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Prime minister Gordon Brown’s answer to the crisis of capitalism is for workers to eat less. That was the meaning of the message he issued before traveling to the G8 summit in Japan. Brown said “Food wastage and unnecessary purchases were contributing to price rises” and suggested that because workers were spending too much money on food purchases this was the reason that had left “many people struggling to pay bills.”
Brown’s utterances coincided with release of the joint report from the US government and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development which warned that world food prices will continue to rise rapidly for at least the next decade.
Fresh from instructing sovereign nations on how to run elections, the unelected Mr Brown continued “ Increased production in Africa could be part of the solution” without apparently realising that the African masses are being hit worst of all from the price rises attached to the basic staples of everyday diet such as rice and wheat.
What Brown’s nonsense obscures is the deepening crisis of the capitalist system itself. Although the financial institutions, since the collapse of the credit and property markets, have moved into speculation in the ‘futures’ market of oil and food, which has had the inevitable result of driving up prices, this is a mere symptom of a much deeper underlying crisis.
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), known as the bankers’ bank, last month issued a warning which states, “The current market turmoil is without precedent in the postwar period. With a significant risk of recession in the US, compounded by sharply rising inflation in many countries, fears are building that the global economy might be at some kind of tipping point. These fears are not groundless.”
The BIS had previously warned, correctly, that the ‘credit bubble’ would burst and “culminate in a deflation that might be hard to manage.”
In other words the BIS are warning of a depression not seen since the 1930s and Gordon Brown’s statement on food purchasing is a clear warning that the effects of this depression will be dumped onto the backs of the working class. This is all the more clear when it is noted that the government, far from telling them to tighten their belts, have already given over £150 billion of taxpayers money to the banks and financial institutions to keep them afloat and to continue to pay lavish bonuses.
What in effect is unraveling is the ideology which claims that ‘market forces’ are the highest and best mechanism for organising society. Moreover it is becoming ever more apparent to millions of people that capitalism is incapable of meeting even the most modest needs of the majority of the world’s population.
Ends.
SLP CONDEMNS ANTI-CUBAN PROVOCATION
The Socialist Labour Party unreservedly condemns the latest anti -Cuban stunt perpetrated by the United States. Washington is organising and promoting it's so called "Cuba Solidarity day " on Wednesday 21st May. The reactionary US administration is promoting the day as an act of "solidarity" with so called prisoners of conscience in Cuba ,whilst it says it is also celebrating the 106th anniversary of Cuban independence from Spain. Any serious student of history will know that Cuban independence and the Cuban peoples' right to national self determination was delivered by not by the United states' defeat of Spain in 1902, but by the Cuban revolution of 1959 led by Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Che Guevara and other Cuban patriots and socialists. Subsequently under the leadership of the communist party of Cuba,the Cuban people went on to build a socialist society,that despite 5 decades of illegal economic blockades, assassination attempts and sabotage perpetrated by the United States, continues to deliver free universal education , free medical care, a lower infant mortality rate and higher literacy rate and life expectancy than the united states. The Cuban people do not need to take any lessons on human rights from the United States. People around the world who genuinely seek justice, equality and social progress will see this crass attempt to rewrite history as a pathetic provocation against the Cuban people and their right to national self determination. Hands off Cuba !
May Local Elections 2008.
The SLP will be standing candidates in the May local elections, as it has done in every election since the founding of the Party in 1996.
It does so under conditions of capitalism’s increasing economic instability, brought into sharp focus by the nationalisation of Northern Rock. However this is not nationalisation in any true meaning of the word, but an attempt to prevent the financial meltdown of the British economy.
The reason that the major banks will no longer lend to each other is because they are well aware that the collateral offered, the assets, are worthless. Yet the Labour government has agreed to lend vast sums to Northern Rock regardless of this, and thereby raise the danger of national bankruptcy.
