Weekly Roundup | Weeks 18–19 | 6th–10th May 2017
Conservatives escape prosecution & Policies: What you need to know so far
Conservative MPs escape electoral fraud charges | Election policies | Conservative gains, Labour losses & UKIP decimation | Media bias | Billionaire ‘Brexit boom’ | French reject fascism | Blasphemy
Welcome to Weekly Roundup, a summary of the most significant recent UK/global sociopolitical developments, environmental issues & other topics that affect your life. Read more about FuturePolitics here.
This week: • Conservative Party electoral fraud • General election 2017 policies so far • How the major parties fared in last week’s local elections • Pro-UKIP, anti-Green media bias • Billionaire ‘Brexit boom’ • The French reject fascism • Blasphemy
Conservative Party electoral fraud — around 30 individual MPs escape prosecution, despite the party being guilty
In March, the Conservative Party was fined a record £70,000 for breaking local election expenditure rules after an enquiry by the Electoral Commission found the party had declared that local expenses were falsely declared as being national expenses. This followed an investigation by Channel 4 News, which originally brought light to the allegations. Last night saw an announcement by the Crown Prosecution Service that, despite the party being guilty of fraud, none of the roughly 30 MPs and other party agents under investigation by 14 different police forces could be held responsible for the actions of the party. Head of special crime Nick Vamos wrote:
“In order to bring a charge, it must be proved that a suspect knew the return was inaccurate and acted dishonestly in signing the declaration. Although there is evidence to suggest the returns may have been inaccurate, there is insufficient evidence to prove to the criminal standard that any candidate or agent was dishonest.”
Even the party’s treasurer has escaped prosecution, despite being responsible for the spending of the party. Election rules state:
“It is the responsibility of a political party’s registered treasurer to ensure that an accurate and complete campaign spending return is submitted to the Electoral Commission.”
Although the Electoral Commission is responsible for prosecuting national electoral fraud, it is the duty of local police forces and the CPS to prosecute local cases — meaning the Conservative Party got off lightly with a fine, as the CPS could not prove that individual candidates knew about the fiddling of expenses. This terrible system, which enables parties to brazenly get away with corruption, totally undermines our “democracy”.
“Legal” corruption
Meanwhile, new Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, spent up to £1 million on his campaign. Although there is a spending limit of £130,000 on mayoral campaigns, it only applies for the last four weeks before the election, leaving campaigners free to spend as much as they like if they start early enough. In addition, the party has been able to get around local election spending limits in the general election campaign by printing huge front-page adverts for the incumbent prime minister — rather than local candidates — in local newspapers.
In January, private company Alliance Medical — which has Conservative MP Malcolm Rifkind on its board — was awarded a cancer screening contract, despite the NHS making a bid that was more affordable by £7 million. There are numerous similar examples, in which serving MPs have profited from Conservative policies.
It’s time to take big money out of politics. Follow Electoral Reform Society and be part of the change.
Policies & personalities
Policies
With exactly four weeks to go until the snap election, today we explore what really matters — policies.
So far, the prime minister has been somewhat cautious about announcing policies, despite having had the advantage of calling the election. This week, Theresa May announced her support for the brutal hunting of foxes as a sport for the upper class, which she has consistently voted in favour of throughout her career. She will offer a free vote to MPs on the topic if she gets into power for a second term. Priorities.
Robot May, as she is becoming known, has also emphasised continuously that she is the only strong and stable leader, whilst ducking questions from voters and minimising public appearances. Other than insisting on a hard Brexit that most Remainers and even many Brexiters fear will damage the UK’s economy, society and global political standing, the only other real Conservative policy revelation so far has been the borrowing of a 2013 Labour policy to cap energy prices — the exact same “communist” policy that led to Ed Milliband being branded “Red Ed” by the Conservatives and the rightwing media.
“The Theresa May-bot that the Tories are using to run for election is to be switched off and on again after concerns that it may be developing a fault. Initially created to be one of the most lifelike robots in the world, in recent days the Theresa May-bot has displayed increasingly erratic behaviour such as the constant repetition of a single phase or the inability to eat chips”
Credit: Newsthump.
Appearing on Tuesday’s The One Show with her husband Philip, May was spared any political questions, being grilled instead on who takes out the rubbish — a response which highlighted her lack of dedication to equality, as she labelled the household chore as being a “boy’s job”. An interview opportunity to grill the leader of the world’s sixth largest economy simply tossed out with the trash, due to the taxpayer-funded BBC’s fear of threatened funding cuts.
Meanwhile, Corbyn continues to receive relentless criticism from the media, despite having announced many policies that would benefit the overwhelming majority of the population. The most audacious headline came from The Telegraph, which announced “Labour tax to hammer workers on £80,000”. This refers to Labour’s plans to fill the glaring gap that exists between income tax thresholds, with those earning £11,501–£45,000 p.a. currently paying 20%, those on £45,001–£150,000 paying 40% and those on £150,001+ paying 45%. Although he has not announced what the new rate for those earning £80,001–£150,000 will be — there’s speculation that it could be 45%, with the rate for £150,000+ increasing back to 50% — Corbyn has stated that those currently earning £80,000 or less will not be subjected to tax hikes. To put that into perspective, the average median household income is £26,300 — that’s per household, not per person. The Telegraph’s misleading headline implies that an average household with two workers stands a chance of earning £160,000 — six times higher than the true figure. Labour’s excellent policy in fact means that 95% of the population will not pay more tax under Labour, helping to redistribute wealth from the most exploitative top earners within our fractured society. The extra revenue will be reinvested into the NHS.
