality, rapacious profiteering, climate risk and warmongering. At the moment you are doing next to nothing. Gestural politics won’t cut it. You will be held to account. Look to the people whose interests you are meant to represent
The floor, as they say, is yours!
Sincerely,
Graham Scambler,
Socialist, Ex-Labour.