This approach of bailing out the millionaire executives operating in the financial world is in stark contrast to the government’s attitude to the thousands of working class families who were the victims of the Farepak collapse and is yet one more confirmation that this government only represents the rich and powerful in society.
The ‘credit crisis’ will be ongoing and is only exacerbated by recent government actions.
The coming period will see whole sections of workers thrown into struggle to defend living standards, welfare and pension rights and it is the SLP that is increasingly being seen as the only viable alternative to the current political and economic crisis which is impoverishing more and more layers of workers and at the same time denying them any political representation.
It is therefore the responsibility of our Party to participate in any such election so that workers, students, youth and the unemployed can have the opportunity to consider our programme and realise that it embodies the hopes and aspirations of the vast majority of the people of Britain.
Ends.
The Labour Government & the Disabled
Part One
"If the rest of the country knew what we were being paid, there would be tumbrels on the street and heads carried around on pikes."
David Freud. Labour government adviser on Welfare Reform.
David Freud is the government adviser and the author behind Labour’s Welfare to Work strategy, part of the Welfare Reform programme announced recently by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) which claims that 1.9 million people on Incapacity Benefit, from a total of 2.6 million who qualify, are capable of seeking employment and should be taken off benefit.
Mr Freud offers no evidence to support the conclusion that such a vast number of people are in fact ‘malingerers’ so we must assume that amongst his many talents Mr Freud is a psychic.
Mr Freud claims that family GPs should not be entrusted with determining if people receive incapacity benefit or not, obviously unaware that GPs are not involved in that decision anyway.
Freud recommends the DWP use a private sector company who’s task it will be to get the sick and disabled off benefits and into work, any kind of work, and the outside company will be paid according to results, the more people driven off benefit the more the private sector company earns. As David Freud commented to the Telegraph of 2nd February 2008, the scheme can be extremely lucrative to the companies who throw people off benefits "We can pay masses” stressed Mr Freud.
In order to create the correct climate to enable the government to throw the sick and disabled off benefits, Freud and the government are launching a propaganda campaign designed to create the impression that basically anyone who claims benefits is a ‘scrounger’ and ‘malingerer’.
‘Now Public’ website commented:
“Benefits
and Work believes that David Freud has breached the Civil
Service Code in relation to honesty and integrity.
The continued portrayal of the majority of sick and disabled
claimants as people who can and should be in work is causing
real terror and misery for people who know this is not the case
and who fear for the future.
His claims that two thirds of incapacity benefit claimants
shouldn't be getting the benefit have been repeated throughout
the media and by politicians, leading to a widespread belief
that the majority of claimants are work shy scroungers rather
than genuinely sick people. There is not a shred of evidence to
support his utterly irresponsible guesstimate”.
In view of his radical assessment on the nature of health incapacity, what experience of the health service does Mr Freud actually possess?
The answer is none whatsoever, in fact his main work experience has been as an investment banker, most notably for Warburgs (now UBS) one of the leading British investment banks. Prior to that Freud worked at the stockbrokers Rowe & Pitman and, as he admitted in the Telegraph interview, it was during his time there that he engaged in activities that would today be classed as illegal. Also, it was during his work in the City that Freud confided to his deputy, “If the rest of the country knew what we were being paid, there would be tumbrels on the street and heads carried around on pikes." (A tumbrel is an open cart, especially used to carry condemned people to the guillotine during the French Revolution).
A brief investigation into other Freud activities proves enlightening. According to an interview which appeared in the Guardian 4th August 2006, “a member of his own team called him the "Fraud Squad" because of his ability to heavily promote new share issues that subsequently tanked”.
Furthermore, it was Freud’s consortium that had to ask for a further £1.2bn from public coffers for the Channel rail link, and both Eurotunnel and Euro Disney flotations, in which he was also involved, are instances were “investors lost millions.”
