Category Archives: media

The parallel universe of David Cameron

Posted on by symonhill

Welcome to the parallel universe of David Cameron. It is a world in which the Tories stand up for the poor, lead the fight against dictatorship and stop people from being given benefits on demand. It is a world that exists in a conference hall in Manchester this week, in a few daily papers the rest of the time, and in the less well-informed parts of the right-wing blogosphere. It has nothing in common with the world that most of us live in.

The real story of David Cameron’s speech is the blunder that saw him removing his comments about credit card debt at the last minute. It appears to have taken his advisers a while to realise that being lectured on managing your personal finances by a multi-millionaire would not go down well with people struggling to make ends meet. Nor would the prospect of being told to give money to banks by politicians who have already bailed them out with billions of pounds of our money.

In terms of what Cameron did say, it is difficult to know where to start in pointing out the inaccuracies and half-truths. On at least one occasion, he told a straightforward lie. He said that people receiving disability benefits were ‘Not officially unemployed, but claiming welfare, no questions asked.’

What are these mythical benefits that are given to people without asking questions? My father was on disability benefits throughout the nineties. Many friends of mine have been on them since. All of them had not only to answer strings of questions but undergo tests and interviews, some of them ridiculously over-the-top, that in some cases made their health worse.

Cameron said, ‘Now we’re asking those questions’. He failed to mention that Atos, the company contracted to ‘ask the questions’ – and to re-assess people for ability to work – has done its job so badly that around 40% of appeals have been upheld. Atos’ approach makes clear that the government is interested in throwing as many people off benefits as possible.

Then there were Cameron’s comments on Gaddafi, for whose overthrow he appeared to take personal responsibility. The people of Libya might feel that they had something to do with it too. Cameron said that Labour were saying sorry for ‘sucking up to Gaddafi’ but nor for what ‘really’ mattered. The implication is that siding with Gaddafi is not a major problem. This would explain why Cameron’s government attempted to sell sniper rifles to the Gaddafi regime only weeks before the Libyan uprising began.

Cameron re-announced the government’s consultation on same-sex marriage. This was announced two weeks ago by Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone. Indeed, a consultation had already been announced and Featherstone was effectively confirming that it had been postponed. She promised legal recognition of same-sex civil marriage by 2015. Throwing people off benefits can be done overnight, but marriage equality apparently takes a minimum of four years.

The more I read of Cameron’s speech, the more sickened I felt. But none of it quite compared to a comment made yesterday by Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary. He claimed that the Conservative Party are ‘the party of the poor’.

This is the party of the poll tax, privatisation, mass unemployment and the great social housing sell-off. This is the party that is now leading an assault on the working class and lower middle class with policies that lead to increased homelessness, fewer jobs, lower pensions, worse public services and the abolition of benefits vital to disabled people.

The Tory Party’s core purpose has never varied over the last three hundred years. It exists to promote the interests of the rich. I’m sure that the Conservative Party includes compassionate individuals who genuinely believe that they are working for the best interests of society as a whole. But as institution, this is not how the Tory Party has worked. The Tories have opposed every major progressive policy ever introduced, from old age pensions at the beginning of the twentieth century, to the National Health Service in the 1940s, to the minimum wage fifty years later.

But Cameron and Duncan Smith are right about one thing: Labour is not the party of the poor. Labour presided over an increase in inequality. The ConDems are simply going further. Working class and lower middle class people are increasingly unrepresented by all three establishment parties. Fortunately, we don’t have to rely on these parties. Progressive political change does not start with politicians, but with ordinary people like us. It’s time to remember our own power.

The reality of BAE’s job cuts

Posted on by symonhill

I don’t claim to be an expert at making political predictions. Some of my predictions have been woefully off-course. But yesterday I made what must surely be the most precise political prediction of my life.

Speaking about the arms trade at a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference, I was asked about the impact on jobs if the UK stopped exporting arms. I replied that even if arms exports are not reduced at all, arms industry jobs would gradually disappear from Britain, as companies such as BAE move employment to India and elsewhere. Later in the day, BAE confirmed nearly 3,000 job losses in the UK.

The redundancies are already being blamed on the government’s military cuts. The reality is that cuts to the military budget (or the “defence budget”, as its euphemistically known) have been relatively slight when compared to the coalition’s swingeing attacks on public services and the welfare state.

Furthermore, BAE have got form for being misleading about employment. When they signed a major deal with India last year, they said it would protect jobs at their Brough plant. Within months, they were announcing job losses at Brough. In 2006, when arms dealers were lobbying to end a criminal investigation into BAE, they claimed that the latest Saudi arms deal would provide 16,000 jobs in the UK (and both the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph put the figure at 50,000). Once the deal was signed, BAE cynically announced that most of the jobs would be based in Saudi Arabia, with very few new jobs in the UK.

