It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, August 28, 2024
French president Emmanuel Macron plots to keep a pro-boss government
The left wing LFI party has announced protests ‘against Emmanuel Macron’s coup’ on Saturday Marching against racism in Paris on 14 July
The neoliberal French president Emmanuel Macron has detonated another deep crisis. He’s bulldozed aside democracy and refused to name a government led by the left wing New Popular Front (NPF) coalition.
The NPF won the most seats in the July parliamentary elections. But Macron insists on an openly pro-boss government—even if people didn’t vote for one.
The French constitution does not spell out that the president must appoint a prime minister from the group that won most MPs. But previously this has always happened.
To give himself cover, Macron held talks with leaders of the fascist National Rally party. They said that they would immediately call a no confidence vote against any leftist prime minister.
But Macron could have ordered his MPs not to support such a vote against the NPF prime ministerial candidate, Lucie Castets.
Manuel Bompard, national coordinator of the LFI left party, which is part of the NPF, called Macron’s actions an “anti-democratic coup”. LFI leader Jean-Luc Melenchon said his party would put forward a motion to remove the president. But this requires a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament, and is unlikely to go through.
The French media now speculate that Macon might come up with some corporate figure as prime minister. These include Renault chair Jean-Dominque Senard and Pascal Demurger, head of insurance company Maif.
The French ruling class is unsure how to proceed. Assembling a stable political coalition to implement austerity is difficult, but it can’t allow the uncertainty to continue.
The NPF is also caught in the logic of its electoral pact with Macron. It did a deal at the elections in July to help his candidates win in many constituencies. Now the NPF leaders bleat as Macron carries through his wholly-predictable policies.
Castets is a smooth technocrat close to the Socialist Party—the most right wing element of the NPF. The idea of putting her forward was to seem “reasonable” and not upset “moderate” parties.
But Macron won’t support even the mildest left programme. He wants money for the military, not welfare or public services. And he promised France’s bosses a war on workers’ living standards and rights.
The Le Monde newspaper reports, “For Emmanuel Macron and his people, it is simply unthinkable to appoint a government that would call into question the ‘mother of all reforms’, that of pensions”.
Pushing aside that roadblock requires struggle, not parliamentary manoeuvres. LFI now “proposes that marches for the respect of democracy take place”. There must be mass mobilisation., and pressure on the union leaders to call walkouts.
But the elections were on 7 July. Melenchon could have called for marches and strikes immediately afterwards. Instead, he allowed a “truce” for the Olympic Games and left Macron to proceed with meandering talks.
Melenchon then retreated in the face of Macron’s intransigence and asked him to accept a Castets government with no LFI ministers.
All of this imprisons the left inside barren electoral combinations and leads away from militant mobilisations.
UK
Why we must oppose racism and war at the TUC Congress
Sean Vernell is a UCU union national executive committee member and delegate to the TUC union federation's congress. He surveys some of the key debates this year
Paul Nowak, general secretary of the TUC union federation Wednesday 28 August 2024
For the first time in 14 years, congress takes place for under a Labour government. Motions to congress, which begins on 8 September, call upon Labour to fulfil its manifesto promises from repealing anti-union laws to addressing climate change.
But, as is customary at the TUC, there is little on how to achieve these demands. A lot of fire and fury, but very few calls for action to back up the demands.
While most motions and amendments will pass without controversy, not all will. There are key debates over climate change, arms expenditure and racism that will be contested, which reveal the tensions among union leaders.
The TUC is only the echo of the battle that takes place inside workplaces—most delegates are union full timers—but it does matter who wins these debates.
The GMB, a union led by the right wing within the trade union movement, represents some of the lowest paid workers. It also represents some of the most skilled workers in the arms and energy industries.
GMB has been successful in shifting TUC policy to the right over the last three years. It successfully moved a motion calling for an increase in arms expenditure and arming Ukraine—a bloody battleground between the West and Russia. And it moved the debate on climate change to the right by successfully passing motions in support of fossil fuels.
The Unite union has members working in the arms and energy industries and is in competition with the GMB. This leads general secretary Sharon Graham to pander to the GMB on key issues such as climate change and arms expenditure.
GMB’s lead motion this year is entitled, “Industrial strategy is national security.” The motion argues that their members working in steel, gas, chemicals and water are in a unique position to understand the relationship between economic growth and national security.
The motion claims that protecting jobs in these industries is at the same time protecting the “national interest”. It ends by calling for support for more gas and the building of Sizewell C, a nuclear power plant.
And, not to be outdone, one of Unite’s lead motions is on “a workers’ transition in the North Sea”. It aims to unravel a key Labour commitment to ban new oil licenses in the North Sea in response to the climate crisis.
It starts with welcoming Labour’s commitment to 650,000 green jobs but ends with calling for an end to the ban. It calls upon congress “to do everything in its power to prevent oil and gas workers becoming the miners of net zero”.
These arguments are completely false. The NUM union miners’ fight to defend their jobs and communities in 1984-85 was in response to Margaret Thatcher’s brutal union-busting agenda.
Thatcher’s claim was that the pits were “uneconomic”—the destruction of miners’ jobs was nothing to do with the environment, “net zero” or climate change. Indeed, the Tories quickly replaced British coal with imports from Poland.
We only have to throw our minds back to the lockdowns to see how a number of industries converted their plants to make socially useful products to save people lives. Workers in fossil fuel industries could use their skills as part of a green transition. Why aren’t the Unite and GMB leaderships making these arguments?
