Meeting held on Monday 17th July 2023.
11 people were present. Three gave their apologies.
We responded negatively to the news that Starmer had forbidden Jamie Driscoll from competing for his own job as Mayor of North Tyne. He has resigned from LP and crowd funding immediately attracted much support. There was general dismay that the centre of the LP appeared to want to stamp out local views. As a consequence it was suggested that many may not bother to vote. While we wanted a Labour govt to replace the Tories it was was suggested that an absolute Labour majority may not be as ‘progressive’ as some kind of coalition which would be more likely to lead to collaboration between parties and thus better public representation.
We noted the Tory ‘expectation management’ of loosing all three upcoming by-elections, but the significance of by-election results is problematic.
Discussing school, there was approval of Starmer’s encouragement of music and creative education but disappointment that the generally poor state of education (with many staff leaving) was not being adequately addressed. But, as with many policies, since there is so much need for repairing our broken public services, Starmer feels unable to agree that Labour will finance any particular initiative. While this may be wise, there was expressed considerable concern that the need for economic growth was given top priority. While economic growth does lead to higher tax returns (and thus more available for spending on public service), some in the group felt that economic growth could be at the expense of growing a more ‘green’ economy with its emphasis upon sustainability rather than growth. Could Starmer’s emphasis on economic growth be at the expense of environmental considerations? And should we not work towards an economy whose major focus was upon wellbeing rather than economic growth per se?
Starmer did not highlight the need to redistribute wealth towards the poor or acknowledge that there was an abundance of wealth amongst the richest that should be drawn upon. In this context it was suggested that exPM Johnson’s paper on ‘levelling up’ indicated that direction we would approve of. The problem was that he had no idea (or even desire?) to achieve this. Just lies and sloganeering.
With the difficulties we faced in identifying Labour Party policies, a number of suggestions we made for an appropriate slogan for the Party. We considered ‘fairness’ and ‘equality’ and wondered whether such terms had public appeal.
The problem is that, for many, there is more immediate concern for survival.
Next meeting, 21st August.