Running Commentary: Sports Aid (1986)

The Running Commentary Column from the July 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sports Aid

From "Sports Aid" to "Neil Aid", and the continuing story of the Labour Party’s attempts to win support on any basis apart from their policies. They have however, moved on from pop stars in an attempt to appear more sensible, as illustrated by their Partly Political Broadcast for the Regional Council elections in May. Elsewhere in Britain viewers were treated to Glenda Jackson among others, but in Scotland it was a much more serious affair with the appearance of the Labour Party’s new signing, that expert on housing and local government, John Colquhoun. Now for those of you who do not know already, John Colquhoun plays for Hearts FC and knows a thing or two about selling dummies, so naturally he is now trying to sell us the shadow cabinet in return for our vote.

Don't mention Albert Kidd . . .

And what did John Colquhoun. the only left-winger that Neil Kinnock doesn’t consider an electoral liability, actually say — “I’ll be voting Labour. I hope you do too", or some such pearl of wisdom. He could even have said he would be over the moon if you would vote Labour, but this viewer couldn’t say for sure — it's difficult taking notes when you are lying in hysterics on the carpet in front of the TV.

More important, though, is what is being suggested here by the Labour Party — forget about your problems of poverty, unemployment or housing, and don't bother trying to relate them to the promises of the Labour Party. Instead just vote according to how some guy who earns his living by kicking a lump of leather around a field, says. Well, they do say that footballers have their brains in their feet.

So what can we expect next? Ian Botham on the government's anti-drugs campaign? Frank Bruno on law and order. . .?

Victorian values

Sweat-shops have never really disappeared from Britain or other parts of the world. Now, however, they look set to be brought back from the fringes of legality into the fold of respectability. Just as Victorian values are once again in vogue, so it seems are Victorian working conditions. The government has just produced a White Paper aimed at the ’de-regulation'’ of small business. The aim is to make it easier for owners of businesses to make profit from the labour of their workers without having to be bothered with the inconvenience of the health and safety of employees or workers' legal rights to employment protection.

If the proposals become law then the following will be some of the effects:

• Workers will be deterred from going to an industrial tribunal after being dismissed "unfairly". by a requirement that they should pay a £25 fee before charging the employer with ’unfair" dismissal.
• Workers will have to have worked for two years with a company, rather than six months as at present, before the employer is obliged to give detailed reasons for dismissal.
• Firms with fewer than ten employees will no longer be obliged to allow a woman to return to work within 29 weeks of giving birth to a child.
• Restrictions will be introduced on the functions union officials are to be allowed to perform or to attend during working hours to only those trade union duties formally recognised by the employer.
• Part-time workers will have to work 50 per cent more hours a week before they are entitled to the main employment protection rights. Those working between 12 and 20 hours a week will only qualify for employment rights after five years working for the same employer.

These legal rights were not granted by the capitalist class without a struggle. That they can so easily be removed now, at a time of economic recession when trade unions are weak, shows the fragile nature of workers’ ’’rights" in capitalism.

Your life in their hands

Recently, as a result of a government report on efficiency in the Health Service, general managers have been appointed to run the NHS. The idea behind the move is that productivity can be improved by using measures not dissimilar to those that might be used in running, say, United Biscuits. The problem is that while cost-benefit analysis might work in assessing efficiency in a biscuit factory, it has somewhat bizarre, or even tragic, consequences when you try to apply it to human health. For example, given the limited resources available for health care under capitalism, how do you decide in strict cost-benefit terms how to allocate those resources? How is productivity to be measured? By the turn-over of patients each year? By the number of operations performed? Should you go for "quantity” — keeping as many people alive for as long as possible no matter what their state of health — or "quality" — maintaining people in good health in the short-term? Do you opt for expensive operations like heart transplants on young people who have still got a number of years left as potentially exploitable workers? If so, what about the huge numbers of elderly workers whose quality of life could be drastically improved by relatively simple and cheap operations like hip-replacement surgery even though they are no longer of use to the labour force?

These are the kinds of decisions that health workers and administrators are faced with, given the lack of priority accorded to people's health and well-being under capitalism. The appointment of general managers will do nothing to change this. Clearly the attempt to run the NHS along the lines of an efficient capitalist enterprise is proving too much for even successful entrepreneurs like Victor Paige, who recently resigned as "Chairman of the Board" of the NHS. But "middle management" is also showing signs of strain. Freddie Lucas has also resigned as general manager of Central Birmingham Health Authority. (A former army brigadier, one would have thought that he was better qualified to make decisions about killing people rather than keeping them alive but then again we don't know what his terms of reference were). He complained that members of the Health Authority didn't "have the good sense to stand back and let management manage" (Guardian, 7 June 1986). Health authorities contain too many vested interests to inspire much confidence and given the choice between the BMA and the army to decide health service priorities, we would obviously do best to opt for a social system based on human interests.