In this context, it would not be a surprise to hear an announcement from BAE pretty soon about the creation of new jobs in India or the USA. If this happens, it would be naive to think that this had no connection with the job losses in Britain.

There is no future in the arms industry. Apologists for the arms trade try to justify it by speaking of the number of jobs it creates (a tactic also used by supporters of the transatlantic slave trade over 200 years ago). In reality, the arms industry is subsidised with about £700million of taxpayers’ money every year. Future generations will look back in disbelief, unable to understand why, when faced with the horrors of climate change, we chose to throw millions into arms production. We could be using those millions, and the skills of thousands of British workers, to research and develop renewable energy and technologies that can help us to tackle the physical, economic and security threats resulting from climate change. Let’s start by retraining the workers that BAE have so callously thrown on the dole.

To read more on arms trade issues, please visit the Campaign Against Arms Trade website.

The Labour Party and the arms trade

Posted on by symonhill

Yesterday, I was pleased to be able to speak on the arms trade at a fringe meeting at the Labour Party annual conference in Liverpool. The meeting was organised by the Christian Socialist Movement (CSM). The text of my talk was as follows (I deviated slightly from this text at times).  

It’s great to be here. Many thanks to the Christian Socialist Movement for hosting this event and many thanks to all of you for coming.  

I’m Symon Hill. I’m first and foremost an activist. I’m also associate director of the Christian thinktank Ekklesia. And I’m a member of the steering committee of the Campaign Against Arms Trade. I’m not a member of the Labour Party or the Christian Socialist Movement, although I am a Christian and a socialist. Those two words describe my approach to politics and to life.  

As a socialist and as a Christian, I believe that change is possible and that ordinary people like you and me can bring it about. I’m inspired by Jesus, who through his teachings and actions promoted a radical approach to human relationships with principles that we might now call equality and active nonviolence. I would not be a Christian if I did not believe that Jesus’ teachings were realistic. 

So let’s be real. Two weeks ago I was protesting outside the London arms fair. The government had invited some of the world’s most brutal regimes to meet arms dealers in east London. Earlier this year, ministers revoked arms exports licences to Bahrain after the Bahraini regime used its weapons against its own people. But despite this, a delegation from Bahrain was invited to turn up at the London arms fair. 

As many of us protested outside the arms fair, Liam Fox was making a speech inside. Fox told the arms dealers that he was “proud” of the UK’s arms industry – or the “defence industry” as he euphemistically calls it. Fox talked about how many jobs the arms industry provides.  

I would like to share a piece of advice that’s always helped me: Beware of Tories talking about jobs. Conservative ministers are not usually motivated by a desire to tackle unemployment. When they justify something by the jobs it provides, it’s time to be suspicious.  

So let’s look at some of the facts. 

Firstly, we have the physical effects of the arms trade. It is often argued that if people want to fight a war, they will find the means to do so. There is some truth in this. But it would be naïve to suggest that the arms industry is simply supplying a need. Violence begets violence. Violence also begets profits.

As the world watched with excitement a few months ago, the Arab Spring saw millions of amazingly brave and inspiring people standing up to tyranny. It quickly emerged that many of the regimes concerned had been supplied with weapons from the UK. When the Bahraini regime invited the Saudi army in to help suppress peaceful protest, the Saudi forces arrived with armoured vehicles made in Newcastle.

Furthermore, many of the people who die as a result of the arms trade are not killed directly with the weapons involved. Corruption is inherent in the arms trade. And as Hilary Benn has put it, “corruption kills”.

For example, the multinational arms company BAE Systems is alleged – and if there are any libel lawyers present, I hope that word will be sufficient – to have bribed Tanzanian officials to spend public money on equipment that the country clearly did not need. The money could have been spent tackling poverty or providing healthcare.

The economic effects of the arms trade are also bad for Britain. Have a look at UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), a unit of Vince Cable’s Department for Business. UKTI is responsible for promoting British exports. They devote more staff to the section promoting arms exports than to all civil sectors combined. But arms make up only 1.5% of UK exports.