David Freud is no stranger to unpopular decisions as he himself boasted when commenting on the takeover of the Swedish tanker company Smedvig, which he called the "fastest hostile takeover recorded in Europe in modern times"
Producing the Freud Report for the DWP is not the first time he has worked closely with this Labour government. He was involved in the reckless move to privatise Britain’s air traffic control and put the safety of millions of passengers into the hands of private companies operating on a profit first policy. His hand can also be seen in the destruction and privatisation of Royal Mail and currently, as chief executive of the Portland Trust, he is advising on economic issues in the Middle East, meaning the continued privatisation of Iraq’s once state run industries.
That the Labour government should commission a Welfare Report from someone like David Freud reveals clearly this government’s intention to privatise all areas of the public sector and moreover, their willingness to attack the most vulnerable in society to do it.
To be continued.
The Labour Government & the Disabled
Part Two
Following the Department for Work and Pensions announcement of the Freud Report, which will mean using private sector companies to drive sick and disabled people off benefits and into employment, invariarably low paid, the Labour government came up with the spin that this move would enable disabled people ‘the dignity of working’ and the feeling that they are ‘contributing to society’.
To examine if these comments contain even an ounce of sincerity one only needs to look at the situation regarding the Remploy factories.
Remploy is a government-owned manufacturing firm which has more than 6,000 disabled employees in 83 factories around the UK, including highly skilled workers producing items such as furniture and electronics.
It was set up in 1944 to employ disabled Second World War veterans, with the first factory opening in 1946. More recently it has provided secure, supported employment for thousands of disabled people in the UK.
Last year the Labour government announced that 43 of these factories were to close. However, in an attempt to divide the solidarity of the workforce the government strategy is to shut these factories in stages and at present 28 are earmarked for closure, although it is obvious that once this figure is accomplished the remaining factories will then be targeted.
In protest at
the announced closures, on the 27th November 2007, a
group of eleven
Remploy workers occupied the foyer
of the Department of Work and Pensions’ head office with three
of them chaining themselves to chairs in the foyer.
The
protesters chanted: ‘We want to see Peter Hain! ’ (then Work and
Pensions secretary) and ‘Stop the factory closures!’
Police were called and after an hour’s stand-off Hain’s
principal permanent secretary John Oliver came out to speak to
the occupiers. Les Woodward of the GMB trade union, reminded him
that Hain had promised at the Labour Party conference, to use
public procurement to keep Remploy factories open and added
“‘When the closure announcement was made on May 22, one person
committed suicide.’
The Remploy workers were assured that Peter Hain “cares
deeply about Remploy.”
On the 29th November 2007, just two days after they were assured that Peter Hain “cares deeply about Remploy” Hain, on behalf of the Labour government, confirmed that they would proceed with the closure of 28 Remploy factories, with the loss of 2,000 supported jobs and added in his House of Commons statement that the closure of some Remploy premises will cause ‘disappointment’
Paul Kenny, GMB General Secretary said: “This government controlled operation has failed its people, its principles and its purpose”
Moreover, as the consortium of trade unions representing the workforce has stressed, most of Remploy's skilled workers now face a future of shelf-stacking or will never find jobs.
The Observer of 9th March 2008 quoted Remploy worker David Reed, "Everyone was very upset. We have a lot of people with severe learning difficulties and they were bewildered, trying to understand what was happening."
Mr Reed has been partially-sighted since being diagnosed with a brain tumour when he was seven, he works at the furniture factory in Aintree, near Liverpool, which is to close. He has been with Remploy for 20 years, and now feels he would find mainstream employment difficult. "Put me outside and I'll be treated like an idiot. If I had to go to Asda and Tesco, I couldn't make it across the car park without bumping into a car."