In Port Talbot workers face a jobs massacre because of bosses’ drive to maximise profits—and Unite and Community union leaders’ failure to lead a fight.
Unite and GMB would be much more effective in defending jobs if they identified this as a key struggle and united with those campaigning for a rapid and urgent transition to highly skilled jobs which could transition us away from fossil fuels.
The Unite leadership will also attempt to outdo GMB by watering down a Palestine motion that calls for an “end the arms trade with Israel”. Its amendment deletes this and replaces it with calls to “ban export licenses for arms directly traded with Israel and encourage others to do the same”.
The only people who will be cheering if these motions are passed are the CEOs in the fossil fuel and arms industries and the far right who peddle the same myths.
Many union leaders have signed up to support the Stand Up To Racism campaign against the far right. Hopefully congress will support the NEU union’s amendment which calls on the TUC to “mobilise for demonstrations and campaigns against the far right called by SUTR”.
But, if the trade union movement is to be effective in combatting the far right, it should also oppose militarism. When government unleash the dogs of war, it unleashes the dogs of racism as well.
This is why it matters who wins these debates at Congress. Unison and PSC have two good motions that put the alternative argument over these issues. The UCU also has an amendment to the Unison motion on climate change. It calls on the government to “seek to taper defence spending and arms proliferation, with a just transition into climate jobs for affected workers”.
The attempt to defend jobs on the grounds of a “national interest” will always undermine the class interest of workers. Workers, whatever industry or sector they work in, have no national interest—they only have a class interest which they share with workers across the globe. It is this class unity that real internationalism must be built upon.
Is there anything new to say about neoliberalism? It depends, of course, on how you define the capitalist mode of production that it’s based on. Monbiot and Hutchison have a distinctive definition:
“Capitalism is an economic system founded on colonial looting. It operates on a constantly shifting and self-consuming frontier, on which both state and powerful private interests use their laws, backed by the threat of violence, to turn shared resources into exclusive property and to transform natural wealth, labour and money into commodities that can be accumulated.”
The rest of the chapter illustrates this process, beginning with Portuguese colonisation and exploitation from the 15th century onwards.
Global looting allowed countries to stoke their own industrial revolutions at home. One analysis suggests that Britain, over 200 years, extracted from India alone an amount of wealth equivalent to $45 trillion in today’s money. The process continues today in different forms: an estimated trillion dollars a year flows out of poorer countries, through tax evasion and the transfer of money within corporations.
Monbiot and Hutchison take us through the history of neoliberalism from its origins to its global hegemony from the 1980s on. For all the attempts of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair to articulate a ‘Third Way’, this was “little more than a rhetorical device to justify and disguise the capitulation of the left.” Deregulation, privatisation, the weakening of organised labour and the welfare state have continued with little interruption since. In many countries, these ‘reforms’ have been imposed by force.
With increasing privatisation, the opportunities for getting unearned income – rent – have soared. This process reinforces itself, which the authors illustrate with the example of the ending of student grants in many countries. Instead, reliance on loans and the accumulation of debt forces students to restrict their career options, turning to the corporate world for higher salaries, rather than considering public service.
Governments – Keir Starmer’s is the latest example – are in thrall to powerful wealthy elites and shun redistribution, hoping to fund public services through growth. Not explored here are the compromises – environmental, especially – that such a strategy entails.
The impact of neoliberalism on democracy is also a huge cause for concern. The shift in power from elections and parliaments to corporate lobbyists, trade treaties and offshore tribunals has created a crisis of representation, opening the path to cynicism and authoritarianism. Economic and political liberalism are increasingly in conflict.
Trump may have promised to “drain the swamp” of political lobbyists in 2016, but in office he became their tool, particularly of ‘dark money’. In fact, neoliberalism has a history of finding populist figures – even clowns, such as Italy’s Berlusconi, Argentina’s Milei or our own Johnson – to whip up a smokescreen for its ruthless agenda.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, unpopular lobbies increase their power. One feature of this is the ‘polluter’s paradox’, whereby the most damaging anti-social companies invest most in political lobbying, because they are the ones most likely to face the heaviest regulation in a democratic system; in the process, they come to dominate politics. This helps explain the “sustained failure by wealthy and technologically advanced governments to prevent our rush towards disaster.”
Neoliberalism’s extreme individualism also attacks our mental health. It undermines community and social connection, reducing relationships to transactions, increasing loneliness, isolation, anxiety and alienation. In 2021, 100,000 people in the US died by drug overdose, a fivefold increase in a decade.
Unsurprisingly for someone of Monbiot’s background, it’s the ecological impact of neoliberalism that gets the strongest condemnation. The book is excoriating on the global exploitation and destruction of nature, the outsourcing of pollution to places where political resistance is weakest and the way the richest countries have poured money into closing their borders to people fleeing climate breakdown.
When neoliberalism fails, it fails big. An example is the 2008 financial crash, fuelled by the commodification of risk, specifically in the US sub-prime mortgage market. But when the system crashes, it turns inexorably to the state for bailouts.
Neoliberalism has been failing for some time: the problem is there is no clear alternative. The authors are right to counterpose cooperation and community to selfishness and atomisation, but that’s a bit abstract. As long as the core feature of the current economic system is the generation of economic inequality, then political democracy and social solidarity will continue to be subverted. Small steps in the right direction, like participatory budgeting and other ideas mentioned in my review of Grace Blakeley’s Vulture Capitalism, are welcome, but they fall well short of constituting a genuine alternative.
