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Guest blog by Alan Story
When you in a very bad relationship or in a marriage that cannot be
saved, the first thing you need to do is to admit to yourself: “you know
what, I've made a horrible mistake.”
But nearly six years after
Labour-control Sheffield City Council (SCC) signed a disastrous £2.2
billion PFI contract and on a day when the Sheffield trees crisis
featured in the New York Times no less, the local Labour Party has again
pulled down the shutters and refused to address the havoc that SCC’s
relationship with Amey plc is causing to our now-privatised streets and
privatised street trees.
The occasion was the monthly meeting
Tuesday night (13 March) of the Sheffield District Labour Party (DLP)
meeting. Outside, 35 picketers/ tree campaigners had come together for
what was likely the largest picket ever held in front of a Sheffield
Labour Party meeting.
But as delegates inside discussed the draft
election manifesto it will use for the 3 May election, it was clear
that most of those in attendance at the local party's highest
decision-making body still did not grasp the basics of what was going
wrong on the streets of Sheffield. (Those in attendance included Council
Leader Julie Dore who came late and, sadly, after most of the 35
picketers had dispersed.)
Yes, there was concern raised about
the contracting out of public sector jobs as a result of the work being
done under the profit-making auspices of Amey plc. And yes, that is ONE
problem with this PFI deal and, indeed, all PFI deals.
But what delegates failed to understand is that it is the very nature of
THE WORK being undertaken which is the main problem. In other words,
the planned felling of 17,500 street trees is NOT the same thing as the
contracting out of NHS jobs to a US-owned healthcare corporation. Or
transforming state schools into profit-driven academies.
This is what a significant number of LP members just do not get.
On one level, to bring contracted out jobs "in house" has, since the
September 2017 national Labour Party convention, become National Labour
Party policy. It is becoming harder and harder for the SCC to operate a
PFI deal that is in direct contravention to the national policy of its
own party.
But by focusing almost exclusively on the
contracting out jobs issue, the local Labour Party last night again
missed the big picture, they didn’t see the forests for the trees ….if
you will.
As several observers at last night's meeting confirmed, most DLP delegates failed to address a wide range of issues, such as:
1) Why 17,500 mostly healthy trees were ever planned for the chop back
in 2012. (It took a recent successful FOI request by Paul Selby to
uncover that SCC has being duplicitous to Sheffield residents about
planned tree felling number since the 25-year-long contract was first
signed.) More than 5500 mostly healthy trees have already come down.
2) The value of trees for the slowing climate change. SCC cabinet
minister Jack Scott, who also attended last night's session, denies they
have any value.
3) Why SCC is acting with such contempt for
local democratic functioning when it ignores the advice of tree experts
and the wishes of local residents and simply carries on willy-nilly with
its ruthless chainsaw war.
4) Why squads of South Yorkshire
Police have been mobilised across the city and are at the beck-and-call
of SCC, who are in a serious political fix, and Amey, who are only
interested in their bottom line. (It is hardly surprising that tree
campaigners now call SYP “Amey’s police.")
5) Why SCC has
applied for civic injunctions to stop peaceful protest and has forced
tree campaigners to raise tens of thousands of pounds to defend
themselves against the actions of this profoundly authoritarian local
council. (Pardon the plug: in the current campaign, 440 supporters have
raised more than £11,500 in less than five days:
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/stump-up-sheffield)
6) In fact, you don’t even get the sense that some of these so-called
LP “lefties” really grasp what privatisation means. For example, how can
it be a step toward socialism when a public agency like SYP (directed
by a Labour Party Police Commissioner) protects a Spanish-owned
multinational corporation (operating under a PFI deal negotiated by the
free market LibDems) as it pillages a street of much-loved cherry trees
on Abbeydale Park Rise (that are lit with lights every Christmas to
raise funds for a hospice)?
7) The value of street trees as
things of beauty, as a home for birds, and as promoters of mental health
(If I hear one more Labour Party flunky tell me that working-class
people "hate trees" I will scream.)
8) Why it is just so wrong
to call in (or threaten to call in) social services against the parents
of youthful tree campaigners, one of whom rode over on his bicycle and
was with us last night.
9) Why there was a leak to the
media of the preposterous tale that a 59-year-old architect served
poisoned tea to three street tree fellers on her own street. Hold The
Star’s front page: next thing you know they'll be telling us that Calvin
Payne's backpack is stocked up with nerve gas.
The list could on and on.
What local Labour does not get is what a newspaper headline said back
in October: “Look to Sheffield: this is how state and corporate power
subverts democracy.”
