Insourcing is essential for rail nationalisation

[Letter in national press from Eddie Dempsey]

While the the nationalisation of South Western Railway and the government’s commitment to publicly owned Great British Railways are welcome first steps, this is not the end of the line.

The continued outsourcing of essentia services – such as track and train improvements, cleaning, security and elements of station staffing – perpertuates a two tier workforce and undermines the goals of public ownership. These outsourced roles often come With poverty wages, a lack of sick pay and inadequate pension provisions, disproportionately affecting workers from black and minority ethnic commumities.

According to RMT analysis, outsourcing and subcontracting firms extract about £400m annually in profits from rail contracts. Instead this could be reinvested into the railway system to improve services and reduce fares. The Welsh government has already begun to insource rail services, while the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, is actively considering in sourcing thousands of tube cleaners. For rail nationalisation to succeed, integrating and insourcing all aspects of of our railways into public hands must be the goal.

Eddie Dempsey, General Secretary of RMT.

Labour must remove the two-child cap

If the two-child limit remains, we will see two things. First a UK that will cement its position as an international outlier on child poverty; a nation that fails to protect the poorest, and continues with a policy that is unique worldwide. And second, a future in which Labour’s whole reason for existing is called into question. If Labour cannot and does not act to drive down child poverty, what is the Labour Party even for?

Two of the Observer’s major economic commentators gang up on Reeves, along with Private Eye

Will Hutton: Reeves was arguing Thatcherism had left a poisonous legacy, and she was going to set a new course. But her Mansion House speech was a genuflection to thinking that needs exploding not assuaging.

William Keegan: Labour seeks to encourage greater risk-taking, which evokes echoes of the Bourbon Kings of whom it was said that they “had learned nothing and forgot nothing”. Singing the praises of deregulation in the patriotic interest of economic growth, conjures up Samuel Johnson’s comment “the last refuge of a scoundrel”.

Private Eye: Governments have tried deregulation before, with calamitous consequences. New Labour had a financial crisis worse than it need have been. For the Tories /Lib Dems it was the Grenfell Tower fire.

Spotlight on poverty and unclaimed benefits

• 2023: a total of £23 billion in benefits and social support went unclaimed.
• There are still £14.4m million people living below the official poverty line. One in three children are poor and one in six pensioners.
• Citizens Advice finds that 5 million people are living on “negative budgets”, which means that even once they get help with claiming everything due to them, their incomes are lower than the basic costs of housing, energy, water and food.
• Policy in Practice uses DWP and local council tax records to identify who is owed and to help them claim their entitlements. About 60 local authorities pay for this service. The government should role it out nationally.

This tale is based on information in the national press.

A wealth tax is vital to tackle the extreme levels of inequality

The Labour Government has been urged by a group of leading economists to use the autumn budget to prepare Britain for the introduction of a wealth tax to tackle ‘extreme’ levels of inequality. The economists including the French expert on wealth inequality Thomas Picketty, said the UK could raise ‘tens of billions of pounds’ while positioning itself as a progressive leader on the world stage.

Taxpayers lose £10.5 billion

The full privatisation of NatWest is a symbolic moment for the banking group – formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland. But it comes at a £10.5bn loss to the taxpayer, with the state having recouped only about £35bn of its costs.

Was FDR anticipating Trump in 2025?

Extract from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s speech in 1936.

“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace – business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism… They had begun to to consider the government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that government by organised money is just as dangerous as government by organised mob”.