Why the Tories feel safe

Since May 6th, the Conservatives (I largely discount the Lib-Dems now, because they are now part of the Tory machine) have been in power and have already made savage swipes at our welfare system. Although the Tories once insisted frontline services would not be affected, we are regularly hearing each day of redundancies in our schools, hospitals and police forces.

Despite this, a recent MORI poll for the Economist showed the public viewed Osborne’s Budget as one of the six best since the 1970s. Even more disturbing is that fact that now the Tories are languishing on a 40% share of the voteand Labour is largely unchanged since the election – even though our public services are now seriously under threat.

Several reasons spring to mind to explain this bizarre situation. Firstly, it seems the public are satisfied to bury their heads into their hands and assume “if it’s not affecting me, then it’s OK”. So, if you aren’t unemployed, or living on little more than a basic living wage, then you may feel you are not being dramatically affected by the recent austerity measures. Indeed, evidence from a number of think tanks suggests large numbers of people now classified as middle class will only experience a minor change to their standard of living, so there is some truth to their analysis.

What these people fail to see is how the next round of cuts, expected in the autumn, will affect us all. All pointers suggest the cuts, along with VAT increases, will substantially change the way many of us live our lives. Our hospitals will be less efficient, our schools will have more children in each classroom as the number of teachers is reduced, with less police officers on patrol there will be more crime. Oh ... and the skill level of our workforce will deteriorate as the government and private sector fail to invest in training and skill development. All of this happening in a nation with constantly rising unemployment.

Now you may wonder why Labour hasn’t been doing more to expose this to the electorate. After all, there is a leadership election on and it offers an ideal time to flaunt our more radical policies as we expunge ourselves of the New Labour project. Unfortunately, the entire election process has been taken over by the ‘management team’ at Victoria Street, leaving most party members and, it seems, the broader public disillusioned by the entire process.

If you don’t think the candidates are being stifled by the party machine, then ask yourself why is it the candidates are either absent, or silent at PMQ every Wednesday? It’s all very well each of them organising a petition to oppose some aspect of Tory policy, but why are they not shouting from the rooftops – this is wrong! A few tweets each day and the odd television appearance are pretty half-hearted measures.

Instead, we are forced to endure another three months of Harriet Harman as acting leader – a political lightweight by any stretch of the imagination. Thank goodness parliament goes into recess in a couple of weeks – at least we won’t have to face the agony of watching Cameron systematically destroy her. Her pleas of “he isn’t answering the question ...” are starting to bore even the most dedicated Labour party member and I am almost beginning to assume it will never get better.

I was one of those people who argued for a long debate over the summer to decide on our future leader, but I am starting to question whether I was right. The hustings are a joke, offering no real chance for the candidates to debate the issues and instead they only allow them to roll out bland ‘non-statements’ of where they stand politically.

David Miliband is fighting for the centre ground and seems destined to win, so is already being crowned by many, even before the vote. Ed Miliband is vying for the soft left vote with his “I wasn’t in parliament, so you can’t blame me” approach – pretty weak as he was and adviser and then later a member of parliament during the period – so his hands are just as tainted as any of the other candidates. As for Ed Balls, well he hasn’t really said very much, other than how he wants to blame all those nasty immigrants for taking our jobs – a bit unfair perhaps, but it isn’t far off the truth. Poor old Andy Burnham seems to have already acknowledged he is one of the runners-up and hardly makes a peep in the hope he can appear the strong, silent type.

Good old Diane Abbott was set to carry the mantle of the left and if she is the best we can offer, then we had all better pack up and go and play dominoes. Let’s be frank, her defence of sending her child to a £10,000 per annum private school is indefensible, even though we may understand why, as a parent, she felt it necessary. More importantly, raising the subject at every husting is dreadfully boring – and seems to achieve very little. If only she would just shout out mea culpa and be done with it.

With all this in mind, is it any wonder Cameron feels confident? If Labour fails to get its act together in the next few weeks, we can look forward to the Tories being in power not only for the full term of this parliament, but for the next as well. So, our MPs and leaders must be held to account. We should be asking why there is no real debate in the election hustings. Why are the candidates not attacking Cameron at PMQ? Why are MPs not joining with our brothers and sisters in the trade union movement to mobilise opposition to the cuts? And how can we rescue the party before Harriet Harman and all the old guard from the New Labour era edge us towards disaster?

Above all, we must see RESISTANCE!

Are the left so 'loony'? - A response to Guido Fawkes

In an attempt to be controversial, but more likely done to retain his readership, Guido Fawkes has condemned the suggestion by Bob Crow that trade unionists and activists should engage in direct action to oppose this government (see http://order-order.com/ - “The Loony Left is back”).

In a rather feeble attempt at humour, he accuses Crow of calling for a general strike – an interesting idea, but what Bob was arguing for was something far more necessary – the engagement of all workers within the political system. Now surely, if Fawkes is the democrat he purports to be, he will not object to the politicisation of the masses?

Admittedly one of Crows’ suggestions did include the notion of general strikes, but realistically that cannot happen until the majority of working people have combined under the banners of the trade union movement. So Fawkes can at least relax over his blueberry muffin, the revolution isn’t going to start outside Woolworth’s at 3pm this afternoon!

Membership of trade unions was at its highest in the 1970s when it reached over half the workforce, but post-Thatcher this has declined to approximately 25%.
A number of reasons explain this level of apathy/ disenchantment:

• There has been a general decline in manufacturing industry in the UK. Most union organisers would agree that trade union activity is often easier in factories where there are large numbers of people on one site compared to retailing. In any one store there may be relatively few staff – a factor that has made arranging meetings of employees more difficult.
• Over the last thirty years there has been an increased trend by managers to deal with employees on an individual basis and move away from collective bargaining.
• Since Thatcher there has been an increased participation of women in the economy due, in part, to the growth of the service sector as well as the growth of part time and temporary employment opportunities; these are not traditionally strongly unionised sectors and unions have found it hard to recruit within them.
• Courtesy of Thatcher, legislation in the 1980s reduced union power.

So, if the working class are to ‘man the barricades’ as Fawkes fears, the first job will to be educate and inform them about the key issues. Some will be immediately obvious – rising unemployment, higher levels of poverty and increased homelessness. But what many will not recognise is the link between these scourges on our society and the actions of the Tories and their Liberal lapdogs.

Crow was right when he spoke to the RMT union congress and said, “We cannot sit back and wait while a generation is consigned to the scrap heap and made to pay the price for the mess left behind by the zombie capitalists who dragged the country over the cliff”. He may not like the term ‘zombie’ but what are they, if not a rabid, blood-sucking curse on modern society.

Perhaps Fawkes would prefer it if members of the left gather around in polite little circles, gently applauding the more moderate aspects of new policy emerging from the coalition. Maybe then he would not be so offended when David Miliband stands up and demands a 50% tax rate for the higher paid. Fawkes had better start facing facts – the ‘Loony’ left as he calls them not only are back, they never went away ... and now that the New Labour project is history we will continue to grow.

If this is the best Fawkes can do, he might find himself better suited amongst the Liberal Democrats.