Fairness and Inequality

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr MacNeil]

Well, a principled abstention by the Labour party is news to me, but I take on board what my hon. Friend says.

I was talking about hunter-gathering. I was not so much hunting Labour Members as asking why they did not go through the Lobby on the 50p tax rate. I was discussing why people have certain outlooks in life. I think that when people view the fruits of their success as being the result of a hunt that involved a great deal of good fortune and support, they might have a tendency to be slightly more left wing, whereas those who think the fruits are the result of their own individual hard graft might have a tendency to be more right wing and view their gains as a gather. I will make no further judgment on that idea—I just want to put it out there and let people chew it over—but I think there is something deep-seated in our own personal biases as to why we arrive at certain points of view.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr MacNeil]

It would be a great pleasure to give way to the hon. Gentleman. Perhaps he will tell us why Labour did not vote against the cut to the 50p tax rate.

[Michael Connarty]

I would be quite willing to brief the hon. Gentleman later about the technicalities of why the vote was not called on that particular night.

The hon. Gentleman is talking about a sociological analysis, but some people have moved on since then and done a socialist analysis. When society is divided into those who support capital and those who support labour, what happens is that the forces of those who have the power in the land—the landed classes—join with the merchant class to support capital, and they have succeeded in increasing the value of capital by driving down the cost of labour. That is why we have the inequality we have, and that is the structure of the society we—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. It is very good to have a lecture, but not during an intervention. If the hon. Gentleman wants to catch my eye later, I am sure he will be able to do so and give me a lecture then.