Monday, August 03, 2015

Still waiting for the debate to start...

Several of my Facebook friends have been posting about the Labour leadership election, saying that we need someone who can win. It's not enough to have good ideas, we need power, hey write; and therefore we need to elect the candidate who will repeat the Blair marvel.

I agree we need a government that is not run by Cameron and Osborne in the interests of the haves at the expense of the have nots. But booting out the Tories is not an end in itself. They need to be replaced by a government that stands for something; better still, that stands for someone, namely the poorest and most vulnerable in a way that ensures work, education, healthcare and housing is evenly spread across society.

I haven't finally decided who I am voting for in the Labour leadership contest. But I have decided to rule out those candidates who seem to spend their time attacking other labour figures rather than the government; and those candidates who do nothing to foster a genuine debate on the kind of world we want for our children - and how we might achieve it.

So, how do the various candidates think we will achieve a more equal society? Do they think that there's an alternative to the view that markets solve every problem from industrial innovation to distributing healthcare? How are they actually going to solve the housing crisis? And do we really think that all our defence eggs should be in the nuclear deterrent basket?

Now the questions make me sound like a Corbynite. But actually, they are the questions that we should have been asking for years because the current answers we have to those questions are clearly not delivering equality, good services, peace and all the other things we want for our children. The current answers have delivered at least three UK recessions and one major global financial meltdown, the fallout from which we are still living with. Maybe those answers need to be revisited?

So, when are going to start the debate on these vital issues?

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