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okay
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welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me George Galloway and me gatri it
would be true to say that the working
class has changed but false to say it
had disappeared changes like Automation
atomization and insecurity have been
used by some to deny the very existence
of class in the modern world and that
class-based politics belongs in the end
of History this is one of many themes
playing out in the epic battle to
overthrow Jeremy Corbin as labor leader
our first guest is a fellow and vice
principal of St Hilda's College Oxford
University and author of young women
work and family in England which won the
women's history Network prize and the
people the rise and fall of the working
class 1910 to 2010 she's Professor
Selena Todd and she joins us now
Professor thanks for joining us I want
to challenge the premise on the in the
very title of your book I argue that the
working class has not Fallen merely
morphed and changed yeah I'd agree with
that in fact we know from opinion polls
that most people in Britain today still
identify as working class the subtitle
of the book is trying to get at the fact
that politically and culturally if we
think about our mainstream media the
working class has all but disappeared
and when I started writing the book one
of my motivations was to ask how's that
happened how is it that within public
life the working class just seem to have
disappeared when in fact when you talk
to people they say it still very much
exists all around us everything that we
see is made by people uh and every
service we received is is is giv given
by uh people so the existence of a group
of people uh who depend upon their lay
to live and if they had no wage no
salary they would not be able to survive
the end of the week or the end of the
month that's all the working class
really means isn't it I'd say it means
that and it means something else as well
which is what do people think about that
does that fact of their circumstance and
I absolutely agree with what you're
saying does that mean something
significant to them what struck me when
I started my research for the book
around 200920 10 was that the economic
crash had happened and quite a lot of
politicians have been saying for a while
on the left as well as the right we live
in a class of society now what people
said to me was you know my standard of
living might look middle class but
actually I feel insecure I'm not sure
I'm going to pay my mortgage I'm
certainly not sure how my kids are going
to get a house are they going to have a
job to go to when they leave school and
so increasingly that very fact that you
mentioned George the fact that you have
to go to work for a living was coming to
mean something very significant to
people including people who just a few
years earlier had thought of themselves
because they were managers perhaps as in
quite secure jobs actually statistics
this week showed that Britain today is
one of the most unequal Societies in the
Western World absolutely and that's been
the case for a long time and that
inequality has been growing since
1979 when neoliberal economics was
embraced by Margaret Thatcher's
conservative government and subsequently
by labor governments as well as Tories
how does that play into the political
system you're to too young to remember
but the the eurocommunist thesis around
the magazine Marxism today began to
argue that the the working class
politics class politics per se uh were
becoming a thing of the past this was
picked up by social Democrats in the
leadership of the labor party at the
time Neil kinnick and others and used to
uh generate a a completely different
kind of politics which became actually
blism absolutely and one of the things
that I try to challenge in my book The
People is the really narrow view of the
working class that those politicians
held and still hold I think which is
this idea that to have a working class
we need to have a predominantly male
industrialized Workforce working in
kinds of Industries like steel and
Mining actually going back to what you
said earlier to have a working class
doesn't mean any of that one of the
things that I make the point about in
the book is the fact that until the
1940s the single largest group of
working people in Britain were women
domestic servants so when we hear today
oh well there's no working class because
most people work in service Industries
many people are working in non-unionized
sectors I say well you know what it was
like that before 1940 but when we look
back we know that those people had class
Consciousness they were the very
Generations who were forming trade
unions now you speak of domestic
servants you I understand you use in
your books servants the domestic
servants as a barometer of social change
now of course we don't live in downtown
EBY scenarios anymore but our servants
today I.E house cleaners babysitters dog
walkers I mean they're from Eastern
European now or Asia so they are still
here absolutely absolutely and you make
a really interesting point there about
migrant labor again it's something which
I found very worrying in recent years
many politicians have somehow tried to
suggest that immigration is new to
Britain one of the very interesting
facts about domestic servant is that on
the whole by the 1930s their poor young
women coming from Ireland or coming into
England from impoverished parts of
Scotland and Wales uh in Glasgow when I
was very young there was one Factory
parkhead Forge which employed 30,000
people it's now a shopping mall as that
happened uh when I joined the transport