Society is ripe for change and this book tries to end on a hopeful note. But I couldn’t help feeling that a lot more work needs to be done on alternatives to neoliberalism if we are really to move in the right direction.
Mike Phipps’ book Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow: The Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn (OR Books, 2022) can be ordered here.
‘Common sense prevails’ as Glasgow Trade Union Education Centre closure is averted
Campaigners are celebrating today after a breakthrough in negotiations between the Scottish TUC and the City of Glasgow College over the future of the College’s Trade Union Education Centre.
In May, it was announced that the centre was earmarked for closure, with claims from the College that the Centre was no longer financially viable despite repeated requests from unions for course places. This resulted in a high-profile campaign being launched to save the Centre which attracted widespread support from academics, politicians, trade unionists, artists and members of the public.
As previously reported on Labour Hub, the Centre has been in operation in one form or another for over 30 years and has helped educate thousands of trade union reps, shop stewards and members who work in many different fields of the Scottish economy.
In July, the STUC and staff at the Centre submitted an alternative proposal to College managers that showed how the Centre could be sustained in the long term.
Negotiations that took place over the last week have resulted in a new year-long partnership agreement being signed.
A spokesperson for the Save the Glasgow Trade Union Education Centre campaign said: “Common sense has prevailed. We know there is demand for courses at the Centre and in recent weeks have had many inquiries from a range of trade unions seeking places on courses. We now need to ensure that all of these inquiries result in students being recruited and that we can now rebuild the Centre so it becomes the ‘go to’ place for all trade union education in Scotland.
“With the prospect of the long-running national college lecturers’ dispute being settled, we have the opportunity to get back to what we do best: educating the next generation of shop stewards, union reps and members whose work is vital in delivering an economy based on ‘fair work’ ,where workers are respected and valued by employers.
“We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who supported our successful campaign.”
Karam Bales separates the facts from the fiction and outlines what the new Labour Education Secretary needs to do next.
Last week’s GCSE results and A-level results the week before were higher than in 2019, the last year before the pandemic began. The results are testimony to the efforts of students and education workers to overcome the extraordinary circumstances they’ve faced, the ongoing cumulative impacts of austerity, the disruption caused by Covid and the stress many families have felt from the cost of living crisis.
Reading and listening to much of the media four years ago, you might have believed that this year’s exam results would have been an impossibility. Remember the headlines that dominated regarding the impact of lockdown on education. “Unsurmountable” and “permanent” damage had been done, terrifying statistics and calculations produced by economists were quoted, hundreds of millions of school days had been lost, which would equate to lower grades, which in turn would lead to lower earnings, and as life expectancy is linked to income, this generation of children would have reduced health and life expectancy.
The vision created was apocalyptic, but this year’s results show the catastrophizing was misplaced, built on an inaccurate time view of linear progression. The exam courses completed this summer began in September 2022, and the Key Stage 3 content covered in years 7 to 9 do not completely map onto the GCSE curriculum; also, students study subjects at GCSE and A-Level that they haven’t previously studied. While for many students remote learning wasn’t as effective as in-person teaching, not enough credit is given to how teachers adapted their lessons and resources to online learning. The economists’ calculations relied on remote lessons resulting in no learning rather than less.
This isn’t to diminish the impact the pandemic has had on students. Opponents of lockdown will cite rises in mental health concerns in students, but this worrying increase is on a similar trajectory as before the pandemic. However, it’s difficult to identify cause and effect from national statistics.
Thousands of children in the UK have lost parents or primary carers to Covid and many more will have lost loved relatives and family friends. Thousands of children were hospitalised: Office for National Statistics data currently estimates over 100,000 children have Long Covid, over 20,000 with a disability limiting day to day activity and many more will have parents struggling with Long Covid. At 80% of normal pay, furlough caused financial difficulty for lower income families and three million workers entirely slipped through the gaps in Rishi Sunak’s safety net.
Even if not directly affected, just living through a period of mass deaths and such uncertainty will have been difficult for some.
The media have regularly suggested the impact of fearmongering on children’s wellbeing citing the ‘don’t kill granny’ messaging, yet they have never considered the impact of their own messaging. What must it have felt like for children to read those headlines claiming the loss of learning they’d already faced by the summer of 2020 was irreparable and would blight their whole lives?
The same could be said of the narrative that school has become optional for many children. The Department for Education set clear instructions that even if students weren’t in school they were expected to attend a full timetable of remote lessons. In the autumn term of 2020, schools were told they had to provide these remote lessons for students who were isolating or when schools were partially or fully closed due to large outbreaks. The only sources saying that attending education was becoming optional was in fact the media.
This media-based narrative has turned into the concept of ghost children, who are described as children who have fallen out of education. However, this is also incorrect. The phrase comes from a report by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), which is a think tank founded by former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan-Smith, and is actually refers to the number of students who are registered in education but are persistently absent. Persistently absent is classed as missing 10% or more of school. In a six-week half term this would equate to missing three school days.
The creation of the CSJ ‘ghost children’ report appears to be the result of a collaboration between Iain Duncan-Smith, the lobbying group UsForThem and the anti-vax HARTgroup to create “harder hitting” messaging “invoking ‘permanent harm’ to children.” The evidence has been publicly available and reported on by a few outlets including Byline Times since HARTgroup’s internal chat logs were leaked to a small number of journalists.
