4.24am EDT
04:24
McDonald’s resignation looks like ‘planned sabotage’, says shadow cabinet minister
Ian Murray, the shadow Scottish secretary, has described Andy McDonald’s resignation yesterday as looking like “planned sabotage”. He told BBC Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland:
We’re not quite sure why [McDonald] resigned yesterday, he seems to have said one thing and written another. That looks as if it might be a planned sabotage of conference, rather than it being about any principle.
This was a policy, don’t forget, that Andy McDonald and the shadow cabinet wrote, he put through shadow cabinet and he launched with much acclaim in the conference hall 48 hours before he resigned.
We’re not quite sure why he resigned, but these things happen in politics and we’re all very angry and frustrated that the headlines are being dominated by one person when we should be talking about the big issues of the future.
Murray was referring to Labour’s employment rights green paper (pdf) published at the weekend. As shadow secretary of state for employment rights, McDonald helped to write it.
This is what it says about the minimum wage.
Labour is demanding that the minimum wage is immediately raised to at least GBP10 per hour for all workers and will continue to evaluate what a real living wage should be.
Labour will continue to assess how to deliver its commitment to raising the national living wage to ensure that it is adequate and addresses the rise in the cost of living and inflation since 2019.
The role of the Low Pay Commission will be reformed so that wage floor policy continues to be evidenced-based but is as active as it can be in driving up wages.
The national living wage is currently GBP8.91 for people age 23 and over. It used to be for people age 25 and over, but at their 2019 party conference the Tories announced that over time they would bring down the age at which it applies to 21. Currently the minimum wage is GBP6.56 for people age 18 to 20, and GBP8.36 for people age 21 to 22.
4.06am EDT
04:06
In his Today interview Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, said the Labour leadership would be “perfectly happy” for delegates to vote today for the workers’ rights motion saying the conference supports a GBP15 per hour statutory minimum wage.
He said the party was committed to a national minimum wage of at least GBP10. He went on:
We will then make that assessment; we look at inflation levels, we look at wage levels, we look at the general economic circumstances for the next election, whenever that comes.
3.58am EDT
03:58
Corbyn wrong about Starmer not wanting to challenge wealth and power, says Thomas-Symonds
This is what Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, told the Today programme this morning when asked about Jeremy Corbyn’s claim that the current Labour leadership just wants to “prop up, not challenge … wealth and power”. (See 8.48am.) He said:
I don’t accept any of that analysis at all. Only in recent days we’ve seen the ending of the charitable status of private schools, for example, and redirecting that money to actually making sure that educational standards across the board are raised.
Keir has a passionate sense of social justice.
3.48am EDT
03:48
Corbyn says Starmer ‘wants to prop up, not challenge, wealth and power’
Good morning. This is Sir Keir Starmer’s first proper conference as Labour leader and, like many of his predecessors over the years, he is finding that, while he might want to focus on setting out a policy offer to the nation, he is instead spending much of the week engaging in non-fraternal feuding with the left.
Sometimes these battles can be leveraged by a leader to persuade voters that he’s tough, decisive, not beholden to unrepresentative activists etc etc. (With Labour, it has always been a he.) But often the rows just leave the party looking divided, and irrelevant to the big issue facing the nation at the time.
It is not obvious yet which of these takes will be the more plausible verdict on Labour’s 2021 conference, but last night left oppositionism escalated a notch or two when Andy McDonald quit the shadow cabinet, and today there will be a vote on a GBP15 per hour minimum wage (the cause that prompted McDonald’s resignation). Starmer is not endorsing this policy, but he is not asking delegates to vote it down either (which would be a lost cause).
McDonald’s resignation coincided with Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader, publishing an article with particular wounding critique of his successor. He says Starmer and his team “want to prop up … wealth and power”. Writing in the i he says:
Elsewhere, our movement has begun to develop ideas for how we all benefit from the unprecedented support big business received during the pandemic.
We could, for example, take a public stake in the large companies that received public support in the pandemic and use that to create a People’s Asset Manager that pays out an annual People’s Pay Out to every citizen.
These ideas are why the Labour membership and trade unions are under attack – because they want to challenge the wealth and power of the few.
It also explains the lamentable decision to close down the community organising unit, when we need to be a social movement of vibrant activism at all times.
So far this week, Labour’s leaders have shown they want to prop up, not challenge that wealth and power.
There is another way forward, that is based on social justice, and in the policies the majority of people actually want, not what the establishment and its media mouthpieces insist they should want.
Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary who has been giving interviews this morning, has firmly rejected Corbyn’s claim. He says policies like the plan to end the charitable status of private schools show Corbyn is wrong. I will post excerpts from his interview shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10.10am: Kate Green, the shadow education secretary, opens a debate on education. Wes Streeting, the shadow secretary of state for child poverty, winds it up at 11am.
11.15am: Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, opens a debate on health and social care.
2.15pm: Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, opens a debate on justice and home affairs. That will be followed by a resumption of the economy debate, which covers a motion saying the minimum wage should be GBP15 per hour. David Lammy, the shadow justice secretary, will wrap up proceedings with a speech at 5.10pm.
I expect to be focusing exclusively on Labour today. For the latest in the fuel shortage crisis, do follow my colleague Graeme Wearden‘s business live blog.
I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
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Updated
at 4.07am EDT
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