and general Workers Union in 1973 it had
2 million members the TU had 13 million
members now it has 6 million members uh
things have changed
superficially but as I think we're
agreeing here and I look forward to
reading the book uh workers are still
workers no matter in what numbers they
are congregated what gender they are or
even What ethnicity they are and they
are that upon which we all depend
absolutely and many of them are aware of
it when I was researching the book I was
very impatient with the kind of
generalities that politicians came up
about with the working class I thought
let's go and talk to people and so the
books packed with personal testimonies
are people I interviewed people I've
been at school with I from Newcastle
pontin so I interviewed many of the
people who I'd been at comprehensive
school with but then went and found in
archives oral histories testimonies of
earlier Generations often put together
by school children by ordinary people
who just wanted to write down their
stories you know you don't need to be a
professional historian like me to do
history right and what struck me was we
sometimes have a very narrow conception
of how Working Class People organize I
didn't just want to write a history that
was about victimhood and you know as
you've both made the point we could
write that history we could say well
it's all about inequality it's all about
people being on their knees but I was
interested in how do people organize
trade unions is one way and it's very
interesting that the largest group of
workers who are being fastest unionized
at the moment a part-time women workers
yeah we don't hear very much about that
but also of course people have always
organized in other ways I mean you'll be
aware from Glasgow rent strikes the role
of women as well as men in things like
rent strikes in tenants Association s in
arguing for Community rights in arguing
for local control of schools these are
issues that we can all get behind now
and rather than saying there's no
working class we don't need to bother
about the working class what politicians
should be doing is listening to people
and thinking where are they organizing
what are the issues that are mobilizing
them because we hear a lot of worries
about people not going out to vote but
actually what you have to do is work out
where are people instead of saying to
them you should be um in the polling
station or you should be in the trade
Union let's go to them find out what
they want yes quite now uh you I think
and certainly we are uh big supporters
of Jeremy Corbin we're reaching the end
now of this stage at least of the epic
battle to overthrow him he's reflecting
the kind of uh political analysis that
you're writing about isn't he uh he is
agreeing with what we're arguing here
that whatever other identities people
have and their right to be proud of
their and conscious of their identities
whether gender or orientation or color
ethnicity uh uh religion or whatever the
fundamental identity they have is that
in relation to Capital are they workers
who can live without work or are they
people who depend on work to live that's
the Corbin uh agenda really isn't it
yeah think it is and I'm very excited
about it I saw him speak at an early
stage of his leadership campaign last
year one of the things that really
impressed me actually was that he made
exactly the point that you're making
which is people can have multiple
identities but when we talk about class
we're talking fundamentally about a
relationship not an identity and he said
actually you know so what we do is we
have to think about how do we reshape
these kinds of economic relationships so
that we can start talking about equality
I was really excited about that because
something I'm researching at the moment
something I got very exercised about
researching the people is this idea
people hop on about about social
Mobility how do we get the few talented
ones to rise through struck me we'd had
generations of Labor leaders who that
was about all they were willing to talk
about in terms of social justice and
here's a guy who's talking about
something different I've actually become
more excited over the last year um I
don't buy this idea that he's um not
doing well labor have had a lot of elect
SU esses but also I've become
increasingly aware of the team around
him and this is not any kind of
personality cult he's brought people
through and whatever Blair and brown did
for the good they were not people who
liked having a generation of leaders
coming up you had to be a disciple with
them and so there's a leadership vacuum
in a whole generation of the labor
parliamentary party well they were
fabians in white coats doing out uh uh
things to the the working class Corbin's
trying to organize and arouse the
working class to come together to Rally
together to change their own lives and
they do and they are and there are
hundreds of thousands absolutely
absolutely and I think it's a real
Testament to what's been going on that
when you go to the kinds of rallies that
they're holding you're seeing young and
old men and women people coming out of
all kinds of different backgrounds and
that really excites me I think that
there's there's a movement out there
that he's tapping into and when people
say as they do we're going back to the
early 1980s the labor part is going to
split there were going to be massive
election Victory election victories for
the conservatives Labor's going to be
lost for a generation I said to them
this is nothing like the early 1980s
what this reminds me of is 1945 and 1974
the only years that labor went into
general elections with anything like a
radical Manifesto both times of great