There is no evidence that persistent absence is the direct consequence of lockdowns – the DfE’s data shows that the most common cause of absence is due to sickness. Considering the estimated prevalence of Covid, it’s likely a significant proportion of this persistent absence will be caused by Covid.
This is why Long Covid campaigners were concerned that our new Labour Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson chose to make a speech at the Centre for Social Justice prior to the general election. Since the election, Phillipson has followed the same narrative as her Conservative predecessors in regards to school attendance, announcing tougher sanctions on parents for taking their children out of school during term time, which ignores the primary causes of absence. There has been promising talk regarding improving access to mental health support; however, those working in education will judge the government by what change they see on the ground.
The exam results also showed a disparity of grades between regions and communities. In the same week, data was published showing that there was also a regional divide for Long Covid with the North recording higher incidence rates than the South, another study found that students in private and grammar schools had on average better air quality than students in crowded comprehensives.
It seems implausible that any study can isolate and quantify the direct cause and effect of a single measure such as lockdown from this melting pot of problems. The harm caused directly by Covid measures does not have much evidence to support the catastrophic headlines we’ve seen over the years. However, the evidence is steadily accumulating that Covid in children is not as benign as many implied. Several other recent studies have linked Covid to cognitive impairment and mental health conditions. Yale in the US has published a detailed paper on the mechanisms by which Covid can interfere with the immune system.
Previously in 2022, Phillipson called out the Conservative government’s failure to address clean air in schools by improving ventilation and introducing air filtration, measures which studies commissioned by the government have now shown to decrease sickness rates by over 20%. Now that Phillipson has the power to implement change, will she remember what she said in Opposition?
Karam Bales is a former member of the National Education Union Executive, writing in a personal capacity.
Covid Action UK’s spokesperson Joseph Healy says: “At a time when we are just beginning to emerge from the largest Covid wave since 2022, it is simply unbelievable that the JCVI (the body responsible for vaccine policy in the UK) has decided to use an old vaccine as its autumn booster offer on the NHS. This booster will be made available to some of the most vulnerable groups in society – those aged over 65, the immunocompromised and frontline health and social care staff. However, on grounds of cost effectiveness, they have decided to use an old version of the vaccine which was targeted at last winter’s variant instead of the updated vaccines which countries like the US are making available to all.
“The UK now has a two-tier approach to vaccination. The elderly and most vulnerable will be offered an out-of-date vaccine, while those who can afford to buy vaccines privately will be getting the most up-to-date and effective version.”
As Professor Sheila Cruickshank ( Professor in Biomedical Sciences, University of Manchester) says: “Although using pre-procured doses means less money will be spent on the autumn booster programme, research shows older formulations of vaccines are less effective against variants which emerged after they were developed (such as the JN.1 variant). Modelling suggests they’ll be up to a third less protective against severe disease.” She goes on to point out that only those with the means available will be able to purchase updated vaccines on the private market from pharmacies, thus cementing a two-tier health system.
Joseph Healy adds: “This is an appalling decision and makes the UK not only an outlier, with updated vaccines available in most other European countries, but also could contribute to the deaths and hospitalisation of some of the most vulnerable as well as increasing the levels of Long Covid considerably. There is a need for a serious rethink and for the government to intervene. This decision makes a mockery of the concept of Public Health.”
COVID ACTION UK is grassroots, activist campaign of individuals and affiliated labour and trade union organisations who came together in November 2020 to challenge the then UK government’s approach to the pandemic. It puts forward an alternative strategy, aimed at eliminating community transmission of Covid-19 and campaigns for this to be adopted by the Westminster government, and the governments of the devolved nations, in order to save lives, prevent the collapse of the NHS and care systems, and stamp down on Covid-19 and all its variants. Website: https://covidaction.uk/
Establish ‘Special COVID Sickness Leave’ for NHS Staff
In a separate initiative, petitioners are proposing a separate classification, namely ‘Special COVID Sickness Leave’, for all past, present, and future COVID-19 related absences, exempt from ordinary sickness management or recording. A similar policy was recently implemented in New Zealand’s healthcare system where they established a separate COVID-19 leave scheme for healthcare workers. They are calling upon the NHS authorities and the government to establish the ‘Special COVID Sickness Leave’ for all NHS staff. This will not only shield us from unfair reprimands but will also reinforce our fight against the pandemic by securing the workforce’s morale and wellbeing. Please sign the petition here.
Model Motion for Labour Party Conference
LONG COVID: INCREASE SUPPORT TO SUFFERERS AND INVESTMENT IN RESEARCH
The Campaign for Labour Party Democracy is proposing the following motion for CLPs to submit to Labour Party Conference:
Conference notes a review paper on long Covid by the Universities of Oxford, Leeds and Arizona, published in August 2024 in The Lancet, reported that long Covid now affects nearly 2% of the UK population, with 71% of long Covid sufferers having the condition for more than a year. Strikingly, the rate of long Covid in the most deprived fifth of the UK population (3.2%) is more than twice as high as that in the least deprived fifth (1.5%).
Furthermore, another recent study by the Universities of Birmingham and Keele of more than 9,000 people, who were in work before the pandemic, has found that people with long Covid are at three times higher risk of leaving employment compared to those without Covid symptoms.
Conference calls upon our Labour Government to:
1) guarantee sufficient funds for research both into identifying the complex causes of long Covid and its effective treatment;
2) ensure that people with long Covid receive benefits to which they are entitled; and
3) introduce legislation requiring employers to provide support for their employees with long Covid and other serious post-viral conditions, as this will benefit both employees and employers alike.
