Category: Articles

The funding of new homes by direct government borrowing is highly efficient, writes Ken Livingstone.

AS PART of his successful campaign to be re-elected Labour leader this summer, Jeremy Corbyn pledged to “build a million new homes in five years, with at least half a million council homes, through our public investment strategy. We will end insecurity for private renters by introducing rent controls, secure tenancies and a charter of private tenants’ rights, and increase access to affordable home ownership.”
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Labour conference this week confirmed the party now has a radical and credible economic alternative that can win an election, writes Ken Livingstone.

Labour’s conference this week saw a series of policy announcements and keynote speeches that set out a real vision for a better Britain.

In re-electing Jeremy Corbyn by a landslide, Labour’s grassroots showed that they understand that the extent of the deepening problems facing Britain, including our long-term structural economic problems, need a response that is radical, credible and can be popular on the doorstep.
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Jeremy Corbyn’s policy of a people’s railway can be a popular alternative for Labour, writes Ken Livingstone.

THE current and ongoing issues with Southern Rail should be another nail in the coffin of the failed experiment that has been the privatisation of our railways.

It is just the latest in a series of examples that illustrate just what a bad deal for taxpayers the privatisation of the railways has turned out to be, from the fiasco of Railtrack — which brought the national rail network to the brink of collapse in 2002 — to the issues around Metronet — in charge at one point of two-thirds of the misguided public private partnership (PPP) on the Tube — to the temporary nationalisation of the East Coast line, to the chaos around Southern today.
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It is not because he can’t win a General Election that the establishment is trying every trick in the book to remove Jeremy Corbyn, it is precisely because they are concerned he can win, and then transform Britain.

Since his landslide win in the contest to be Labour leader last September, the Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour Party has continually and consistently opposed the Tories’ austerity agenda.

In this short time he has already delivered significant change, and has started to shift the framework of political debate in Britain.
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Jeremy Corbyn was proven right: those supporting him are right again, writes Ken Livingstone.

THE vote to leave the European Union represented many things. But it is clear that one of the issues that motivated voters was a profound distrust of politicians.

Nobody on the left believed that Tory Brexit leaders would see £350 million per week channelled to the NHS, but even a majority of Conservative voters refused to buy whatever David Cameron was trying to sell.
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It is my strong and long-held belief that what holds back Britain’s economy is a lack of investment, both public and private, which is now running at its lowest level since World War II.

Nearly all economists now agree that investment is not just the most important factor in economic growth, but outweighs all others put together.

This is why, for example, when the Con-Dem coalition first took power and drastically cut back on the last Labour government’s investment spending, it pushed our economy back into recession.
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Jeremy Corbyn’s 10 pledges give Labour the economic alternative it needs to beat the Tories and regenerate society, writes Ken Livingstone.

WHILE some Labour parliamentarians sadly seem to be continuing to focus their energies on attacking Jeremy Corbyn, it was good to see shadow chancellor John McDonnell explain on the Radio 4 Today programme this week that the productivity problems Britain faces are a product of a lack of long-term investment, and that is now what is needed to deliver both sustainable growth and social justice following the EU referendum result.
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The right want Jeremy out because he stands a real chance of changing this country, says Ken Livingstone.

SINCE his landslide win in the contest to be Labour leader last September, the Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour Party has continually and consistently opposed the Tories’ austerity agenda and is starting to shift the framework of political debate in Britain.

Jeremy has only been the leader of the Labour Party since September but he has already delivered significant change, not only in the direction of the Labour Party but in how politics is conducted.
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Tory retreats are welcome at a time when the British economy needs further austerity like a hole in the head, writes Ken Livingstone.

Tory Chancellor George Osborne has announced a “5-point plan” following the EU referendum, with the centrepiece being an intention to cut the corporation tax rate to 15 per cent.

Osborne justifies this decision by claiming it will attract extra investment and thereby help to offset the shock of the Brexit referendum outcome.
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The most extraordinary thing about recent political developments in Brazil is that just 55 senators overturned the will of 54 million Brazilians at the ballot box who re-elected President Dilma Rousseff. They did this by suspending her as the President for 180 days and installing Michael Temer as interim President. For those of us who expressed solidarity with activists against the US-backed dictatorship in Brazil from 1964-1985,and stood with the Chilean people against General Pinochet following the 1973 coup there, alarm bells are ringing at this right-wing attempt at regime change in one of the world’s largest democracies.
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