WOODHOUSE LABOUR SOCIETY A P R I L E D I T I O N C O N T E N T S Inside the Party (8th March – 22nd March) – pg2 Opinion Piece: The Thucydides trap or the Golden Arches of Conflict Prevention Theory? – pg5 Opinion Piece: Safeguarding the public or curtailing their rights? – pg7 Recommendations – pg9 People involved in the creation of this newsletter: Archie Ryan Alesia Laci Moulika Shome James Dumonbreville 1 Inside the Party (8th March – 22nd March) – Archie Ryan – 8th March Sarwar demands £12 hourly wage for social care workers in the Scottish Budget • Scottish Labour has announced that it would be willing to back the Scottish government’s Budget “if it delivers a fair deal for social care workers” • This means increasing pay to £12 an hour, planning to raise it to £15 in the next parliament. • The challenge comes after a GMB trade union survey revealed that 98% of social care workers feel underpaid and 52% undervalued by the Scottish government 9th March Momentum unveils strategy to push 2024 Labour platform leftward • Left-wing group Momentum has published a strategy to create “broad alliances for socialism” in an effort to “retool” the organisation and “push the Labour Party to contest the 2024 general election with a socialist policy platform • The strategy outlines three key focuses: building left power within the party; campaigning in communities and supporting working-class struggle; and popularising socialist ideas 10th March Starmer demands MPs vote on NHS pay as new figures show NHS staff saw pay slashed by the conservatives since 2010 • At PMQs, Keir Starmer called on the Prime Minister to give MPs a vote on NHS pay amid mounting anger at the Government’s proposed NHS pay cut • Accounting for inflation, Labour’s research shows that since the Conservatives took power in 2010, some NHS workers have seen their pay slashed by thousands of pounds (e.g. Since 2010, the average salary of nurse and health visitor has seen a real terms cut of £2,379 per year) 11th March Labour urges Johnson to correct the record after false claims regarding an NHS funding vote • Labour is urging Boris Johnson to “set the record straight” after the Prime Minister falsely claimed that the opposition had voted against a proposed 2.1% pay rise for NHS workers in England 12th March Rachel Reeves responds to news that Britain’s exports to the EU were down more than 40% in January - the largest monthly fall in goods exports since records began in 1997 • “These figures make it clear just how many British businesses have been struggling with the new reams of costly red tape and bureaucracy this Government has wrapped them in” – Rachel Reeves 2 13th March Not-so “inside the party”: Liz Truss promises a ban on gay conversion therapy • Whilst not-quite loyal to the name of this section (quite the contrary) not much really occurred within the Labour Party this day and so I felt that this was certainly worth a mention since this is a fight that has been consistently fought by the members of the party for years and if woven firmly into legislation, there is cause for much congratulations! 14th March David Lammy: Labour will be voting against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill • “The tragic death of Sarah Everard has instigated a national demand for action to tackle violence against women. […] This is no time to be rushing through poorly thought-out measures to impose disproportionate controls on free expression and the right to protest” – David Lammy 15th March Sarwar puts “national recovery plan” at the heart of Scottish election campaign: • Anas Sarwar has declared that a “national recovery plan” for Scotland will be the centrepiece of the Scottish Labour election campaign • Delivering his first major speech as Scottish Labour, he announced five themes to the election campaign: “a jobs recovery; an NHS recovery; an education recovery; a climate recovery; and a communities recovery” • “We can’t rely on Boris Johnson’s Tories to deliver a recovery that works for everyone. They are happy to return to the failed economic model pre-Covid […] We can’t rely on the SNP to prioritise recovery because they’ve already made clear that they will prioritise a referendum this year.” – Anas Sarwar 16th March Labour votes against anti-protest bill but it passes by a majority of 96 votes: • The House of Commons passes controversial legislation proposed by the government that would hand police tougher powers to crack down on protesters, a contemptible disgrace to democracy and political participation • Labour voted against the bill at its second reading tonight and attempted to stop its passage, saying it fails to tackle violence against women and girls and restricts the right to protest 17th March Andy McDonald, Labour’s Shadow Employment Rights and Protection Secretary