NO FUTURE UNDER THE TORIES

by Daphne Liddle

PRIME MINISTER Gordon Brown has survived the latest attack on his leadership that included the resignation of nine right-wing Blairite Cabinet ministers.

He has been fully endorsed by his newly-reshuffled Cabinet but the capitalist press is still declaring that his days are numbered and so-called “left” media gurus are urging him to resign and make way for a new leader to improve Labour’s chances at the next general election.

These pundits – and the alternative leaders they promote – have no alternative policies. A change of leader now would lead directly to a general election and David Cameron as Prime Minister.

Workers in Britain need to consider whether they would trust Cameron with their job, the security of their home, their children’s education, their healthcare, their local government services and so on during this current global economic crisis, which is still deepening.

Cameron is a man who has poured contempt on civil servants and other public sector workers and who has little regard for health and safety regulations – “red tape” that holds businesses back is how the Tories regard this.

He admires Thatcher and does not believe in spending his way out of a crisis but rather letting unemployment rise regardless “to its natural level”. Instead he believes in drastic cuts in Government spending. Public sector workers beware!

Unemployment is still rising; car and van manufacturers are still struggling and some are failing; banks are still shedding thousands of jobs – as with Lloyds’ decision to cut the remains of the Cheltenham and Gloucester network that it took over.

predicted

The NHS Confederation has predicted that in a couple of years the NHS will face a critical funding crisis. How would Cameron deal with this? Would the NHS survive at all?

There is a national strike looming in the construction industry, mainly over European Union rules that allow companies to import labour from one country to another to flout labour protection laws.

The imported workers are housed in isolation from local workers; they are prevented from mingling at work – especially with union activists; they face outrageous charges for their accommodation and transport and are used to undercut local labour terms and conditions.

Cameron claims to be against the new European Constitution but when it comes to defending workers from greedy Euro bosses, where is he likely to stand? It was the Tories under Ted Heath who first took us into the Common Market, as it was then, and it was Thatcher who happily signed the Maastricht Treaty.

The record of New Labour is poor; NHS spending has been trebled over the last 12 years but most of it has been diverted into private hands through PFI deals and outsourcing various NHS treatments to the private sector.

We do now have the right to join a trade union and, with enough support, to force bosses to recognise the union of our choice. But Tory anti-union laws still remain.

accelerate

New Labour has continued the Tory policies of privatisation. Cameron is hardly likely to undo this; more likely to accelerate it.

New Labour has got us into two major illegal imperialist and unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the Tories supported this wholeheartedly.

The recent elections showed yet again that fringe left parties struggle to scrape one or two per cent in elections. The system was not designed to benefit working class democracy. So come the next election Labour is still the only game in town until we can organise a proper socialist revolution.

But we can be glad that the economic crisis has blown away the “ideology” of New Labour and some of its most vile scum have just blown themselves away in an effort to unseat Gordon Brown.

The left within the Labour Party are now in a stronger position than they have been for many years and they must be pressed to take advantage of this. We must promote policies for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, for an end to privatisation and for renationalisation to begin.

We desperately need more good quality council homes and building them will create jobs.

With policies like this, Brown could actually win the next election.