VOTE2019 Labour
BY RYAN FLETCHER
Investing in the people
Labour has announced radical plans to tackle the “twin crises” of the climate emergency and social deprivation with a £400bn investment package.
The plans were unveiled by shadow chancellor John McDonnell in Liverpool on November 7, who said that “future generations would never forgive us” if definitive action to deal with the issues is not taken.
McDonnell said the plans are “in the best tradition of British socialism” and follow in the footsteps of Hugh Dalton and Gordon Brown.
Planning how the investment would benefit communities across the country would be devolved, with part of the Treasury moving to north England and ministerial meetings taking place both in London and other locations.
“What does this mean? It means that the centre of political gravity is shifting away from London. It’s coming back home to the north,” McDonnell said.
Criticising plans by the Tories to revise their fiscal rules in order to increase infrastructure spending by £20bn a year, McDonnell made clear that more ambition is required to make real progress tacking inequality and climate change.
The £400bn investment package will be split between a £250bn green transformation fund to be spent over 10 years on things such as developing clean energy and a green transport network and making homes energy efficient – creating 400,000 jobs in the process.
The remaining £150bn will go to a five year social transformation fund to be spent on hospital, school and social housing infrastructure, McDonnell said, in order to “begin the urgent task of repairing our social fabric that has been torn apart by the Tories”.
McDonnell said voters should dismiss Tory promises to invest in the country, saying they treat the public with “contempt”.
“The Tories, the very people who have just inflicted nearly a decade of harsh, brutal and unnecessary austerity cuts on our community, the people who starved our NHS, cut school budgets and sacked police officers are all of a sudden gushing with election stunt offers of spending more. They take us all for fools,” he said.
“Judge them on their record and their actions, not on their election gimmick false promises. You can’t trust a word they say. You know that if they get back we all risk five more years of cuts, falling wages, Trump trade deals and a rising state pension age.”
12 uniteWORKS Winter 2019
Labour’s plans follow ‘in the best tradition of British socialism’
McDonnell added that this election provides the chance of “real change”.
“A decade spent rebuilding our society and saving our planet for our children and grandchildren. Building the homes we need. Investing to create the well-paid jobs, secure with the restoration of trade union rights. Creating clean green energy and transport networks,” he said.
“That change begins with voting Labour and electing a Labour government with Jeremy Corbyn at the helm. But it carries on long after that, until we create a radically transformed society with restored pride in every part of the country.”
After delivering the speech McDonnell was asked if Labour’s plans would upset financial markets and risk increasing inflation.
He replied, “Our scale of investment matches the scale of those emergencies that we now face, on climate change and socially. I’ll tell you, if we didn’t set off on that march, future generations would never forgive us.
“Our aim as a Labour government is to achieve what past Labour governments have aspired to: an irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people.”
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