The social consequences of the Remploy closures can also be seen in a letter sent by Phil Davies, in his capacity as secretary of the consortium of trade unions, to James Purnell, the new Secretary of State for Works and Pensions in which Davies explained “When I visited York I was asked by a woman called Tracey why she will have to lose her job and what will happen to her friends? Tracy is 44 years of age and has severe learning difficulties; her father is 75 years old and he told me that he and her mother do not know what to do about caring for Tracey. ‘The evening and weekends are hard enough but for Tracey to lose her job at the Remploy factory will mean she will also lose her friends.’ Mr Purnell, you can stop this particular factory from closing, you can help Tracey and her comrades at York.”
However, given the choice between helping the ‘Tracey’s’ of this world, or further enriching the bankers and financial institutions, then for the Labour government there is simply no contest, in today’s parlance, it is a no-brainer.
Naturally, even after the demise of Peter Hain, the Labour government continued its attack on society’s most vulnerable and Phil Davies, also national secretary for the GMB union, ripped up his Labour party card in disgust. In his resignation letter he stated, “We have been misled by the Secretary of State, who made assurances at the 2007 Labour Party conference which he did not keep. I have been a national trade union officer for 20 years and have never seen workers treated in such a despicable way. Our members are being ignored and bullied into submission.”
The situation at Remploy exposes the spin and outright lies of the Labour government.
No mention here of ‘the dignity of working’ and giving the disabled the feeling that they are ‘contributing to society’.
At first glance it would appear contradictory that the government are, on the one hand, as acknowledged in the DWP Freud report, throwing the disabled off benefits and driving them into unsuitable and low paid work, and on the other hand, closing down Remploy factories which were specifically established to give the disabled meaningful and skilled work opportunities.
Such hypocrisy would not be new of course, but the fact is that there is an underlying consistency to the shameful behaviour of the Labour government, and that is that both of these apparently contradictory actions are designed to achieve the same result, the slashing of public spending.
This is not only in line with European Union directives to reduce public expenditure but continues the policy of shifting the wealth of society further away from the poor and into the hands of a rich elite.
It is this layer of the obscenely wealthy that all the mainstream parties now represent. In opposition to this the Socialist Labour Party seeks to construct a movement that will not pamper to the parasites of finance capital, but will truly represent the interests, hopes and aspirations, of the overwhelmimg majority of the people of Britain.
Join us.
Ends
CYprus elects first communist president.
 |
The Socialist Labour Party sends warmest congratulations to Demetris Christofias on his historic election victory to the presidency of Cyprus.
We look forward with optimism to continued fraternal relations with Cyprus comrades and the AKEL.
Below is a brief report from Reuters
Reuters report
24th Feb 2008.
Christofias becomes first communist Cyprus president
NICOSIA (Reuters) - Demetris Christofias, Soviet educated and with a penchant for Che Guevara t-shirts, made history on Sunday becoming Cyprus's first communist president.
A builder's son from a village now in Turkish held north Cyprus, Christofias, 62, portrays himself as a moderate who is best placed to revive reunification talks with Turkish Cypriots.
Greek and Turkish Cypriots have been separated since a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a brief Greek-inspired coup. Christofias's Communist AKEL party has had traditionally good relations with Turkish Cypriots.
"We can find a common language of communication with Turkish Cypriots," said Christofias.
Created in 1926 as the Communist Party of Cyprus, AKEL, is the island's biggest party but had never before contested the presidency. It was instrumental in ensuring the election of five of the six presidents of the island post-independence in 1960.
Christofias backed incumbent Tassos Papadopoulos in 2003 but quit the governing alliance in July 2007, citing frustration at Papadopoulos's negotiation tactics on ending Cyprus's division.
Despite communism all but crumbling everywhere else in Europe, the AKEL headquarters still boast statues of Lenin and its members address one another as comrades.
Opinion polls often show him as one of the island's most popular politicians. A blunt speaker, he seldom attempts to cover up a heavy Cypriot accent.
He was educated in Moscow on a party scholarship and led the youth wing of AKEL. He was elected party Secretary-General in 1988 and elected president of Cyprus's parliament in 2001.
