We need a new political agenda. The major parties in the UK are all locked into a neo-liberal agenda where the market rules and government intervention is regarded as inappropriate.
But it is obvious that a continuance of pursuing a neo-liberal agenda is not sustainable. The housing market is flawed – it satisfies the demands of the affluent not need; an open labour market which allows a free flow of people regardless of the impact on the wider society; a market system that fails to take account of the environment.
Yet all we are offered is more of the same, more privatisation, more market less state, greater inequality. There is also a severe democratic deficit – creating an opening for more extreme politics.
What do we want?
We want a society which is democratic; where the market is an element of the economy but does not dominate to the exclusion of everything else. When Sir Terry Leahy states that Tesco did not maintain low prices all he is doing is perpetuating a downward spiral in the economy. Low prices dependent on producers being paid less, more cost cutting to the detriment of workers.
Environmental sustainability should be the core to any policy. Those who think we can continue to allow population and resource use to continue – the truth deniers – cannot be allowed to control policy.
