12.03.1998
New Labour, new corruption
While New Labour fiddles, the left prepares to fight
Almost every day sees an example of New Labour’s determination to reshape Britain from above. Last Wednesday the Institute for Public Policy Research, a ‘left-of-centre’ think tank, published a pamphlet on local government. This pamphlet called for full-blooded town hall reform and warned councils to “embrace radical change” or be pitilessly swept aside. The author of this pamphlet? Tony Blair.
The bellicose tone - and intention - of the IPPR pamphlet was clear. Blair and the New Labour team are definitely not Old Labour. Old Labourism will not be tolerated - even if it means resorting to suspiciously Tory-sounding rhetoric and means to combat it. As Blair explains: “If you are unable or unwilling to work to the modern agenda, then the government will have to look to other partners to take on your role ... And, if necessary, it will look to other authorities and agencies to take on duties where an authority is manifestly incapable of providing an effective service and unwilling to take the action necessary to improve its performance.”
The pamphlet also outlined a very New Labour, New Britain vision. Castigating the remoteness and incompetence of local government, Tony Blair mooted the idea of citizens juries, the holding of referendums on controversial issues, the introduction of postal ballots, and so on. He also emphasised that local government should separate the executive role from the representational role: directly elected mayors, the abolition of many committees and the strengthening of the role of backbench councillors would all help towards this goal. In other words local government is to be further de-democratised albeit under the guise of democratisation. Big business and New Labour corruption will have a field day.
Hilary Armstrong, the local government minister, has just unveiled a new pro-business ethic in local government services - the so-called Best Value standard. She also proposed “tough penalties” for councils that failed to deliver the ‘Best Value’. This was a theme repeated in a recent government consultation paper. Failing councils will be forced to hand over control to “other authorities and agencies” - ie, external management teams, or “hit squads”, will intervene, in a manner similar to the one proposed for schools. Government ministers have insisted that the changes will not necessarily mean fewer services being contracted out to private providers. Of course not. This is the New Labour ‘alternative’ to the deeply resented - Tory introduced - system of compulsory competitive tendering of council services. As Armstrong was at pains to stress, all these reforms were about putting “local people in the driving seat”.
Unfortunately for Blair, there is already a strong whiff of New Labour corruption in the air. This week we have seen the ‘John Prescott’ scandal - John Prescott junior that is, as well as senior. Allegations of corruption, dirty deals, smears, croneyism, etc, have been levelled against Hull council and the local Labour Party - which amounts to the same thing, with Hull being an archetypal Labour ‘one-party state’, with its near stranglehold - 58 out of 60 seats - over the council going back to the year dot. Hull is, of course, John Prescott’s constituency.
Suspicion lurks around a housing deal involving his own son, Jonathan. Houses said to be derelict and worth up to £500,000 were sold by North Hull Housing Action Trust for £108,000. They were sold to Wyke Developments, a company for which Jonathan works and part owns. Jonathan claims to have “stood well back” and said his father knew nothing. However, a public inquiry inspector stated that most of the houses earmarked for demolition - of which there was a total of 630 - were sound and well-maintained. To some ears the whole venture sounded like a get rich quick operation.
The scandal does not end there. Indeed Hull - which has a council leadership which speaks enthusiastically about its pace-setting partnerships with private developers, has been shrouded in sleaze for some time. John Black, senior councillor, chair of the housing committee, principle powerbroker and a long standing friend of Prescott’s, has been the subject of a police investigation into £42,000 of civic hospitality claimed when he was Lord Mayor. The stories about Hull council and Black are very lurid, and are suggestive of The Godfather in places. Claims of bogus membership, fraud, corruption, intimidation involving late night phone calls, punch-ups, etc, are normal. In turn, Black has spoken of a hate campaign against him, which at one stage involved excrement and rotten meat being shoved through his front door. Whatever Blair might say, very New Labour.
As if all that were not enough, Norman Fowler, has lodged a complaint with Sir Gordon Downey, the parliamentary commissioner for Standards, against Prescott for failing to declare a £27,750 donation for political research from the Joseph Rowntree Trust in 1996. Prescott put the Rowntree money into his blind trust - thus contravening the supposedly strict rules on blind trusts which forbid beneficiaries from knowing the identity of the donors. Prescott’s trust gave money to fund a commission he established to report to him on regional development issues (Margaret Beckett has also been challenged to close her personal blind trust which funds her office).
Stung by these accusations, Prescott told The Times: “I do not know who it is or why they are doing it. But for the last few months people have been trying to blacken my name, and is time to say something about it. It is a vendetta. Somebody wants to get me”. Prescott’s paranoia is not without foundation. Last year his garage in Hull was broken into and old computer papers - mostly containing financial details - were stolen. Dustbins have also been stolen. Regular anonymous calls by people making allegations - false or otherwise - to newspapers. Someone even telephoned Prescott’s bank manager trying to find out details of his account. Rumours persist that ‘anti-Prescott’ councillors commissioned a shadowy organisation called Research Systems to dig the dirt on Prescott.
Whether there is a “vendetta” or not against Prescott (junior or senior), and whatever the exact truth is about Hull council, we can smell the sewer that is New Labour. But this is still petty corruption compared to the big money that is attracted to Blair. We have seen how the wealthy - such as Bernie Ecclestone of Formula One fame - now have instant access to Number 10. Instead of small fry expenses fiddling and subsidised trips abroad under ‘town twinning’ schemes, the top Blairites mix easily with high-powered Japanese businessmen and City types.
Blair’s sanctimonious crusade against Old Labour - such as in Glasgow - cannot disguise an essential hypocrisy. Underneath the ‘clean’ rhetoric we can see an authoritarian, statist and anti-working class agenda. Bureaucrats, careerists and agencies, “local” or not, will continue to rule over the working class - and still have a price tag on their foreheads. But 30 pieces of silver are no longer anyway near enough.
Paul Greenaway