Supporting arguments:
A new review paper from the Universities of Oxford, Leeds and Arizona analysed dozens of previous studies into Long covid examined the number and range of people affected, the underlying mechanisms of disease, the many symptoms that patients develop, and current and future treatments.
Long Covid is generally defined as symptoms persisting for three months or more. The condition can affect and damage many organ systems, leading to severe and long-term impaired function and a broad range of symptoms, including fatigue, cognitive impairment (often referred to as ‘brain fog’), breathlessness and pain.
Long Covid can affect almost anyone, including all age groups, even children. The researchers found that while some people gradually get better from long Covid, in others the condition can persist for years. Many people who developed long Covid before the advent of vaccines are still unwell. Even among those who those who have been fully vaccinated and up to date with their boosters, 3 to 5% of people can still develop Long Covid after a Covid-19 infection.
Researchers have found that a wide range of biological mechanisms are involved, including persistence of the original virus in the body, disruption of the normal immune response, and microscopic blood clotting, even in some people who had only mild initial infections.
There are no proven treatments for Long Covid yet, and current management of the condition focuses on ways to relieve symptoms or provide rehabilitation. There is a dire need to develop and test biomarkers (for example, blood tests) to diagnose and monitor Long Covid and to find therapies that address root causes of the disease.
Trish Greenhalgh, Professor of Primary Care Health Sciences at Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, said: “Long Covid is a dismal condition but there are grounds for cautious optimism. Various mechanism-based treatments are being tested in research trials. If proven effective, these would allow us to target particular sub-groups of people with precision therapies.
“Treatments aside, it is becoming increasingly clear that long Covid places an enormous social and economic burden on individuals, families and society. In particular, we need to find better ways to treat and support the ‘long-haulers’—people who have been unwell for two years or more and whose lives have often been turned upside down.”
The deadline for submitting these motions for Annual Conference is 5pm Thursday 12th September. A fuller selection of model ‘contemporary motions’ that CLPD is proposing for consideration by CLPs can be found here as a MS Word document and here as a PDF file.
Together Against Covid – time to get organised!
An online conference to bring people together to fight for Covid protections and clean air in workplaces, education, health and social care. Saturday 28th September 10:00 – Sunday 29th September 16:00. Details here.
Former Prime Minister Liz Truss was so deluded that she considered scrapping cancer treatment on the NHS as she desperately tried to repair the economic carnage caused by her disastrous mini-Budget, a new book has claimed.
The claim was made in a new biography of the Prime Minister written by Sir Anthony Seldon.
The biography, titled ‘How Not to Be a Prime Minister’, is deeply critical of Ms Truss and her premiership, after she was forced to resign after just 49 days in office, following her disastrous mini-budget which resulted in financial turmoil and the pound collapsing.
The Independent reports that aides ‘lost the plot’ when they heard of Truss’ plan to scrap cancer treatment on the NHS.
It reports: “Sir Anthony says a group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.”
“Mr Boyd’s response was to ask “Is she being serious?” writes Sir Anthony, while other aides said she had “lost the plot”.
“She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” they told the author.”
A spokesperson for Truss has denied the claims. Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
‘The Chicago DNC shows how centre-left politics can be fun, diverse and dynamic’
Tom Collinge
26th August, 2024
Kamala Harris. Photo: Sir. David / Shutterstock.com:
“The party is for everyone,” Levar Stoney, mayor of Richmond, Virginia, said on day two of the Democratic National Convention.
I was lucky enough to be invited as a guest of the Progressive Policy Institute to the DNC in Chicago this week. It’s a hard thing to sum up, a gigantic carnival of colour, noise, and politics that sprawls across America’s third largest city.
But that line – the party is for everyone, delivered by the young, confident mayor of Richmond – is the best way to unlock what the DNC meant, or at least what Democrats wanted it to mean.
There’s three distinct ways to understand what Mr Stoney was saying. One, the Democrats have an offer to every voter. Two, Kamala Harris is leader for every wing of the Democrats. Three, there’s a party going on here and everyone’s invited.
Kamala is forming a narrative
From what I saw this week, only the third is unequivocally true.
It’s certainly the case that the offer to voters is coming together. Kamala herself is building a narrative that she is a strong but fair leader that Americans can believe in.
A well worked-out offer to women, whose rights are menaced by Donald Trump and the shadowy Project 2025, is at the forefront of this convention.
There’s a commendable focus, at least in words, on restoring security to the middle class.
And throughout the convention there was an emphasis on showcasing former Trump voters, and indeed staff, to show it is possible to vote for him in 2016 or 2020 and come back this time.
Why should Trump voters come back?
But all that said, neither in the main hall of the convention or in what roughly equates to a fringe event, there’s no real sense of why those Trump voters should come back.
The argument that Trump is despicable is well developed and Dems can expound on it at length. But when it comes to the positive offer that will entice former Trumpers back there is very little.
Even more weirdly I found very little discussion or deep understanding of what drove these voters to Trump in the first place.
Nostalgia for a richer, more confident America, and racism, are the two most commonly offered accounts. These are certainly part of the picture, but what to do about them, or how to deal with data that doesn’t fit this narrative – e.g. why Hispanic people seemed to be moving to Trump in 2020 – is not discussed enough.
A show of unity across the party
The other way of looking at this convention is the Party, the Democrats, is under Kamala Harris a viable place for every faction within it.
