Comments on: The progressive Left should support the Tory co-op policy

By: Look Left – The Week in Fast Forward | Left Foot Forward

Look Left – The Week in Fast Forward | Left Foot Forward — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:19:39 +0000

[...] say here on Left Foot Forward. On Monday, the Conservative Co-operative movememnt set out their plans to allow workers to take “far more control over the actual running of local services”, [...]

By: jamescrabtree

jamescrabtree — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:51:28 +0000

Sorry, to clarify — @wdjstraw just published this, he didn't write it. http://bit.ly/aLuR0A. Its still right though, whoever wrote it.

By: Chris Paul

Chris Paul — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:24:12 +0000

RT @wdjstraw: No I don't! Guest writer T. Haynes does RT @jamescrabtree: the left should support the Tory coop policy, says @wdjstraw http://bit.ly/aLuR0A

By: Will Straw

Will Straw — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:21:27 +0000

No I don't! Guest writer T. Haynes does RT @jamescrabtree: the left should support the Tory coop policy, says @wdjstraw http://bit.ly/aLuR0A

By: jamescrabtree

jamescrabtree — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:44:50 +0000

the left should support the Tory coop policy, says @wdjstraw http://bit.ly/aLuR0A

By: Roger

Roger — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:40:17 +0000

Chris Dillow has an interesting ‘market socialist’ critique: http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2010/02/coops-incentives-the-state.html

If these co-ops are to be monopolistic providers of public services then they will become rather like medieval guilds – closed producer organisations with a captive market – and workers will find it even harder than at present to square their personal interests with those of the public they serve.

Where this does make sense is as part of another step change towards the final marketisation of the public sector – initially of course this will be justified with mutualist rhetoric but ultimately we will end up with so-called co-operatives fighting with private companies to drive down wages and conditions.

By: Is Cameron going to take the ‘public’ out of public services? | Left Foot Forward

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:32:25 +0000

[...] pledge to give public-sector employees the right to form worker co-operatives, as covered on Left Foot Forward yesterday. They would quite rightly remember that when in Government, the Conservative Party [...]

By: Social service co-operatives, a neat idea « Lightwater

Social service co-operatives, a neat idea « Lightwater — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 06:49:36 +0000

[...] this as a way of delivering post-bureaucratic public service. These people are: A guest on Left Foot Forward; James Crabtree at Prospect; Martin Bright in the Spectator; and Peter Hoskin, again in the [...]

By: Clifford Singer

Clifford Singer — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:20:59 +0000

The ideas behind mutualism are good ones. But the point about the public sector is that it is already public (at least those parts which haven’t been privatised), and it should be possible to gain the benefits of mutuality without putting public services at the mercy of the market or introducing an artificial profit motive. We’ve given our take (largely drawing on an excellent piece by Will Davies at Demos) here:
http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/mutuals-opportunities-but-also-dangers-for-the-left

By: Richard H

Richard H — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:50:59 +0000

The Tories have serious hurdles;
1) As stated above, a coop, model requires a different management structure. Presumably the new coops would work this out for themselves; efficient structures evolve and aren’t simply created from scratch. Are we looking at a substantial period of inefficiency and chaos while this is put in place? Would that mean wasting tax-payers’ money?
2)It was the Tories in the eighties who developd the appetite for restructuring and squeezing public services in the process. Whilst there is no reason why the present Tory party should adopt the same Thatcherite savagery, they will have to fight hard to persuade an electorate that they have a different model from Thatcher’s—especially in this recession.
3)It is most unfortunate that this new, undeveloped initiative is announced a few weeks away from a general election; this is a time for announcing what is to go into a manifesto; since the manifesto will explain the intended direction of policy, it would have been helpful if this policy had reached a stage which was not merely embryonic.It’s entirely the wrong time to bring such a seminal idea into public debate.
4)Put the above points together and they are not going to help the Tories in the battle for trust with the British public—especially since the debate centres on public services.