Hunger and Hypocrisy

So the United Nations' eight Millennium Development Goals are not on track.

The eight aims of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, and developing a global partnership for development now look unlikely to be achieved by the target year of 2015.

With the amount of wealth on this planet, there should not be millions of children in the world today dying of malnutrition. Those lucky enough to survive a childhood, face a bleak life without opportunity and education.

Conditions need to be changed so that developing countries have the opportunity to carve out their own future and generate their own wealth, otherwise talk of equality at the UN headquarters will be nothing more than rhetoric. The vicious circle of debt that sees a significant proportion of dependent countries’ GDP going on interest payments has to end, as must the external pressure to concentrate the economy’s fate on one or two cash crops that are vulnerable to volatile market forces. The demand to clamp down on the business elites in poor countries who hold their money in off-shore accounts also has to be taken seriously. The world's wealth has to be shared more equitably.

One of the more interesting stories from the New York meeting to discuss the Millennium Development Goals has centred on the views of Gordon Brown. The former Prime Minister expressed “anger” at the failure of rich nations to honour their pledges.

Is this the same Gordon Brown that as Chancellor and then, Prime Minister, protected the business elite in the city of London and failed to take action to restrain the casino capitalism that almost brought the UK's financial system to its knees? The money that has been found to prop up the institutions headed by greed-fuelled fat cats would have made a significant difference towards meeting the Millenium Development Goals.

This is the same Gordon Brown who presided over a widening of the gap between rich and poor in the UK in the 13 years New Labour had to correct the ills of a Tory Government.

He failed to lift a finger to prevent an illegal war in Iraq that saw endemic poverty increase throughout much of the country and essential services decimated.

The next time he gets onto his high horse, it may be wise for Mr Brown to consider the legacy he has left during the years he had power to implement real change.

Home Truths

We're finally in to the the last week of election campaigning, after a week of some interesting revelations. Cleverly disguised appearances have been stripped and exposed by the intense glare of scrutiny.

It was not just Gordon Brown who showed his disdain for voters and their opinions.
The Tories, who have somehow branded themselves as an all-inclusive, caring and sharing party while operating under the stewardship of these men have admitted public spending under their watch will be cut in the areas which need it the most.

Then we had a Tory candidate deviating from the official party line, saying what he really thought about gay people. Still not convinced? Then check out what this Tory idiot was saying earlier this month on Fox television in the USA. Are his views privately shared by a significant number of his party colleagues? It should at least make people question that pledge to protect health spending.

Then - Nick Clegg showed he didn’t have all the answers when under pressure. Will people see through the man who has seen his main profits coming from not being Cameron or Brown? There also remain questions to be asked about his party’s policies on restricting immigrants to certain regions and their anti-trade union attitudes.

Plaid Cymru policies have withstood scrutiny from the fiercest of television interviewers. We were denied the opportunity to show we could more than handle our own when it comes to debating the content of our manifesto pledges and their credibility on a primetime platform with the three stooges of Clegg, Cameron and Brown. This view is borne out by the reaction I am finding on the doorsteps when out knocking doors and talking people.

I only hope plaid campaigners everywhere can reach enough houses in time to bridge the gap left by the poor hand the broadcasters have dealt us.

Brown helped cause the crisis

Carywn Jones today defends the British union by saying:

"Labour is a unionist party...The economic crisis spells out very clearly that any talk of independence is in tatters. The global economic crisis shows how we are better off in a strong Britain rather than independent like Iceland. Iceland has virtually gone bankrupt while Britain, under the leadership of Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has been leading the world in developing progressive policies to address the financial crisis."

Yet Will Hutton in yesterday's Observer says:

"German criticisms about the structure of the British economy are telling. Between 2001 and 2008 New Labour allowed British banking assets to rise from twice GDP to more than four times GDP, a similar trajectory to Iceland, as the by-product of a wild credit and asset-price bubble. Meanwhile Gordon Brown lectured Germany for not following the British example, not embracing financial deregulation and the American business model."

