The Starmer Labour government
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I see the Labour leaders are getting into difficulty over what they mean by “working people” in relation to their pledge not to increase taxes on them. The media are having a field day pointing the contradictions — as there are.
Starmer’s attempt is:
“people who earn their living, rely on our [public] services and don’t really have the ability to write a cheque when they get into trouble.”
That would rule out a whole generation who can’t write a cheque because they don’t know what a cheque is (or was, as far as they are concerned). But also many workers who do have some savings. It would seem to include just the poorest section of the working class, even if this might not have been what he intended.
Reeves fares somewhat better:
“Working people are people who get their income from going out to work every day, and also pensioners that have worked all their lives and are now in retirement, drawing down their pensions.”
However, this would seem exclude those below retirement age who, for one reason or another, are not actually working — the unemployed, the long-term sick or the disabled. This was probably intentionally in view of the threats the new government has made to make benefit conditions more difficult.
How about: The working class is made up of all those who, excluded from ownership of productive resources, are economically obliged to get a living by trying to sell their mental and physical energies to some employer for a wage or salary.
The Labour leaders are getting nearer to defining “working people”. Here’s Bridget Phillipson, the cabinet minister in charge of education:
“Appearing on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Phillipson said the manifesto pledge referred to people “whose main source of income is the income they earn from going out to work”.
“Speaking on Sunday, Phillipson said she could not give specific information on what would be in the Budget but said: “When people look at payslips they will not see higher taxes”.
(https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c789915n5elo.amp)So they are taking about workers with payslips, the members of the working class who are actually in employment. Woe betide those who aren’t as workers on incapacity “benefit” are about to discover.
The debate over who they meant has brought out some interesting points. Here’s a stupid comment Kwasi Kwarteng, Truss’s unfortunate Chancellor of Exchequer, in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday which nevertheless has an element of truth:
“Class war is back. The stupidity of trying to distinguish between workers and investors in property and other assets is pure socialism.”
Yes, socialists do say that the basic class division in society is between those whose main source of income is what they are paid for working for an employer and those whose main source of is unearned income from property ownership (profit, rent and interest).
And yes, there is a class war, an irreconcilable conflict of interest, between these two classes. This, irrespective of whether some capitalists choose to work and many workers have savings on which they get some interest.
What has been forgotten in this debate is that Labour pledged not just not to reduce take-home pay but to put “more money in people’s pockets” (https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/labours-plan-to-power-up-britain/). They may be keeping to their other pledge not to reduce nominal take-home pay but they are definitely reneging on this one.
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