Ends.
Police Stop Traffic and Make Their Own Count
Report by Philip Chambers
Conservative estimates of 22,500 Police Officers and supporters demonstrating against their truncated pay rise were given by the Metropolitan Police as the official count on Wednesday 23 January.
The majority, wearing white caps with the slogan "Fair Play for Police" filled both sides of Park Lane before marching, for the first time since 1919, through the back streets of Victoria and past the Home Office.
Emphasis was on quiet determination rather than a militant display. Even in front of the Home Office there was only the occasional cat-call. It was left to a group of youngsters who had commandeered caps and placards to provide enthusiastic chants of support.
The march terminated at Millbank and the demonstrators then made their way to the House of Commons to lobby their members of Parliament. Later a mass meeting was held in Central Hall addressed by Police Federation Chair, Jan Berry, who gave an emotional speech and received a standing ovation.
The demonstration was, of course, well mannered, crime and litter free.
New Labour has an uneasy tradition of ignoring mass demonstrations. Police Federation members may therefore have to engage more vigorously with this Government - a Government who have public sector workers firmly in their sights to appease the latest crisis of capital.
Ends
THE FINANCIAL CRISIS AND PUBLIC OWNERSHIP.
Recent press reports indicate that the Brown government is planning to nationalise the Northern Rock bank as a last resort because of failure to find a buyer in the private sector.
Whether this nationalisation plan actually takes place or not the issue deserves closer examination.
The government plan is to bailout the bank with taxpayers money, dust it down and when stable hand it back over to the private sector, the very people who made a mess of it in the first place. This is not nationalisation in the accepted socialised sense, this is nationalisation for the benefit of capitalism, reminiscent of the kind of state takeovers that were seen in Germany during the 1930s.
Moreover, it makes a mockery of this government’s claim that there would be ‘no special favours’, a remark obviously aimed at individual sections of the trade union movement, and not at the financial sector, where we can see there are ‘special favours’ aplenty.
Brown’s actions are sticking plaster stuff as the depth of the economic crisis is threatening the entire monetary system of capitalism.
The world’s largest bank, the United States Citigroup has just been propped up by foreign investment from South Korea, Singapore and Kuwait, this is on top of the money both the US Federal Reserve and the European Bank have already poured into the monetary system in an attempt to keep it afloat.
This is clearly a crisis of such proportions that Brown’s single sticking plaster solution for Northern Rock will prove woefully inadequate. Despite already throwing £55 billion at it, neither the government nor the bank know the exact amount of liabilities they are exposed to, and the reason that no banks will now lend to each other, as was previous practice, is because they are well aware that any loans may never be repaid and that banks now hold swathes of fictitious capital.
Therefore it is clear that Northern Rock is not the only bank with deep financial troubles, indeed all the British banks are affected.
The current worldwide financial crisis, brought to the fore by the collapse of the US ‘sub prime’ mortgage market, has not only hit Britain harder than most countries but will continue to send convulsions throughout the banking system.
Britain today has no manufacturing base of any substance, having been destroyed by both Tory and Labour governments. It now relies first and foremost on the speculative activities of its financial sector and has no fall-back position; consequently it is exposed more than most to any monetary crisis, especially one as deep as the current crisis.
In these circumstances the answer is not to let the private sector act as parasites on the backs of the taxpayers but to take Northern Rock and all banks and financial institutions into real and lasting public ownership, without compensation to their executives and corporate shareholders.
Today, the UK carries a trade deficit of over £7 billion per month, the strength of the pound is falling, the housing market is over valued, personal debt has hit a record of £1.5 trillion and despite the recent cut in interest rates the average cost of a fixed rate mortgage is increasing.
Enough is enough, real and accountable public ownership, controlled by the people for the people, will secure peoples savings and will secure their homes; it is the only progressive answer to the economic madness we are now witnessing.
Ends.
WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS
When the US and UK launched their ‘shock and awe’ attack on the sovereign state of Iraq in 2003 the initial reason Tony Blair gave for such extreme, and illegal, actions was that Iraq not only possessed weapons of mass destruction but was ready to use them, indeed it could launch them at 45 minutes notice.
When this reason was exposed for what it was, outrageous and criminal propaganda, we were then told that the reason for the attack and subsequent occupation of Iraq was to get rid of Saddam Hussein and ‘free’ the Iraqi people from his dictatorship.
Yet when the occupation forces seized the country and set up the US sponsored government, its very first act was to change Iraq’s privatisation laws to allow the multinationals access to Iraqi industry, most importantly the oil industry.
How this would ‘free’ the Iraqi people was never explained; perhaps Mr Blair meant ‘freeing’ them from their country’s wealth?
Let us move on to January 2008. Tony Blair has left office and among his many new activities is his appointment as part-time advisor to the United States investment bank J.P.Morgan. His salary is $5 million per year. Sceptics may think that a $5million a year wage for a part-time post in an area where he has limited expertise is a little excessive. Sceptics may also wonder that if they are paying him this huge amount for so little of his time, was it the case that J.P.Morgan owed Mr Blair a favour for some good turn he may have initiated in the past?
The answer came via the Financial Times of 11th January 2008 where this announcement appeared ‘J.P.Morgan has been selected to run the new Trade Bank of Iraq.’
Needless to say this is a position that will see them make billions in future Iraqi oil production and was made possible by the illegal actions of Bush and Blair.
You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, as practiced by the super-rich, criminal style of course.
Ends.
Following Gordon Brown's signing of the EU Constitution, sorry, Treaty, here are several news snippets supplied by our friends at TUAEUC (Trade Unions Against the EU Constitution).
May we also take this opportunity to send seasonal greetings to all our members and supporters as we look forward to an eventful 2008.
4/12/07
German MEP's team costs £2.5m a year
The President of the European Parliament is under pressure to justify his 46-strong entourage. The office of Hans-Gert Poettering includes three drivers, 13 advisers and seven press officers. A conservative estimate of the total annual running costs of the German MEP's cabinet alone has been put at £2.5 million.
11/12/07
EU
lawyers: "It is wrong to say the Charter will not apply to the
Le
Monde
looks at the Charter of Fundamental Rights. It quotes unnamed "jurists at
the European institutions" saying that it is wrong to say the Charter will
not apply to the
EU agrees to slap high tariff rises on poor countries
EU trade ministers overwhelmingly agreed yesterday to go ahead in the new year with hefty tariff rises on imports from poor countries that refuse to sign controversial trade opening deals called Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). EPAs replace a preferential regime ruled illegal by the World Trade Organisation. The deadline is December 31 but some countries asked for more time, fearing that liberalisation under the EPAs would damage fledgling industries and deny them customs revenues.
In a comment piece in the Guardian, Phil Bloomer from Oxfam argues that EPAs are "harsh reciprocal trade arrangements that demand that some of the poorest countries in the world open their markets to EU goods, in some cases almost overnight. Until now, many countries have held out against the pressure, but as the December deadline approaches, some are giving in - choosing to guarantee existing exports at the expense of future industrial development and subsistence farmers' livelihoods."
FT AFP Times Independent Business Day Guardian - Bloomer
13/12/07
"Unwritten agreement" amongst EU leaders to avoid referendums
El
Pais
reports that Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos said yesterday
that the new EU treaty maintains "the essence and the compromise" of the EU
Constitution, but eliminates the "constitutional clothes" of that document.