There was certainly a big performative show of unity in the main hall, not least with Bernie Sanders given a platform (which he largely squandered with a long and droning speech).
Unity is the order of the day but beneath the smiles you can see the outline of issues that might become un-ignorable as the election gets closer.
Several people said to me that Kamala is currently the ‘not Trump’. A cipher who is easy to rally around. One journalist told me: “She is the most famous woman in the world and no one knows who she is.”
Factional cracks may start to emerge
As she defines herself the factional cracks may show.
Remember that very little policy has been announced to disagree over. Centrist Dems are already worried re: the mechanics of the proposed ban on price gouging, and there is a sense the Progressive wing smell a chance to get large parts of their agenda into the platform, though it’s not clear what they want yet.
And of course the crisis is Gaza is bubbling under the surface, occasionally flaring up inside and outside the convention itself.
Protests were not as large as the organisers were hoping – as shown by large piles of unclaimed placards around the centre – but they were still large.
I saw small verbal fracas occasionally break out in the streets between supporters of either side, and a caucus event I was watching was disrupted in the manner we have become familiar with in the UK. How Kamala navigates the issue will inevitably alienate some powerful people in her party.
There’s a flowering of relief and hope
Finally though, there is no doubt that the small-p party is for everyone. The energy and positive atmosphere is real.
It’s an organic flowering of relief and hope – but one also carefully cultivated by the convention organisers with the deployment of music and celebrities.
Kamala herself has steel, but also clearly a sense of fun. She has been endearing and positive and overall, the convention has challenged the Dems self-hating stereotype.
There might not be a big policy offer yet but purely on vibes the Democrats feel like they’re holding a party that anyone would want to be involved in.
Lessons for Britain
What should we in the UK take from all this? Well the truth is the unity in Chicago probably won’t last. It’s a freak of circumstance that comes from uniting against a common enemy. Perhaps there is a read across from that to our position post-election.
But I’d say the real takeaway is the sense that centre-left politics can be fun, diverse and dynamic is something we need to re-find.
This is very hard to do in government, where seriousness is the order of the day, and I don’t expect to see many rappers or sports stars in Liverpool next month.
But it’s also, never more important than in government if we aspire to stay there.
The party needs to seem energetic and appealing to reassure voters that the chance they have taken on us is paying off through this parliament and make them feel positive about voting Labour again next time.
Tom Collinge
Tom Collinge is head of policy and comms at Progressive Britain.@ThomasCollinge
It would be difficult to run out of superlatives to describe the mood in the United Center this past week in Chicago (broken down by segment by C-Span here). Were I to prepare a word cloud after attending all four days of the DNC, these would be my more prominent words and phrases: We are not going back! When we fight, we win! Incidentally, the use of “we” twice is seen as key to a collective call to arms. Joy Hope Unity – together Do something! Neighbors Freedom – plenty more on this below. For the people Country over party That’s my dad! USA
Let me pause on this last one for a moment. I have come to cringe when thinking about the chant “USA,” as I associate it with Trump rallies. The beauty though of both the messaging from countless speakers, as well as the placards and flags that were waived seemingly by everyone at the United Center (which seats 23,500; Thursday night entry was denied after 7:00 pm due to capacity concerns), is that Democrats in myriad ways have found their voice on patriotism and service to country.
Themes in Kamala’s Acceptance Speech
Patriotism and service to country were two of a number of examples of the ways in which Convention speakers, and the Vice President in particular in her acceptance speech, repeatedly flipped the script and took control of messaging intended to reach voters in the middle. My favorites: “I know there are people of various political views watching tonight. And I want you to know, I promise to be a President for all Americans. You can always trust me to put country above party and self. To hold sacred America’s fundamental principles, from the rule of law, to free and fair elections, to the peaceful transfer of power.” “My entire career, I’ve only had one client: the people.” “I believe everyone has a right to safety, to dignity, and to justice.” “In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences, the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.” “The future is always worth fighting for. And that’s the fight we are in right now – a fight for America’s future.” We will create an “opportunity economy where everyone has the chance to compete and a chance to succeed.” “… in unity, there is strength. You know, our opponents in this race are out there every day denigrating America, talking about how terrible everything is. Well, my mother had another lesson she used to teach: Never let anyone tell you who you are. You show them who you are. America, let us show each other and the world who we are and what we stand for: freedom, opportunity, compassion, dignity, fairness, and endless possibilities.”
Defining Values
In digesting the themes across the four days, it was fascinating to track both what was said, and what was not said.
Harris defined herself by setting out a core set of values and her vision for the future of the country, and in doing so set out not only her priorities, but at every turn presented sharp contrasts with Trump. She was disciplined.
Suffragette white was evident across the women delegates on the floor, but in a departure from 2016, Harris (dressed in a dark suit) did not dwell directly on breaking the glass ceiling. Katie Glueck, writing in the New York Times, makes the point that in contrast to 2016, while trying to elect another barrier-breaking Democrat, the message to American women today is of necessity far more sober and urgent. In 2016, it was unimaginable that Trump would win and equally unimaginable that Roe would be overturned. Harris could not have been clearer in referring to the potentially even more devastating effect on reproduction health of a second Trump term – “Simply put, they are out of their minds.” Glueck quotes Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, “it does not matter that [Harris] is a woman, to be honest. It matters that she’s a fighter. And it’s just great that she also happens to be a woman.”