Only about 0.2% of British jobs are dependent on arms exports. Every one of those people has a right to be considered. Nobody’s livelihood is irrelevant and I refuse to discuss any economic question without considering the people it will affect. I grew up in the eighties under Thatcher with my father on the dole. I know what unemployment does to people and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

Apologists for the arms industry seem to have a much more more laid-back approach to unemployment. As controversy raged over BAE’s Saudi arms deals in 2006, BAE’s friends at the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph made increasingly wild statements about the number of jobs that would be created by the latest Saudi arms deal. The original suggestion had been 11,000 jobs across Europe. Soon, it was said there would be 16,000 jobs in Britain alone. This magically rose to 50,000 and the highest figure I saw was 100,000. Almost as soon as the deal was signed, BAE announced that most of the jobs would be based in Saudi Arabia, with few new jobs in the UK.

The arms industry receives around £700 million in taxpayer-funded subsidies every year. This is partly through the funding of research and development. Future generations will look back in amazement, unable to understand why, when faced with the threat of runaway climate change, we subsidised jobs in the arms industry instead of putting money into renewable energy and other technologies to tackle the environmental, economic and security threats that climate change is bringing.

Our economy is distorted by the arms industry. This is because our democracy is distorted by the arms industry. Sixteen years ago, I sat in Labour Party conference and heard Robin Cook promise that under a Labour government, there would be no arms sold to regimes that used them for internal repression or external aggression. I’m sure that many of you share my sadness that this change never came about. In his diaries, Robin Cook lays bare the grotesque influence wielded by the arms industry. He says that he never saw Tony Blair take a decision that would inconvenience BAE Systems.

The arms industry’s influence within government means that exports regulations are full of loopholes and worded so vaguely that they allowed Cameron’s government to attempt to sell sniper rifles to Gaddafi only months before the Libyan uprising. This influence means that the UK government can stand up at the United Nations and back an Arms Trade Treaty so flimsy that ministers have assured British arms companies that it will make no difference to them.

Many people, both within the Labour Party and beyond it, were inspired by Robin Cook’s commitment in 1995. We need a renewed commitment to ending arms exports to oppressive regimes. This cannot be done by regulations alone. A future Labour government, if truly committed to democracy, would need to reduce the power of the arms dealers by tackling the structures and cultures that give them so much influence. Robin Cook wrote in his diaries that the chairman of BAE Systems had “the key to the garden door at Number Ten”. We need to get the locks changed.

———

Many thanks to CSM and CAAT for inviting me to give this talk at their fringe meeting. The meeting was chaired by CSM’s director, Andy Flanagan. The other speakers were Wilf Stevenson (Shadow Trade Minister), Alan Storkey (Christian theologian and economist) and Helen Goodman (Shadow Justice Minister). Please click here for a news report on the event.

A mansion tax and the realities of class

Posted on by symonhill

Britain may be broke, but the government’s desperation to cut the deficit seems to have its limits. This morning, Eric Pickles has ruled out an increase in council tax for houses valued at more than a million pounds.

This is the so-called “mansion tax” proposed by the Liberal Democrats when they were in opposition.

As Communities Secretary, Pickles is responsible for council tax. But he went further, saying in an interview with today’s Daily Telegraph that he also wants to see the end of the 50p tax rate for those on high incomes.

He described top-rate taxpayers, and people with million-pound homes, as “middle class” and “hardworking homeowners” who put lots into society but “don’t take a lot out”. These three phrases combined can easily give a misleading impression about who would be affected by a “mansion tax”. Indeed, they perpetuate an inaccurate understanding of wealth and class in British society.

Firstly, Pickles talks about the “middle class”. Only about 1% of houses are valued at over a million pounds. Similarly, only 1% of the population are rich enough to pay top-rate tax. In no sense are these people in the “middle”.

Eric Pickles is following the common practice of implying that a tax on the very richest would apply to far more people than it does. These implications help to create more opposition to such taxes (as I pointed out when the Liberal Democrats proposed the “mansion tax” two years’ ago – see http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10256).

Secondly, Pickles regards this wealthy section of the population as a group of “hardworking homeowners”. I am sure that many of the are indeed hardworking. Some are not. Many people are low or middle incomes are also hardworking. Some are not. There is no general correlation between hard work and income within the population as a whole. The majority of people in the UK live and die in the same social class into which they were born.

But certain politicians and commentators constantly associate wealth with hard work and poverty with laziness. Despite the lack of evidence behind this, it conveniently makes inequality appear fair.

Thirdly, Pickles claims that “middle class families have put a lot into the country and don’t take a lot out”. Again, he is using “middle class” to mean the tiny percentage rich enough to pay a mansion tax or top-rate income tax. To suggest that these very wealthy people give lots to society without taking much is demonstrably untrue.

