Britain

In the Mental Health Trust
where I work, now a Foundation Trust, the primary anxiety for workers is not
about pay but about the future of their jobs. Of course, rising prices and
a lousy pay deal – coupled with the Trust’s intention to hold an across
the board ‘banding review’ – piles on the pressure, but the fact that
repeated structural changes, resulting in cuts in the management structure,
have saved no real money and, now, all vacant posts have been abolished
(rather than frozen, as has been usual in the past) has drawn attention to
a very pressing threat to jobs.

An undercover police officer tried to provoke violence at the ‘Stop
Bush’ demonstration. These are the allegations made by George Galloway
MP. We publish below his letter to the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. We
find his evidence compelling and the allegation disturbing. Is the
British state using provocateurs against us? The labour movement will
want an answer.

The government is trying to push a proposal through Parliament to
increase the length of time a suspect can be detained without charge to 42
days. What argument does the government use as excuse for eliminating rights
and liberties we have defended for hundreds of years? Not much. The authorities
present the ‘war against terror’ as one that demands secrecy on their part.
They hint darkly that lives are at risk if they tell us what they know, but
that the situation is grim. Trust us!

Has someone been pinching your manhole covers? Basically any piece of metal that’s not screwed down is being slurped up. The opening up of the giant Chinese, Russian and Indian markets has
pushed scrap metal prices through the roof. Raw materials and new metal
production cannot keep pace with the demand, so they are begging,
borrowing and stealing anything that can be re-smelted to feed the
ravenous beast. Scrap metal prices have increased
by 95 per cent. Who is making all the money from this new boom? The UK scrap metal industry is now a staggering £1.1 billion.
Proof that where’s there’s muck there’s brass.

In the first part of this article on the poverty of life in Britain
we looked at the experience of working people in the workplace. In this
section our focus is on what is called the social wage. This is the
social provision of goods and services that working people cannot,
unlike the rich, provide for themselves individually. It includes such
things as health services, education, pensions, support if you become
unemployed, and local services such as swimming pools or meals on
wheels for the elderly.

Boris Johnson, new Mayor of London, has started as he
intended to go on. He introduced an alcohol ban on London Underground without
any preparation and without putting staff in place to enforce the ban.
Inevitably the ban was challenged last Saturday night. Tube staff were left on
their own to deal with drunken revellers in addition to running a transport
system, as they had warned in advance. They were left at the sharp end of
Johnson’s self-publicising antics.

The water companies were privatised by the Tories to harness
‘the dynamism of private enterprise’ to the water industry. Most people at the
time didn’t realise there was a problem with the water supply. They could turn
a tap on any time and water rates were low. There’s a problem now – the problem
is private ownership.

A few days ago London’s Tory mayor, Boris Johnson, scrapped
the discounted oil deal with the Venezuelan government which allowed half price
bus fares for Londoners on income support.

The election of Boris Johnson as London Mayor in May should be met with
foreboding. This is not good for train operators or working people in
and around London. Boris appears to be born not only with a silver
spoon in his mouth (having been educated in Eton), but also a foot. We
should not be taken in by the appearance of barmy Boris.

The wealth in the UK today is the product of the labour of
working people. The problem is that they do not control how that wealth is
distributed. The value that they have created over and above what they receive
in their pay packets is appropriated by the owners of industry who ensure,
through their State apparatus, that the lion’s share is creamed off to those
who already have more than enough for their needs. The present leaders of the Labour Party are tied hand
and foot to the interests of the rich, the capitalist class. A new leadership
of the Party is required that will harness social wealth to provide for all.

The Crewe by-election, with an 18% swing to the Tories,
confirms that they are on target for a landslide win in the next general
election. Railway workers and other working class people who have voted Labour
for generations have finally had enough. The betrayals and disappointments of
New Labour have caused these electors to break the habit of a lifetime. Make no
mistake about it. Mass working class abstentions have done for Brown and his
witless crew.