Moreover, while Harris’ story was deeply imbedded in her speech, there was no fanfare about becoming the first woman president, the first Black woman president or the first South Asian American woman president. And instead of dwelling on race per se and dignifying Trump’s race-baiting messaging (blatant and direct, rather than dog-whistle), she let others challenge Trump and instead reminded Americans of her family’s immigrant story and ties to the civil rights movement (themes most Americans should agree on). She did this while pledging to be a “president for all Americans.”
There was no hint of the “radical California liberal.” Her speech was remarkable in leaving no doubt that she would pursue and, if given Democratic control of the Senate and House, would achieve, an agenda that Democrats would be proud of (themes that animated so many of the speeches of those who came before her), while at the same time reaching across partisan divides to the voters she needs to win and reminding them, as former Rep. Adam Kinzinger did so forcefully, that the Democratic Party could be a safe home for independents and moderate Republicans turned off by Trump. These echoed similar themes posited by President Obama (“we, the people” includes everyone. … if we talk to our friends, if we listen to our neighbors, if we work like we’ve never worked before, if we hold firm to our convictions, we will elect Kamala Harris as the next President of the United States and Tim Walz as the next Vice President of the United States. We will elect leaders up and down the ballot who will fight for the hopeful, forward-looking America we all believe in.”) and President Clinton (“So, talk to your neighbors. Meet people where they are. Don’t demean them. Ask them for their help.”).
In fact, as Ezra Klein noted in his Friday podcast, in setting out to bolster her weaknesses, many of her themes were conservative (little “c”) – while she highlighted codifying Roe, there was little or nothing about climate change, healthcare, universal child care, pre-K education, Medicare expansion, cancellation of student debt. The immigration policy promise was not comprehensive immigration reform, but strengthening border security:
“I refuse to play politics with our security, and here is my pledge to you. As President, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that [Trump] killed and I will sign it into law. I know, I know we can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system. We can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border.”
Her foreign policy message, to borrow a phrase from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, showed true grit:
“I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong-un, who are rooting for Trump. Who are rooting for Trump. And as president, I will never waver in defense of America’s security and ideals, because in the enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny, I know where I stand and I know where the United States belongs.”
A Different Way of Talking About the Threat to Democracy
Harris used “freedom” 12 times in her speech, yet another example of flipping the script. “Freedom” is far more potent than “democracy” (a phrase used by President Biden ten times, which she only mentioned twice). And importantly she employed both freedom “to” and freedom “from” – freedom to make reproductive decisions, freedom from gun violence, freedom to love who you love openly, freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water, freedom from pollution, and the freedom “that unlocks all the other” – the freedom to vote. As CNN remarked, it was also hard not to also hear the prospect of freedom “from the anger and divisions, both fundamental and petty, that have defined much of the past decade of American life.”
In his acceptance speech, Governor Walz used the terms “free” and “freedom” 12 times.
“I’m letting you in on how we started a family because this is a big part about what this election is about. Freedom. When Republicans use the word freedom, they mean that the government should be free to invade your doctor’s office. Corporations — free to pollute your air and water. And banks — free to take advantage of customers. But when we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people that you love. Freedom to make your own health care decisions. And yeah, your kids’ freedom to go to school without worrying about being shot dead in the hall.”
And Governor Josh Shapiro talked of “real freedom” flowing from investment in schools, infrastructure and communities.”
The use of the term freedom is intended as a pivot away from terminology, though by no means the substance, of President Biden’s messaging about Trump’s extreme ideology” and the threat he and his enablers pose to the “very foundation of our republic.” Her definition of what is at stake in this election is far broader – it is both a far more positive appeal to Americans of all political stripes, but also a bold effort to reclaim values long appropriated by Republicans.
Service to Country
Speaking of which, what better way to call attention to Trump’s views of the military than to hear directly from veterans. Arizona congressman, candidate for US Senate and former Marine Ruben Gallego brought out to the stage dozens of his House and Senate colleagues who had served in the military, after remarking “We have a duty to care for our patriots who serve our nation.” “We understand what service means, because we put country over politics.” “We stand united as veterans, Democrats and patriots to fight for everyone who serves.” Closing eloquently, “veterans who defended this country are not just the reason we can sleep at night. They’re the reason we can dream.”
Former Defense Secretary and CIA Director Leon Panetta excoriated Trump, reminding all that “Trump would abandon our allies and isolate America. We tried that in the 1930s. It was foolish and dangerous then and it is foolish and dangerous now,” “Trump tells tyrants like Putin, they can do whatever the hell they want. Kamala Harris tells tyrants the hell you can, not on my watch.” “Trump does not understand the world and he does not understand the service and sacrifice of our military.”
Senator Mark Kelly, Senator Tammy Duckworth, Rep. Jason Crow and candidate for US Senate Rep. Elissa Slotkin – all military veterans, spoke of national security being on the ballot. Slotkin, urged both viewers and attendees to “proudly claim your patriotism.” “Do not give an inch to pretenders who wrap themselves in the flag but spit in the face of the freedoms it represents.”
Change
While Harris never used the term “change,” the speech was all about change – a change from the dark, divisive and chaotic agenda that Trump and his enablers would usher in, but also a change from the Biden vision (and this was no mean feat since she is the current Vice President). “So, fellow Americans. Fellow Americans. I — I love our country with all my heart. Everywhere I go — everywhere I go, in everyone I meet, I see a nation that is ready to move forward. Ready for the next step in the incredible journey that is America.”