In addition, Corbyn has pledged to:
- Introduce a £10/h minimum wage, which is higher than the current London-weighted Living Wage of £9.75 and the UK-wide rate of £8.45 and significantly higher than George Osborne’s doubted pledge of a falsely named “National Living Wage” of £9.00 by 2020;
- Build one million new homes over five years;
- Recruit 10,000 police officers to replace some of the 20,000 that the Conservatives have cut since 2010;
- Provide free school meals to all primary school children ( funded by charging VAT on private school fees, which are currently tax exempt, despite being a luxury that only the ultra-wealthy can afford for their children— this policy that ensures all children get the nutrition they need to concentrate at school and succeed, regardless of parents’ income, and it already works well in Finland, Sweden, Estonia & Czech Republic;
- Introduce a new UK-wide bank holiday for each of the four patron saint’s days — St. David, St. Patrick, St. George & St. Andrew — perhaps an attempt to gain votes from more patriotic people that may be considering dropping their support for UKIP now that Brexit is going ahead, but also a way of rewarding Britain’s workers, who receive only eight bank holidays each year — the lowest of all G20 nations;
- Scrap hospital car park fees by raising VAT on private healthcare — the fees affect not only patients and their visitors at a time of sickness and distress, but also affect some nurses — who have been under a seven-year wage increase cap of 1% that has left them 14% worse off in real terms — and have to travel between hospitals in order to do their job;
- Abolish university tuition fees — at a time when funding cuts have led to three universities announcing a combined 460 job losses (University of Manchester, University of South Wales & Aberystwyth University) and when staff morale is at an all-time low at UCL due to increased pressure on staff, this Labour policy will be welcomed by students and the academic community alike.
Additional rumours, combined with a manifesto leak last night, suggest that Labour also plans to:
- Freeze VAT, a stealth tax that affects the poor disproportionately;
- Consider banning arms exports to human rights abuser Saudi Arabia;
- Spend an extra £8bn on social care over the next five years
- Refuse to make “false promises” on immigration;
- Strengthen workers’ rights — including repealing last year’s Trade Union Act, which took away workers’ rights;
- Ban “zero hours” contracts, which exploit low-income workers;
- Reserve 4,000 homes for rough sleepers.
We’ll leave you, the reader, to determine which of these two parties is working in favour of the people. Before the big day, we’ll be sure to report on the policies of the other major parties.
Personalities
However, if the last election is anything to go by, this campaign is really about personalities and not policies. In this respect, Corbyn would be miles ahead of May — if it weren’t for the constant berating of the Labour leader in the mainstream media.
Labour is currently being advised by US Senator Bernie Sanders’ team and is expecting an endorsement prior to the election. The senator, who lost out to Hilary Clinton in the Democratic Party’s primaries, drew huge support from across the political spectrum and believes he would have beaten Trump if he had been the party’s candidate. Sanders’ policies and approach to engagement with the electorate was one of hope, not fear (which came from Trump) — similar to that of Corbyn, but with more oomph.
Corbyn is also backed by prominent philosopher and political observer Prof. Emeritus Noam Chomsky (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), as well as: director Ken Loach; actors Sir Ian McKellen, David Tennant & Daniel Radcliff; playwright Alan Bennett; musicians Brian Eno, Brian Ferry & Charlotte Church, comedian Russell Brand, snooker champion Ronnie O’Sullivan and various grime musicians. Meanwhile, celebrity support for Theresa May remains somewhat thin on the ground, with the last endorsement coming from Kate Bush last November — much to the dismay of many of her fans.
How the major parties fared in last week’s local elections
On an absolutely dismal turnout of under 29%, the whole of Scotland (1,227 seats in 32 councils) and Wales (1,254 seats in 22 councils) and around a tenth of England (2,370 seats in 34 out of 353 councils) went to the polls last week to elect local councillors and metropolitan mayors.
The Conservatives came out on top, making a net gain of 558 seats, whilst Labour suffered a significant net loss of 320 seats. Liberal Democrats also fared poorly, losing 37 seats overall, whilst UKIP was absolutely decimated, losing 114 out of 115 seats. The Conservative gains and Labour losses were to be expected in the light of Brexit and Corbyn’s unpopularity. The UKIP losses further add to the demise of the party, now also down from one to no MPs. Many of the councillor positions transferred directly from UKIP to Conservatives in the Eurosceptic’s northern heartlands, where Labour is failing to reclaim ground from the right, post-Brexit.
Labour’s main success was the mayoral election of former minister Andy Burnham, with 63% of the vote, who has already pledged to reduce Manchester’s homelessness, which is thought to have quadrupled since 2010. He will also donate 15% of his £110,000 salary to a new charity for the cause. Meanwhile, former John Lewis managing director Andy Street became the first mayor of the West Midlands under a Conservative banner, beating his main opponent by less than 0.8%.
