Labour and public ownership
What has happened to the slaughter of the Corbynite sacred cows? A City AM exclusive in February reported:
“Starmer is expected to ‘slaughter the sacred cows of Corbynism’ in the lead-up to summer, with speculation this could soon include ditching the former Labour leader’s pledges to nationalise rail, mail, energy and water.’
At the time, many insiders felt the briefing bore a striking similarity to comments attributed to Wes Streeting at a Shadow Cabinet meeting last autumn:
“Sources say Right-winger Wes Streeting told a Shadow Cabinet meeting: ‘Every day, we should drag a sacred cow of our party to the town market place and slaughter it until we are up to our knees in blood.’ “
Grim.
But since that City AM report things have gone a little quiet. Perhaps it seemed poor timing to go on a policy offensive when the Tories were on the back foot over partygate, and at a time when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has understandably dominated politics.
However, there are rumours within Labour ranks at Westminster that some senior party figures did indeed seek to persuade the Labour leadership to roll out a series of eye-catching changes to policy, in order to ditch key policies on public ownership and the economy - but that it reached an impasse.
On rail, different noises have so far emerged. The Shadow Transport secretary Lou Haigh told the March edition of Aslef journal:
‘Privatisation has been an absolute failure for rail – it’s failed taxpayers, it’s failed workers, and it’s failed passengers. The Williams-Shapps Review is a litany of failure, a long list of problems, caused by privatisation, and the fragmentation of our railway network.
‘We are totally committed to public ownership and to putting passengers back at the heart of decision making.’
Writing for this blog, also in March, TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes said of the Labour Party:
“On transport, at least, it seems they are now resolute in support of public ownership.”
But if rail can be resolved satisfactorily, it would still leave many other elements of public ownership policy where a sharp shift rightwards would be possible. The ‘at least’ in Manuel Cortes’ comment is important. Once the May elections are over and the party faces towards conference in the autumn, we ought to expect this debate to heat up.
Mail misogyny
Unfortunately the last few days have reminded us that the next general election will be brutal.
The Mail on Sunday’s sexist hit-job on Angela Rayner last weekend instantaneously backfired. Strikingly, many journalists were some of the first to condemn it. The ferocity of the response meant that even Boris Johnson felt he had to ‘deplore’ the misogyny directed at Labour’s deputy leader.
While the episode has rightly sparked a new discussion about misogyny towards women in politics – and the classism that Angela Rayner herself has talked about – it has not also included any humility from the Mail itself. Quite the opposite.