In a nuanced change from Biden administration positions since October 7th, Harris did attempt to thread the needle on Gaza. On Wednesday and Thursday, Democrats addressed the suffering caused by the war in Gaza, including the poignant speech by the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli hostage held by Hamas, with a combination of pleas for a ceasefire deal to end the “suffering of the innocent civilians in Gaza” with bringing the hostages home. In an acceptance speech largely devoid of specific policy pronouncements, Harris devoted more time on Gaza than on any other policy issue. She spoke eloquently of the devastation of Gaza and the imperative of enabling “the Palestinian people [to] realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination,” while reaffirming a commitment to the defense of Israel and ensuring that Israel has the ability to defend itself. Klein described the nuanced change succinctly: “She announced no break with administration policy here, and it felt like a complete break with the administration. And I think it actually is.”
Despite concerns that there could be a repeat of 1968, the pro-Palestinian demonstrations were largely peaceful. In one sense protesters outside the United Center managed to achieve what uncommitted delegates inside were unable to do, to get a Palestinian American included in the speaker line-up (a request incidentally supported by the United Auto Workers). That said, as Tessa Stuart writing in Rolling Stone noted, the fact that Harris used her speech, with 29 million viewers watching, to call attention to the suffering of the Palestinians and call for self-determination was “remarkable.” The applause when she did was momentous, what Stuart described as “one of the most forceful reactions from the crowd.” Stuart quotes a DNC official who said that Palestine had only been mentioned twice at any DNC in the past 40 years.
Wrap-up
Back to my word cloud – I should probably have added “imagine where we were six weeks ago” and multiple variations on that theme. We all came away with a new appreciation of the Vice President and an introduction to a man largely unknown outside of his home state, Governor Tim Walz. We were treated to slick programming, celebrity appearances and four days of stunning speeches that compelled many to remain transfixed on the stage. Incidentally, in perhaps the most devastating news out of Chicago for Trump (forever fixated on crowd sizes and television ratings), Nielsen data (across 15 networks) show average viewership at 21.8 million for the DNC compared to 19.1 million for the RNC. The fourth night attracted 26.2 million viewers, compared to 25.4 million who tuned into the fourth night of the RNC. Audience levels tend to spike for acceptance speeches: Harris had 28.9 million viewers, compared to 28.4 million for Trump (based on Nielsen data). Note that Nielsen does not count streaming services or public access channels.
Let me add another phrase, not heard but certainly felt by the capacity-crowd in the United Center – “proud to be a Democrat.” Proud:that the Party pivoted in four weeks to line up solidly behind Harris following President Biden’s announcement on July 21, and that the DNC pulled off a stunning, flawless four-day program in the United Center – the positive adjectives for which know few bounds. that the Party, contrary to the criticisms of many (often framed in the context of the argument that President Biden was too old to run again), has an unbelievably talented deep bench (consider just Pete Buttigieg, Jasmine Crockett, Wes Moore, Josh Shapiro, Gina Raimondo, Gretchen Whitmer). to have witnessed, in the words of Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun Times, the “oratorical perfection” of Michelle and Barack Obama.” Michelle “laid out the qualifications of Harris and defended the principle of everyone being included in our national story: ‘No one has a monopoly on what it means to be an American. No one.’” to see the Veep contenders all delivering remarks, in yet another demonstration of unity, and to see two stalwarts of the Party assumed to have played pivotal roles in persuading President Biden to step aside — President Obama and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi – speaking at the Convention. that Harris chose a running mate who in deeds as much as in words represents normalcy, service, decency. that the Convention could elevate both Ken Chenault, the former CEO of American Express, and Shawn Fain, UAW President, highlighting in the words of E.J. Dionne Jr. an economic story that can connect the worlds of both – in essence, a recognition that markets alone (underpinned by lower taxes and less regulation) are not the answer, and that “the unions and the government supports offering child care, elder care, education, training and public investment are also essential to a good and functioning society.” that the Convention featured a number of Republican speakers, including former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, former White House official Olivia Troye, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, former Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan and Mesa, Arizona Mayor John Giles. of the voices calling out the darkness that underpins why a Harris presidency is a must – gun violence survivors, members of the “Exonerated Five,” victims of state abortion bans, the family of US Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick.
Concluding Thoughts
For David Brooks, speaking on PBS NewsHour, the contrast between the RNC and DNC came down to this: while the Republicans doubled down on their core story (the elites betrayed us, we are going to build a working-class army to overthrow the system; JD Vance compounds the story), the Democrats expanded their story (Democrats overturned conventional wisdom and stereotypes – video clips of Tim Walz hunting, football players and veterans on stage, patriotism on full display, Harris embracing a hawkish foreign policy).
The voters for whom the Republicans have doubled down represent 46%. We will get a sense of the post-Convention polling later this week. Every demographic that shifts to Harris will be critically important, but one thing the polling is showing is that the gender gap is unprecedented, and it is unprecedented in part because it is present in every demographic imaginable. Of all the changes we have seen, perhaps the most important is the permission given to independent and moderate Republican women, including unmarried women, to shift to Harris. As Philip Bump noted in his Washington Post column, the surge in support for Harris is being driven heavily by women and younger voters. “The question is whether the change from Biden to Harris marks Democrats coming home or if it is the start of a trend of Harris pulling away”. If it’s the former, 2024 will again be a close contest that comes down to narrow margins in some or all of the six states above. If it’s the latter?