Who was in charge of the British economy between 2001 and 2008? For the most part, Gordon Brown. Progressive? I can't decide which is more regressive; the development of the de-regulatory American model which got us into this crisis, or the way that he has failed working people by allowing unemployment to spiral whilst bailing out the bankers and bosses.

Time for a workers' bail-out

It's now been established that work at Hoover in Merthyr Tydfil is under threat. 337 jobs are now confirmed to be at risk. The plant is not in my region of South Wales Central, but some of the workers are. We've also heard in the past few days that Bosch plans to lay off several hundred workers. That came after more news of 50 job losses Waldon Cars in Tonyrefail, and the problems at L'Oreal in Talbot Green where I met management and workers to try and find a way to minimise the impact of changes there.

It was not long ago that we could claim record numbers of people in employment in Wales. Now that claim has been turned on its head. Unemployment in Wales (standing at 6.7% in the latest statistics) is now outstripping most of the rest of the UK. Repossession rates are also on the increase. The part-nationalisation of some banks by Gordon Brown should have halted mortgage repossessions. Yet Northern Rock's house repossession rates increased after it became a publicly-owned bank. Gordon Brown has bailed out the banks but has not followed up on imposing limitations and conditions to protect working people.

Bank executives are still receiving huge bonuses and are still laying off thousands of workers. Lloyds TSB and HBOS branches in Cardiff, Barry and elsewhere in Wales could face closure if the merger of those two banks goes ahead. The HBOS Card Accounts building across the road from the Assembly might also have to cut jobs. In Merthyr, the PCS Union has warned that Merthyr's HMRC (Customs and Revenue) offices could shut as part of the UK Government's cutbacks. Seventy people are employed there.

The Assembly in Cardiff is limited in what it can do in a global recession of this scale. Ieuan Wyn Jones has been able to save some jobs at Hoover, and Jocelyn Davies has introduced a mortgage rescue scheme for the worst case scenarios where repossessions would result in homelessness. The Economic Summit was a decisive step and I will be pressing for the One Wales Government to take more measures to protect as many jobs and homes as possible. There's plenty more to be done on both ends of the M4, but as a matter of urgency Gordon Brown must abandon his UK-wide programme of civil service cuts. There is no way Labour in London can justify cutting jobs which they bankroll at a time like this. The bailout for banks has saved the salaries of the executives- now we need a bailout for workers.

Gordon Brown gives us the green light

Gordon Brown isn’t a popular figure with Plaid Cymru members. His privatisation agenda, fixation on ‘Britishness’ and support for disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not exactly turned the embattled Prime Minister into an electoral asset.

But, Gordon Brown’s speech to the Northern Ireland Assembly shows that miracles can happen. The Bard of Britishness gave his full and strident backing to further and full devolution of powers to Northern Ireland’s Assembly.

The enlightened PM said:

“There is something more vital at stake for your entire society - that only the completion of devolution can deliver.
How can you, as an Assembly, address common criminality, low-level crime and youth disorder
· when you are responsible for only some of the levers for change?
· when you have responsibility for education and health and social development but have to rely on Westminster for policing and justice?"

The people of Northern Ireland look to you to deal with these matters because to them they are important. Full devolution is the way to deliver better services, tailored to the needs of all communities, regardless of the politics. It is the best way for you to serve them.”

Our Assembly needs powers over criminal justice as soon as possible, so that we can get our young people out of the youth crime trap. I have already set out my stall on how this could be done. The Prime Minister's conversion is timely as the charity Barnardo's today delivered one of the most damning verdicts yet on our failing criminal justice system, which incarcerates more kids than any other country in Europe except for Russia and the Ukraine.

Based on Brown’s logic in his Northern Ireland speech, criminality and disorder in Wales is never going to be solved until we have the tools we need to do the job.