Pro-UKIP, anti-Green media bias
The Green Party of England & Wales launched a petition this week to encourage the BBC to end their campaign of pro-UKIP and anti-Green bias. Between the 2010 election and the beginning of December 2016, UKIP appeared on 24% of Question Time episodes compared to the Greens’ 7%. UKIP only had a single MP from May 2015 until he resigned in March 2017 (22 months), whereas the Greens has had one since 2010, who remains in office (84 months).
Although UKIP’s vote share in 2015 was much larger than that of the Greens in 2015 (12.7% vs. 3.8%), UKIP’s share increased from only 3.1% in 2010, likely a result of the unjustifiably extensive media coverage they received during the period. The conduct of the state-funded BBC, required by its editorial policy to be impartial, has been called into question after the producer of the weekly political debate was found to be promoting audience positions in far-right social media groups.
The petition calls on the editor of the BBC’s Daily & Sunday Politics shows to invite the Greens to participate in prime-time one-on-one debates with host Andrew Neil. The leaders of all parties with MPs in England, Scotland and Wales — except the Greens — have been invited, but UKIP, a party whose sole MP recently resigned and which lost 114 out of 115 seats in last week’s local elections, will also be there. All party leaders — again, including UKIP but excluding the Greens — are also participating in head-to-head Question Time debates.
Since their heavy loses, UKIP representatives have appeared several times on BBC political programmes to debate their relevance in light of Theresa May’s use of anti-EU rhetoric and a “hard” stance on Brexit. Meanwhile, during Green Party co-leader and MP Caroline Lucas’ appearance on The Daily Politics yesterday, she was denied the chance to speak about the party’s policies and was continually hounded by Neil regarding a question she answered repeatedly. The question concerned an allegation that the party decided not to stand a candidate in the December 2016 Richmond Park by-election due to an offer of a £250,000 donation. Lucas, however, defended the party by stating that the donation offer was made after the announcement that the Greens would not stand a candidate, and that they turned down the offer of the donation as it did not meet their strict ethical policy. Followers of the party will be aware that the Greens are the most vocal mainstream party with regards to electoral and political reform. Lucas led an unsuccessful bid last summer to implement proportional representation, even working together with UKIP and other cross-benchers to bring about the change.
Billionaire ‘Brexit boom’
This year’s Sunday Times Rich List reported that the wealthiest 1,000 individuals and families in the UK have a combined wealth of £658 bn, an increase of 14% compared to 2016. This is more than the wealth of the poorest 40% of the population, and according to The Equality Trust, could pay the energy bills of all UK households for over 2½ years. The UK is now home to 134 billionaires — 14 more than last year, and up from 21 in 2002. One factor which has likely contributed to the increase in wealth disparity over the last year is the ability of rich business owners to exploit the Brexit-induced weak pound, transferring money from their offshore accounts to the UK. Meanwhile, the cost of living for the average Brit has continued to increase since the EU referendum, whilst wages have stagnated and austerity continues to bite.
The French reject fascism
The week’s most positive news was the rejection by ⅔ of the French electorate of the far-right policies of Marine Le Pen, through the election of centrist Emmanuel Macron, France’s youngest ever president, aged 39. Although many left-wing voters — mostly backers of socialist candidate Jean-Luc Melanchon — boycotted Macron as a reaction against his neoliberal track record as an investment banker and bureaucrat, enough of the electorate used their vote as a protest against anti-EU candidate Le Pen to prevent the daughter of fascist and Front National founder Jean-Marie Le Pen from rising to power.
Marine Le Pen has attempted to distance the party from its dark past, including claims by her estranged father that the Holocaust was a mere “detail of history”, but her Islamaphobic policies, which include banning the burqa, were too fascistic for many to stomach. Despite Macron’s victory, almost 11 million voted for his opponent, a party with a considerably more sinister record than UKIP — a sign that it’s too early to dismiss the rise of far-right populism as a passing fad.
The turnout for the election was 74.6%, the lowest France has experienced in over 40 years — but higher than every UK general election since 1951. This included 11.5% of ballots being spoiled in protest against the two unfavourable options — a much more poignant signal than simply not turning up to vote.
Blasphemy
National treasure Stephen Fry was reported this week to be under investigation by the Garda Síochána (the Irish police force) for the medieval crime of blasphemy. Two days after the announcement of the investigation, it was dropped, due to the lack of a sufficient number of formal complaints — and more likely, due to media scrutiny of the existence of such a draconian law. The comedian, actor, writer and presenter, who is also a patron of the British Humanist Association, is an outspoken antitheist of Jewish origin and campaigner for equality. During his appearance on “The Meaning of Life” with Gay Byrne on Irish TV channel RTÉ One in 2015 , Fry speculated on what he might say if he were ever to encounter a god, if a god were to exist:
“I’ll say, “Bone cancer in children? What’s that about? How dare you! How dare you create a world where there is such misery that is not our fault! It’s not right. It is utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid god who creates a world that is so full of injustice and pain. That’s what I’d say.”
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