I am just about old enough to remember the 1980s and nerdish enough to have cared about politics (and from a left wing perspective). When the Labour Party was in opposition they cared about the waste of unemployment. Although it’s clear that if it wasn’t for Thatcher’s medicine (and Healey’s before that) the country would have gone bankrupt, they had a point. Even though there really was no alternative, this critique of Thatcherism was self-evidently right – even if it missed the other parts of the picture.
So how much do Labour care for jobs when they are are in power? Although Labour have actually started to address immigration some old time Labour hacks do think that any protection of the working class through control of immigration must be dismissed as pandering to the BNP. However the issue is not what some ex-members think, but the sheer amount of time for Labour to look at immigration as an unsustainable economic boom did not lead to higher wages for the worst off – the very section of society that Labour was formed to protect and advance. This party was saying that there was “no natural limit” for the amount of people coming in, which makes sense if you own rather than rent your own house in Corder or Severn road and the gardener looks like they’re putting up their rate.
So we move to Tesco. Here are up to 900 jobs being created within walking or cycling distance from every bit of Bridge ward. I know a large number of people who’ve lost their job recently, I was one of them, and many of these people were not as lucky as I was to get a new (albeit less well paid) job quite quickly. The Tesco jobs will not be dream jobs but they still pay good money.
So where are Labour on this? Well it’s electorally popular to bash economic development, and this is what Labour did – they voted against it. This included Bridge Ward councillor Comrade Philip Smart. This was even though the planning committee is not allowed a party whip, so there’s no excuse there. And this development disproportionately helps Bridge because a major employer is opening on our doorstep and we have some of the worst long term unemployment in the country.
No, simply put Phil Smart thought that the people who were rightly worried about an increase in traffic down Belstead Road were more important than those worried about their home being repossessed because they didn’t have a job, or those who’s sense of self respect was going one slow drawn out day after the next. The people, I would have thought, that Labour was designed to protect and advance – the people that Phil Smart, who is a decent man when you strip out the partisanship, joined the Labour party to help.
Maybe the people worried about traffic volume are more likely to switch their vote (and to vote at all) than people who are being encouraged to go on one scheme after another to get them off Jobseeker’s allowance. Perhaps.
But we need the jobs. Every day spent canvassing in Bridge means that I will meet at least one more able bodied person who wants a job but has through some sleight of hand been taken off the unemployment register. Tesco offers a way out for some of them.
They may not vote. If they do vote they may never consider voting for a Tory. But I didn’t go into politics to make their life worse and if there is an opportunity to make it better I will take it. Labour will only do so when the votes stack up. That’s why they need a rest.
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