Miliband has promised a future Labour government will improve productivity through a new industrial strategy
Ed Miliband launched Labour’s manifesto with a clear statement – when working people succeed Britain succeeds. Under the banner of Britain can be Better he laid out how this would come about.
At its core was the Labour value of social justice and at its heart was his belief that working people build the wealth of our country and they should be rewarded.
There has been one rule for the rich and powerful and another for the rest of us. The richer you are the less taxes you have to pay. Well as Ed said, “enough is enough”. So Labour will reverse David Cameron’s tax cut for millionaires to help pay down the deficit.
There is a simple principle – if you live in this country and you work in this country you have to pay your taxes in this country and that means the tax status of the non-doms will be abolished.
The accusation laid at the door of Labour is that it is anti-business. It’s not it is anti-business as usual. There has been a Tory experiment that wealth would trickle down. It is an experiment that has failed.
This belief that when workers succeed we all succeed is in direct contrast not only with today’s Tories, who have led to a race to the bottom with low wages and an insecure jobs’ market, but it is also a repudiation of the past. It’s a repudiation of a Tory chancellor, Norman Lamont, who infamously said that unemployment was a price worth paying. Remember him? His special adviser was David Cameron.
Ed Miliband has pledged that a future Labour government would improve productivity through a new industrial strategy.
It is often argued that all politicians are the same. Never has this been less true. Come 7 May, voters will be faced with a stark choice. A stark choice on the economy and a stark choice between Labour’s long-term industrial strategy and the Tories’ short-termism where all that matters is the next profit on shares.
A future Labour government will improve and build a long-term investment culture in the private and public sector and will support the backbone of the British economy – small businesses. A future Labour government will have a National Infrastructure Commission to asses Britain’s long-term infrastructure needs. Labour’s approach on manufacturing will once again reinforce Britain’s status as one of the world’s greatest centres of science and engineering.
It’s not a race to the bottom that is required for a prosperous country; it’s high skills and decent jobs that will generate prosperity.
Tony Burke is assistant general secretary at Unite
7 Responses to “Labour’s manifesto commits to a new industrial strategy”
GTE
There has been one rule for the rich and powerful and another for the rest of us.
===========
Of course there has. The rich have disposal assets that they have invested.
The working poor do but you won’t let them invest their money. Instead you take it as national insurance and say, we’ll give you a pension. Then you piss the money away leaving a 5,010 bn pound debt when you left office.
So the poor end the year where they started, with no assets because you won’t let them do what the rich do. Invest and get wealthy.
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_263808.pdf
In summary, the estimates in the new supplementary table indicate a total Government pension obligation, at the end of December 2010, of £5.01 trillion
Labour’s toxic legacy, and the Tories have doubled that along with the borrowing, PFI, nuclear clean up, Guarantees for Local government pensions [massive black hole there in the accounts]
Yep, you’ve screwed the poor.
JAMES MCGIBBON
The poor should be able to invest and get wealthy. But how do the poor stop being poor and have the capability to be capitalist and keep other people poor!
Guest
Keep blaming the poor for everyone else’s policies, as you call not being tough enough on them as “toxic”, as you scream that allowing pensions is evil, blah blah.
You keep talking about the LOW pension debts for a first world country we have, as you claim that not spending the cash on YOU, personally, Lord Greasy…
Patrick Nelson
It’s nice to see someone talking about industry and manufacturing. For too long the bizarre idea that it’s healthy for an economy to be based around (and dominated by) the service sector has polluted the minds of British politicians.
Patrick Nelson
GITE suggests that paying National insurance prevents the working poor from investing their surplus wealth. If the working poor didn’t have to pay National Insurance they would have to pay private health insurance and private pensions, which would offer a far inferior service in return for what they paid in (e.g. unlike National insurance private health insurance runs out if treatment becomes expensive).
The working poor have so little income that even if they struggled and invested a substantial part of their earnings after tax – even after a lifetime of work they would still only have a relatively small amount of money despite their best attempts to increase their savings through the most arduously researched investment choices.