As Church Action on Poverty (CAP) point out, richer people pay a lower percentage of their income in tax than poorer people. Admittedly, income tax is higher for the better-off, but VAT is the same rate for everyone from a homeless person to a billionaire. CAP’s research suggests that the richest fifth of the population spend 7% of their income on VAT. For the poorest fifth, the figure is a whopping 14%.

Between them, a number of corporations and wealthy individuals deprive the Treasury of billions every year through tax avoidance. Of course, there are some wealthy individuals who conscientiously pay their tax without looking for loopholes, and I applaud them for doing so. But the extent of tax avoidance undermines Pickles’ claims about how much wealthy people, taken as a group, put into society.

More importantly, the very fact that the rich are rich means that they have taken more of society’s wealth than the rest of us. We are encouraged to see wealth as a personal possession. If we instead see society’s (and the world’s) wealth as belonging to society (and the world) as a whole, it is clear that some people have taken vastly more than others.

The Daily Telegraph quotes Tory MPs who believe that tax cuts for the rich will stimulate the economy and increase growth (from its current level of virtually nothing). For now, I’ll leave aside the question of whether growth is good in itself. But many of those who want to see growth would acknowledge that giving more money to the richest is not an effective way of generating it. Poorer people are far more likely to spend extra money that richer people. And only the very richest syphon off their money to tax havens, where it is of literally no use whatsoever to the British economy.

As you will have guessed, I would be happy to see a “mansion tax” and would like to see the top rate of tax increased, not abolished. However, the money these measures would raise would be minimal compared to the amount that could pour into the Treasury’s coffer if there was a serious crackdown on tax havens and other means of tax dodging by corporations and the very rich.

Ministers tell us that the economic situation is so dire that they have no choice but to increase VAT, abolish Disability Living Allowance, make massive job cuts, scrap Education Maintenance Allowance, treble university tuition fees, attack public sector pensions, cut funding for local services and basically tear the heart out of the welfare state.

But it seems that the situation is not bad enough for minsters to introduce a mansion tax, slightly raise the top rate of income tax or bring in VAT on private education and private healthcare. And the most commitment they have shown to tackling tax dodging is feeble words that seem to have led nowhere.

Their treatment of the wealthy contrasts sharply with the demands made of the rest of us. New Labour governments also seemed wedded to the interests of the rich, though their loyalty was rarely so blatant or their economic policies so extreme.

This situation makes one thing clear. The coalition’s economic policies are not primarily about addressing the deficit. They are the weapons in a vicious assault against the working class and lower middle class. In short, ministers are fighting a class war.

I have for a long time hesitated to use this sort of language. But I am now convinced that it is an accurate description of the extreme approach to society and economics that this government is pursuing. It’s time for people of all classes to stand up and say so.

———-

This blog post appeared originally as my latest column on the website  of the Ekklesia thinktank. To read more of my Ekklesia columns, please visit http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/news/columns/hill.

Benefit claimants and top-rate taxpayers

Posted on by symonhill

 A glance at the front pages of this morning’s papers gives a brief snapshot of the grotesque reality of ConDem Britain. The Daily Mail and Daily Express lead with vicious and misleading attacks on disabled benefit claimants, while the Daily Telegraph reports on Boris Johnson’s call for very wealthy people to pay less tax.

 Welcome to the UK under David Cameron, where the poorest are blamed for the nation’s problems while the richest are portrayed as victims.

The gleeful headline on the Daily Express is “Sick benefits: 75% are faking”. The Mail uses the same figures to make a similar claim. To say that these figures are “out of context” would be polite. They are deliberately deceitful.

They appear to refer to disabled people who are assessed for Employment Support Allowance. It takes a fair bit of concentrated reading through the Express article to realise that they have combined figures for those assessed fit for work with those who don’t complete their applications.

Given the bureaucratic hurdles that the assessment process involves, it is no surprise that some give up before they have completed it, particularly if they are applying because of a mental health problem or learning disability.

The Express back up their position with quotes from David Cameron, junior minister Steve Webb (who was regarded as on the left of the Liberal Democrats before he became responsible for slashing benefits) and the Taxpayers’ Alliance, a right-wing lobby group whose main purpose seems to be to object to taxes being spent on anyone poorer than their own members. In a feeble attempt at balance, a brief critical quote from the TUC’s Brendan Barber is thrown in right at the end.

Conveniently, the article makes no reference to the number of claimants who successfully appeal against their assessment. Around 40% of appeals are upheld. This is amazing. It reveals the unreliability of the assessments in which the Mail and Express place so much faith.