He said "It is the treaty of the 21st century which inaugurates a new
position for the EU as a global actor." Spanish MEP Inigo Mendez de Vigo
reportedly said that
there was an "unwritten agreement" amongst EU politicians not
to use referendums again, because public consultation "is used as a
political instrument against
18/12/07
NHS could lose revenue to hospitals overseas under EU health directive
The
Times looks at the Commission's draft of the EU directive on
cross-border healthcare, which obliges the NHS to fund outpatient treatments
in
Pilger: if a referendum is good enough for
John Pilger has an article in the Guardian, arguing
that liberalism is in decline in the West. He notes that
"The Whitehall executive has
prerogative powers as effective as politburo decrees. Unlike
He also criticises EU trade policy: "behind a facade of liberal concern for the world's 'disadvantaged', such as waffle about millennium goals and anti-poverty stunts... the Brown government, together with its EU partners, is demanding vicious and punitive free-trade agreements that will devastate the economies of scores of impoverished African, Caribbean and Pacific nations."
Ends.
Britain’s Growing Social Inequality.
A recent report by Citizens Advice has revealed that debt related problems have risen by 20% in the last year alone. Moreover the number of people wanting advice about bankruptcy rose by 53% over the same period.
Citizens Advice chief executive David Harker commented that people “are becoming overwhelmed by serious debt which can have a devastating impact on their lives. Even more worrying are the signs that people are struggling not only to repay credit but also to afford the day-to-day essentials.”
His comments were echoed by accountancy group PricewaterhouseCoopers who added that “things will get worse because of the upward rise in interest rates, high utility bills and transport costs.”
It is against the background of this growing debt crisis that workers are striving to obtain wage rises that will at least keep their head above water. Yet any wage rise below the current rate of inflation will in effect be a wage cut, and increase the hardship being experienced by more and more families.
However, workers will have gained little comfort from Gordon Brown’s speech to the TUC Congress in Brighton where he lectured the assembled delegates and stressed that, “Pay discipline is essential to maintain growth and create more jobs” and he compared the wages of British workers with their counterparts in the global workforce, “In Asia a worker is doing a week’s unskilled work for £20 a week.”
This is reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher’s comments that “What the British workers have to understand is that they are competing with workers who will work for a bowl of rice a day.”
While Brown lectured the poorest paid in society about the need for ‘pay discipline’ and that the government ‘would not budge on this issue’ it is clear that he was not talking about all members of society.
Pay discipline and belt tightening apparently do not apply to Britain’s ruling elite. No talk of inflation busting pay rises crossed his lips when it involved New Labour’s friends in big business and the City of London.
The Office of National Statistics has confirmed that bonuses paid out this year in the City of London alone have reached a record £14 billion, an increase of 30% on last year. While bonuses across the business sector as a whole grew by 24% to £26 billion.
Millions of pounds have been paid out to Hedge Funds directors, despite the recently well publicized ‘credit crisis’ emanating from these groups. For instance two directors from GLG Partners hedge fund in London received bonuses of £200 million each!
The Times newspaper boasted that for Britain’s super-rich “Life just gets better and better.”
Moreover, 220 of Britain’s major businesses paid no corporation tax at all over the last twelve months and a further 210 paid less than £10 million. (National Audit Office report August 2007).
Just what section of society New Labour represent can be gleaned from the following fact. In 1997, when New Labour came to power, the combined wealth of Britain’s top 1000 individuals amounted to £100 billion. Today the combined wealth of the top 1000 individuals is well over £300 billion. Most of these individuals are not involved in creating or manufacturing anything useful to society as a whole, but operate in the areas of finance and speculation.
Given the above it is the height of hypocrisy on the part of the Government and mass media to claim that the recent RMT and Postal Workers industrial action, which was an attempt to secure jobs, working conditions and pension rights, was a case of workers being ‘greedy’ ‘selfish’ and ‘holding the country to ransom’.
This is worthy of George Orwell’s Newspeak.
However, the class battles that will result from the developing record levels of inequality can only be resolved in the interests of the majority of the British people by the socialist transformation of society and we ask workers to study the policies of the Socialist Labour Party and take the decision to join us in the task of achieving this transformation.
Ends.