#nationalisation

Strikingly, two democracies with large economies have managed to avoid much of the inflation-driven, anti-incumbency rage of recent years, and have seen their governments re-elected. In Mexico, the leftwing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, have capped the total price of a basket of two dozen essential goods, such as chicken, rice and toilet paper. At weekly televised press conferences, they have praised or criticised specific companies for cooperating or not cooperating with the scheme: an unsubtle but effective form of commercial and political pressure. At the 2024 presidential election, Obrador and Sheinbaum’s party, Morena, raised its vote share from 55% to 61%. Meanwhile in Spain, the more centre-left government of Pedro Sánchez has responded to the Iran war with a national rent freeze. During the previous cost of living crisis, his government imposed an energy price cap, temporarily made many train tickets free and created a state body, the Business Margins Observatory, to watch for and deter profiteering, since some companies use inflation panics to smuggle through extra price rises alongside unavoidable ones. These assertive policies have helped keep Sánchez in office for eight years so far, through three general elections. Other centre-left premiers would love such a lifespan.

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From the Thatcher government onwards, Britain has been a leading laboratory for the experiment by modern capitalism and its political enablers in maximising profits and prices, regardless of the wider social and economic consequences. With the coming wave of inflation, on top of the seemingly endless cost of living surge since the early 2020s, it’s possible that the pressure for Britain to finally pull out of that experiment, and imitate the broad price caps of countries such as Spain and Mexico instead, will become too strong to resist. A majority of British voters have long shared the view of Burnham, Polanski and Common Wealth that nationalisations are needed to get prices under control.

Today Keir Starmer revealed his true colours.

“Sir Keir Starmer promises his Labour reform will be like Tony Blair's Clause IV 'on steroids'  (sky news: 13/05/23)

In 1995 Tony Blair made the decision to abandon the Labour Party’s founding commitment to nationalisation. The ordinary people of Britain were no longer to be the priority of the Labour party, replaced instead by the needs of big business and those that run it. The consequence of this was:

“The gap between rich and poor remained more or less the same during the Blair years, according to analysis by the Resolution Foundation, although there was a big increase in pay at the top end of the income scale.” (BBC NEWS: 01.05.17)

In 2002, five years into the Blair Government, Tory right-winger Mrs Thatcher was asked at a dinner what her greatest achievement was.

“Thatcher replied:  “Tony  Blair  and  New  Labour.  We forced our opponents to change their minds.”  (Conor Burns, April 11, 2008: reported in Economic Sociology and Political Economy)

In other words, Blair’s economic policies were no different to the economic policies of the Conservative Party.

If Starmer is to be Blair “on steroids" is it any wonder he is busy purging the Labour Party of anyone who puts the welfare of people before those of  business. Under Starmer, our NHS will not be safe from privatisation, the water companies will remain in foreign-owned hands and continue to pump raw sewage into our rivers and seas, and privately owned energy producers will continue to profiteer at the expense of ordinary people.

In short, as under Blair, the poor will remain poor while the rich become richer.

“No leader of a major political party has so comprehensively junked their leadership platform in British democratic history. When Tony Blair ran for leader in 1994, he did not pose as a Bennite before abruptly shifting rightwards. Blair’s broad vision for both party and country was clear from the start. To Gordon Brown’s credit, he had a much clearer set of political values than Starmer, but was unable to translate that into a clear offer when he became prime minister. ‘You’d imagine that after 10 years of waiting, and 10 years complaining about Tony, we would have some idea of what we are going to do, but we don’t seem to have any policies,’ one of his lieutenants complained at the time. The result? His government was buffeted by events, ending up in a perpetual tailspin.

“This risks being the fate of a Starmer government. It would come to power in far more adverse circumstances than Brown suffered: the legacy of 14 years of slash-and-burn cuts, neglected services and infrastructure, a collapsing NHS and falling living standards. Without a clear sense of purpose, let alone answers to basic questions – where will the money come from to pay for rebuilding public services across the board? – crisis and disappointment may swiftly follow.