economic and Global crisis and both
times labor one in a global crisis you
can only win if you present a radical
alternative Professor you've been a joy
and I look forward to reading the book
thanks for coming onard
theck coming up next is British
democracy the best money can buy stay
tuned welcome back to Sputnik the rise
and Rise of lobbyists and the increasing
supremacy of money in politics has
killed democracy in the United States as
we can see in real time right now less
noticed is that the same thing is
happening in Britain one man who has
noticed is author of parliament limited
Martin Williams an investigative
journalist of note who joins us now
Martin thanks tell us what you mean by
par Parliament limited well uh it's
called Parliament limited because um
seems to me that the focus of
Westminster and British politics seems
more and more to be on uh the focus of
politicians I should say uh seems to
more and more be on making money and
business rather than representing people
um so for the book I did um for the I
think the first time ever an analysis of
all the companies that are um directed
by MPS and by peers in the House of
Lords and uh the results are are really
quite staggering just because of of the
sheer numbers so there's around 2,800
directorships company directorships held
by politicians um and for about 2 and a
half thousand companies um now just in
in terms of the actual numbers that's
they be they bring in a combined revenue
of around 220 billion pounds a year 220
billion pounds a year and that is they
their employees they've got uh they
employ about as as many people as it's
roughly equivalent to one in 20 of the
UK Workforce um and now obviously as as
you know MPS have to declare things they
have to there's a public uh register of
of interests where they have to put all
their directorships and outside jobs but
when I tallied this up to the register
of interests and it is impossible to do
it exactly right it's not an exact
science but roughly around 40% of these
directorships were not declared so now
some of them are not controversial some
of them didn't necessarily need to be
declared by the rules but a lot of them
did um and and there are very clear
examples in the book where you know
people really should have said something
about their their interest and then they
go and talk on the same subject that
they've got a financial interest in um
without declaring it without declaring
it that's quite extraordinary in fact
everything that you have just said and I
I was in Parliament for almost 30 years
and everything you just said there was
actually astounding give us an example
of Undeclared interest that's in your
book first of all I'll give you an
example of declared ones right because
even them even when they have declared
them it's still bad sometimes so um the
uh one of the big issues today housing
we housing crisis in Britain yeah now uh
for the public generally around I think
it's about 2% of the public are
landlords but in Parliament it's 30% of
MPS and of as a proportion of
conservative MPS any idea what it is uh
it's in my
book we'll have to buy it to find out
but it's very high there's a majority of
conservative MPS are landlords and3
billion a year is paid out by the state
in housing benefit to landlords
including often times them yes exactly
now a lot of these MPS will declare it
you know a lot of them will say I am a
landlord but the combined effect of
these so individually they're not
necessarily doing anything against the
rules but the combined effect of it is
uh in January of this year there was a
law proposed that would have uh made it
uh illegal for landlords to fail to
provide housing that was not fit for
habitation which you would have thought
that's a a pretty obvious thing that we
need landlords to have houses that are
fit for habitation um that was blocked
by MPS uh including uh a gang of 72 MPS
who were earning at least £10,000 a year
each as a landlord it's unbelievable
absolutely astounding and of course as
you rightly say the register uh hides as
much as it uh reveals yes uh for example
there's a rather Infamous MP in the in
the news this week uh who has a
multi-million pound property Empire no
one quite knows how they managed to
build it up and when revealed when one
gigantic piece of real estate was
revealed in the Daily Mail the answer
was H actually it's my wife's uh
property so always the wife's property
so the wives or husbands of
parliamentarians can quite privately own
but then of course as any fool knoweth
um a man and wife as we are our income
is one our expenditures are one at least
in a common sense world that would be
the case or in the same newspaper this
same week a former minister is revealed
to have given War W yes Advanced site of
a critical report of a select committee
and he's been suspended for two days
well I can do better than that even I'm
beginning to believe that you can in uh
my book one of The the people who uh I
came across was uh baronett Greenfield
who's uh a member of the House of Lords
and she um as she made a speech in
Parliament uh a couple of years ago
where she it was about higher education
now whatever you think of her politics
and her views her view in this case was
that Parliament uh should the government
should help universities to open up to
private investors more of course they
should open up to private investors more
and her main uh one of her main uh point
was that uh when scientists or academics
at universities have ideas and come up
with Concepts that that they the
university will own the intellectual
property rights for those ideas and she
was saying that it should be easier for
private clients to in effect kind of uh