responds to the announcement that Uber will give its UK drivers a guaranteed minimum wage, holiday pay and pensions: • “It is welcome news that Uber are to recognise their drivers as workers. This announcement is testament to the hard work of the GMB trade unions and drivers, but it should not have taken 5 years of court battles for drivers to get basic rights at work.” – Andy McDonald 3 18th March Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar demand UK-wide focus on Covid recovery: • Starmer will join Anas Sarwar to demand a UK-wide focus on the recovery from the pandemic • Speaking ahead of a visit to Edinburgh and Glasgow, the UK Labour Party leader declared that Scotland’s recovery from the health crisis “must be the number one priority for its government” 19th March Local elections offer chance to send message on NHS pay, Labour tells voters: • Jonathan Ashworth, Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, is telling voters that the May elections represent an opportunity for the public to “send a message to the Conservatives” on their decision to reward health service workers with a real-terms pay cu • “Whether you live in London or Lancashire, you can send a message to the Conservatives in May that a pay cut for our NHS heroes is an insult. A vote for Labour is a vote to support our nurses.” – Jonathan Ashworth 20th March Shadow Home Secretary requests a move to a comprehensive hotel quarantine system as European Covid cases rise: • Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas Symonds, has responded to rising Covid cases in many European countries by calling for “a comprehensive hotel quarantine system, without further delay” to “protect the progress made by the vaccine” • “It is too early to say if there can be any changes to travel advice on 17 May, as numbers in many European countries are increasing so sharply. We have to be led by the science, not arbitrary dates.” – Nick Thomas Symonds 21st March Labour calls for “NHS rescue package”: • Today, Shadow Health Secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, this stressed the need to get to grips with rising patient waiting times and cancer care 22nd March Labour calls for ‘level playing field’ between online and high street retailers: • Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds stressed the need to even out competition between giants such as Amazon and smaller businesses • Campaigning in Birmingham ahead of the local elections in May, Dodds said the Government needed to put a stop to online firms paying “little to no tax” and allowing them to “undercut” rate-paying shops, warning that, without action, the “loss of shops and high street businesses that I’ve seen here in Birmingham today will only accelerate” 4 Opinion Pieces *Do note that opinion pieces reflect only the opinions of their creators, not the society as a whole* The Thucydides trap or the Golden Arches of Conflict Prevention Theory? – Moulika Shome – The Thucydides trap is a realist theory which suggests that war between a rising power and an existing superpower is inevitable. The idea came from Greek historian Thucydides who studied how the Peloponnesian war (war between Sparta and Athens) had broken out. In this case, Sparta was the existing superpower which was shocked to see Athens becoming a powerhouse of culture, arts, and politics.1 On the Other hand, The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention by Thomas Friedman says that no two countries that have a McDonald’s restaurants would ever go to war with each other. Professor Graham Allison, a political scientist in Harvard University, had used this theory to talk about the possibility of China and the USA going into war. I personally think that the Golden Arches theory sounds more plausible than that Thucydides trap, in the case of China and USA. Professor Graham Allison had found through the Harvard Belfer center of Science and International Affairs that there are 16 different situations in which the Thucydides trap was present. Out of the 16 cases, there were only 4 cases where war did not break out between the ‘ruling’ and ‘rising’ powers. This was due to measures taking place such as increased monitoring of each other’s affairs, Allison suggests the Zhou-Enlai, and Kissinger talks are one of the ways where the trap can be defeated. In each case, they tried to find the ruling and the rising powers and see how the Thucydides trap affected each case. According to Graham Allison, Thucydides had suggested that trying to implement ‘Business as Usual’ is what makes countries become more vulnerable to the trap, rather than a sudden attack. A famous case study that the Harvard Belfer Center have found was World War I. World War I had taken place because of rivalry which took place between Britain and Germany.