Public ‘ready for a radical new agenda’

NEW Labour politicians are spectacularly “out of touch” with voters’ demands for nationalisation, a new poll reveals on Wednesday.

A TNS poll commissioned by supporters of the People’s Charter for Change shows that a staggering two-thirds of voters want privatised essential services such as electricity, gas, water, rail and communications brought back into public ownership.

The government’s policy of throwing unimaginable sums of money at private banks was also found to run completely counter to ordinary people’s views, with a colossal 87 per cent of those asked demanding that ministers support workers threatened with losing their jobs rather than the fat-cat financiers.

The government’s distance from its own supporters and the wider British public was exposed as prominent union leaders prepared to launch the People’s Charter for Change at Parliament this morning.

The charter is an initiative to sign up one million people to a vision of a “more just and fairer Britain” where jobs and public services come before wealthy executives and private profit.

RMT rail workers’ union general secretary Bob Crow emphasised how the poll “shows just out of touch voters feel their politicians are.

“Public opinion is on the move. Nearly 90 per cent of people want investment in protecting jobs and they do not want the present policy that bails out the banks, where the only people who seem to benefit are the executives who get to keep their bonuses and their pensions,” he insisted.

Founding supporter of the charter left Labour MP John McDonnell added that the poll was “a referendum on this government’s wrong direction.

“It is clear that public opinion is way ahead of the present policies that ministers are putting forward. The clear message from these results is that the country is in the mood for a radical new agenda,” he stressed.

The poll also found that, despite the obvious disquiet among the public at the direction of the country, most voters – 76 per cent – felt that politicians were not interested in hearing alternative views.

Firefighters’ union leader Matt Wrack pointed out that this was reason enough for those opposed to new Labour to get behind the demands of the People’s Charter.

“The charter’s principles are clearly in line with public opinion. People should sign up to it and create a voice which no government can ignore,” he urged.

To read the charter’s full list of demands and sign up to the campaign, visit www.thepeoplescharter.com

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