get you know invest in get a piece of
the um get a piece of the intellectual
property rights to to kind of invest in
intellectual property rights and a month
earlier I think it was a month earlier
very ear very soon before uh she had
just been made non-executive director of
a company called Tech Capital limited
whose actual slogan is helping client
profit from University intellect ual
Capital now I complained about baroness
Greenfield I put a complaint in uh and
um just a few weeks ago uh this report
came out uh by the House of Commons
committee for Privileges and
conduct um and it after quite this was
after weeks of waiting uh for this to
come out um it finally concluded that
she had breached the code of conduct she
apologized she said it was an accident
um but uh her punishment you think
that's quite a serious breach you would
have thought maybe she'd be slapped the
fine maybe she'll be kicked out of
parliament no her actual punishment was
that she had to write a letter of
apology to the chairman of a
subcommittee uh this report has been out
on the internet for a few weeks but the
media is not interested no one's
reported it once you're in the Lord
you're in it for the rest of your life
most other people don't know and there
are thousands of them so I mean I've
never heard of baroness Brownfield or
uh um Baron is not uh I've never uh
heard of her and therefore my interest
in what she's doing uh is is less but
they're all members of the British
Parliament an even bigger problem than
individual Mal feance from
parliamentarians is the and I saw this
happen it was not the case before I
entered Parliament 30 years ago but it
very definitely is now big money
lobbyist s swarming all over the place
often given a pass to swarm even where
the public cannot go in the building by
members of parliament lobbying lobbying
for the revolving door uh between public
life and private business lobbying for
the privatization of various Services uh
that the country used to
provide the rise of the lobbyist is an
even bigger cancer than the rise of the
rotten MP yeah I absolutely I mean we're
always going to have rotten MPS aren't
we whatever we do whatever rules we put
in place there's always going to be some
people who we don't like um there's
always whether it's I mean I should
point out that a lot of the MPS
including baroness Greenfield are not uh
corrupt they've not done anything
illegal um but it's stuff that we look
at it and we go we don't like that
there's always going to be people like
that there's always going to be people
like that but the influence of lobbying
and big business is so corrosive to the
Democratic process and and it doesn't
matter what your politics are it doesn't
matter if you're leftwing right-wing
whatever we deserve a proper democracy
where big business doesn't influence it
and and our Representatives actually
represent us the people rather than big
businesses was it easy for you to
investigate this were they itive about
this well um if you want to look at for
instance uh politicians with SH share
Holdings uh in let's say uh ba systems
which they're listed all about that UK's
biggest arm armed company and it's a
listed company it's floating on a stock
exchange um with private companies
private limited companies anyone can
find out who the shareholders are of
those companies but with listed
companies uh it is pretty much
impossible to identify whether a
politician has shares in that company or
not um in fact as I've discovered
it is it's it's basically illegal um
there's a very complicated and law the
companies act 2006 and section 116 of
that act states that um in order to
access uh in order to access the
register of shareholders you have to
first of all provide that company with
your name your address and also the name
and address of anyone you might
potentially want to share that
information with now I'm writing a book
or I wrote a book that would mean that I
would have to have given them the name
and address of everyone who might ever
potentially read my book and after this
broadcast that would be impossible
because everyone's going to be queuing
up to buy this book which is really uh
fantastic Parliament limited by Martin
Williams I promise you this this will
not be the last volume of this book no
you're going to have to produce almost
an annual uh of this subject because the
problems that you've identified
are not going away anytime soon now of
course to you David Cameron has now
resigned as an MP what's he GNA go on to
do now um almost certainly he'll do the
same as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and
get some nice kushy private sector jobs
make lots of money for himself well the
front page of your book is pigs at a
trough perhaps we should draw a
Vil Martin Williams author of parliament
limited thanks for joining us on the
Sputnik
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and now it's your turn to tell us what
you think through the portals of social
media what's so when we ask does Britain
have the best democracy money can buy we
had lots of traffic and Max Millennium
says for example we can only buy
hypocrisy not democracy very good line
couldn't put that better myself Robert
bla adds well there's too much hidden
from us to call the UK a democracy
and finally Ricardo Picasso says the new
prime minister might not be another top
hat wearing millionaire but he
represents them I think that's a fair
point too I've got no argument with any
of those tweets well that's all that we
have for today then which alas means
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goodbye from me gri and from me George
Galloway it's been
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marvelous