The assessments are carried out by Atos, a private company awarded a multi-million pound contract to assess ability to work – and with a clear mandate to get people off benefits, unhampered by such considerations as reality. Atos have found people with terminal cancer to be fit for work. As mental health charities such as Rethink and Mind have pointed out, they also seem particularly unable to grasp the complexities of mental health problems.

Neither Atos nor their friends in the right-wing press take account of the reality that many disabled people would love to work but are prevented to do so by inaccessible workplaces, prejudiced employers and social structures that marginalise them. Disability is caused by society’s attitudes to people with certain impairments, not by the impairments themselves.

But companies will not have their fitness as employers determined by Atos in twenty-minute assessments by unqualified individuals with a biased mandate.

As the government and their friends in the press launch this vicious assault on disabled people, the Daily Telegraph reports that Boris Johnson has repeated his call to scrap the top rate of income tax. It is 50p in the pound and only about 1% of the population are rich enough to pay it. This income tax; when it comes to VAT, everyone pays the same, from a homeless person to a billionaire.

As Church Action on Poverty have pointed out, richer people spend a lower percentage of their income on tax. The poorest fifth of the UK spend about 14% of their income on VAT, while for the richest fifth the figure is only 7%.

The Tories and their allies tell us that cuts are necessary to address the deficit, but it’s hard to take them seriously when some of them are them are keen to offer yet more concessions to those whose wealth would allow them to contribute the most to tackling the economic situation.

In this warped response to economic problems, those with the least have to pay the most.

I will never own a house. And I am not doomed.

Posted on by symonhill

The media this morning (31 May) are very excited about a survey showing that nearly two-thirds of people aged 20 to 45 in the UK expect never to own their own home. Most of the coverage did not even mention that the survey also revealed that nearly a quarter don’t want to.

The Today programme gave the issue a prominent position on BBC Radio 4. Several daily newspapers reported it as a piece of alarming news. Even the relatively progressive ‘i’ newspaper (sister paper of the Independent), had a front page headline declaring “Generation doomed to rent for a lifetime”.

I am 34 and will never own a house. But I am not “doomed”. I am happy to rent. Happy not to have endless meetings about mortgages with banks and financial advisors. Happy not to have pay out whenever something goes wrong with the electricity or plumbing. Happy not to get on the “property ladder”, beloved of those who look forward to buying a house only so that they can sell it and buy another one.

The surprising thing about the survey is that nearly a quarter of people questioned did not say they wanted to own their own home. This is despite all the newspaper front pages about house prices, the TV programmes about buying homes and the constant barrage of messages presenting home ownership as an essential part of being an adult. Not only is ownership held up as the marker of success, but talk of the “property ladder” fuels the notion that the purpose of possessions is only to acquire more possessions.

The recent economic crisis has taught many people that we cannot rely on a fantasy of endless resources and that we need a radical overhaul of the economic system. Bankers, ministers and much of the media don’t seem to have noticed that anything has changed.

Christianity and homophobia in Britain today

Posted on by symonhill

Many thanks to Camden LGBT Forum, who invited me to speak at their event entitled ‘The Globalisation of Homophobia’ on 17 May  – the International Day Against Homophobia.

I spoke about homophobia in Britain today and its relationship with Christianity.  The text of my talk can be found by clicking here.

Churches should not uphold monarchy

Posted on by symonhill

 I appeared on Channel 4 on Wednesday (13 April), suggesting that a monarch should not be head of a church. I spoke for just under two minutes, as one of a series of short clips in which people with different views responded to the question “Should the queen stand down as head of the Church of England?”.

The clip can be viewed by clicking here.  My Ekklesia colleague Simon Barrow blogged about it here.

The 4thought website also shows the others expressing views on the issue.

4thought is on after Channel 4 news every day, featuring a different religious or ethical question every few days. 

It felt rather odd to be interviewed for over an hour and then see the result edited down to less than two minutes. However, I’m very grateful to the people at 4thought, who have managed to edit me very fairly and summarise my view very well.

My concerns about the Church of England’s links to the monarchy are partly about symbolism, but also the practical consequences of that symbolism. The royal link implies an endorsement of values of hierarchy and privilege at odds with the teaching of Jesus. This constrains the Church’s ability to speak out for independent and radical views and values.

Of course, the monarchical ties are only one factor among many that constrain the Church’s progressive voice. Like most of the other factors, it is a legacy of Christendom – the time when Christianity was linked to wealth and power, holding considerable sway over society. As we move away from Christian privilege in a multifaith society, we can welcome post-Christendom as an opportunity to look again at Jesus’ radical teachings. The injustices of monarchy are the last thing we should be holding on to.